This qualitative multi-site case study explores the self-identified traits of four Philadelphia schools that demonstrate growth in grade four proficiency on the Math Pennsylvania System of State Assessment (PSSA). Obtained proficiency/advanced scores on the PSSA show a drop from third to fourth grade cohorts during 2017, 2018, and 2019. In…

Interest in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education is more important than ever since the Pandemic ravaged our nation's medical resources and personnel. This exploratory study, intended to establish and characterize potential identifiers and markers of student interest development in an inquiry-driven learning…

Educators rely on a conglomeration of assessment instruments to appraise, measure, monitor, and document evidence of students' academic readiness, learning progressions, acquisition of interdisciplinary knowledge, and extensive educational needs. The Mississippi Academic Assessment Program for Mathematics (MAAP-M) and the i-Ready Assessment…

This dissertation explores the dynamics of a formal classroom and an informal nature-based learning environment, focusing on their impact on student subjectification and knowledge authority. The study, conducted with a cohort of 27 fifth-grade students and their teacher, employs a comparative case study methodology to analyze how teaching…

In this research study, an instructional intervention protocol is described. This intervention was designed to help teachers to engage English Learner students (ELs) in mathematical problem-solving lessons and reasoning through discourse. The "Discursive Mathematics Protocol" (DMP) integrates Polya's classic problem-solving framework and…

Students do their best work when they have a sense of agency around science and science learning. Scientific practices like argumentation and critique are areas in which students' agency is especially visible, as they require many points of decision-making and evaluation. While argumentation and critique are fundamental practices in both classroom…

Storytelling is universal and is popular in many cultures where it is a medium people use to preserve their beliefs, social values, wisdom, and cultural experiences as well as transfer them from one generation to another. In American Samoa, over 90% of students are classified as English Language Learners (ELLs) and literacy rates are very low,…

Existing research studies had analyzed the perceptions of read-aloud accommodations (RAAs) on both students with learning impairment and students without learning impairment at the elementary level; however, the results were mixed. RAAs had been recommended as an aid to help eliminate difficulties faced by students with learning impairments mainly…

This case study was designed to explore how professional development for teachers in literacy and reading instruction was perceived by teachers as influencing their levels of self-efficacy, teaching practices, as well as affecting achievement levels for students. The population for the study was 13 grade 3-5 teachers from an urban elementary…

Twenty-first-century competencies have been identified as vital thinking and working skills for the 21st century. Students could contribute to social change by using information and communication technology (ICT) while developing 21st-century competencies, but this type of experience is not frequent at schools. The purpose of this qualitative case…

As young children increasingly use the Internet, the children need to learn and apply cybersecurity fundamentals to protect personal data. Teaching young students the basics of strong passwords and data protection in a K-12 classroom setting is an obvious starting point. The literature shows an absence of approved cybersecurity curriculums for use…

In a phenomenological case study, the author sought to gain an awareness of the lived experiences of 4th and 5th grade ESL students, their parents, and their teachers who participated in the MindUp mindfulness curriculum. The author was interested in the relationship between the mindfulness curriculum and SEL based on the perspective of all three…

This study investigated the potential development and use of historical empathy in sixth-grade students while using the colonial-era historical education game "Mission US" and its associated learning activities. A collective case study was developed to describe and interpret students' experiences. The gathered data included the students'…

This comparative case study explains the perspectives, experiences, and instructional contexts of teachers working with English Learners (EL) in Grades 3-5 to plan, deliver, and assess Second Language Morphological Awareness (L2MA) across three different program models. ELs have experienced low levels of reading comprehension since the inception…

Across one school year, in which I coached a fourth-grade teacher, she and I took an inquiry stance investigating how we could come to understand the reading identities kids held relative to Stephens' (2013) list of characteristics of effective and efficient readers. We also sought to understand how we could help kids develop, sustain, or extend…