If student-centered practices in reading and writing workshops work for students, why aren't these same practices used during mathematical instruction? Workshop models center the instruction on students and offer them the time and freedom to be independent in their work, moving toward high-level, inquiry-based learning. The authors experienced a…

Engineering design-based learning entered the discourse of science education with the release of the "Next Generation Science Standards" (NGSS Lead States 2013). Since that time there has been a focused effort to embed engineering design and engineering-based thinking in elementary school experiences. As thinking like an engineer is…

Growing interest in integrated science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (iSTEM) education has been promoted as one way to increase innovation capacity, support future employment, and enhance learning outcomes in K-12 education throughout the USA. Existing efforts to construct iSTEM curricula have largely focused on finding points of…

The aim of this study was to examine how fifth grade students' critical thinking and problem-solving skills can be developed using practices based on Newman and Weglage's (1993. Five standarts for authentic instruction. "Educational Leadership," 50(7), 8-12) authentic learning standards ("high-order thinking," "depth of…

To learn mathematics, historically students had no choice but to memorize fundamental facts and apply memorized algorithms. Since 1995 in the US, all states have adopted standards to govern K-12 mathematics instruction, and in most, standards have de-emphasized memorization and emphasized reasoning based on concepts. This change assumed the brain…

Energy concepts are taught in many schools, but children rarely have an opportunity to grapple with energy problems and work on their own solutions. This study explores the impacts of Connect Science, a service-learning (SL) program developed to enhance elementary students' energy literacy in the United States. Program impacts were explored within…

Integrating engineering design into K-12 curricula is increasingly important as engineering has been incorporated into many STEM education standards. However, the ill-structured and open-ended nature of engineering design makes it difficult for an instructor to keep track of the design processes of all students simultaneously and provide…

Although science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) initiatives have received increased attention in recent years (Bybee 2011), the focus is often on science and mathematics (Thornburg 2009). Yet, engineering has been referred to as "the glue that holds the other STEM subjects together" (Thornburg 2009). With the release of…

The "Next Generation Science Standards" ("NGSS") have placed an emphasis on the incorporation of engineering practices into K-12 science instruction. This article details a sequence of physical science lessons that would be part of teaching matter in the second-grade classroom. The goals of these lessons are: (1) to be hands-on…

The International Technology and Engineering Educators Association's (ITEEA's) "Standards for Technological and Engineering Literacy" ("STEL") describes design thinking as an approach that allows students and educators to integrate other content areas by considering relevant contextual information to guide design and making…

This article describes the impact of an adaptive professional development program for K-8 mathematics teachers to enhance their implementation of standards that were streamlined to promote improved student learning and achievement. Students from the participating district scored higher than the state average and a neighboring district during the…

According to the design principle of progressive schematization, learning trajectories towards procedural rules can be organized as independent discoveries when the learning arrangement invites the students first to develop models for mathematical concepts and model-based informal strategies; then to explore the strategies and to discover pattern…

This article presents seven social justice-oriented model activities for 1st and 2nd grade Korean-English bilingual students. Considering the age and language ability of the target students, two picture books addressing social justice issues were selected as a main instructional material for those activities. Through the suggested model…

In this paper, I present a design case of the problem-identification process prior to the initiation of a Networked Improvement Community (NIC). A NIC is a type of research-practice partnership (RPP) that brings together researchers and practitioners to tackle complex problems of practice, and in doing so, proposes a social reorganization of the…

Teachers have the daunting task of preparing students for a future that they cannot predict. In an age of information where students have the world quite literally at their fingertips, and with the ever-growing momentum of integrated science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), it is not enough that students experience STEM subjects…