Data from PISA and TIMSS have recently fuelled the debate on the efficacy of Inquiry-Based Science Teaching (IBST). Some analyses of these data show that the effects of different scientific activities related to IBST carried out with students vary according to the frequency of their implementation. Extending this research, the present study…

Our study focuses on the effective implementation of "constellations," an institutional scheme for the in-service training of primary school teachers of mathematics and French, established in France since 2020. Based on a bottom-up training model, this scheme aims to encourage reflexive analysis of practices among peers, based on…

This paper discusses the relevance of using physical situations to introduce the concept of angles at elementary school. We compare the effectiveness of two geometry teaching sequences. In the first one (physical sequence), the pupils learned the angle concept by experimenting on the playground (i.e. mesospace) and then modelling the situation. In…

This article raises the question of how to develop student engagement in activities for sustainable development in schools. It presents a case study in France resulting from a collaborative research involving the authors of this paper and a design team composed of two coordinators and two teachers, from elementary school and from the beginning of…

Purpose: Typically developing (TD) bilingual children usually produce narratives with preserved macrostructure (i.e., narrative scheme) but with impaired microstructure (i.e., language complexity). As for monolingual and bilingual children with developmental language disorder (DLD), they usually produce narratives with both impaired macro- and…

This case study investigated the practiced language policies of a French elementary school educator, Catherine, as she implemented the French National Cycle of instruction for the early elementary grades with a culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) class of students. The findings revealed that macro-level policies--such as curriculum and…

Educational apps can help children develop their early numeracy skills, but only if they incorporate certain pedagogical features. AppLINOU is an early numeracy app that was co-designed by a multidisciplinary team to be compatible with the way numeracy is taught in France's preschools. This study of whether incorporating AppLINOU into classroom…

We explored the use of field trips for educational and teaching purposes by French kindergarten, primary-school teachers and natural science teachers in secondary schools. More specifically, we studied field trips in a "natural" environment by undertaking a French curriculum analysis and surveying teachers. We examined the responses of…

Walk a Day in My Shoes is a curricular project designed to provide a starting point for teachers to cultivate cross-cultural understanding among elementary-age students. In this curricular project, students created their own digital stories about a day spent in their shoes. Through photography, writing, and digital storytelling, each student…

In France, education policies concerning children's home languages have recently changed, with the country's highly centralized and monolingual national education system now promoting inclusive language policies, specifically at the pre-primary level (M.E.N. (Ministère de l'Education Nationale). 2016. "Statégie langues vivantes." 22…

In this paper, we provide an overall perspective on the teaching and learning of discrete mathematics. Our aim is to highlight what research has been conducted in this area and to connect it to existing research ideas for future work. We begin by characterizing discrete mathematics and its role in the school curriculum, highlighting themes,…

This paper describes some elements of a specific kind of design-based research, cooperative engineering. In the first part of the paper, we argue that cooperative engineering can be analyzed through a joint action framework. We first present some conceptual tools that the Joint Action Theory in Didactics proposes in order to understand didactic…

Age-classes are a salient feature of modern schooling. Yet how did age-grouping come to prevail in entire school systems? And how was this form of grouping related to educational and pedagogic discussions at the time of its emergence? The article addresses these issues by looking at the historical context within which age classes came to a…

We investigated French primary school teachers' assessment practice in mathematics. Using an online questionnaire on teachers' background, teaching, and grading practice, we were able to determine assessment profiles of 604 primary school teachers. As evidenced by the teachers' scores on the latent factors Assessment purposes, Assessment…

Before and during the era when mass elementary schooling took off, children populated classrooms in many roles and not only as learners. The traditional teaching situation was actually full of children in roles as instructors, inspectors, and helpers, among others. In this contribution, the dichotomisation of expected classroom roles, being a…