This study examines two longstanding but thinly evidenced claims regarding credentialing requirements for teachers in the early grades (pre-K, K, 1, 2, and 3): 1) that elementary education (ELED) educator standards, under which many U.S. early grade teachers are prepared, address early instructional practices less adequately than early childhood…

It is well-known that digital learning materials influence the classroom curriculum and didactics. At the same time, few studies examine the role of the data visualizations offered by digital learning materials. Data visualizations signpost the emergence of students as data subjects who can be observed and compared on a computer screen. They thus…

Using the example of the 1937 Ontario elementary school reforms, this article will make the case for considering pedagogical knowledge as a distinct object in the history of education. In this context, pedagogical knowledge refers to the conceptual and normative aspects of teaching and learning that seek to inform the decision-making of the…

Supporting high quality teaching is pivotal in improving children's outcomes. Indeed, research tells us that high quality teaching can narrow the disadvantage gap. It is therefore hugely encouraging to see a host of new initiatives and reforms that recognise the importance of teacher quality such as the Early Career Framework and the new National…

Problem solving has long been a priority in mathematics education, and the first Common Core mathematical practice (SMP1) focuses on this priority through the language of "Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them." We present findings from a survey about how prospective elementary teachers' (PTs) make sense of potential…

All but four states in the nation now permit teachers to come into the profession through an "alternate route," compared to only a few 30 years ago. Alternate routes into the classroom have grown so acceptable that about one in five teachers now enters the profession through one of these programs, which offer some real benefits to the…

We present a story of a teacher educator's response to a 'disturbance' and describe how her experience enhanced her personal mathematical knowledge and influenced her teaching. In our analysis we attend to different levels of awareness that support a teacher educator's work and illuminate the qualities of a teacher educator's knowledge, in…

The interest in teachers' discourses and vocabularies has for a long time been studied under the rubric of knowledge, most notably teachers' professional knowledge. This interest can be traced back to Shulman's distinction between different kinds of teacher knowledge and Schwab's interest in the role of practical reasoning and judgement in…

This article explores the nature of teacher expertise in the primary school classroom, drawing on theoretical models of expertise and of teaching expertise. It challenges simplistic models of an "outstanding" or "master" teacher to argue that since teacher expertise is both situated and prototypical, it is manifested in…

This paper provides a review of oracy in primary education (5-11) in England. It discusses the nature of talk, acknowledging it as integral to the learning and teaching process and traces the history and development of the place of oracy within the curriculum. The article provides a critique of related policy initiatives including various…

Framed in theories of multimodality and picture books, this interpretivist research examined teachers' use of visual literacy elements during one school year as they taught language arts and social studies in their upper elementary grade classrooms. The data, which included field notes, interviews, observations, classroom artifacts, and…

A great amount of research has been carried out world-wide to promote history of science as a powerful science teaching tool. Because the ways of choosing and using historical elements depend on teachers' or researchers' educational purpose, any attempt to support a single model-to-use seems difficult and probably irrelevant. However,…

Taking the latest reform of Swedish teacher education as a point of departure, the aim of this article is to analyse the way Swedish teacher unions construct a knowledge base for teaching as a strategy of professionalisation. The analysis shows that the unions construct such a knowledge base from opposing points of departure. Their professional…

Since the prevalence of data and statistics in the media and workplace has greatly increased over the past few decades, the teaching of statistics in K-12 grades has also increased. This necessitates that teachers be ready to teach statistical concepts throughout the grade levels. The recently adopted Common Core State Standards for Mathematics…

The purpose of the study was to examine if and how elementary preservice teachers' perceptions about history were changed upon their completion of a class project that engaged them in a discipline-specific inquiry as a method of teaching history. Surveys were administered to assess any changes in their perception of the history before and after…