School principals play a pivotal role in directing students' classroom educational experiences. However, in the USA, many elementary principals (serving youth 5-12 years old) have had few formal experiences with professional development or coursework that centers on current standards for quality science instruction as guided by the "Framework…

Teacher noticing of student thinking represents a key aspect of teacher expertise as it informs teachers' actions 'on the fly' during a lesson. In science and mathematics education, teacher noticing has been conceptualised as being driven by attending to and making sense of student thinking. A range of models of noticing developed in professional…

Background: Dealing with errors in the classroom is a crucial aspect of instructional quality and has multiple consequences for students' own dealing with errors, their learning and their achievement. The available literature on error climate indicates a paucity of research on the effects of perceived error climate on social aspects such as…

Elementary students learn best when they make observations about perplexing natural phenomena, ask questions about what they observed, and pursue answers to their own questions through engagement in science practice. However, facilitating such learning experiences can be challenging for novice instructors. In this unit, pre-service elementary…

Elementary engineering, as an emergent or "contentious" practice, is fertile ground for cultural analysis. Contentious practice (Holland, D., & Lave, J. (2001). "History in person: Enduring struggles, contentious practice, intimate identities." School of American Research Press) highlights how historically enduring…

Learning fractions is essential for academic and daily life success. A critical first step in acquiring fractions is learning to transcode them (e.g., writing ½ when hearing "one half"). However, little is known about how students master fraction transcoding. We addressed this gap by assessing fraction writing in two groups of Brazilian…

Statistics need data and data need context. Contexts from across the curriculum can be the most powerful in creating interest, reward, and enthusiasm for both teachers and students. The activity described here is based in STEM, employing aspects of each field to create and solve a hypothetical problem of escaping from an erupting volcano (Science)…

Science educators now broadly recognize the multimodal nature of learning in science, where learners make meanings within modes (linguistic, mathematical, visual, and actional) by using the conventions of different sign systems or grammars in these modes. However, how teachers guide students to link and infer new meanings across modes, called…

The exploratory study examined the outcomes of home visits conducted in primary grades of a Midwest rural public elementary school. The research considered both quantitative and qualitative data on teacher and caregiver relationship, teacher and student relationship, student academic success, attendance data, and behavioral changes. The…

The qualitative case study explores the experiences and perceptions of elementary school teachers' implementation of Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) for behavioral management in their classrooms. The study addresses the increasing issue of behavioral problems affecting instruction and academic outcomes in the classroom. By…

Though culturally responsive practices (CRP) are widely lauded as important for educational practice, the field to date does not have a systematic video-based strategy to observe CRP across classrooms. Through a qualitative review of 68 classroom videos from the Measures of Effective Teaching dataset, we examined the presence, absence, and…

Our research aims to examine the effectiveness of introducing social robots as educational technology within authentic classroom activities without modifying them to be designed for a robot. We chose as test subject the fifth-grade curricular topic "The role of technology and its impact on society", meeting the critical stage of moral…

Analytical thinking skills were an essential learning process for primary students. The research objectives were to 1) study the current condition, problems, and good practices regarding teaching and learning. 2) develop a blended instructional model using the inquiry process with digital games to enhance analytical thinking skills for elementary…

When elementary schools integrate literacy and science instruction, they create rich learning environments that allow students to develop an understanding of science ideas while improving their reading, writing, and speaking skills at the same time. Neither subject takes a back seat. Literacy instruction supports science and science instruction…

While we continue to see a growing push for the restoration and codification of recess in elementary schools, policy does not necessarily equal practice. Georgia recently passed legislation requiring at least 20 minutes of recess per day for students in PK-5. The purpose of this research study was to survey elementary school educators to reveal…