Among different transitions that happen in a young person's life, transition to adulthood can be one of the most challenging. The new post-school environment requires increased self-determination, including self-awareness, self-advocacy, self-management, and other important skills that help one function as an independent adult. Because it takes…

Author and educator Jason McKenna describes how teaching STEM education in his elementary school changed his classroom and his life, improving his students' and his own approaches to problem solving, collaboration, and general motivation to learn. Offering examples, tried and tested classroom projects, and collaborative strategies, this innovative…

Purpose: Since developing science literacy is a primary objective of science education and socio-scientific (SSI) decision-making is an important aspect of science literacy, it is valuable to explore how students structure their decisions related to SSIs, and how they discuss and solve SSIs. The aim of present study was to examine elementary…

This paper examines a problem described as widespread and long-standing in mathematics education: supporting pupils into multiplicative reasoning, a form of reasoning that has been noted as central to large tracts of secondary mathematics and beyond. Also noted, however, is a persistent perception of multiplicative situations only in terms of…

This mixed-method study examines the relationship between classroom discussion and student performance in twenty 3rd and 4th grade classrooms in northern California with 50% English language learners (ELLs). Discussions were scored on features including use of multiple approaches for solving problems, students' opportunities to speak, equitable…

With the release of the Next Generation Science Standards and the adoption of the standards by many states, teachers are encouraged to use the engineering design process (EDP) as an instructional approach to teaching science. However, teachers have limited time to teach science and will often neglect science in favor of mathematics and literacy…

Teachers continue to face the challenge of identifying efficaciously gifted students' learning capacity in its multiple forms. While most educators acknowledge its multidimensional characteristics, the protocols used to identify it are frequently evaluated as unnecessarily restrictive. This study investigates an assessment tool that could…

Surface area is consistently identified as a curriculum standard for K-12 students and it regularly appears on national and international assessments. Recently, many schools began acquiring digital fabrication and advanced manufacturing equipment. The growing use of digital fabrication in classrooms raises the question of whether or not this…

Contemporary state math standards emphasize that students must demonstrate an understanding of the mathematical ideas underlying the computations that have typically been the core of the elementary school math curriculum. The standards have put an increased emphasis on the study of fractions in upper elementary grades, which are the years during…

This article presents results from two studies that included ethnically and socioeconomically diverse samples totaling 4,462 children in kindergarten through third grade. Each study examined the psychometric properties of a web-based, self-administered battery of assessments of social-emotional comprehension called "SELweb." Assessment…

Children may be capable of understanding the value of emotion regulation strategies before they can enlist these strategies in emotion-evoking situations. This study was designed to extend understanding of children's judgment of the efficacy of alternative emotion regulation strategies. Children aged six and nine ("N" = 97) were…

Imagine two fourth-grade classes. Both contain students of comparable demographics and highly respected teachers each with four to five years of experience. Both classes engage in science curricula that emphasize science and engineering practices as outlined in the "Next Generation Science Standards" (NGSS Lead States 2013). Both classes…

Teaching students to use and interpret representations in science is critically important if they are to become scientifically literate and learn how to communicate their understandings and learning in science. This study involved 248 students (119 boys and 129 girls) from 26 grade 6 teachers' classes in nine primary schools in Brisbane,…

This study reports on the types of academic talk that contribute to enhanced explanatory responses, reasoning, problem-solving and learning. The study involved 10 groups of 3-4 students who were provided with one of three linguistic tools (i.e. Cognitive Questioning, Philosophy for Children and Collaborative Strategic Reading (CSR)) to scaffold…

The current study investigated developmental trajectories of teacher-reported aggressive behavior and whether these trajectories are associated with social-cognitive development (i.e., aggressive problem-solving) across the first three elementary grades in a large sample from Switzerland (N = 1,146). Semiparametric group-based analyses were…