Students' curiosity in the world and sense of belonging in the elementary classroom can develop as teachers learn alongside students in the context of a critical literacy framework. In an end-of-year reflection, one of my fifth-graders, Anne (all names are pseudonyms), a student of color (at times, I used the term "student of color" to…

Argumentation is an indispensable part of scientific knowledge construction, and the inquiry laboratory is full of opportunities for argumentation. Yet, at primary schools, students learn science without any inducement to argumentation or inquiry. To fill this need, this study was aimed to develop pre-service primary teachers' understanding of and…

Guided by the questions "What can a dance curriculum look like when it purposefully integrates social-emotional learning?" and "What can we learn from the process of designing curriculum at the intersection of dance and SEL?" we relate the experience of creating curriculum for early elementary students. We build on current…

The disappointing results of the 2022 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in Civics and U.S. History have further fueled the call for consistent, high-quality social studies instruction. The response by the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) highlighted the imperative for early grades, claiming "the lack of a solid…

Science knowledge is deeply intertwined with human values, ethics and societal needs. While science is often perceived as value-neutral, the authors argue that the intertwined nature of science and values can be modelled from the early stages of education. This article shares examples of how individual, collective, and planetary values can shape…

A mixed methods study was used to investigate the influence of blended learning on preservice teachers' readiness to teach using inquiry-based learning. Online science teaching methods activities were added to a face-to-face science content class for the preservice teachers to improve their readiness to teach using inquiry-based learning. An…

Relying on multiple documents to answer questions is becoming common for both academic and personal inquiry tasks. These tasks often require students to explain phenomena by taking various causal factors that are mentioned separately in different documents and integrating them into a coherent multi-causal explanation of some phenomena. However,…

This study highlights research trends and teaching methods in inquiry-based learning in Japan's elementary school curriculum of the "period for integrated studies" by conducting a scoping review of existing literature. Thirty papers that focused on teaching methods for inquiry-based learning were reviewed, and five subthemes were…

The importance of introducing students to mechanistic reasoning (MR) early in their schooling is emphasised in research. The goal of this case study was to contribute with knowledge on how early primary students' (9-10 year-olds) MR in chemistry is expressed and developed in a classroom practice framed by model-based inquiry. The study focuses on…

This article describes a content analysis of 37 Inquiry Design Modules (https://c3teachers.org), conducted with the purpose of identifying the core teaching practices (CTP) necessary to successfully enact them. Although there has been research identifying CTP in other content areas, research on social studies inquiry at the elementary level is an…

In this article, the author describes her research looking at girls and problem-solving, with the intention to answer the question: What impact does implementing a skills framework encompassing collaboration have on the proficiency of scientific enquiry skills for year 5 girls?

Science teachers face an incredible challenging task of combining research on how students learn best, the three-dimensions of the Science Education Frameworks that in themselves are complicated to understand, and instructional sequences that lead to deeper learning. "Activating Students' Ideas: Linking Formative Assessment Probes to…

Sacred Heart School, a bilingual, Catholic school in Washington, D.C., partnered with a team of researchers from Harvard University's Graduate School of Education, to launch a new project, Children Are Citizens (CAC). The project aimed to support early childhood teachers in amplifying the voices of our youngest learners. The ultimate mission was…

Given the consensus on the importance of teacher reflection and the paucity of research on affective motivational challenges and outcomes of in-service teacher reflection, this study examined the hypothesis that support of in-service teachers' basic psychological needs (for relatedness, competence, and autonomy) in collaborative reflection…

The objective of the current study was to identify an effective learning environment for kindergarten students as they acquire an initial understanding of scientific inquiry activities (SIA) and a simple (idealized) scientific inquiry cycle (SIC). The study aimed to examine (a) the effects of instructional support and (b) the role of similarity…