In 2001, the Chinese Ministry of Education issued "Guidelines for Preschool Education (GPE) (trial version)" to call on early childhood practitioners to use a child-centred and play-based approach to teaching and learning. In order to implement the requirements, many kindergartens in China have carried out the play-based kindergarten…

This holistic, mixed-methods action research case study aimed to determine the influence of professional development on participants' mathematical teaching practices and how the changes influenced students' opportunities for discourse. In this two-year study, participants engaged in two professional development phases and implemented new…

This study investigated how 15 kindergarten teachers from one school district implemented small-group Guided Reading (GR). Analysis of video recordings indicates substantial differences in how GR was conducted, with none of the teachers fully implementing GR as conceptualized by Fountas and Pinnell (2012). Consistency across teachers was limited…

Increasing children's access to media has attached greater significance to media literacy education, the content and methods of which have changed with media development. This study aimed to investigate the effects of the Community of Inquiry (CoI) method on media literacy competencies in elementary students. To this end, 95 female sixth-grade…

In order to compete worldwide, the school system must be transformed by raising educational standards by implementing the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education approach. The purpose of the primary school curriculum is closely aligned with the teaching goals of STEM education, which is to develop each child's full…

In the midst of current environmental and social crises we--educators and educational scholars--have been called to prepare our youth with the skills, attitudes, and knowledge needed to face and solve such crises. While mastery of academic content and relevant skills remain key educational goals, teachers need to be prepared and equipped to…

For K-12 teachers to improve effective teaching skills, cognitive presence (CP) integration into teaching and learning process is of utmost value. CP strategy training can serve as a facilitating component in supporting K-12 teachers' instructional capacity. This study presents findings of a teacher professional development training aiming CP…

The purpose of this participatory action research (PAR) project was to support teachers to integrate play as a primary pedagogy in the math program. The theory of action was: If teachers develop a mathematical program integrating play pedagogy, then teacher capacity will expand to support the implementation of play in math instruction. I conducted…

This action research emphasizes the need to implement curricula to engage marginalized students as well as promote literacy and high levels of academic achievement. Marginalized students include minority students who perform far below their White peers on state assessments. In Chapter I, the action research problem of practice is explored. The…

Purpose: The teaching personal and social responsibility model has been incorporated into out of school time programming globally, but there is limited research focused on how practitioners learn to use the model. Guided by occupational socialization theory, the authors used self-study to understand the experiences of a doctoral student as she…

Purpose: This practitioner-focused article highlights a collaborative, school-wide project at a PDS that showcased elementary students' strengths and talents. Based on the children's book, The Smart Cookie (John, 2021), teachers and the university professor-in-residence developed professional learning communities, which inspired the creation of a…

The purpose of this study is to identify the challenges and solutions associated with implementing cooperative learning (CL), based on the lived experiences of teachers in Iran. Thirty-two primary school teachers participated in a 16-session CL workshop. However, only thirty participants were able to implement this approach in their classrooms,…

Purpose: Due to the coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, primary and secondary schools worldwide are deploying online teaching/learning practices, fostering and thus innovation practices. The purpose of this study is to determine the degree to which practices reflecting educational innovation are implemented in the Greek public primary and…

These educators share the "how" and "why" behind their use of open middle tasks in the classroom. In this article, the authors share a type of mathematics task, called Open Middle, that exhibits the characteristics outlined above. The authors frequently use Open Middle tasks in their classrooms because they teach students that…

Purpose: In the wake of interlocking pandemics, educational systems are resetting in important ways, pursuing aims that are not exclusively instructional (e.g., social justice, well-being). As systems (re)build, they may vary in how they manage their institutional and policy environments, which may or may not be reorienting toward these same…