Critical consciousness (CC) is the ability to understand, critique, and act against oppressive social structures and systemic forces. To assist educators in understanding and enacting strategies that foster CC, the authors identified examples of CC in third through fifth grade virtual classes of a 2020 "Children's Defense Fund's" Freedom…

Civic purpose involves both students' attitudinal and behavioral commitments to social causes and is critical for our young generation to flourish as human beings and to withhold a healthy democracy in the current social climate. The purpose of the current study was to investigate the relations among elementary students' social-, moral-…

Redundancy effect has been investigated in many controlled experimental studies, however, it is seldom investigated whether the same redundant material may cause different results in classroom, which is a major learning place for students. Considering that it is not easy to control the internal validity in classroom environment, this study…

Students with learning disabilities (LD) often face significant difficulties in reading. Research has found a variety of different evidence-based practices to support the reading development of students with LD in areas such as word work, vocabulary, and reading comprehension. However, these practices are most often intended for use in traditional…

Faced with school closures in the spring of 2020 due to COVID-19, middle level teacher candidates were left with no way to finish their field experiences. The challenge continued into the fall with many schools providing only virtual learning and some not allowing visitors on campus. This article describes the steps one university middle level…

Web2.0 platforms are allowed to implement worlds completely virtual through technological devices, where the user has the ability to be anywhere anytime and can do almost anything you can imagine. These worlds allow to rediscover the senses through the use of technology. The virtual space can be used to bring students and teachers to this space…

Engaging students in self-reflection about their learning performance is a potentially promising pedagogical approach for supporting math learning. However, it is unclear how models for math learning in regular classrooms translate in a virtual environment. The purpose of this paper is to (a) analyze rich assessment data from virtual schools to…

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between virtual school size and student achievement in virtual schools in a southwestern state. Enrollment size and the following areas were studied in an attempt to determine student achievement: STAAR English Language Arts/Reading, STAAR Math, STAAR Science, and STAAR Social Studies…

As a fifth-grade mathematics teacher, the author tries to create authentic problem-solving activities that connect to the world in which his students live. He discovered a natural connection to his students' real world at a computer camp. A friend introduced him to Alice, a computer application developed at Carnegie Mellon, under the leadership of…

Teaching and learning tools such as Moodle and Web 2.0 tools are appearing in K-12 classrooms; however, there is a lack of scholarly research to guide the implementation of these tools. The WebQuest model, a widely adopted inquiry-based model for online instruction, has instructional inadequacies and does not make the most of emerging…

Hands-on science typically uses physical materials to give students first-hand experience in scientific methodologies, but the recent availability of virtual laboratories raises an important question about whether what students' hands are on matters to their learning. The overall findings of two articles that employed simple comparisons of…

The Technology Enhanced Elementary and Middle School Science II project (TEEMSS), funded by the National Science Foundation, produced 15 inquiry-based instructional science units for teaching in grades 3-8. Each unit uses computers and probeware to support students' investigations of real-world phenomena using probes (e.g., for temperature or…

In today's global society, individuals with an understanding of different cultures that have the ability to apply this understanding to real world problem solving are more likely to become leaders. Preparing students for a global society is becoming a significant part of education. While many international online exchange projects have been…

This book contains a compilation of papers presented at the International Conference on Education and New Developments (END 2017), organized by the World Institute for Advanced Research and Science (W.I.A.R.S.). Education, in our contemporary world, is a right since we are born. Every experience has a formative effect on the constitution of the…