Nature-based learning within the primary school curriculum offers numerous potential benefits. However, there is a lack of clarity about how school grounds can be designed to enable effective nature-based learning. There is also little knowledge of how specific features within green school grounds contribute to specific desirable outcomes, such as…

Growing emphasis on elementary STEM education has pushed elementary teachers to face curriculum changes that focus on standards with which they are largely unfamiliar (Smith, 2020; Trygstad et al., 2013). As a result, elementary students are not always exposed to STEM subjects or integration and miss out on opportunities to access and enjoy the…

Known for decades but with minimal change, the underrepresentation of minority and low socioeconomic students in gifted programs has been a concern that needs to be brought to the forefront and addressed. Despite increasing diversity in schools and heightened attention to equity, the ongoing apprehension of underrepresentation remains. This…

The purpose of this case study was to determine the perceived alignment of standards and practices that are prescribed by the International Baccalaureate Organization to the Coherence Framework which was developed by researchers Michael Fullan and Joanne Quinn. The field setting was a high needs and low wealth school district that is identified as…

There exist passionate debates about the best way to teach children to read. Since the Bush administration, school districts receiving federal funds have been required to have research evidence justifying their methods of teaching reading, and in recent years the need for evidence-based practices have intensified with the "Science of…

Using qualitative methods and a Communities of Practice framework, we studied one urban elementary school's crisis response to COVID-19 during the emergency remote education phase, Spring 2020. In the last two years, there has been overwhelming variety in schools' instructional modalities in our state--face-to-face, remote, hybrid--leaving Spring…

Leadership plays an important role in determining organizational culture and maintaining a commitment to the collective goal. Leaders not only play a critical role in developing and implementing policies to direct an organization toward a goal, but also serve as role models for those with whom they work. Research has shown that relationships…

The leader has the responsibility of creating participatory management models that demand competencies in accordance with institutional challenges. This study aims to analyze the functions, areas of action and deficiencies perceived by teachers and members of management teams in a leader's professional performance. From a quantitative…

"Teaching Climate Change to Children" describes the journey of two literacy researchers to learn about climate change and support relevant literacy pedagogy for young children (pre-K-6). The authors argue that climate change and social justice are inextricable from each other; that children in the younger grades are capable of learning…

Research has found that the use of culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP) can improve academic outcomes for students in urban environments. As teacher educators, we are driven by such findings to understand how to best prepare teacher education students to enact CRP. The Elementary Education department in our university offers an urban immersive…

This qualitative case study explored an elementary school teacher's perspectives of integrated therapy service deliveries (ITSD) using a semi-structured interview. An inductive emergent sampling was used to select the participant from an urban school district. A grounded theory approach was used to analyze the data and understand the teacher's…

The purpose of this study was to examine the differences in the academic growth in mathematics and reading for elementary Spanish-speaking English language learners, in relation to teacher certification and training in teaching English as a second language (ESL). The study was conducted in a Midwestern urban public elementary charter school. A…

Previous research shows that the lockdown of schools due to the COVID-19 pandemic increased the already existing inequalities in education but little is known about the processes underlying these outcomes. In this study we used Bourdieu's theories to explore how interactions between teachers' expectations of parents and parents' availability of…

While endorsed as critical for promoting learning, students' interest in a topic has had minimal, if any, influence on curriculum development. Teachers thus are challenged to promote students' interest within an established curriculum. After students demonstrated misunderstandings after reading an article about bacteria, Sarah Stallings and Samuel…

A large body of literature recognizes the many challenges teachers experience in the classroom. The research and subsequent article bring to light the concerns identified by undergraduate teacher candidates during a day-long field experience. The intention of the experience was to focus on literacy instruction; however, that was often overshadowed…