During recess a conflict occurred between two fourth graders. A peer attempted to mediate unsuccessfully. Frustrated, the student protested, "[Teachers] never listen to us!" The student felt unheard and sought to play a more active role in conflict resolution. This article explores the use of literature to facilitate restorative…

Professional learning should be designed in a way that is responsive to the needs of teachers and intentionally planned with adult learning principles in mind. This article outlines one practitioner's professional journey to redefine how professional learning is designed with best practices in adult learning in mind. Strategies utilized during…

Student agency is a critical feature of impactful service-learning programs. In this article, we describe lessons learned from a study of Connect Science, and environmental service-learning curriculum and teacher professional development program. We present five ways to amplify student voices in service-learning. Examples from teachers that we…

Before ever entering a formal educational setting, children use writing to make themselves known. Yet by the time students reach the fourth grade, only a small minority of students demonstrate writing skills considered competent by national standards. By this time in their school career, many have begun to internalize that they are poor writers…

Therapy dogs can improve the social and mental health outcomes for children and adolescents. School-based interventions that address social and emotional learning (SEL) can promote children's overall wellbeing and educational outcomes. This study used a qualitative approach to explore children's perceptions of a 12-week therapy dog-assisted SEL…

This study addresses a problem of practice at Nipmuc Elementary School (NES), a large urban elementary school in New England. State standardized test data and student writing samples showed that students were performing well-below grade level in writing. The primary factors driving this problem included teachers' lack of knowledge and low…

The Critical Literacy (CritLit) project promotes using critical texts to engage readers in examining their lived experiences and understanding of social justice issues. This study used a qualitative participatory approach with a narrative design to research the students' engagement in a book club using critical texts. Participants were fourth- and…

This article details how a team of fourth-grade teachers in Rockingham County, Virginia used the Inquiry Design Model (IDM) to deepen student understanding of Barbara Johns and the Moton Student Strike's fight for racial justice in Virginia and to reframe their overall approach to Black history in general. Although Rockingham County Schools are…

A 7-month mathematics proficiency program was conducted in a primary Australian Indigenous community school. This paper focuses on outlining the specific methodologies employed to explore how students' mathematical proficiency changed throughout the implementation of the program in Years 2 to 4 (~ 7 to 9 years old). A mixed methods research design…

This article focuses on a study in which feminist new materialist and arts-based methodologies were employed to explore how three girls address their experiences of sexual harassment as part of 'crushes' with boys in fourth and fifth grade. The study stems from longitudinal research on how Finnish children from pre-school to pre-teen years are…

Discussions about power have only recently begun to appear in the learning sciences literature. Most of this important work takes a critical perspective; the present work complements these efforts by examining power sharing as a catalyst for empowerment in teacher-researcher co-design. Even though teacher-researcher collaborations are discussed in…

In recent years, digital fabrication, and especially its associated activities of 3D design and printing, have taken root in school education as curriculum-based and maker-oriented learning activities. This article explores the adoption of 3D design and printing for learning by fourth, fifth and sixth grade children (n=64) in multidisciplinary…

Identities are dynamic, constantly shifting processes of self-understanding mediated by local and institutional repertoires, behaviors, resources and enacted through one's positioning in practice. This definition considers identities as both ideas, as well as actions in terms of how the learner becomes a participant in activities. A tension in…

This study shares the story of a mentor teacher and student teacher during a yearlong student teaching experience. It looks at how working with an educative mentor (prepared and supported to enact this role) can make a difference in the instructional practices and beliefs of a novice teacher, specifically by providing the student teacher with the…

The main contribution of this paper is to highlight the pedagogical orientations of reception teachers in Norwegian schools. I explore reception teachers' approaches and their understanding of their own approaches when interacting with newly arrived minority language pupils (NAMLPs). The theoretical basis of the paper is L.S. Vygotsky's work,…