Students in grades 3-5 are undergoing significant cognitive growth and beginning to understand what fairness and equity mean in a diverse and interconnected world. "Modern Math Tasks to Provoke Transformational Thinking" presents carefully crafted tasks that nurture multi-disciplinary literacies, including ecological and cultural…

Inclusive education remains a significant challenge in today's educational landscape, as K-12 classrooms and higher education institutions struggle to meet the diverse needs of all students. To address this pressing issue, "Developing Inclusive Environments in Education: Global Practices and Curricula," led by Kiyoji Koreeda, offers…

More than 5 million English learners attend U.S. public schools--and yet fewer than 3% of teachers are certified to work with them. Fill that gap in teacher education with this practical and comprehensive textbook, an evidence-based guide to providing English learners in Pre-K-Grade 6 with explicit, systematic instruction on language and literacy…

Education has gone through numerous radical changes as the digital era has transformed the way we as humans communicate, inform ourselves, purchase goods, and perform other mundane chores at home and at work. New and emerging pedagogies have enabled rapid advancements, perhaps too rapidly. It is a challenge for instructors and researchers alike to…

This issue of the Occasional Papers Series aims to draw attention to the use of storytelling as a medium for provoking dialogue about inclusive classrooms and school communities. It offers readers stories of classroom life that provide insights into understanding the complexities that make up the lives of children with disabilities, their…

Two articles comprise this publication. In "Beyond the Story-Book Ending: Literature for Young Children About Parental Estrangement and Loss," Megan Matt analyzes over 30 books for young children on the topics of abandonment, estrangement, divorce, and foster care. She observes that this loss might appear as an event within the story or…

Data collected during the first year of a 3-year study are reported. The study evaluated the effectiveness of a variety of special services provided to approximately 10,000 language-minority limited-English-proficient first- and third-grade students in English-medium classrooms in a national sample of 18 school districts. Services studied are not…

The purpose of this study was to systematically reflect upon my teaching practices, and to investigate the benefits of differentiated instruction using action research methods. This paper outlines the action research process, and is a case study examining the academic, social, and emotional progress of an advanced grade three learner involved in…

Three papers are presented that summarize current project findings from a study of the actual effects of introducing new forms of assessment at the classroom level. All focus on aspects of performance assessment as an alternative to traditional assessments. "Effects of Introducing Classroom Performance Assessments on Student Learning" by Lorrie A.…

These papers are partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Science Degree in Education at Winona State University in Winona, Minnesota. The cohort included a variety of licensure areas that represent most levels and content areas of K-12 education. The students were encouraged to keep their questions and hypothesis directed at…

A collection of articles on English-as-a-Second-Language literacy and literacy education include: "Contextual Issues in the Study of Second Language Literacy" (Susan R. Goldman); "Mexican Adult Literacy: New Directions for Immigrants" (Concha Delgado-Gaitan); "Factors Affecting Development of Second Language Literacy" (Richard Duran); "Reading in…