Culturally sustaining pedagogy (CSP) that builds on and sustains students' cultural and linguistic practices is important for students' academic achievement and identities. While CSP is applicable to any content area, a critical time to incorporate it is during differentiated reading groups--small-group contexts that provide explicit code-based…

Over three decades ago, National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM, 1991) proposed that "for students to develop the ability to formulate problems, to explore, conjecture, and reason logically, to evaluate whether something makes sense, classroom discourse must be founded on mathematical evidence" (p. 34). As math interventionists…

Purpose: The purpose of the current application paper is to integrate previous literature with recent results from practitioners on effective practices for utilizing small groups in the leadership classroom. Design/methodology/approach: We use these integrated findings to innovate practice on maximizing the role of undergraduate teaching…

In this invited Viewpoint, Sharon Walpole tracks her thinking about feasible, effective, small-group differentiated instruction. She acknowledges political pressures and the focus on science of reading. She describes the attractiveness and feasibility of guided reading. She then identifies some salient criticisms of the assessments, texts, and…

Data literacy enables teachers to use information collected about students and their learning to take data-informed instructional action. This article outlines two approaches developed by teachers to provide teaching targeted to the immediate needs of specific students that moved beyond "gap-filling". The pre-teaching and "fresh…

This article provides a brief overview of the instructional strategy known as team-based learning (TBL). It then focuses specifically on the use of one of its integral components in a biblical studies classroom--namely, the "4S application task." The 4S application task, which is one of the fundamental pieces of the learning experience…

In this article, the authors revisit the common practice of small-group reading instruction. They challenge the idea of grouping readers based on text levels and instead review supplemental intervention group research that suggests targeted skill practice as a more optimal use of time in small groups. They then present the ABCs--a focus on…

In this article, we explore how character perspective-taking can support students' reading comprehension, as well as opportunities to engage social-emotional learning (SEL). We start by defining character perspective-taking and SEL. Then, we present strategies for practicing character perspective-taking in classrooms, how these strategies are…

Journey with a third-grade community of writers as they develop their writing identities and abilities in a responsive approach to writers' workshop. Instruction is framed around the writers' workshop approach, where students' choice and voice are centered within extended periods of time for writing, alongside daily mini-lessons addressing the…

Mathematics language routines (MLRs) are a form of ambitious multilingual mathematics instruction that can be used to engage students in rigorous mathematical thinking while supporting English language and literacy development. MLR Co-Craft Questions allows students to get inside of the context of a problem before solving it, without feeling the…

If educators want to improve reading achievement on scale, Shanahan notes, we need to organize school days more effectively, so they support increased literacy learning--not hinder it. He presents suggestions for increasing the amount of literacy instruction elementary students receive, through more flexibility of scheduling and more wisely…

There is considerable evidence that 'active learning' strategies are more efficacious than traditional 'passive learning' methods (e.g. lecture). Presented here is a small group active learning project developed for undergraduate social psychology students. The activity involves carrying out and reporting the results of a structured demonstration…

With the development of information technology and the advent of Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) and Small Private Online Course (SPOC), various online courses which include a lot of new resources and new teaching methods have appeared. The application of advanced teaching resources and educational concepts can improve students' learning…

Small-group instruction is ubiquitous in today's elementary school classrooms. The goal of this paper is to support educators and administrators looking to adopt or improve their approach to small-group literacy instruction, so they can align their practices with the current scientific evidence. The authors first define small-group instruction and…

With over 70% of fourth-, eighth-, and twelfth-grade students in the United States scoring below proficiency levels in writing (NCES, 2009), teachers must provide early and effective writing intervention to accelerate students' writing skills to meet grade-level standards. In this paper, we provide teachers with a theoretical framework to…