This study used a mixed-methods design to examine teachers' responses to professional learning on mathematics differentiation. Grade 3 classroom teachers (N = 28) attended four 2-h professional learning sessions and an additional 2 h individually on differentiation and completed pre- and post-surveys with quantitative and short response items…

The purpose of this article was to offer guidance to educators in evaluating the strengths, weaknesses, and most effective uses of commercial reading assessment suites. We provide three resources to help educators who are responsible for making instructional decisions in reading using formal screening, benchmark, interim, and progress-monitoring…

There are still many unanswered questions regarding the application of response to intervention (RTI) to making eligibility decisions for specific learning disabilities (SLD). Both U.S. federal regulations and research support that students identified with SLD using RTI should be deficient in both level of academic functioning and rate of growth…

Research has suggested that measures of both general classroom observational tools (Classroom Organization and Teacher Emotional/Instructional Support) and content-specific observational tools (Ambitious Math Instruction and Errors and Imprecision) are related to K-6 student math achievement and therefore there is encouragement to use both types…

Brief experimental analysis (BEA) is a well-researched approach to conducting problem analysis, where potential interventions are pilot tested using a single-subject alternating treatment design. However, its brevity may lead to a high frequency of decision-making errors, particularly in situations where one tested condition is rarely optimal for…

In this article, the authors describe a lesson that integrated mathematics and social and emotional learning (SEL), as children used mathematics to read their bodies and to manage their emotions. During the lesson, the authors avoided the tendency to control children's bodies and to unintentionally position SEL as a tool to tame children's…

Promoting relevant, meaningful, and equitable science teaching learning environments for both teachers and students has become a critical objective for science education. To achieve this goal, fostering students' sensemaking experiences in science becomes critical. Working towards such a committed, and equitable sensemaking environment is closely…

Objective: The purpose of this study was to gain more knowledge about the phenomenon of the inner child in relation to health and well-being as reflected in play experienced by schoolchildren. Design/method: Participants were 20 schoolchildren recruited from a primary school in a medium-size city in central Sweden. The children who agreed to…

As caseloads for special education teachers continue to rise and as more students with disabilities enter the regular education setting (U.S. Department of Education, 2016), the need for co-teaching, in which a special education teacher and regular education teacher work together in one classroom to meet all students' needs, is significant.…

This work focused on increasing Year 3 students' use of critical thinking and taking the "second-person perspective" (2ndPP) when interpreting and resolving life issues. Previous research indicated the Personal Viewpoints Pedagogy (PVP) elicited social thinking that exhibited strong perspective-taking and precursors to critical thinking…

Teacher preparation programs in the US have addressed complex teaching practices, like mathematical discourse, by engaging preservice teachers in the practice of teaching. This qualitative study reports on the nature of conferences about the discourse between an elementary education preservice-inservice pair participating in a model that…

To understand students' argumentation abilities, there have been practices that focus on counting and analyzing argumentation schemes such as claim, evidence, warrant, backing, and rebuttal. This analytic approach does not address the dynamics of epistemic criteria of children's reasoning and decision-making in dialogical situations. The common…

The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study was to explore how special education teachers describe selecting and applying differentiated instructional strategies for students with mild, moderate, to severe disabilities in self-contained classrooms within a school district in Arizona. Jean Piaget's social constructivism theory and Carol Ann…

At Tamassee-Salem Elementary School in South Carolina, teacher Anna Durham likes to have data conferences with her third graders. She creates a simple graph of their MAP® Growth™ interim assessment scores with past and current scores, along with a future goal. She believes talking about goals--and how they will get there together--helps to engage…

An increasing number of parents are opting-out their children from high-stakes. Accountability systems in education have used students' test scores to measure student learning, teacher effectiveness, and school district performance. Students who are opted-out of high-stakes tests are not being evaluated by the state tests, making their level of…