Background: In the field of science education, adults often set up practical-based activities with the idea of stimulating children's reasoning and approaching science in a playful way. Although the potential role of objects in stimulating social practices has been considered in the literature, how teachers work on semiotic aspects of…

Data from whole-class discussions in Dutch upper primary school show that teachers occasionally explicitly take downgraded epistemic stances through epistemic disclaimers such as 'ik weet het niet' (English: "I don't know (it)"), which contrasts with their institutionally assigned epistemic authority. In the current study, we have…

Socio-dramatic play is an everyday occurrence in early childhood education as children create narratives together in shared imagined worlds. The teacher's role in this type of play is less clear and this paper draws on a study using Lindqvist's "playworlds" approach to gain insight into how teachers participate in children's play. In…

The aim of this qualitative multiple case study was to understand three Saudi kindergarten teachers 'attitudes toward enacting inquiry to teach science in the kindergarten classroom. This study was guided by two research questions: 1) What attitudes do Saudi kindergarten teachers hold about using inquiry to teach science in their classrooms? 2)…

Interest in teachers' moves to classroom discourse has started to increase since how teachers respond to students' thinking influences students' learning. The purpose of this study was to investigate the moves used by one sixth grade mathematics teacher at a public middle school in Turkey to support student reasoning in mathematics instruction and…

Purpose: To investigate school principals' perceptions and applications of professional learning communities (PLCs) and how they interpret the roles of physical educators within these structures. Method: This study was conceptualized as an exploratory interview study. Eight elementary and two secondary school principals across four districts…

Many classroom teachers in our schools do not know what physical educators truly do. There is a need for additional strategies for physical education (PE) teachers to be viewed as contributors to not only students' development as skillful movers, but also to the goals of the entire school. By implementing new cross-curricular best practices, the…

This study examined the perceived preparedness of educators working in Title 1 schools to address the mental health needs of students. Data were gathered from educators (defined as teachers and other school personnel; N = 299) employed by eight Title 1 public schools within one district in Florida, most of whom were K-5 teachers (n = 199).…

The purpose of this qualitative study is to explore the decision-making process of a group of core elementary teachers in Illinois Metro East districts around attending professional development. 10 teachers from two Metro East districts were interviewed about their motivations, choices, and factors when considering what professional development to…

Teachers' expectations of student capabilities can meaningfully affect future achievement. However, the consistency of teachers' expectations over time and their differential impact by student gender and ethnicity have not been thoroughly investigated in the context of students' reading achievement. The current study investigates the longitudinal…

Teachers are responsible for providing opportunities to use learning strategies in the classroom. The students' engagement shows an observable reflection of the educator's teaching practice. This qualitative case study highlights teachers' perceptions of student engagement in the urban elementary classroom. The research questions asked about…

In primary science education, inquiry-based science instruction stands out as an optimal learning environment for fostering domain-specific content and procedural knowledge. Recognizing the effectiveness of different forms of teacher guidance, there is an ongoing debate about the planning of high (structured inquiry) and low (guided inquiry)…

Teachers today feel pressure to maximize student engagement and learning. With an increased focus on student scores on end of grade test measures and their association with school performance grades, educators are forced to consider how to yield results. Limiting the disruptions and distractions throughout the school day shifts the focus to…

This dissertation was designed to better understand the perceptions of elementary teachers that use a digital platform to implement STEM. There was limited information about how and why elementary teachers lack the pedagogical practice and instructional tools needed to implement STEM in elementary school. In addition, the idea of STEM education is…

Workload has consistently been found to be a predictor of burnout in teachers. However, while academia considers workload a psychological concept, the public tends to simplify workload as the number of tasks assigned. This study seeks to provide further evidence of the psychological nature of workload by examining if workload understood in terms…