Young children draw on all their senses to engage with the world around them. Despite research that documents the diversity of ways children learn and express themselves (Eisner 1994; Gallas 2003), primary education has become more focused on addressing early learning standards than ever before. How might today's teachers individualize learning…

Mr. Smith and Ms. D'Amico are two veteran science teachers in a well-performing school district. Both teachers use weekly lab exercises and experiments as formative assessments. In their middle school classrooms, children are engaged and eager to learn. As students walk into Mr. Smith's classroom, a prescribed, step-by-step procedure of the day's…

The use of manipulatives in the classroom has been advocated for decades. However, the theoretical and empirical support for this practice is mixed. Some researchers suggest that manipulatives facilitate learning by (a) providing an additional channel for conveying information, (b) activating real-world knowledge, and/or (c) improving memory…

Throughout seven years of teaching in urban schools, the author discovered that the most effective ways to teach difficult literary texts was to refer to students' out-of-school activities. In other words, to connect the "leaky edges of the "social outside"" with the "individual inside" is to create a curriculum of…

The NCTM Standards encourages teachers and students to explore multiple approaches and representations when engaging in mathematical activities. The activities in the "Your Better Half" investigation engage students in the understanding of the commonly used fraction half by using the set and the area model and it is found that using real-world…