Past Calls for Manuscripts
Themed Issue - Publication May 2010
Recruiting and Retaining Teachers in High-Need Content and Geographic Areas
Guest Editor: Barnett Berry, Center for Teaching Quality
Over the last several decades education researchers have concluded that recruiting high-quality teachers is one of the most powerful in-school factors related to the improvement of student achievement. However, while teacher shortages continue to grow (especially in the areas of math, science, special education, and the teaching of English Language Learners), little consensus exists among researchers and policymakers on how to best recruit and retain quality teachers — especially in high-need rural and urban schools. Debates are waged over whether the emphasis of training new recruits should be on fostering the right dispositions, teaching subject matter content or extensive pedagogical training. Additional debates involve the role of financial incentives and performance pay in enticing talent to the teaching profession. Of late several school districts are rethinking their approaches to the strategic management of human capital — with many of them de-emphasizing the role of university-based teacher education programs as the source of training new teachers for high-need schools.
This issue of the Journal of Curriculum and Instruction (JoCI) focuses on the role of teacher recruitment and retention in high-need content and geographic areas. Determining effective teacher recruitment and retention practices is critical in meeting educational needs and assuring students are making appropriate educational progress. Articles are sought describing practices and strategies that hold promise for ensuring successful recruitment, preparation, and retention of teachers in high-need areas. Other articles might identify critical barriers related to both policy and/or practice. Additionally, articles focusing on the role of teacher education, both traditional and alternative, in the recruitment and retention of highly qualified teachers in high-need areas are welcome.
Submission Deadline: October 15, 2009 at noon EST
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Themed Issue - Publication July 2009
Transformative Leadership
Guest Editor: James O. McDowelle, East Carolina University
Transformative approaches to leadership challenge assumptions about traditional, hierarchical leadership models. Within transformative educational settings, all stakeholders (students, parents, teachers, staff, and administrators) are empowered as potential leaders charged with working collaboratively in the best interest of everyone involved. Transformative leadership offers the possibility for uniting educators in working toward a shared vision that can potentially improve both teaching and learning, especially in an educational environment in which high-stakes student and teacher accountability is considered paramount by policymakers and administrators.
The fifth issue of the Journal of Curriculum and Instruction (JoCI) focuses on the role of transformative leadership as a new paradigm for twenty-first century schools. Articles are sought describing transformative leadership theory and process, the resulting impacts or changes in educational practice and policy, and proactive examples of such leadership in our schools. The active involvement of teachers, community and business partnerships and civic leaders who collaboratively contribute to the vision and mission of schools may serve as examples of transformative school leadership. Other articles might address strategies for implementing and evaluating transformative leadership efforts, or describe the successes of and/or barriers to fostering transformative leadership. Additionally, articles focusing on instructional approaches that successfully cultivate transformative leadership in both school leader education and professional development are welcome.
Submission Deadline: December 15, 2008 at noon EST
Themed Issue-Publication January 2009
Using Action Research to Improve Educational Practices
Guest Editor: Cher Hendricks, University of West Georgia
Twenty-first century educators work in a political climate that stresses increased student learning outcomes and the implementation of scientifically-based practices. Determining effective school-based practices is critical in meeting these expectations and assuring students are making appropriate educational progress. Action research has the potential to be a powerful change agent encouraging educators to more fully investigate and consider possible solutions for real-world problems. Educators engaged in action research efforts not only identify specific areas of inquiry and systematically examine possible alternatives, but they also enhance their practitioner knowledge and improve student learning. Action research empowers educators as decision-makers and self-regulated professionals.
The fourth issue of the Journal of Curriculum and Instruction (JoCI) focuses on the role of action research in professional development and how it may result in improved educational practices. Articles are sought describing the action research process and examples of action research conducted within schools. Other articles might address strategies for implementing and evaluating action research, or describe the successes and/or barriers to conducting action research in classrooms including ethical, time management, methodological, research design, and data analysis issues. Additionally, articles focusing on effective instruction about action research in teacher education and professional development are welcome.
Submission Deadline: June 15, 2008 at noon EST
Themed Issue-Publication July 2008
Addressing the Needs of All Learners
Guest Editors: K. Lynne Harper Mainzer, Johns Hopkins University
Richard Mainzer, Council for Exceptional Children
The increasingly diverse population of students served in Pre K-12 schools affords unique learning opportunities for both teachers and students; yet, schools are impacted by the growing federal requirements perceived by some to narrow the curriculum, such as No Child Left Behind, as well as those that require access to the curriculum for all students, such as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act. Finding ways to address the needs of all learners, including students who are gifted and talented, English language learners, culturally diverse, as well as students with disabilities, can sometimes challenge the educational system.
The third issue of the Journal of Curriculum & Instruction (JoCI) focuses on the efforts of educators to implement strategies and policies that address the needs of all learners in the Pre K-12 educational system. Articles are sought describing effective pedagogical practices including differentiated instruction, strategy instruction, technology integration, universal design, curriculum integration, peer mentoring, multi-level texts, and other practices focused on all learners. Other related articles of interest might potentially address professional standards for preparing teachers, curriculum standards and the student spectrum, access to the general curriculum, the role of evidence-based practices in educational reform and other articles related to the overarching theme of “Addressing the Needs of All Learners.”
Submission Deadline: November 30, 2007 at noon EST
Themed Issue-Publication January 2008
Social Studies Teaching & Learning: Preparing Citizens for a Global Society
Social studies is the curriculum earmarked to nurture citizenship; advocate cultural awareness and understanding; promote justice, tolerance, and democratic ideals; and prepare young people for informed and active participation in an increasingly interdependent global community. Achieving these curricular goals is essential if students are expected to make significant and mutually beneficial contributions within a globalized society; yet, because the current No Child Left Behind legislation has not included the teaching of social studies in its national accountability system, some states have chosen not to include social studies assessment in their statewide testing programs resulting in a de facto de-emphasis of social studies teaching and learning. Other states include social studies in their statewide testing program, oftentimes resulting in a greater emphasis on social studies and improvement in instructional methodology as teachers make greater efforts to teach for understanding.
The second issue of the Journal of Curriculum & Instruction (JoCI) focuses on the efforts of social studies educators to implement strategies that promote civic competence and successfully encourage the teaching and learning of social studies within a global society. Articles are sought describing effective pedagogical methods in the social studies including curriculum integration, teacher valuing, service learning, relevant technology implementation, as well as student self-efficacy and critical analysis of both current and historical issues. Other related articles of interest might potentially address advocacy efforts to influence public and policymakers’ perceptions about the importance of social studies, as well as articles related to the overarching theme of “preparing citizens for a global society.”
Submission deadline: November 30, 2007 at noon EST
Themed Issue for Summer 2007
Literacy: Best Practices in an Age of High-Stakes Assessment
Single test scores are increasingly used as individual measures of how teachers and schools perform across the United States. Meanwhile, professional organizations, such as the International Reading Association (1999), caution that testing and accountability should not be used as means for “controlling instruction”, but as a means for “gathering information to help students become better readers”. The inaugural issue of the Journal of Curriculum & Instruction (JoCI) focuses on the efforts of educators to implement meaningful literacy instruction within Pre K-12 school classrooms in the midst of mounting emphasis on high-stakes testing and accountability in America’s schools.
Articles are sought describing the impact of high-stakes assessment on literacy teaching and learning as related to teaching quality, student motivation, teacher self-efficacy, educational policymaking, public/parental perceptions, best practice implementation, individualization, and “lessons learned”. Case studies involving the progress of individual students and the quality of instructional programs are welcomed, as well as other articles related to the overarching theme of “Literacy: Best Practices in an Age of High-Stakes Assessment.”
Submission Deadline: December 15, 2006 by noon EST
