Turner, J. D., & Danridge, J. C. (2014). Accelerating the College and Career Readiness of Diverse K–5
Literacy Learners. Theory Into Practice, 53(3), 212–219.
https://doiorg.cui.idm.oclc.org/10.1080/00405841.2014.916963
This article focuses on literacy principles and instructional strategies for culturally diverse classrooms
that focus specifically on college and career readiness for the students. The article examines four major
principles that schools and teachers can integrate into the classroom in order to promote high-level
literacy in K-5 classrooms. Turner and Danridge’s main argument in this article is to convince schools,
administrators, and teachers that mastering the literacy standards will have the largest and most
significant impact on the college and career readiness for students as they progress through their
education and into their professional careers. Similar to other articles on this subject, Turner and
Danridge emphasize the intention of the Common Core State Standards, and how those standards are
intended to best prepare students with critical skills for an uncertain future. However, unlike other
sources, the primary focus of this article is on different literacy strategies that can and should be taught
in diverse K-5 classrooms in order for the Common Core Standards to serve the needs of the students.
This article provides useful information about the importance of literacy when it comes to College and
Career Readiness, and different strategies that have been proven successful with a diverse background
of students. As Turner and Danridge point out, it is not the duty of the teacher to make sure that
students succeed in school, but that they succeed in life, and these strategies will be able to best serve
students through their lives.
Alford, B., Rudolph, A., Olson Beal, H., & Hill, B. (2014). A School-University Math and Science P-16
Partnership: Lessons Learned in Promoting College and Career Readiness. Planning & Changing,
45(1/2), 99–119. Retrieved from
http://search.ebscohost.com.cui.idm.oclc.org/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=1017
50429&site=ehost-live
This article focuses on the creation, benefits, and challenges of a partnership betweena college and
secondary school in order to improve the rigor and success of College and Career Readiness standards in
low-income and rural schools in Texas. A mixed-methods case study with qualitative and quantitative
data collection techniques was utilized to determine the effectiveness of this partnership between
college and secondary education to determine if a more cohesive approach was feasible and beneficial
to students in the school districts. Rudolph, Beal, and Hill seem to want to educate educational leaders
about the potential benefits and possible challenges to the creation of a framework between secondary
and post-secondary education that could better accomplish the College and Career Readiness standards
for students from diverse cultural backgrounds. Like related articles to this topic, Rudolph, Beal, and HIll
discuss the failures of public 1 schools to adequately prepare students for life after secondary education
and examine a potential solution to better serve the needs of those students. This article is slightly
different than others selected because it examines a singular case study that allowed secondary and
post-secondary educators to collaborate together in order to improve the academic rigor for the College
and Career Readiness Standards in the state of Texas. This article is useful to the research topic because
it works to increase the success of the CCRS, but also discusses the challenges faced by both sets of
educators and the potential areas for improvement for other states and districts. Rudolph, Beal, and Hill
argue that this case study offers important insight into different methods that can be utilized to help
serve the needs of those students that have been historically marginalized when it comes to higher
education. Rather than serving as a final solution, the authors hope to further the discussion and offer
another alternative to promote the success of all students.
Monahan, J., Lombardi, A., & Madaus, J. (2018). Promoting College and Career Readiness: Practical
Strategies for the Classroom. Teaching Exceptional Children, 51(2), 144–154. https://doiorg.cui.idm.oclc.org/10.1177/0040059918802579
This article focuses on the integration of some basic and practical classroom strategies that have been
proven to promote College and Career Readiness for students. College and Career Readiness is defined
in the article as preparing students to further their educational and professional pursuits in life and is
further broken down into 6 major focus areas. Monahan, Lombardi, and Madaus are focusing on
providing strategies to teachers that revolve around those 6 major focus areas and describing strategies
that teachers can take into the classroom tomorrow in order to better teach and promote College and
Career Readiness for all students in the 21st century. Each major aspect is broken down to explain how
that practice can help students succeed, and then strategies are provided to teach those specific targets.
This article also discusses how teaching College and Career Readiness can be intimidating for teachers
and can feel like just another standard placed on the teachers. However, this article wants to reduce the
stress and the stigma felt by some teachers against College and Career Readiness, and explain what it
really means to teach these standards to students and how to best achieve success. This source is useful
for my research because it provides meaningful and easy strategies that can be implemented in the
classroom in order to teach these standards. Monahan, Lombardi, and Madaus conclude that it is
necessary for teachers to collaborate when teaching these standards since the skills and strategies can
be applied across multiple subjects and grade levels. These practices have also been shown to benefit
the students and to better prepare students for success in higher education and employment.
Mokher, C. G., Rosenbaum, J. E., Gable, A., Ahearn, C., & Jacobson, L. (2018). Ready for what? Confusion
around college and career readiness. Phi Delta Kappan, 100(4), 40–43. https://doiorg.cui.idm.oclc.org/10.1177/0031721718815672
This article focuses on areas of confusion by teachers and students in regards to the College and Career
Readiness Standards in the state of Florida, and what exactly should be accomplished by the integration
of those standards into the education of the students. This article examined the effectiveness of specific
courses created to teach the College and Career Readiness Standards, and compare the scores and
results with groups that were not enrolled in those specific courses. Mohker, Resenbaum, Gable,
Ahearn, and Jacobson want to educate school leaders about the misperceptions that students and
teachers have about the College and Career Readiness Standards, how effective those standards are at
preparing students, and what can be done to improve the outcomes for students. The authors also
discuss that the emphasis in many programs is on the “College” aspect, and often students that have
aspirations outside of college can feel left behind when it comes to these standards and initiatives. Again
this article focuses on some of the failures that have been encountered by secondary schools when it
comes to College and Career Readiness Standards, but this article offers a uniquely different look at
what success may actually look like with potential career programs. Similar to another article, this article
discusses the relative success in Florida when colleges and secondary schools collaborated on methods
to best promote the college readiness standards. However, one important difference in this article was
that it not only focused on confusion by the students but also focused on the confusion of the teachers
that are supposed to be teaching these standards. This source is useful for my research because it offers
recommendations for what school leaders can do to better prepare students and teachers for college as
well as life outside of college. Since teachers have such a statistically significant impact on the lives of
the students, it is incredibly important to make sure that teachers are incredibly clear about what can be
done to promote the College and Career Readiness Standards. The authors conclude that alignment
between secondary and post-secondary educators can better promote the college readiness of
students, but more can be done to help promote career readiness by offering more occupational and
technical education options for students that may not be interested in pursuing a traditional Bachelor’s
degree.
Larmer, J. (2016). It’s a Project-Based World. Educational Leadership, 73(6), 66–70. Retrieved from
http://search.ebscohost.com.cui.idm.oclc.org/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=1134
41152&site=ehost-live
This article focuses on how project based learning best prepares students for postsecondary education
and careers, by mirroring problem-solving environments faced by adults every single day. Larmer
discusses how project based learning can help students achieve college and career readiness by
developing and solving authentic problems that are connected to their own personal lives. Larmer is
addressing teachers and administrators by providing a blueprint and some successful examples that
other teachers and schools have been able to create and develop at their school sites. The article also
discusses potential challenges for teachers and schools when beginning to develop a project based
curriculum, but offers some encouragement and potential alternatives to promote student and teacher
success. Similarly to other articles that have been researched on this topic, this article discusses how
project based learning can improve the outcomes for students in regards to college and career
readiness. The crux of Larmer’s argument is that project based learning offers the most authentic
learning opportunity for students because it best mirrors the challenges that students will face in their
lives, and best helps students develop skills with longevity. This article is useful for my research topic
because of how it both addresses how project based learning can improve college and career readiness
outcomes, and discusses potential plans for creating and implementing your own project based learning
outcomes in the classroom. The article concludes with anecdotal evidence about how students that
have experienced project based learning in the classroom feel more empowered by their education and
more prepared for the uncertain challenges that they will face in the future.
Deekens, V. M., Greene, J. A., & Lobczowski, N. G. (2018). Monitoring and depth of strategy use in
computer‐ based learning environments for science and history. British Journal of Educational
Psychology, 88(1), 63–79. https://doiorg.cui.idm.oclc.org/10.1111/bjep.12174
This article focuses on the role of student self-regulation and monitoring of learning and the relationship
to learning outcomes in science and history. Deekens, Greene, and Lobczowski examined two different
groups of students that utilized different computer technologies to learn about topics relating to science
and history. Using pre-tests, posttests, and analyzing the student's thought process, the authors were
able to determine the connection between self-monitoring techniques and the achievement of desirable
learning outcomes. The main point of this article seems to be to convince educators about the
connection between self-monitoring skills of students, the connection to achieving learning outcomes,
and the need to teach students those self-monitoring techniques when it relates to student-centered
curriculum. Since there is a general shift in education towards student-centered models of teaching, this
article discusses the importance of teaching and developing self-monitoring skills to students in order to
best help those students as they progress into higher education and employment. Similarly to other
articles, this article promotes the benefits of student-centered education and the connection that this
has with student learning outcomes. However, this article focuses on some of the soft skills that
students will need to develop and practice when utilizing this curricular approach. Unsurprisingly the
researchers discovered that students that were better able to self-monitor and adjust their learning
strategies and techniques were able to achieve learning targets to a much larger extent. This
information relates to the topic because the creation of a project based curriculum revolves around
student interest and self-monitoring of progress and learning. If students are struggling with their
projects, they will need to be able to critically reflect on their own process and figure out what
adjustments need to be made moving forward. Deekens, Greene, and Lobczowksi conclude that
students and educators need to pay more attention to what self-monitoring strategies are used in the
classroom, how often those strategies are used, and to what extent the students delve into their selfmonitoring.
Pearson, P. D., Valencia, S. W., & Wixson, K. (2014). Complicating the World of Reading Assessment:
Toward Better Assessments for Better Teaching. Theory Into Practice, 53(3), 236–246.
https://doi-org.cui.idm.oclc.org/10.1080/00405841.2014.916958
This article focuses on the major failures of literature assessment in the past and offers a
recommendation for an improvement to the assessment process in order to best promote positive
literacy outcomes for all students. It looks at two major failures of the current literacy assessment
process and hopes to further the discussion, as well as offer a potential solution, in order to create a
more meaningful assessment when it comes to student literacy. Pearson, Valencia, and Wixson main
point in this article is to inform teachers and administrators that the current climate of literacy
assessment is not achieving the stated goals of the Common Curriculum, and hopes to persuade
educators that there is potential for an improved assessment system by demonstrating improved
achievement using an adaptive literacy approach that integrates outside context for the student. The
focus on the failure of the current literacy assessment falls in line with other research articles that I have
looked at, but this article specifically looks at two major failures of the current system. The first failure is
that assessments currently do not place enough emphasis on the transfer of literacy skills to the
everyday life of students, and the second failure is that the selected texts for assessments do not adapt
to the context of the students. The proposed solution by the authors would integrate a wide variety of
contexts for the student in order to create a more complete picture of the student's literacy abilities,
and would then be able to better inform the instructional practices of the teacher using the assessment.
This article is useful for the research topic because of the connection to improving reading and literacy
outcomes, and the article proposes a solution to create more useful and meaningful assessments than
currently exist. These literacy assessments can easily be built into a project based learning curriculum
that would better be able to track the abilities and skills of the students and monitor areas of need.
Pearson, Valencia, and Wixson conclude that the current use of assessments is doing a disservice to
students by not adequately developing literacy skills, and not providing teachers with enough data
about how to best help students develop those skills. They conclude that more work needs to be done in
this area to develop better assessments, and offer a potential solution that can adapt to the students
and perhaps provide a more complete picture of the abilities and needs of the student.
Gaertner, M. N., & McClarty, K. L. (2015). Performance, Perseverance, and the Full Picture of College
Readiness. Educational Measurement: Issues & Practice, 34(2), 20–33. https://doiorg.cui.idm.oclc.org/10.1111/emip.12066
This study focuses on analyzing a variety of factors for middle-grade students in order to determine
which factors are the most significant in predicting college and career readiness for students in that age
group. This study examines an incredibly large variety of qualitative and quantitative data points in
order to determine the factors that have the most success at predicting college and career readiness.
Gaertner and McClarty tracked the performance indicators for students in the middle grades as they
progressed through their education in order to best predict which factors were the most important for
students to have academic and career success. The purpose of this article appears to be to inform
teachers and administrators about the factors that have the largest impact on the success of students at
the middle school level. Similarly to other articles examined for this research, this article hopes to
determine which factors have the largest impact on the career and college readiness of students.
However, this article expands on the work of other articles by analyzing a wide variety of factors that
may contribute to the success of the student, and does not recommend a singular approach, but instead
identifies all techniques that were determined to have a significant impact. This source is useful for my
research because it identifies specific areas and practices that have a proven connection to college and
career readiness in the target age group of the students that I will be working with for my research.
Gaertner and McClarty conclude that there are useful indicators at the middle school age level that
predict the future success of those students. While they conclude that the indicators do exist, they do
not condemn the student to a lifetime of success or failure, but instead, offer useful insight into the
potential areas of need for each student and the possible interventions at an early age to promote
student achievement and success.
Kizkapan, O., & Bektas, O. (2017). The effect of project based learning on seventh grade students'
academic achievement. International Journal of Instruction, 10(1), 37-54. 4
This article focuses on the differences in performance between two seventh grade science classrooms,
where one class uses a project based learning approach and the other class follows a more traditional
teacher-based model of instruction. It outlines the approach used by the individual teacher to create
and implement the project based unit of study and compares the progress and outcomes of that class to
a traditional classroom. Kizkapan and Bektas appear to want to inform teachers and administrators
about the steps necessary to create and integrate a project based curriculum, and also discuss the
potential challenges and downfalls of creating a project that does not necessarily work as predicted. The
article discusses all the supposed benefits of project based learning, and hopes to prove those outcomes
by comparing the results of two different classes. The improved outcomes would align with the college
and career readiness standards that have been addressed by other research articles, but this article
focuses on specifically measuring those outcomes when using a project based approach against a
conventional teaching approach. This source is useful for my research because it offers a very similar
case study to what my reserach is hoping to prove, and discusses the steps and preparation taken by the
teacher in order to prepare for a project based classroom. Kizkapan and Bektas were not successful in
their approach to project based learning and achieved results that were not statistically significant when
compared to a traditional teacher-led approach. Instead of rejecting the project based approach, the
authors offer their suggestions for improving the project based curriculum and discuss the specific
challenges that were faced throughout this case study. The authors intend that this source should serve
as a means to better educate teachers and educators about how to effectively implement a project
based curriculum and to anticipate potential challenges in the classroom.
Dole, S., Bloom, L., & Doss, K. (2017). Engaged learning: Impact of pbl and pjbl with elementary and
middle grade students. Interdisciplinary Journal of Problem-Based Learning, 11(2).
doi:10.7771/1541-5015.1685
This article focuses on the success that one program has achieved by creating a project based summer
school program where students work in collaboration with teachers to create and develop solutions to
authentic problems. It looks at specific projects and examples that have been developed through this
program and discusses the benefits felt by both the students and the teachers that participate in the
process. Dole, Bloom, and Doss hope to persuade teachers and educators about the potential benefits
of integrating a project based approach in schools that promote student achievement and success and
what constitutes a successful program. Similar to other sources, this article discusses what successful
outcomes can be achieved by both teachers and students when a project based approach is used. This
article offers a different view on the subject matter because it discusses a program that exists outside of
the standard school day since it is a program specifically for students over the summer break period.
Although this study is not directly applicable to the general education classroom, it still offers valuable
insight into what is possible when a project based learning approach is used successfully with students
and teachers. This information is useful for my research because it provides information about the
specific process used when developing and creating projects for the students to learn and grow their
skills. Dole, Bloom, and Doss conclude that project based learning is incredibly effective at promoting
the 21st-century skills that students will need in order to be college and career ready. Student attitudes
about education, collaboration, communication, self-monitoring, and self-directed learning were all
measured at much higher levels at the conclusion of the project based program, and these skills are
some of the mainstays of college and career readiness for today's students.