Rural life is more complex than it is perhaps credited. This edited volume explores several themes that highlight such complexities, particularly in terms of what they imply for rural teaching and learning. These themes include the geographic, demographic, and socioeconomic diversity within and across rural communities; the notion that rurality is not a deficit but rather a context; and the array of novel and interesting ways to build upon rural assets and overcome challenges so that rural students are not afforded fewer educational opportunities simply by virtue of their zip code. More practically, this book offers counsel for readers who may be interested in learning more about rural circumstances so that they can make informed and responsive decisions about policies and programs targeting rural students, educators, and schools.

Students of color and those of lower economic backgrounds and of underrepresented groups appear to face a disadvantage when they transition from high schools into colleges. These students tend to have lower academic preparation than white students, which leads to higher levels of stress and anxiety, as well as an increased placement in remedial courses, which negatively impacts their graduation rates. As institutions become aware of these facts and take appropriate measures to improve educational experiences, they must implement Transparency in Learning and Teaching (TILT) initiatives in order to provide equal access to education. Integrating Transparency in Learning and Teaching (TILT): An Effective Tool for Providing Equitable Opportunity in Higher Education provides information on Transparency in Learning and Teaching (TILT) concepts and how they can be used in course development to improve student learning and performance. It focuses on bringing positive learning experiences to college students, especially first-generation students, which can lead to higher levels of academic success. It strongly advocates for transparent education and provides guidance for overcoming the existing accessibility gap in higher education. Covering topics such as business education, online learning platforms, and teaching modalities, this book is an indispensable resource for academicians, faculty developers, administrators, instructional designers, professors, and researchers.

Caribbean Discourse in Inclusive Education is an edited book series that aims to give voice to Caribbean scholars, practitioners, and other professionals working in diverse classrooms. The book series is intended to provide an ongoing forum for Caribbean researchers, practitioners, and academics, including those of the Diaspora, to critically examine issues that influence the education of children within inclusive settings. The book series is visionary, timely, authoritative and presents pioneering work in the area of inclusive education in the Caribbean, as part of the broader South?South dialogue. It is essential reading for students in undergraduate and postgraduate programmes, scholars, teachers, researchers and policy makers at the regional and international level. The first book in this series entitled Historical and Contemporary Issues will trace the history and examine the Caribbean's trajectory towards the development of inclusive education in the 21st Century. The main premise of the book is that inclusion remains an ideologically sound goal, which remains elusive in the Caribbean. It will also provide a wider platform to discuss other factors that influence the development of inclusive education such as school climate, culture and ethos, LGBT issues, teacher training and professional development, pedagogy, pupil perspective, curriculum, policy and legislation.

This book provides a timely and comprehensive response to the widely acknowledged serious failings in our current knowledge of organizational leadership and culture, providing an ecologically inspired approach which unifies knowledge and practice across all of the pivotal organisational elements of leadership, culture, teamwork, creativity, complexity and wisdom. Drawing on case studies from Australia and New Zealand, Branson and Marra argue that just as ecosystems are systems of connected elements through which the energy needed to maintain the health of the system must readily flow, an organisation is also a connected system that equally requires a healthy flow of energy in order to achieve its core purpose. Their theory of organizational ecology describes how organizational connectivity, as revealed by the quality of the relationships among the people and the parts of the organization, provides the conduit through which the essential energy (in the form of knowledge, information, ideas, innovation, and support sharing) must flow. Through the application of the theory of organizational ecology, Branson and Marra illustrate how a leader must grow their leadership knowledge and wisdom in order to develop the organization's people and culture so that it is fully able to accomplish the desired vision, mission and core purpose.

This book informs readers and expands their understanding about specific challenges, issues, strategies, and solutions that are associated with women academics during mid-career and later. The book includes a variety of emerging evidence-based professional practice and narrative personal accounts as written by administrators, faculty, staff, and/or students - anyone keenly aware of the challenges faced by women in the academy. This book is ideal for instructors, administrators, professional staff, and graduate students. Perhaps most importantly, the current publication is both critical and timely given that there is a paucity of literature on the challenges and opportunities for mid-career women in higher education.

Educational robotics is a new teaching technology that aims to provide an interactive, creative, and innovative learning environment in which children can use robotics to investigate subjects such as physics and mathematics. Instructive, creative, and inspirational, this technology provides a number of benefits to education. In order to appropriately utilize this technology, further study on the opportunities and challenges of its successful integration into the classroom is required. Instilling Digital Competencies Through Educational Robotics outlines the new work culture and training guidelines emerging from innovative educational robotics practices present in the new educational and training ecosystem. The text also provides guidelines to prepare younger generations to handle new human and technology paradigms as well as acquire effective working capability for Industry 4.0 and digital transformation scenarios. Covering topics such as working culture, digital skills, and STEM education, this reference work is essential for instructional designers, educational software specialists, academicians, administrators, managers, scholars, practitioners, researchers, instructors, and students.