The use of teaching practices that involve intertextual relationship discovery in today's elementary classrooms is increasingly essential to the success of young learners of reading. Teachers must constantly strive to expand their perspective of how to incorporate the dialogue included in prior knowledge assessment. Teachers must also consider how…

In this paper, I offer a framework for exploring the academic and disciplinary identities young African American children construct in urban science classrooms. Using interviews, fieldnotes, and videotapes of classroom lessons, I juxtapose the ways in which two children tell about their experiences in school and science with their performances of…

In response to the needs for understanding teaching practices and approaches with a technology tool in actual elementary classrooms, this paper examines the perspectives of American elementary teachers who use classroom wikis. Specially, it examines three main ideas: (a) teaching approaches and strategies across subject areas in the primary and…

There are some small urban high schools that have high levels of student engagement in science. However, much of the science education research and student teacher placement in urban areas is done in large, somewhat dysfunctional schools. Those who have created these effective environments for science show that it is only in the "whole school…

This essay explores what it might mean to read children's literature in elementary school classrooms through a queer lens. The authors argue that because queer theory has a history as a literary theory that destabilizes normative associations among gender, sexuality, bodies, and desire, it provides a set of analytical tools classroom communities…

For three years, a flagship university-school partnership program developed a multifaceted approach to integrate news and current events into in-school and after-school instruction in K-6 schools. Three case studies detailing the program's impact on an undergraduate novice instructor, an in-school technology mentor, and an experienced classroom…

This study focuses on self-efficacy, attitudes, perceived preparedness, and the knowledge of preservice teachers in the USA regarding isolated English Language Learners (ELLs) in high school classrooms. In the first study, 62 preservice teachers who were doing their student teaching completed a survey on: (a) their perceived preparation and…

Perspective taking, which is seeing a viewpoint other than one's own, is critical in interpersonal understanding and in cross-cultural communication. It is especially crucial in diverse societies such as the United States as well as in countries where immigrants from other nations are living as one community. Hence, this article focuses on…

Background/Context: With the ever increasing diversity of schools, and the persistent need to develop teaching strategies for the students who attend today's urban schools, hip-hop culture has been proposed to be a means through which urban youth can find success in school. As a result, studies of the role of hip-hop in urban education have grown…

This paper reports multi-layered analyses of student learning in a science classroom using the theoretical lens of Distributed Cognition (Hollan et al. 1999; Hutchins 1995). Building on the insights generated from previous research employing Distributed Cognition, the particular focus of this study has been placed on the "public space of…

This study investigated whether students who engage in inquiry dialogue with others improve their performance on various tasks measuring argumentation development. The study used an educational environment called Philosophy for Children (P4C) to examine specific theoretical assumptions regarding the role dialogic interaction plays in the…

Change in education is not going away; instead, it seems to be increasing exponentially. Technology has been the catalyst, and the changes with the greatest impact on education are the location and size of the classroom. The challenges associated with these changes involve working with students from potentially an unlimited number of countries and…

The purpose of this article is to provide an overview of inquiry-based instruction and to outline components of inquiry-based instruction key to ensuring that students with disabilities in inclusive science classrooms acquire core concepts. The use of collaboration, big ideas, knowledge and retention strategies, and formative assessments are…

Internet tools associated with Web 2.0 such as wikis, blogs, and video podcasts are increasingly available in elementary classrooms. ("Web 2.0" is a vaguely defined, folk-tech term that means, roughly, the Internet and all software and devices, constantly improving, that strive to exploit it in creative and useful ways.) Today,…

This microgenetic study examined social influences on children's development of analogical reasoning during peer-led small-group discussions of stories about controversial issues. A total of 277 analogies were identified among 7,215 child turns for speaking during 54 discussions from 18 discussion groups in 6 fourth-grade classrooms (N = 120; age…