Educational outcomes in Kuwait have lagged behind those of much of the world. This problem is compounded by Kuwaiti educators' struggle to introduce core math and science concepts to young learners. Starting from the premise that STEAM-oriented education will make these concepts more accessible, this study seeks to demonstrate the potential…

The modern teacher must respond to the needs of society in the context of Education 4.0. It seems suitable to adapt this trend to teaching children at an early age. The paper examines the usefulness of professional education for kindergarten and primary school teachers focused on personality development, emotional intelligence, and other social…

According to the Michigan Department of Education, between 2011 and 2017, the number of multilingual learners (MLs) enrolled in K-12 schools in the state increased by more than 50%. In 2017, the average teacher to ML ratio in the state was an alarmingly low 1:168. To increase the number of teachers prepared to effectively serve MLs, we developed…

When one hears the term "coach" one often thinks of someone standing on the sideline of an athletic field with a whistle, and a clipboard. An instructional coach is someone who also cheers teachers on, providing guidance and support in order to move teachers forward in their practice. Much like their students, teachers also benefit from…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to explore the conditions and challenges that facilitate teacher professional learning through the implementation of pedagogical mentoring (PM) within the Chilean school context. Design/methodology/approach: This study employed a qualitative methods approach, utilizing an instrumental case study. As the…

This cross-sectional study was designed to identify Slovenian early childhood educators' beliefs concerning the importance of the competencies required to carry out physical education (PE), to identify which of those competencies early childhood educators might lack and to identify which competencies should be developed in the process of…

This article presents the correlation analyses of mathematics item response theory scores from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998 and 2010 data, and proposes the critical need for systematic efforts to improve the quality of pre- and in-service teachers of young children in teaching mathematics.

This article presents the findings from a teacher intervention in Dutch kindergartens aimed at improving teachers' differentiation practices (DP) to better anticipate student differences. The intervention was designed to improve the match between student levels and curricular activities, in particular for high-ability students and consists of…

Child Friendly School (CFS) is a democratic environment based on children's rights, where all students are accepted, teaching-learning processes are organized according to children's interest needs, health, safety and protective measures are taken for children and gender-based discrimination is not provided. Preschool education institutions, which…

This study compared Chinese kindergarten teachers' values and perceptions of program quality with trained raters' assessments of quality in order to gain insights into effective professional development for improving teacher quality. A total of 284 Chinese kindergarten teachers self-assessed the quality of their classroom teaching and rated their…

In this paper, we report on 2 studies developing, testing, and using an observation tool for measuring primary literacy instruction, the Developing Language and Literacy Teaching (DLLT) rubrics. In Study 1 (an instrumentation study), we show that the DLLT has a high level of internal consistency, that there are high levels of inter-rater…

Early intervention is key to preventing academic failure and referral to special education. General educators are responsible for providing primary instruction for students at risk for failure; however, the training they receive related to specific instructional strategies for these students is often insufficient (e.g., 1-day workshops).…

Continuing professional development (CPD) for teachers must be situated within the context of the practice of teachers and be relevant to their teaching and learning needs. A CPD project was conducted in a Hong Kong kindergarten class. For five years prior to the CPD project, the class had used a mixed curriculum of project approach topics and…

Standards can aid educators as they work to produce strong student writers who can create meaningful and skillfully crafted authentic pieces of writing. This once-a-month, yearlong professional development program, conducted during the school day, shifted a district's kindergarten writing program to a writing workshop model that enabled the…

Despite the fact that two of every three students in U.S. schools have reading proficiencies below the level needed to adequately do grade-level work, schools don't make a point of offering either high-quality professional development for kindergarten teachers nor expert tutorial instruction for at-risk kindergartners. This means that most schools…