The interdisciplinary unit described in this article utilizes "Art and the Cosmic Connection," a free program conceived of by artists Monica and Tyler Aiello and developed by the artists, scientists, and educators through NASA's Discovery and New Frontiers Programs, to inspire learners to explore mysterious worlds in our solar…

In this article, the author describes how his first-grade students made their own compositions based on James Rosenquist's collage series in which long shards of faces were painted over a background that appeared to be abstract. The background was made up of enlarged details of things such as flowers, leaves, fire, and water. The students'…

The targeted reading intervention (TRI) is a professional development program for rural kindergarten and first grade classroom teachers to help them provide effective reading strategies with struggling readers. In two randomized controlled trials, the TRI was delivered two ways: (1) literacy coaches provided support for classroom teachers through…

Although students' literacy practices are influenced by a variety of sources, including texts, teachers, peers, the media, and their home culture (Dyson, 1993), the process of becoming literate is truly grounded in their cultural beliefs (Ferdman, 1990). Literacy skills are embedded in cultural practice, and cultural practice is learned implicitly…

In this article, the author describes a self-portrait project that encouraged students, boosted their self-confidence, and got them excited about their artistic abilities--while producing amazing results. This lesson effectively develops artistic ability by compelling students to see that drawing is quite simply breaking down objects into the…

This article provides an overview of the results of our project "The Kindergarten Room: A Multimodal Pedagogical Text". Our major initiative was to investigate what the multimodal texts in kindergarten represent and the extent to which they reflect and provide attributions to the children's activities. In addition, we wanted to…

In this article, the author describes an art project wherein students used simple shapes and photo references to imagine what they might look like when they are one hundred years old. The project challenged the students technically, intellectually, and emotionally. The artwork stimulated their imagination and their imagination informed their…

This study was presented at the American Educational Research Association 2012 conference in Vancouver, Canada. The study explored how action research of arts-based teaching (ABT) impacted at-risk students in three urban public schools in southern California, USA. ABT was defined as using arts, music, drama, and dance in teaching other subjects. A…

This study investigates a South African principal's view of implementing invitational education (IE) as an example of a professional development programme (PD) within a particular school setting. Two types of literature inform this study: leadership supportive of school development and the invitational education approach to teaching and learning.…

Educators have been challenged for many years to engage their students, but often students still seem to be disengaged (Klem & Connell, 2004). Research indicates student engagement is critical to student achievement and success in school (Appleton, 2008; Connell, Spencer, & Aber, 1994; Easton, 2008; Fredricks, Blumenfeld, & Paris,…

This qualitative content analysis was conducted to determine how Mexico and Mexican people are portrayed in contemporary U.S. elementary social studies textbooks. Three textbooks from each of three major publishers were analyzed. Findings are presented in five sections: images and photographs, holidays, Mexican people and heroes, contested…

This study shows the impact and results of implementing three cognitive strategies in science teaching in English. The three-month study was carried out with 144 second grade students at a public school of Bogota's Bilingualism program, but only 40 students contributed in the data collection process. Data collected from observations and…

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore why some low-income minority students were academically successful in school using a three-tiered approach to research including individual student interviews, classroom observations, and photographs and follow up interviews on photographs to identify factors contributing to academic…

In this paper, we present a design research study in Mobile Assisted Language Learning (MALL) that emphasizes learner created content and contextualized meaning making. In learning Chinese idioms, students proactively used smartphones on a 1:1 basis to capture photos of the real-life contexts pertaining to the idioms, and to construct sentences…

In this decade of Education for Sustainable Development, it is timely to consider the methodological issues associated with researching this topic not only with adults but also with the young children who, as members of the next generation, will experience the success or otherwise of current environmental sustainability efforts. We argue that it…