The lesson described in this article was developed and taught by a team of mathematics educators and physical therapists, with the shared goal of broadening students' perception of how mathematics concepts are applied in the real world. This lesson gives students authentic experience with the Gait Speed Test as a physical therapist would…

Productive struggle is a process in which students expend effort to grapple with perplexing problems and make sense of something that is not immediately apparent and beyond their current level of understanding and capacity. The experience encourages students to reflect on and restructure their existing knowledge toward a new understanding of…

The purpose of this article is to introduce a lesson fondly referred to as the 'Lego Shop' lesson. It stands out as not only the most engaging lesson we've conducted but is also highly adaptable to accommodate a diverse range of learners. Successfully implemented across all year levels, from Foundation to Year 6, this lesson has proven to be…

This article examines the ways in which interdisciplinary small groups were used in a school setting in order to drive students' "joyful engagement and" literacy instruction. Drawing from the work of Dr. Gholdy Muhammad in "Cultivating Genius" (2020) and "Unearthing Joy" (2023) we designed and implemented a summer…

Teachers use a variety of strategies to capture students' attention, which is a necessary step for any lesson. Expert-level teachers take this one step farther, making sure that their attention-gathering techniques engage students cognitively, sparking productive curiosity and connecting to key concepts and skills to be learned in a unit or…

The research brief, "Integrating Literacy And Science: A Powerful Partnership for Student Success," describes four key components of effective integration ofliteracy and science instruction at the elementary level. In this practitioner's guide, the authors describe sample lessons to demonstrate each of these components inaction in an…

The study deals with the outdoor learning approach developed by Sreten Adžic (1856-1933), who is considered the founder of the outdoor learning movement in Serbia. He greatly influenced pedagogical practice as a primary-school teacher, professor, and teacher-training school manager. According to this approach, the term outdoor learning had two…

Integrating content-area and literacy instruction in primary-grade classrooms creates authentic and engaging opportunities for students to build background knowledge and literacy skills. Furthermore, when students engage in meaningful dialogue about content-area topics they can discuss complex ideas and use content-specific vocabulary. These…

In this article, the authors describe their experiences with planning, implementing, and revising a lesson for which the goal is for students to consider the mathematical and pragmatic issues that are related to a task of maximizing the area for a fixed perimeter. The authors also wanted students to engage in the Standards for Mathematical…

Statistics need data and data need context. Contexts from across the curriculum can be the most powerful in creating interest, reward, and enthusiasm for both teachers and students. The activity described here is based in STEM, employing aspects of each field to create and solve a hypothetical problem of escaping from an erupting volcano (Science)…

School science is often very different from "real world" science. One important difference, and possibly the main one, is that in school science the relationships between variables have often been sanitized -- essentially "cleaned up" -- so that there is very little (and often no) variation in the data from the relationship…

This article from Carly Sawatzki and Peter Sullivan encourages schools and teachers to consider ways to embed financial literacy tasks in mathematics lessons more often, and includes an authentic task to try with your students.

High-quality professional learning can build principals' capacity to lead successful schools. This brief summarizes a study about principals' professional learning based on a national survey of elementary school principals. Many surveyed principals reported that they had access to professional development that has been identified as important for…

Mathematical modeling involves using mathematics to represent, analyze, and make predictions or decisions about real- world situations. Garfunkel and Montgomery (2016) elaborate on six components of the mathematical modeling process, including identifying the problem, making assumptions and identifying variables, doing the math, analyzing and…

Co-written by a student and his teacher, this article illustrates how a carefully structured individual education program supported by appropriate software can provide suitable challenges for a gifted Year 3 student. While the focus is on one student's statistical investigation, the story has relevance to the wider primary school environment.