The purpose of this study was to explore children's play during recess and in physical education (PE) classes from the perspective of Huizinga's theory of play. Specifically, this study investigated how primary school PE teachers used the concept of play, how it was understood by student participants, and how the participants engaged in the…

Jean Kirshner holds a Ph.D. in Education and Human Resource Development from Colorado State University and specializes in literacy and teacher education. Jean started her career as the Early Childhood Director at Saint Ignatius Grammar School, Chicago in 1988. After two years she joined the Child Opportunity Program in Denver as a Head Start…

This study is aimed at describing teachers' obstacles in applying Numbered Head Together learning model in social science learning. The type of research is qualitative descriptive. The subject of the research is the third-grade teacher of elementary school in Sukoharjo Sub-district. The findings of the research were analyzed using interactive…

Educational Psychology makes a significant contribution to the development of skills to research the effectivity of teacher practices in class. However, there is little agreement on what educational psychology concepts are most relevant for teacher training. This paper reports on trainee teachers' self-perceived mastery of, and attributed…

The value of both Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and efforts to embrace the idea that teachers should be held accountable for students' test scores have been debated among practitioners, policy makers, and the public for many years, but increasingly since 2010. The Common Core State Standards was implemented in 2009 to provide a basis for new…

Upon beginning their school-based teaching practica, teacher candidates enter a realm of practice that is at once uncertain, vulnerable, and particular, and where good educational practice centers on teacher's ability to see and to judge and to act ethically with others in concrete situations and ways. An important question for teacher education…

While elementary teachers do not typically cover the structure and function of DNA, their students can easily understand that organisms have observable traits, that each individual has a unique combination of traits, and that the "recipe" for traits is passed from parent to offspring. The Genetic Science Learning Center has developed and…

Questioning has an important role in teaching mathematics. There is current research about questioning, especially related to class discussion and students' responses. Some researchers suggest teachers pose any kind of questions in mathematics classroom regarding problem solving and mathematical creativity. This research focused on a teacher's…

This study seeks to contribute to the research on mentored induction by investigating the practices mentors employ in their work with new teachers in two high-need, high-poverty urban elementary schools. Informed by Schwille's (2008) temporal framework of "educative" mentoring practices occurring "inside" and…

Much of the literature on science teaching suggests that elementary teachers lack relevant prior experiences with science. This study begins to reframe the deficit approach to research in science teaching by privileging the experiences elementary teachers have had with science--both in and out of schools--throughout their lives. Our work uses…

It has been argued that teachers do not always teach in the ways their teacher education programs promoted. One cause of this problem has to do with teachers' conceptions about mathematics and ability being incompatible with the visions of mathematics that teacher educators promote. For example, teacher educators may emphasize the need for…

The purpose of this paper is the investigation of the prevailing forms of in-service training, the detection of the dominant pedagogical discourse they promote as well as their contribution to the shaping of the teacher's individual theory of education (I.T.E.). The research was conducted using semi-structured interviews with a sample of 11…

This study was undertaken to discover how fourth-and fifth-grade teachers implemented the systematic Focused English Language Development (FELD) program with English Language Learners (ELL) students. ELL students are not reaching proficiency at a higher rate because of the gap in teachers' understanding of effective teaching practices and…

Despite growing interest in redesigning the material landscape of education, relatively little is known about the impact of these evolving classrooms. This study aimed to gain insight into the physical learning environment and the potential pedagogical impacts thereof. A "biographical approach" (c. 1963-2015) was used to explore the…

This study is part of a dissertation which aims to explore and understand the role of play in the teaching-learning process at elementary level in a public school at Pernambuco, Brazil. We opted for a qualitative approach, using the interactive methodology, interviews by the technique of hermeneutic-dialectical circle, observations of science…