The first-grade classroom was like a natural history museum. Bird nests of every shape and size lay on top of bookshelves that lined two walls. Methods students, who were visiting the classroom in preparation for the science lessons they would teach there, were immediately inspired by the collection. They used the collection as a springboard for…

As a final year Bachelor of Education student at the University of Tasmania, this author recently participated in an innovative program for improving mathematics learning outcomes for primary school students and the mathematics teaching development of pre-service teachers. As a participant in the program, she was required to plan, teach, and…

It is important to use rich problem-solving tasks to develop students' understanding of important mathematical ideas (NCTM 2000). Rich tasks are complex, nonalgorithmic, and nonroutine, requiring reasoning, problem solving, and communication of thinking. Evidence has shown that using rich tasks in student-centered classrooms is especially…

Children in general education are classified by measures of oral reading fluency (ORF) to determine the level of support needed for reading. In addition, teachers use ORF measures with children who receive special education services to determine whether they are making progress toward their reading goals. In this descriptive study, the authors…

A debate over the quality of teacher education programs has been ongoing for nearly 100 years. The most current round in this debate started with "A Nation at Risk" (National Commission on Excellence in Education, 1983) and has escalated in recent years to involve an increasing number of participant-constituents, each of whom has voiced…

This case study focused on a preservice teachers' (Morgan) efforts to explicitly emphasize nature of science (NOS) elements in her first-grade internship classroom. The study assessed the change in first grade students' views of the inferential, tentative, and creative NOS as a result of the explicit instruction. Morgan held appropriate views of…

The purpose of this report is to provide education professors teaching early literacy methods courses with information for beginning teachers to support struggling first-grade readers. This analysis identifies the specific word structures children are expected to know by the end of first grade, and shows the actual learning rates of these…