Against a backdrop of advocacy for interdisciplinary STEM curricula, this paper explores the design principles underpinning a three-year longitudinal research project that develops and evaluates ...interdisciplinary mathematics and science learning sequences involving multiple teachers and student cohorts across the primary school years. The research uses design-based methodology and deploys a pedagogical cycle based on representation construction and model-based reasoning, reflecting core disciplinary processes, and aimed at foundational concepts. The interdisciplinary structure of sequences in different topics, teacher pedagogy, and student reasoning and learning are illustrated through analysis of three learning sequence vignettes. In these topics both mathematical learning (measure, data modelling and spatial reasoning) and science learning (concepts and practices), were reinforced and enriched through the interdisciplinary framing. Drawing on notes of teacher planning and review meetings, coupled with classroom data, we identify (a) the conceptual and curricular design features through which mathematics and science can synergistically interweave, (b) the epistemological design challenges involved in working with teachers to achieve this interdisciplinary alignment, and (c) the key pedagogical design features that emerged to support this integration. The research contributes to conceptualising how interdisciplinary processes that enable synergistic interweaving of mathematics and science content and processes can be effectively framed and enacted.
We analyze the impact of classroom peers’ ability (measured by their individual fixed effects) on student achievement for all Florida public school students in grades 3–10 over a 6-year period. We ...control for both student and teacher fixed effects, thereby alleviating biases due to endogenous assignment of both peers and teachers. Under linear-in-means specifications, estimated peer effects are small to nonexistent, but we find some sizable and significant peer effects within nonlinear models. We also find that classroom peers, as compared with the broader group of grade-level peers at the same school, exert a greater influence on individual achievement gains.
Background
Further developing students’ thinking about knowledge and knowing in science (epistemic beliefs) is considered a normative goal of science education in many countries around the world, ...even for elementary‐school‐aged children.
Aims
The goal of the present study was to introduce and evaluate a new intervention in science education aimed at developing children's epistemic beliefs, epistemic curiosity, and investigative interests. The intervention included an inquiry‐based learning approach as well as reflections on epistemic issues because these methods are currently seen as most promising for fostering students’ epistemic beliefs.
Sample
Data were collected from 65 elementary school children in Grades 3 and 4 (58.46% boys, age: M = 8.73, SD = 0.60) who participated in a voluntary extracurricular STEM enrichment programme in south‐west Germany.
Methods
We investigated the effectiveness of the intervention by applying a randomized block design with a treated control group and repeated measures. The effectiveness of the intervention was analysed via multiple linear regression analyses.
Results
The results indicated that the children assigned to the intervention developed more sophisticated epistemic beliefs and a higher level of epistemic curiosity than the children assigned to the control condition. No intervention effects were found on investigative interests.
Conclusions
The results provide initial evidence for the effectiveness of the intervention and demonstrate that it is possible to improve epistemic beliefs among elementary school children in Grades 3 and 4. The study provides a starting point for understanding how young children develop epistemic beliefs.
As engineering learning experiences increasingly begin in elementary school, elementary teacher preparation programs are an important site for the study of teacher development in engineering ...education. In this article, we argue that the stances that novice teachers adopt toward engineering learning and knowledge are consequential for the opportunities they create for students. We present a comparative case study examining the epistemological framing dynamics of two novice urban teachers, Ana and Ben, as they learned and taught engineering design during a four‐week institute for new elementary teachers. Although the two teachers had very similar teacher preparation backgrounds, they interpreted the purposes of engineering design learning and teaching in meaningfully different ways. During her own engineering sessions, Ana took up the goal not only of meeting the needs of the client but also of making scientific sense of artifacts that might meet those needs. When facilitating students' engineering, she prioritized their building knowledge collaboratively about how things work. By contrast, when Ben worked on his own engineering, he took up the goal of delivering a product. When teaching engineering to students, he offered them constrained prototyping tasks to serve as hands‐on contexts for reviewing scientific explanations. These findings call for teacher educators to support teachers' framing of engineering design as a knowledge building enterprise through explicit conversations about epistemology, apprenticeship in sense‐making strategies, and tasks intentionally designed to encourage reasoning about design artifacts.
Bullying behavior is recognized internationally as a serious issue associated with mental health and functioning problems among children.
The present study sought to determine the associations ...between bullying involvement and self-reported mental health among elementary school children across seven European countries.
The School Children Mental Health in Europe study was conducted in Bulgaria, Germany, Italy, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Romania and Turkey in 2010 using similar methodology to collect cross-sectional data from children, parents, and teachers.
The study focused on children who had completed the Dominic Interactive and whose mother and/or teacher had completed the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (n = 5,183).
Overall 14.3 % of children were identified as bullies, 18.2 % as victims and, 19.0 % as both bullies and victims. Despite the low threshold for defining bullying status, children identified as being involved were highly likely to present with self-reported mental health problems: 31.6 % of bully-victims reported any disorder, while 25.4 % of bullies and 23.1 % of victims did. Adjusting for key factors, bullies and bully-victims were significantly more likely to present with any externalizing disorder, while victims were not. Additionally, bully-victim status was associated with significantly greater odds of presenting with each internalizing disorder: phobia (AOR = 1.48, 95 %CI = 1.01–2.19), GAD (AOR = 2.54, 95 %CI = 1.67–3.87), separation anxiety (AOR = 1.88, 95 %CI = 1.43–2.47) and depression (AOR = 2.52, 95 %CI = 1.61–3.93). However, victim status was only associated with GAD (AOR = 1.63, 95 %CI = 1.07–2.48) and bully status with separation anxiety (AOR = 1.44, 95 %CI = 1.07–1.93).
The results highlight the association of bullying involvement and child mental health in elementary school children across Europe.
This study modeled teacher—student relationship trajectories throughout elementary school to predict gains in achievement in an ethnic-diverse sample of 657 academically at-risk students (mean age = ...6.57 years, SD = .39). Teacher reports of warmth and conflict were collected in Grades 1-5. Achievement was tested in Grades 1 and 6. For conflict, low-stable (normative), low-increasing, high-declining, and high-stable trajectories were found. For warmth, high-declining (normative) and low-increasing patterns were found. Children with early behavioral, academic, or social risks were underrepresented in the normative trajectory groups. Chronic conflict was most strongly associated with underachievement. Rising conflict but not declining Conflict coincided with underachievement. The probability of school failure increased as a function of the timing and length of time children were exposed to relational adversity.
The authors present a systematic review of elementary school universal school-based (USB) social and emotional learning (SEL) interventions from 2008 through 2020 for two groups of minoritized ...students in education research and practice: students with disabilities and/or minoritized racial identities. Completed in accordance with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses standards, in this review the authors identified 269 studies for inclusion, which reflected 107 USB SEL interventions. Eleven studies explicitly excluded students with disabilities. Studies varied widely in how disability and racial identity were categorized within and across studies and provided limited evidence of effectiveness through the use of subgroup analyses to support meaningful assessment of how students with disabilities and racially minoritized elementary school age students are benefiting from USB SEL interventions. The authors discuss the limitations of findings, education research best practices, and the minimum reporting standards necessary to ensure ability and racially minoritized youth representation in future USB SEL research.
Teachers' attitudes toward inclusion are often based on the practical implementation of inclusive education rather than a specific ideology and understanding of inclusiveness. This study aimed to ...identify the factors associated with primary school teachers' attitudes towards inclusion of students with all disabilities in regular schools.
Seventy four primary school teachers participated in a cross-sectional survey conducted in Western Australia. Teachers' attitudes and efficacy toward integration of students with disabilities were measured using the Opinions Relative to Integration of Students with Disabilities scale and Bandura's Teacher Efficacy scale respectively.
Four teacher attributes-age, gender, teaching self-efficacy and training collectively explained 42% of the variability in teachers' attitude toward including students with disabilities.
The current study further contributes to the accumulation of knowledge that can unpack the complex pattern of factors that should be considered to promote positive attitudes towards inclusive schools.
Previous research has demonstrated a link between spatial and math skills. However, little research has examined this relation longitudinally. The present study examines the development of and ...reciprocal relations between spatial and math skills in elementary school students. We administered two spatial tasks and a math task to 312 first- through third-grade students who were tested in the spring for three consecutive school years. Linear growth models showed increases for each skill across the three school years. A random intercepts cross-lagged panel analysis indicated that controlling for task-specific (i.e., autoregressive) growth, there was a relation between spatial visualization/mental rotation at Year 1 and math performance at Year 2. In addition, math scores in Year 2 predicted Year 3 spatial visualization/mental rotation skills as well as Year 3 spatial perception skills. Further, there were significant differences in task performance depending on grade in school, and there were gender differences in spatial perception and sometimes math performance. Thus, we find some evidence for reciprocal relations between spatial and math skills over development, but our results suggest that the particular type of spatial skill measured is important to consider in studying these relations.
Objective: To examine effects of a teacher consultation and coaching program delivered by school and community mental health professionals on change in observed classroom interactions and child ...functioning across one school year. Method: Thirty-six classrooms within 5 urban elementary schools (87% Latino, 11% Black) were randomly assigned to intervention (training + consultation/coaching) and control (training only) conditions. Classroom and child outcomes (n = 364; 43% girls) were assessed in the fall and spring. Results: Random effects regression models showed main effects of intervention on teacher-student relationship closeness, academic self-concept, and peer victimization. Results of multiple regression models showed levels of observed teacher emotional support in the fall moderated intervention impact on emotional support at the end of the school year. Conclusions: Results suggest teacher consultation and coaching can be integrated within existing mental health activities in urban schools and impact classroom effectiveness and child adaptation across multiple domains.
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