The kindergarten classroom changed over the past few decades from an environment focused on developmental needs toward an environment that focuses on the academic expectation. Educational mandates for standards-based curriculum reduced the social interactions for children to support development and academics in the kindergarten classroom. It is…

This study investigates the relationship between teachers' perceptions of the implementation of constructivist teaching-learning activities and of constructivist curriculum change. Data were collected from 236 primary school teachers through a questionnaire measuring the perceptions of constructivist curriculum change and of the implementation of…

Teachers in districts with high rates of poverty and low-achieving schools often lament the lack of resources for instruction. However, when a teacher in a third-grade inner-city classroom began a lesson about natural resources by saying, "We will find out what we know before we start," she used a precious resource--students' ideas.…

Plant growth, development and reproduction are fundamental concepts in biology; yet there is a recorded lack of motivation for young people to grapple with these concepts. Here we present the "DigitalSeed" toy for making investigations around these concepts more accessible to children through hands-on digital interaction. This is part of an…