The experience of joy and shared joyful moments benefits children's learning, development and wellbeing. The arts engage the senses, imagination and creativity in meaning making and expression of ideas. Learning through the arts is often collaborative and embodied. This paper reports on a study which explored the use of arts-based practices in…

Generalist primary school computer science (CS) teachers are often reluctant to introduce CS activities that go beyond CS unplugged tasks. To address this challenge, we drew from constructive alignment principles to implement a new programming modality for primary school: the handwriting programming language (HPL). HPL brings programming…

This study aims to map the purposes, content and teaching approaches of science teaching aimed at schoolchildren aged 6-12 years outside the regular school setting, as described in previous research. The findings are based on a systematic search in four databases and three journals, resulting in the selection of 51 articles based on specific…

This paper explores learning about environments with a focus on starting with trees. The paper examines children and young people's perceptions of and engagement with trees, as part of a large grant that sought to examine the dis/benefits of trees for children's lives and learning. In this paper, we attempt to move beyond notions of 'education for…

This study aimed to explore how children with specific learning disabilities perceive their school and teachers through an analysis of their drawings. The participants were four children aged seven to nine years (two girls and two boys) diagnosed with specific learning disabilities. The analysis revealed that the children primarily associated the…

Vocabulary knowledge plays a critical role in supporting text comprehension and broader learning across the school day. While school offers opportunities to build vocabulary knowledge, studies have shown that very little time is devoted to vocabulary instruction at the elementary level. This may be, in part, because educators commonly report being…

One strategy for developing science literacy and scientific literacy in young children is through published trade books. To better understand how science literacy and scientific literacy may be represented in elementary classrooms, we investigated children's books that explore science concepts. Specifically, we examined high-quality science trade…

Children born after 2010 are labelled as members of Generation Alpha, who currently pursue their primary education. Gamification and game-based learning methodologies have gained popularity in the global education sector in the recent past. The goal of this study is to investigate the present state of adopting gamification and game-based learning…

Elementary students often struggle with their writing skills, particularly in the areas of focus and organization. These problems can make it difficult for teachers to find effective methods for improvement. This project will delve into some causes of this deficit and explore its consequences on academic performance and future educational…

Background: Natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning technologies offer significant advantages, such as facilitating the delivery of reflective feedback in collaborative learning environments while minimising technical constraints for educators related to time and location. Recently, scholars' interest in reflective feedback has…

This study investigates the characteristics of Japanese primary school mathematics lessons that adopt a problem-solving approach. We argue that these characteristics are reflected in three key aspects: collective teaching and learning, the lesson as a "drama" (i.e., its structured flow), and the focus on mathematical knowledge. In this…

Teachers' teaching styles play a crucial role in students' creativity. However, previous studies have focused only on variable-centered research methods that presuppose teachers to be of a particular type, which does not correspond to real-life contexts in which they teach. Therefore, this study will use a person-centered approach, latent profile…

In this article I inquire into choreographic-pedagogic stop-moments, identified through bodily felt intensities and affects, in the Bird project. The Bird project was a collaborative dance project that took place in an elementary school in Norway in 2020, where, as a choreographer-researcher-teacher, I cooperated with the teachers and pupils in…

This New Zealand-based inquiry investigates modelling as an instructional component of writing pedagogy in upper primary schools. As part of a large mixed methods study of writing instruction by a group of exemplary teachers (N = 9), we inquired into the occurrence, operationalisation and relative benefits of teachers using each of the recognised…

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…