Every educator knows the sinking feeling of a lesson gone wrong. As teachers look around the room and realize that many of their students are just not getting it, they often feel like failures. However, the struggle students experience as they persevere through high-quality challenging tasks is not a sign of failure, but rather a key aspect of…

This article illustrates one of several learning sequences from the Interdisciplinary Mathematics and Science (IMS) Learning project, connecting science and mathematics learning in the primary school. Investigating Body Height involved a series of investigations conducted in Years 5 and 6 across six classes in one school. The project teachers…

When teachers first wrap their heads around scientific modeling, it can be a bit tricky to distinguish scientific models from diagrams and three-dimensional models. If a fifth grader draws and labels a food web, it's a model. Right? Not necessarily. When creating a model, students should be representing a system inspired by an inquiry or…

There has never been a more pressing need for students to learn how to evaluate scientific information online than during the COVID-19 outbreak. Information, misinformation, and disinformation spread quickly across online news and social media platforms. This misleading or incorrect scientific information about infectious diseases could lead to…

Given that students are constantly communicating and documenting special experiences in their social and private lives with digital devices, we suggest that this behavior could be used to record and deepen learning experiences-such as visualizing reactions at the molecular level-in a chemistry class. An example would be the creation of stop-motion…

4 Corners Vocabulary Charts (FCVCs) are explored as a multipurpose vehicle for processing academic language in a 5th-grade classroom. FCVCs typically display a vocabulary word, an illustration of the word, synonyms associated with the word, a sentence using a given vocabulary word, and a definition of the term in students' words. The use of…

This article introduces the fifty states project, a year-long study of the United States that uses crowd sourcing to bring authentic materials into the social studies classroom. The project started five years ago, when author Kelly McPherson decided that she wanted to have a care package sent from all 50 states to help students learn about the…

In this article, the authors introduce a series of interconnected, inquiry-based activities from a fifth grade social studies curriculum, "My Place in Time and Space," which was developed in part through a Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources (TPS) Regional Grant Program--Eastern Region. These activities are designed to…

As a teacher-researcher concerned with the educational approaches and learning outcomes of urban students, the author believes it is important to explore hip-hop as a curricular and academic resource because hip-hop represents the ways in which urban youth speak, think, create, move, and relate to the world. This article explores the English…

Symbols have always had an important role in shaping our identity as a nation. The American flag, the Statue of Liberty, the White House, and the bald eagle all help to convey American values such as liberty, freedom, democracy, and independence. But how do elementary students understand these symbols and the values behind them? In this article,…

Much has been written about developing outdoor classrooms or how to generate effective and integrated learning using the outdoors. However, with the release of the "Next Generation Science Standards," teachers need to consider how they are going to design their science curriculum to include opportunities for students to learn about core…

There have been many significant changes in education over the last fifty years, but few have been as swift and all-encompassing as the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). Discussed and debated everywhere, and now implemented in many states, the CCSS initiative set out to transform our nation's K-12 educational system by providing clear…

"I Wonder" boards are a teaching strategy that can be used in the classroom, as well as during science learning opportunities in nonformal settings, such as after-school science programs or summer camps.This simple strategy has led to deeper science exploration in 4-H, as young people learn alongside program staff, teachers, or…

Ensuring science for all in the classroom requires that all students are afforded ways to grasp key science and engineering practices; however, we know that the practice of "obtaining, evaluating, and communicating information" can be a challenging task for children with high incidence disabilities (NGSS Lead States 2013, p. 15).…

Barbara Cruz describes how what began as a challenge (i.e., finding or justifying the time to spend on history instruction in an environment of high-stakes testing) turned into a rich learning experience for students using historical fiction. By designing experiences that were literacy centered but based in historical content, this group of…