Mathematical modeling is a high-leverage topic; it is critical to students' participation in STEM education and supports civic engagement. Until recently, research on modeling at the elementary level has been underemphasized, particularly research on supports and challenges for teachers who engage in designing authentic modeling tasks. In this…

When teachers, parents, and community members work together, children benefit (Henderson and Mapp 2002). This is especially true when the collaboration is coordinated and focused as it was for the Greenteam, a science ecology club and an event created by a network of educators, elementary students, and science professionals. The club and a…

Parent, school, and community engagement is widely established as a collaborative strategy to improve the school experience and educational outcomes for children and youth (Epstein & Sanders, 2006; SEDL, 2013; Weiss, Lopez, & Rosenberg, 2011; Barr & Saltmarsh, 2014). Consistent with this viewpoint, the Houston Independent School…

In this essay, we explain the development, implementation, and preliminary findings of an innovative writing program that drew upon a peer collaborative model and a community literacy perspective. Developed as an after school program, this project represented a community-university partnership designed to provide an enjoyable forum for teaching…