Elementary

Three short (4-5 session) curriculum units and an engineering design challenge include firsthand, guided explorations of energy in everyday phenomena. Beginning with easily observable phenomena, such as ball collisions, students look for signs of energy, create and use a variety of representations including "energy cubes," and discuss questions and findings. They develop the practice of asking, "Where does the energy come from?" and "Where does the energy go?" and learn to track the flow of energy in increasingly complex scenarios.

Three short (4-5 session) curriculum units and an engineering design challenge include firsthand, guided explorations of energy in everyday phenomena. Beginning with easily observable phenomena, such as ball collisions, students look for signs of energy, create and use a variety of representations including "energy cubes," and discuss questions and findings. They develop the practice of asking, "Where does the energy come from?" and "Where does the energy go?" and learn to track the flow of energy in increasingly complex scenarios.

School, home, and neighborhoods make large amounts of garbage every day. In answering the driving question of the unit, “What happens to our garbage?”, students investigate a series of subquestions (e.g., “What is that smell?” and “What causes changes in the properties of garbage materials?”) that address a targeted set of physical science and life science performance expectations. Over nine weeks of instruction, students develop a coherent understanding of the structure and properties of matter to make sense of the anchoring phenomenon and to answer the driving question.

School, home, and neighborhoods make large amounts of garbage every day. In answering the driving question of the unit, “What happens to our garbage?”, students investigate a series of subquestions (e.g., “What is that smell?” and “What causes changes in the properties of garbage materials?”) that address a targeted set of physical science and life science performance expectations. Over nine weeks of instruction, students develop a coherent understanding of the structure and properties of matter to make sense of the anchoring phenomenon and to answer the driving question.

Design Technology and Engineering Education (DTEEL) for bilingual English Learner Students is a K-5th grade curriculum focused on language development through engineering design and problem solving. Each grade level includes a series of units focused on different aspects of engineering: Materials, Structures, Mechanisms, and Work & Energy. The last two grade levels add units that synthesize these engineering components with a Systems focus on Systems. Each lesson includes instructional strategies to strategically integrate language use and engineering content.

Fun and easy to use math games designed for children ages 3 to 6-years-old. Some games are quick and use everyday materials; others use a game board for more extended play. All of the games can be played multiple times and their difficulty can be increased or decreased to target a “just right” level of challenge for children as they gain proficiency.

Sensing Science has created several free educational apps for iPads to build conceptual understanding of matter and its changes in kindergarten students. Related resources and support materials are available.

The Fraction Activities and Assessments for Conceptual Teaching (FAACT) instructional program is designed to support teachers’ insights into students’ conceptual understandings of fractions. The overall program goal is to foster a deep conceptual understanding of fractions as quantities for students with LD and math difficulty. FAACT is designed from validated learning trajectories, which consist of a learning goal, developmental stages of thinking, and activities designed to explicitly promote the stages of thinking.

By encouraging elementary students to work collaboratively, they can gain essential skills such as perspective taking, conflict negotiation, and asking for and receiving assistance. Epistemic Network Analysis (ENA) is an analytic technique that provides an alternative to more typical approaches to analyzing and synthesizing coded dialogue. This study used an easy-to-implement prompting intervention in the context of collaborative (pair) programming with upper elementary students to demonstrate the potential of ENA to understand the impact of the intervention.

By encouraging elementary students to work collaboratively, they can gain essential skills such as perspective taking, conflict negotiation, and asking for and receiving assistance. Epistemic Network Analysis (ENA) is an analytic technique that provides an alternative to more typical approaches to analyzing and synthesizing coded dialogue. This study used an easy-to-implement prompting intervention in the context of collaborative (pair) programming with upper elementary students to demonstrate the potential of ENA to understand the impact of the intervention.