This article reports on a pilot study that used concrete materials and TinkerPlots to support a Year 4 student's understanding of the big ideas of variation and expectation when investigating a random chance experiment using spinners.

Movement creativity is a key factor in motor development in children, yet very few exercise programs promote the development of motor creativity in children. To address this gap in the literature, this study tested the effectiveness of a creative exercise program on children's motor and cognitive creativity, and their probability of adaptation to…

The purpose of this study was to examine the impacts of embedding collaboration into a game with a self-explanation design for supporting the acquisition of light and shadow concepts. The participants were 184 fourth graders who were randomly assigned to three conditions: a solitary mode of the game with self-explanation, a collaborative mode with…

"Probability is a difficult concept to teach, because children and adults find it counterintuitive." This is impetus to consider the detailed planning of a set of lessons with a "mixed", in many senses, group of fourth graders. Can the use of prior experience, and the knowledge associated with that experience, make probability a concept that is…

Using sequences of coin flips as a model of serial independent events, we asked schoolchildren in grades 1 through 5 to estimate the likelihood of the next flip. Most children in each grade expected short patterns to continue.

The general pedagogical knowledge of teachers is not often investigated in comparison to content knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge. In this article, a more comprehensive outlook on teachers' skills and knowledge without regard to subject-specific nuances is discussed in relation to classroom management strategies, the organization of…

More than 10 percent of the students in our nation's public schools are English language learners, and this number grows each year. Many of these students are falling behind in math. "Supporting English Language Learners in Math Class, Grades 3-5" outlines the challenges ELL students face when learning math and provides a wealth of specific…

The authors propose a strategy for studying the effects of time-varying instructional treatments on repeatedly observed student achievement. This approach responds to three challenges: (a) The yearly reallocation of students to classrooms and teachers creates a complex structure of dependence among responses; (b) a child's learning outcome under a…

Integrating mathematics across the curriculum offers students the opportunity to link ideas in a natural, impactive way. In this article, the author shares some interactive math activities that she used in a fourth-grade class on "Cinco de Mayo," a holiday honoring Mexican independence. These fun activities not only allowed connections to be made…

"Differentiating Instruction With Menus Grades 3-5" offers teachers everything they need to create a student-centered learning environment based on choice. Addressing the four main subject areas (language arts, math, science, and social studies) and the major concepts taught within these areas, these books provide a number of different types of…