Deeper learning is great for exploring a topic in great depth, but it will fail if student motivation isn't taken into account. Researchers Eric Anderman and Adriana Calvit discuss how to align your deeper learning curriculum with motivational strategies for successful lessons.

Math education consultant Marilyn Burns finds that teachers ask her the same three questions so often she's named them "The Big Three": What can I do with students who finish their math work more quickly?, How can I free up time to work with kids who need extra help?, and How can I differentiate math learning experiences? Burns, who…

This article explains how to create and use a daybook in the literacy classroom. Readers learn what a daybook is, how the daybook in one fourth and fifth grade classroom is structured, and how students in this classroom use that daybook during reading instruction to engage, record important information, and discuss a text.

Playing games in the mathematics classroom has seemingly become unfashionable. Is it that games suddenly are regarded as "lacking in purpose"? Maybe games are seen as incompatible with the "lesson plan and objectives"? Or is it that games and learning are not two words that are expected to appear in the same sentence? Prepare for the mythology…

Even those with no interest in the philosophy of mathematics take positions on a range of philosophical issues when they teach mathematics. Some of these issues are intimately related to common student confusions. These include the nature of mathematical objects and relations such as real numbers and equality; how we come to conclude a…

"Strategy sharing" is a certain type of discussion that centers on students' ideas and occurs when children present different approaches to problems and provide information about how they solved the problem (Wood, Williams, and McNeal 2004). A teacher may orchestrate a strategy-sharing discussion to achieve one or more of the…

In the STEM classroom, students can work in collaborative teams to build those essential skills needed for the 21st-century world. In project-based learning (PBL), teams of four to six students are often randomly selected to describe a realistic situation that may occur in today's workplace; this may be done by counting off in fours, fives,…

The Effective Instructional Strategies Series is a collection of six booklets based on the components used in Pacific Communities with High-performance In Literacy Development (Pacific CHILD), a principles-based professional development program consisting of research-based teaching and learning strategies proven to help improve students' reading…

The goal of this investigation was to explore how a fourth grade teacher could integrate iPads into her literacy instruction to simultaneously teach print-based and digital literacy goals. The teacher used iPads for a three-week period during her literacy instruction and selected apps that provided unique approaches to helping the students meet…

In the upper elementary grades, content-area text gains increasing importance as a primary source of reading and information. This article focuses on the specialized vocabulary demands of social studies texts and presents a framework of teaching and learning strategies based on vocabulary research. Strategies are introduced before, during, and…

This article portrays action research conducted in relation to students' faulty use of the equality sign in a Grade Four mathematics classroom in Sweden. Substantial background on teacher-researcher collaboration that prepares ground for the action research is offered. Drawing on cultural-historical and activity theory perspectives, the conduct of…

How can a teacher simultaneously teach science concepts through inquiry while helping students learn about the nature of science? After pondering this question in their own teaching, the authors developed a 5E learning cycle lesson (Bybee et al. 2006) that concurrently embeds opportunities for fourth-grade students to (a) learn a science concept,…

Learning pathways capture the development of competence in a mathematical domain. They have been developed from empirical studies in the areas of mental computation and emergent numeracy concepts. These pathways afford teachers the opportunity to identify students' current levels of understanding, antecedent understandings and the steps that are…

The history of strategies research during the past quarter century has been a story of significant conceptualizations and reconceptualizations regarding the nature, development, and teaching of cognitive and metacognitive strategies. Theoretical models, empirical research, and discussions contributed by Michael Pressley have been central to…

Analyzing student work can help teachers improve the teaching and learning of mathematics. Fortunately, the four authors have experienced professional development that supports teachers' professional growth and provides tools to begin the challenge of analyzing student work. However, as they began to assume leadership roles in their schools and…