Selecting and implementing a new mathematics curriculum program that is both high quality and is supported by stakeholders is a challenging endeavor. In this article, the authors share a year-long process in which a school district's (SD) elementary mathematics committee (EMC) engaged in exploring, testing, and selecting a curriculum program to…

Research suggests that students who participate in formative assessment perform better on measures of academic achievement than students who do not. To raise school and systematic performance, teachers need access to high-quality, rigorous tools designed to provide timely and individualized feedback for student learning. According to a report…

In U.S. music education, the elementary music program is the level most likely to include all students, before music becomes an elective choice in secondary schools. As students approach adolescence, however, their interest in general music may decline, particularly if they are not engaged in activities they find meaningful. Although past research…

Using an example of a grade 3 science unit about population changes during competition for resources, we describe how we integrated computational thinking (CT) into existing curriculum identifying three levels of depth of integration: identifying connections that already exist, enhancing and strengthening connections, and extending units to…

Educators in South Korea have been adapting textbooks and related activities to meet the increasing need for national-level curricula for teachers of special and general education for students with disabilities at the elementary school level. The underlying aim is to create inclusive educational environments. There are four steps in adapting…

California districts were forced to shift to distance learning models in the spring of 2020 and the transition to distance learning for students in the early grades--transitional kindergarten through third grade (TK-3)--has proved difficult for students, parents, and teachers alike. As distance learning persists, administrators and teachers can…

This article examines how art fits into education, looking first at art as inquiry in a 3rd-grade classroom and then at a model of arts-based research rooted in contemporary art. From there, it discusses art integration and suggests that a focus on research in contemporary art provides a basis for integrating art across the curriculum. Ultimately,…

This article describes nine phases of curriculum-development activities conducted by the Language and Reading Research Consortium (LARRC), the end result of which was to arrive at a research-based supplemental curriculum that could be used by teachers of English-speaking or bilingual Spanish-English-speaking children in prekindergarten and…

Teachers in districts with high rates of poverty and low-achieving schools often lament the lack of resources for instruction. However, when a teacher in a third-grade inner-city classroom began a lesson about natural resources by saying, "We will find out what we know before we start," she used a precious resource--students' ideas.…

This article provides an example of a collaborative effort between a dance specialist and four third-grade classroom teachers at an arts magnet school. They developed a dance and geometry integration project including implementation strategies, assessment tools, and reflections completed by both the classroom teacher and the third-grade students.…

For educators, the content of the curriculum really is like oxygen: it is the necessary precondition for improving schools, closing the achievement gap, engaging parents, and preparing teachers. However, when educators take the content of the curriculum for granted, they lose opportunities to coordinate and collaborate. Good curriculum instruction…

One may have heard of Bowland maths and will know something of the "case studies" that were published in 2008. These are substantial mathematics projects, taking five hours, or more, to complete. Most are set in real or realistic contexts, like "designing a smoothy"--Product Wars, or "devising plans to improve road safety"--Reducing Road…

Creating a game for third-grade students that school librarians and teachers can use in their school libraries and classrooms is a unique challenge, especially if that game is based on teaching anatomy. But that's exactly what an instructional team from Auburn University in Alabama decided to do. The team--which consisted of a school librarian who…

In this article, the author describes the development of a storytelling unit she introduced to her school. She got the idea for the storytelling unit from the National Storytelling Festival she had attended several years ago in Jonesboro, Tennessee. When she proposed her idea of a storytelling unit culminating in a festival modeled on the national…

Peer tutoring is essentially peers teaching each other. Many teachers already incorporate this idea into their classrooms in other curricular areas and appreciate the benefits that come from this type of teaching. Teachers can implement peer tutoring by teaching a small group of students a subject, or using a group that already understands the…