Well-educated and informed elementary educators provide the highest of quality instruction to elementary students. Elementary educators are expected to provide instruction from all academic subjects throughout the school day. As standardized testing continues to be a priority in U.S. classrooms, educators must be prepared to continue to deliver…

Since 2007, many U.S. music education programs have been negatively affected by budget reductions at the local, state, and national levels. Although researchers have studied the effect of budget reductions on music education, they have not widely examined the perspectives of teachers who have experienced these reductions. The purpose of this study…

Response to Intervention (RTI) programs are designed to support students at risk of failing in school due to academic or behavioral problems. When RTI programs are applied inconsistently due to teachers' resources or knowledge, students may be wrongly identified for special education services. The purpose of this qualitative bounded descriptive…

Research indicates that understanding levels of abstraction (LOA) and being able to move between the levels is essential to programming success. For K-5 contexts we rename the LOA levels: problem, design, code and running the code. In our qualitative exploratory study, we interviewed five K-5 teachers on their uses of LOA, particularly the design…

Group comparisons offer students opportunities to reason about many fundamental statistical concepts like center, variation, or distribution. When doing such activities using large, real datasets, technology becomes an essential tool for exploring the data. With its large variety of features and its user-friendly handling, TinkerPlots™--as a…

The aim of this study was to investigate primary student teachers' perspectives of the teaching of fractions, i.e. their PCK of fractions. The research design used for the study was a descriptive survey method. As data collection instrument, we conducted a questionnaire composing of 14 open and closed-ended questions. The questionnaire was…

As teacher collaboration becomes an increasingly common goal in school organization, teachers' experiences and perspectives in a Structured Collaboration Environment remain under-examined. This qualitative case study explored how teachers participated in collaborative work, the outcomes of collaboration, and supports and obstacles to productive…

This study aimed to document pre-service elementary teachers' (PSTs'), who are going to teach K-5, ability to construct as well as evaluate justifications varied in terms of levels of sophistication. Additionally, this study aimed to investigate how PSTs' knowledge of content in which they were being asked to prove influenced their ability to…

Mathematical disagreements occur when students challenge each other's ideas related to a mathematical concept. In this research, we examined Hong Kong and U.S. elementary teachers' perceptions of mathematical disagreements and their resolutions using a video-stimulated survey. Participants were directed to give particular attention to the…

Problem: There is an existing cycle of questionable grading practices at the K-12 level. As a result, districts continue to search for innovative methods of evaluating and reporting student progress. One result of this effort has been the adoption of a standards-based grading approach. Research concerning standards-based grading implementation has…

This paper focuses on the significance of embodied understandings to the emerging subjectivities and pedagogical practices of pre-service teachers undertaking a Physical Education (PE) specialisation through a B.Ed. (primary/middle). Data from a research project conducted at an Australian university with seven pre-service teachers will be…

Professional Development Standards in one state require professional learning for teachers in collaborative teams and requires schools to offer teachers opportunities for collaborative and collegial learning activities. The purpose of this study was to discover how elementary schools are consistently implementing this standards-based professional…

This ethnographic study of language shows the importance of educators' appropriate use of linguistic, nonlinguistic, and paralinguistic communication techniques when working with elementary students within two classrooms who have behavioral and emotional disorders. This study focused on communication techniques used by teachers and…

Differentiated instruction is a way of teaching, which gives students multiple choices to learn information. Fourth grade teachers at one elementary school were not implementing the differentiated instructional techniques that would help them address the learning needs of their students. The purpose of this project study was to create a teacher…