September 2010
Giving Students Meaningful Work
This issue will explore how schools are ensuring that student work is meaningful and what teachers can learn from student work. We are looking for articles on project-based, experiential, and place-based assignments; internships and apprenticeships; the role of memorization; effective homework practices; assignments that create skillful writers; strategies to develop student responsibility; and the use of choice.
Deadline: April 1, 2010
October 2010
Interventions That Work
This issue will explore how schools can identify individual students' needs and respond with the right supports at the right time. Articles will deal with response to intervention; proactive classroom management; assessment systems that catch problems before students fall too far behind; and strategies that general education and special education teachers can share. We welcome articles about specific programs that strengthen students' connection to school and research-based interventions.
Deadline: May 3, 2010
November 2010
Closing Opportunity Gaps
This issue will look at how to address inequities in funding, curriculum access, facilities, preschool experiences, health care, and teacher quality. How are schools providing extended learning opportunities? What are the most effective approaches to dropout prevention? What role can vouchers and charter schools play? How can we close technology gaps? Get the best teachers to the students who need them most? What strategies help students with different readiness levels receive the support they need? And how can we ensure that boys and girls have equal opportunities for academic success?
Deadline: June 1, 2010
December 2010/January 2011
The Effective Educator
This issue will consider how to define educator effectiveness and how to create conditions that enhance that effectiveness. What sort of preparation do prospective and beginning educators need? What professional development is best for more experienced educators, including those deemed ineffective? How can educators of different generations bring together the wisdom of experience and fresh new thinking? How can administrators best evaluate teachers?
Deadline: July 1, 2010
February 2011
Teaching Screenagers
This issue will discuss approaches teachers can use to reach digital learners. How do teachers' roles change when learning becomes screen-oriented? What practices capitalize on students' penchant for collaboration and social networking? How are classrooms incorporating learning that is visual, informal, interdisciplinary, and multimodal? How are schools handling such prickly issues as plagiarism, cyberbullying, and student-teacher online communication? How can schools promote media literacy? And how can schools narrow the technology gap between teachers and students?
Deadline: September 1, 2010
March 2011
What Students Need to Learn
The pressure to raise test scores and the possibility of national standards has educators asking difficult questions about what students need to learn. This issue will address the standards movement, interdisciplinary learning, the question of curricular breadth or depth, the teaching of essential knowledge and skills, and the need for a well-rounded curriculum. We welcome international contributions and real-life stories of how schools have reinvigorated their curriculums.
Deadline: October 1, 2010
April 2011
Safe Passages: The Transition Years
This issue looks at how teachers can support students at key turning points: the transition into the first year of formal schooling, into 4th grade, into middle school, and into high school. What practices or structural designs ease these transitions? How can educators keep the gains students make in preschool programs from fading as they enter elementary school? How can we help students manage the transition from learning to read to reading to learn? How can we meet adolescents' needs as they move into middle school and in the linchpin 9th grade year?
Deadline: November 1, 2010
May 2011
Schools, Families, Communities
This issue will look at how schools can best reach out to students' families and communities. What supports can schools provide to help maintain a healthy, safe environment for learning? How can schools encourage parents— including parents from minority and immigrant cultures—to take on meaningful roles in the school? How can we best guide parents to reinforce students' schoolwork at home? And how can schools make better use of the rich resources within their communities?
Deadline: December 1, 2010
