When preservice teachers were no longer able to visit schools due to the pandemic, their university professor partnered with an alum who teaches fourth grade to design and implement virtual book clubs. The preservice teachers created book trailers for the fourth graders to view and choose from for their book club. The groups connected using a…

Students with disabilities often face significant challenges in developing mathematical problem-solving skills, which are critical for academic success. Traditional problem-solving interventions have primarily focused on skill acquisition, leading to issues with knowledge application in real-world contexts. Enhanced Anchored Instruction (EAI)…

In this column, I discuss a soundscape composition activity that I implemented with primary/elementary music classes. During this activity, students used the iPad app, iMovie, to record, organize and edit sound to accompany photos of artworks that they had created. Overall, I found iMovie to be a useful app for music composition with general music…

Students' input and participation improves a library's reach, and programs are more enticing for students when librarians include learners' perspectives. The interest level for students improves drastically when their peers announce programs and/or create promotional items to share what is happening in the school library. This article describes…

Co-author and teacher Bill Wainscott found that his students lack simple state geography concepts. They have little sense of the historical, economic, and cultural influences that shape their state, and they are missing background knowledge that is needed to engage in grade-level curriculum concepts. This article describes the development of an…

Design and content of classroom activities are crucial to foreign/second (L2) language learners' motivation, be they children or adults. Lifeworld relevance and learner autonomy are two important aspects in building motivational L2 curricula for adults (e.g.), but such considerations rarely filter through to primary school learners due to…

Mathematical problem solving takes on many different forms and has long been established in school curricula with the terms, problems and problem solving taking on varied meanings. This article proposes a way of engaging students in mathematical open inquiry using a video clip as stimulus. It discusses findings from a recent study conducted in a…

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is the largest continuing and nationally representative assessment of what students in public and private schools know and can do in various subjects. First administered in 1969, NAEP collects and reports information on student trends and performance and compares the achievement of students in…

Dude Perfect has one of the most popular YouTube channels in the United States. The task in this article is one of several activities the author has integrated into mathematics lessons in ways that engage students and that are connected to Dude Perfect videos (Stohlmann 2019). The author describes how he planned and implemented purposeful…

Helping teachers become more effective in the classroom is a high priority for school leaders and policymakers. This Study Highlights presents key findings from a study that examined a promising strategy for improving teachers' effectiveness: providing individualized coaching using videos of teachers' instruction for reflection, practice, and…

The authors share an activity in which two fifth-grade teachers and one sixth-grade teacher received book talk videos via Flipgrid from preservice literacy teachers and watched the videos with their students. Students responded with feedback and suggestions for how to better represent each book. The authors compiled and coded students' comments…

Based on research conducted in a fourth-grade classroom, the author describes one teacher's process for integrating social studies and English language arts using a writers' workshop approach. Furthermore, the fourth-grade teacher was able to provide students with an opportunity to engage in multimodal composition. After conducting research…

The language of school is demanding; much of the content is decontextualized and abstract, and it concerns matters that are far removed from the daily life. Students are expected to learn about rain forests and prime numbers, literary motifs, and historical events that occurred centuries ago. Consider the additional cognitive demands confronting…

Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) is an innovative approach which attempts to comprise holistic features, focusing on the meaning and at the same time providing opportunities for purposeful language use (Dalton-Puffer, 2007). Based on the triptych language of learning, language for learning and language through learning- this program…

This article describes the design case of an instructional experience incorporating videos of mistakes for students to practice mistake detection and recovery skills. Learning from mistakes is often encouraged, but students may need practical support to address them effectively. The intention of this design is to facilitate adaptive cognitive and…