Many teacher education programs provide teachers with opportunities to read, write, and discuss critical pedagogy, with the hope that such work will allow them to develop more equitable and just teaching practices. Yet, there often remains a gap between the theoretical discussions of teaching and learning in teacher education classrooms and the…

Choice theory identifies five psychological needs: survival, freedom, power, belonging, and fun (Glasser, 1998). There are close parallels with self-determination theory (SDT), which specifies autonomy, competence, and relatedness as essential needs (Deci & Ryan, 2000). This case study examines a very successful example of choice theory…

This article reviews the development of the Early Grade Reading and Mathematics Assessments (EGRA and EGMA), which are locally tailored, timely assessments designed to directly inform policy and instruction for learning improvement, particularly for countries on the lower end of the income spectrum. The history of the design and implementation of…

The purpose of this study was to examine how school psychologists implemented the problem-solving consultation process within a computer-simulated school environment. Four school psychologists were recruited to complete three simulated consultation cases. The school environment was computer generated and all of the teachers and target students…

Studies illustrate that achievement gaps between poor and non-poor children already exist at kindergarten (Lee & Burkham, 2002). The larger the gap at the time children enter school, the harder it is to close the gap. This article reviews a case study of one Midwest school district and their attempt at reducing the achievement gap through the…

This illustrative case explicates how one teacher supports student critical thinking by personalizing instruction during Morning Meeting. Sought after learning outcomes outlined in Common Core Standards are met as he purposefully anchors learning in student contributions. Through classroom discourse analysis we show how this teacher decided in the…

This paper analysed how three teacher-researchers of Singapore's elementary school used online space extensively in Grade 2-Grade 4 classrooms. Such online space, made possible by free and readily available web 2.0 and open source applications, was meant to complement the physical learning space as such space can allow learning activities, which…

This article examines the reading of leveled books and the assessment of students' reading levels in a public school classroom. The purpose of the research study was to examine how these processes of assessment, which often go unnoticed, shaped the ways reading and readers were defined. The research was located in a third grade, public school…

The general purpose of this evaluation is to assess the effectiveness of independent charter schools in promoting two desirable student outcomes: student achievement growth and educational attainment. Independent charter schools are authorized by non-district entities and are considered "independent" because they are not a part of the…

This small scale qualitative study investigated teachers' and students' perceptions of praise and feedback in the classroom using structured interviews and classroom observation. A case study approach was used whereby students and teachers from one school participated. Some 56 students and five teachers were interviewed individually or in small…

This paper analyses how an elementary-level future school in Singapore implements and uses various open-source online platforms, which are easily available online and could be implemented with minimal software cost, for the purpose of teaching and learning. Online platforms have the potential to facilitate students' engagement for independent and…

The purpose of this case study is to highlight the integral role that progress monitoring (PM) plays throughout any response to intervention (RTI) process. This example uses a three-level, responsiveness-to-intervention (RTI) method for identifying students with learning difficulties. Using a fictional third-grade classroom as the setting for…

This case study was done in partial fulfillment of a Master of Science in Education (M.S.Ed.) Graduate Course the participant-observer was completing. The participant-observer learned a lot about Dmitrov, the child in this study. Dmitrov was a 2nd-grade student who was diagnosed (late in the school year) with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity…

This article examines teachers' perspectives on the challenges of using a science reform curriculum, as well as their learning in interaction with the curriculum and parallel professional development program. As case studies, I selected 4 veteran teachers of 2nd or 3rd grade, with varying science backgrounds (including 2 with essentially none).…

This qualitative case study illustrates and compares the metacognitive strategies that a grade-3 female student used while reading narrative and informational texts. Data were collected from interviews, observations, and videotaping of the participant's narrative and informational text oral reading sessions and examined using thematic analysis.…