With the advancement in technology and the emphasis on computer science education, there has been a strong push for more widespread programming instruction at K-12 and higher education levels. Existing research has mostly focused on students at the secondary and post-secondary levels. Not much research has involved students at the elementary…

This paper presents a case study on six elementary school teachers' perceived learning in a professional development program where teachers facilitated an integrated STEM robotics activity in an afterschool setting. Teacher reflections and interviews data were analyzed for themes. The findings revealed teachers' positive growth in the following…

Socioscientific issues are ill-structured problems that involve moral, ethical, and financial aspects, and lack clear-cut solutions. Teaching socioscientific issues necessarily puts a demand on teachers to draw on knowledge stemming from other domains, and to also appreciate, and present to the students the societal aspects of science. For new…

Professional learning communities as a form of teacher development have been in existence internationally for some time now and more recently in South Africa. Although strong claims have been made for their influence on teacher practices, very few research studies have investigated these claims. This paper presents a case study that connects…

Concern exists regarding civic education and involvement among youth in the United States. Where civic education is still given priority, instructional methods do not necessarily focus on the application of the knowledge gained in real and meaningful ways, which research has shown is critical to develop civic literacy and efficacy. This study…

In this study, the effectiveness of Eco-Friendly Person Activity Package developed in order to raise environmental awareness in pre-service teachers and enable them to be an example of an eco-friendly teacher for their future students, and the responses about Eco-Friendly Person Activity Package were investigated. The study was conducted on 75…

Purpose: The current study investigated the effects of coaching as part of an emergent literacy professional development program to increase early childhood educators' use of verbal references to print and phonological awareness during interactions with children. Method: Thirty-one educators and 4 children from each of their classrooms (N = 121)…

Research Findings: Shared book reading provides a meaningful context for rich conversations to occur between a child and an adult and offers opportunities for children to be exposed to a range of vocabulary and concepts that often extend beyond their everyday experiences. Few studies have examined parent-child shared book reading as a context for…

The 4th International Conference on Educational Data Mining (EDM 2011) brings together researchers from computer science, education, psychology, psychometrics, and statistics to analyze large datasets to answer educational research questions. The conference, held in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, July 6-9, 2011, follows the three previous editions…