Background: Given the growing interest in, and relevance of, integrated approaches to STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) education, there is an urgent desire to understand the challenges and obstacles to developing and implementing integrated STEM curricula and instruction. In this article, we present phase 1 of a two-phase needs assessment study to identify challenges and...

ABSTRACT The rural special education context is unique because of the distinct environment and the variety of rural school subcultures. However, little information about rural special education is available prior to the late 1970's, partially because federal agencies lacked a working definition of "rural._" Although rural and urban special education service environments vary greatly (especially...

In physics teacher education the challenge is to promote the development of expertise needed from physics teachers. In that close collaboration between physicist and physics education professionals is needed. This, however, poses many challenges, which are not easily met. We describe here some guidelines, based on our own experience from a pilot course for pre-service physics teacher education....

Plurilingual approaches to pre-service teacher education hold promise for critical engagement with linguistic, cultural, and racial diversity in equity-supportive ways. Employing action research, we as educators implemented an equity-oriented plurilingual approach across three literacy methods courses elementary teachers at one Canadian university. Using case study a poststructuralist theory of...