Skill formation in Central and Eastern Europe. A search for patterns and directions of development offers holistic analytical insight into skill formation processes and institutions in Central and Eastern European countries by referring to the timeframe of historical development of skill formation from the fall of communism to the present time and future development trends. Leading researchers of skill formation from Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia, Bulgaria, Romania and Ukraine refer to critical junctures and the findings are compared and discussed in five concluding chapters focused on important cross-cutting topics: development of social dialogue over skill formation, qualifications policy and development of qualifications systems, implications of European integration and EU policies for governance and institutional reform of skill formation, features and implications of policy borrowing and policy learning from the Anglo-Saxon and German speaking countries, respectively.

This book focuses on teaching and learning in distance learning virtual universities. The emergence of distance learning virtual universities has provided increased opportunities for adult learners to obtain higher education degrees in a remote teaching-learning environment. During the pandemic, for-profit online learning institutions experienced increases in enrollment while face-to-face institutions experienced decreasing enrollments. Increasing learner enrollments, increasing numbers of courses delivered, and an increasingly competitive environment forces influence how higher education institutions will respond to the anticipated growth in distance learning. Higher education accreditation bodies have legitimized distance learning virtual universities as sites for adult learners, especially part-time adult learners, and made distance education an accepted way to receive a higher education degree. Virtual universities are challenging the supremacy of the land-based university as the only legitimate form of educational delivery. However, little has been published concerning how virtual universities have addressed access, availability, quality, retention, and better life opportunities. As the educational marketplace becomes predominately adult-dominated and higher education institutions compete for adult enrollment, understanding how virtual distance learning institutions are changing the higher education landscape will be an increasingly important issue. This book explores, describes, and questions the role of these institutions in the higher education landscape. Can for-profit education (education as a commodity) also be high quality and serve a societal function of providing adult learners access and opportunity? When critiquing the value and place of the for-profit university, one must ask, is the concern for the profit motive justified, or is it a move by traditional universities to reduce the influence of the virtual university? For-profit distance learning institutions were initially developed to provide access to higher education for adult learners who may experience barriers to attending a traditional university and, as such, tend to address better the needs of working adult learners. These institutions provided increased accessibility and availability for learners who may not otherwise pursue higher education. It is also important to note that distance education is not exclusive to for-profit universities. However, little is known about how learners learn and how teachers teach in these institutions. While sometimes neglected in publications and research, these institutions have been and continue to be disruptive while driving innovations in distance education.

Language has always been the medium of instruction, but what happens when it becomes a barrier to learning? In this book, Jane Hill and Kirsten Miller take the reenergized strategies from the second edition of Classroom Instruction That Works and apply them to students in the process of acquiring English. New features in this edition include: The Thinking Language Matrix, which aligns Bloom's taxonomy with the stages of language acquisition and allows students at all levels to engage in meaningful learning. The Academic Language Framework, an easy-to-use tool for incorporating language-development objectives into content instruction. Suggestions for helping students develop oral language that leads to improved writing. Tips for Teaching that emphasize key points and facilitate instructional planning. Whether your students are learning English as a second language or are native English speakers who need help with their language development, this practical, research-based book provides the guidance necessary to ensure better results for all.

What is most remarkable about the assortment of discipline programs on the market today is the number of fundamental assumptions they seem to share. Some may advocate the use of carrots rather than sticks; some may refer to punishments as "logical consequences". But virtually all take for granted that the teacher must be in control of the classroom, and that what we need are strategies to get students to comply with the adult's expectations. Alfie Kohn challenged these widely accepted premises, and with them the very idea of classroom "management", when the original edition of Beyond Discipline was published in 1996. Since then, his path-breaking book has invited hundreds of thousands of educators to question the assumption that problems in the classroom are always the fault of students who don't do what they're told; instead, it may be necessary to reconsider what it is that they've been told to do - or to learn. Kohn shows how a fundamentally cynical view of children underlies the belief that we must tell them exactly how we expect them to behave and then offer "positive reinforcement" when they obey. Just as memorizing someone else's right answers fails to promote students' intellectual development, so does complying with someone else's expectations for how to act fail to help students develop socially or morally. Kohn contrasts the idea of discipline, in which things are done to students to control their behaviour, with an approach in which we work with students to create caring communities where decisions are made together. Beyond Discipline has earned the status of an education classic, a vital alternative to all the traditional manuals that consist of techniques for imposing control. For this 10th anniversary edition, Kohn adds a new afterword that expands on the book's central themes and responds to questions from readers. Packed with stories from real classrooms around the country, seasoned with humor and grounded in a vision as practical as it is optimistic, Beyond Discipline shows how students are most likely to flourish in schools that have moved toward collaborative problem solving - and beyond discipline.

When we embark on a journey, every action revolves around the destination. Of course, not all trips are smooth sailing. We inevitably hit distractions, obstacles, and detours. These challenges threaten to blow us off course, but when we stay focused on the destination rather than the barriers, we can move forward. The same is true in education. Barriers to effective teaching are neither permanent states nor character traits. Rather, they are temporary challenges successful coaches help teachers overcome by connecting them with the right methods and keeping them focused on the destination. In Compassionate Coaching, Kathy Perret and Kenny McKee identify the six most vexing challenges teachers face-lack of confidence, failure, overload, disruption, isolation, and school culture challenges-and the six corresponding ways that coaches can help teachers surmount them, dubbed the compassionate coaching focus areas. Coaching with compassion is a process focused on partnership, empowerment, prioritization, routine, connection, and openness. Done well, it can result in transformational improvements to student achievement and teacher work satisfaction. In some cases, it can even shift the trajectory of whole schools. Roadblocks and detours can get in our way when we are coaching just as they can during any journey. Instead of grumbling about the setbacks, we can open our eyes to the possibilities of a new and better route. That's what compassionate coaching offers. Let's go!

Drawing on recent research perspectives, the book discusses how social investment policies could be responsive to territorial inequalities in terms of better policy coordination, capacities, and institutional infrastructures' adaptability to territorial needs. By combining theoretical notions about territorial cohesion, territorial development, and social investment, the book provides an argument for the "territorialization of social investment policy" in the case of Lithuania. The contributions of various authors encourage a different way of looking at the territorial sensitivity of welfare policy strategies implemented in advantaged developing areas and those which are disadvantaged peripheral territories.

Based on recognition, evaluation, and exploitation of opportunities, entrepreneurship is a process that stimulates economic growth, provides us with new products and services, and serves as a solution to low unemployment rates. Hence, many governments encourage their citizens to embrace entrepreneurship as a strategy to mitigate unemployment, particularly youth and graduate unemployment. While studies show that entrepreneurship education has yielded positive results in Western countries, in other parts of the world it seems that most students still prefer to seek paid employment in their career of choice. Promoting Entrepreneurship to Reduce Graduate Unemployment seeks to expand understanding of the barriers that face graduates in becoming entrepreneurs in various countries, examining the role of educational institutions in promoting graduate entrepreneurship and evaluating governments as well as other schemes that promote graduate entrepreneurship. Although it will not be a panacea for all the obstacles that impede graduate entrepreneurship, it is hoped that this book will illuminate the entrepreneurship career path, serve as a platform for further diagnosis for reducing graduate unemployment, and highlight areas in need of further research. Covering topics such as entrepreneurial self-efficacy, career choice, and educated unemployment, it serves as a dynamic resource for educators, educational administration and faculty, government institutions, graduate students, student organizations, professionals, researchers, and academicians.

In-service teacher professional development is central to most empirical conceptions of educational quality. As the techniques and strategies for educational reform have spread rapidly throughout the world, teacher professional development practices have been borrowed across borders. It is important to study the global sharing of information on teacher professional development. Global Perspectives on Teacher Performance Improvement examines the implementation of proven, high quality teacher professional development practices in unique environments around the world. It further explains the power of a globally connected community of teacher quality improvement. Covering topics such as mentoring programs, education technology, and education workforce, this book is an essential resource for educational administration and faculty, pre-service teachers, the public education sector, government officials, educators of both K-12 and higher education, researchers, and academicians.

"Good lesson plans have an almost mysterious power; they declare that all information can be interesting, that every skill acquired broadens our potentials to make a better world, and that all impassioned activity leads to learning. Our best teachers have shown us over and over that life is not a struggle against boredom and compliance; it is a wonder to be apprehended. Every bit of SEL you can integrate into your planning will not only begin to heal the wounds of passivity, racism, and inequity, but also give students an experience today, in your classroom, of that better world." Jeffrey Benson draws from his 40-plus years of experience as a teacher and an administrator to provide explicit, step-by-step guidance on how to incorporate social and emotional learning (SEL) into K-12 lesson planning-without imposing a separate SEL curriculum. The book identifies SEL skills in three broad categories: skills for self, interpersonal skills, and skills as a community member. It offers research-based strategies for seamlessly integrating these skills into every section of lesson plans, from introducing a topic in a way that sparks students' interest, to accessing prior knowledge, providing direct instruction, allowing time for experimentation and discovery, using formative assessment, and closing a lesson in a purposeful rather than haphazard manner. In addition to practical advice on lesson planning that can lead to improved student motivation and achievement, Benson offers inspiration, urging both new and veteran teachers to seize every opportunity to develop caring, joyful communities of learners whose experiences and skills can contribute to a better, more equitable world both inside and outside the classroom.

Due to the increasingly diverse populations found in Pre-K-12 education, it is imperative that teacher educators prepare preservice teachers to meet the shifting needs of changing student populations. Through the integration of social justice education, teacher educators can challenge the mainstream curriculum with a lens of equity and collaborative equality. Integrating Social Justice Education in Teacher Preparation Programs is a critical research book that explores the preparation and teaching methods of educators for including social justice curriculum. Highlighting a wide range of topics such as ethics, language-based learning, and feminism, this book is ideal for academicians, curriculum designers, social scientists, teacher educators, researchers, and students.

In this digital age, faculty, teachers, and teacher educators are increasingly expected to adopt and adapt pedagogical perspectives to support student learning in instructional environments featuring online or blended learning. One highly adopted element of online and blended learning involves the use of online learning discussions. Discussion-based learning offers a rich pedagogical context for creating learning opportunities as well as a great deal of flexibility for a wide variety of learning and learner contexts. As post-secondary and, increasingly, K-12 institutions cope with the rapid growth of online learning, and an increase in the cultural diversity of learners, it is critical to understand, at a detailed level, the relationship between online interaction and learning and how educationally-effective interactions might be nurtured, in an inclusive way, by instructors. The Handbook of Research on Online Discussion-Based Teaching Methods is a cutting-edge research publication that seeks to identify promising designs, pedagogical and assessment strategies, conceptual models, and theoretical frameworks that support discussion-based learning in online and blended learning environments. This book provides a better understanding of the effects and both commonalities and differences of new tools that support interaction, such as video, audio, and real-time interaction in discussion-based learning. Featuring a wide range of topics such as gamification, intercultural learning, and digital agency, this book is ideal for teachers, educational software developers, instructional designers, IT consultants, academicians, curriculum designers, researchers, and students.

Early childhood educators are keenly aware of the importance of a child's transition to ""real school."" This transition is occurring earlier in a child's life now that school districts nationwide are moving to pre-kindergarten experiences for 3- and 4-year olds. Annually, more than one million children attend public school pre-k programs overseen by elementary school principals who, although veteran educational leaders, were not trained to oversee these programs. Although pre-k classrooms are rapidly growing and deserve special attention, school leaders must be reminded that early childhood means more than pre-kindergarten; it extends through third grade. School leadership needs to understand the principles of early childhood education to effectively support all children age three to grade three. Professional and Ethical Consideration for Early Childhood Leaders is a collection of innovative research that crafts an overall understanding of the importance of early childhood leadership in today's schools. The book employs strategies to improve support for children in early childhood years, examines the different roles of early childhood leadership, analyzes best practices for implementation in early childhood contexts, and explores improvements for leadership preparation for schools with pre-k through third-grade children. While highlighting a wide range of topics including advocacy, cultural responses, and professional development, this publication is ideally designed for educators, administrators, principals, early childhood development teachers, daycare instructors, curriculum developers, advocates, researchers, academicians, and students.