Teaching large numbers of students can be a challenge for both teachers and students. Implementing new teaching strategies may be 1 way to address the problem. This paper presents the impact of using Gagne's 9 events of instruction on student learning and course evaluations over a 3-semester period. Student evaluation ratings indicated enhanced teacher mastery, effectiveness, and enthusiasm. Overall student final grades increased.

The purpose of this article is to explore how teachers can use biography breaks to address the National Council of the Social Studies C3 inquiry framework and in the process meet requirements of the Common Core State Standards. We begin by illustrating and explaining biography breaks. Then we introduce the C3 framework and explain as well as demonstrate how reading picture‐book biographies can provide engaging contexts for the C3 inquiry process. A fifth grade classroom unit is taken through the entire process; then two shorter illustrations show how teachers of younger grades use biographies to incorporate the C3 inquiry framework with social studies content for their students.

Children’s literature offers many benefits to children, which include developing imagination, building knowledge, enhancing vocabulary, and offering pleasure. As it promotes these areas of development, literature can also serve as a gateway for curriculum integration. Literature can be a particularly powerful tool in executing a dynamic, integrated music lesson. In this article, the authors share how The Noisy Paint Box (2014), written by Barb Rosenstock and illustrated by Mary Grandpré, provides a context for students to explore the four artistic processes identified in the National Arts Standards in a music context: create, perform, respond, and connect. At the same time, the book provides opportunities to introduce students to artistic processes and practices shared by music, visual arts, literature, and dance.