This book highlights those aspects of Vygotskian theory which are most cogent to Science Education, including the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD), concept development, play and imagination. Whilst these and other Vygotskian constructs apply to both research and practice in all forms of Science Education, this book employs a specific and critical focus on one or two key concepts for each context. Thus play and imagination are explored in depth in the chapter on science in early childhood learning, the ZPD is considered in depth in the primary school science chapter, and concept development in the secondary-level chapter. Chapters on higher education science learning and teaching, science teacher education, informal science learning, science education research, and the scientific endeavour itself draws on those aspects of Vygotskian theory which relate most closely. This book makes an important contribution to Vygotskian theory. Never before has it been applied so widely and comprehensively to the field of science and STEM education. The book is intended for students and academics in science and STEM education and the social sciences. It is also of interest to Vygotsky scholars and those involved in the analysis of pedagogic practice within and beyond science and STEM education.

This book provides tools to help pre-service teachers and teacher-preparation programs identify, evaluate, and respond to misaligned expectations early in the teacher-preparation sequence. Plato tells the story of prisoners who mistake the shadows on the wall of their cave for flesh-and-blood reality. These "shadow narratives" dominated their expectations, and when confronted with a three-dimensional reality that bore little resemblance to the shadows, the prisoners were blinded by the light. Surrounded by images and rhetoric that reduce the fullness of teaching to flat, two-dimensional representations, today's pre-service teachers tend to develop expectations of teaching that resemble the shadows more than they resemble reality. These misaligned expectations often lead to practice shock: the painful and disillusioning cognitive dissonance that comes about when unsustainable expectations collide with real-world practice. Intended as a proactive manual for mitigating practice shock, this book shines a light on the shadows by giving pre-service teachers the tools to examine, confront, and revise their own misaligned expectations of teaching before they reach the point of crisis.

In this edited book sponsored by the ATE Diversity Committee, we invited teacher educators to engage in critical dialogue and reflection around theories, issues, complexities, and challenges of antiracist teacher education and to exchange critical ideas and theory/research-informed practices for preparing antiracist teachers. The audience for this book are teacher educators in all disciplinary areas and at all levels. It is also intended for administrators and policy makers leading teacher education programs at national or state levels. In light of the racial injustice and tension the country has witnessed and experienced recently, achieving racial justice is at the front and center of numerous conversations in schools, the workplace, and communities around the country. There is an urgent need for teacher educators to support the cause. This book is a direct response to such a call and is timely and much needed.

Jam-packed with inspiring lessons and ideas, this book will help you access and enhance your own creativity in the classroom and inspire your students to become motivated language learners. Top authors Blaz and Alsop share practical strategies to channel your creative impulses and transform them into effective lessons that will energize students of all levels. Aligned with ACTFL and CEFR standards, the resources in this book support creativity as a practical process, with step-by-step guidance on goal-setting, implementation, evaluation and feedback. Examples come from many world languages and cover fun and original topics, including tapping into students' own interests through cooking, memes, online videos, sports, arts and crafts, and more. Relevant for all levels of language instruction, this text includes plentiful photocopiable charts, templates, and samples to use in the classroom.

This book analyses the superintendent position and relations and shows how the well-known policy umbrella, the New Public Management (NPM), is being adapted to national contexts. School superintendents are civil servants at the heart of the governance of municipal education. Educational governance in the Nordic countries - Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden - is currently undergoing comprehensive restructuring and reconceptualisation at the hands of national governments influenced by transnational agencies. Our analyses of the superintendent position and relations show that the well-known policy umbrella, the New Public Management (NPM), is moving towards focusing on soft governance and social technologies as the preferred means of influences. Thus we rename it New Public Governance (NPG).

This edited volume provides theoretical and practical resources relating to the 'STEPWISE' curricular and instructional framework. 'STEPWISE' is the acronym for Science & Technology Education Promoting Wellbeing for Individuals, Societies & Environments. It is a framework for organizing teaching and learning domains in ways that prioritize personal and social actions to address 'critical socioscientific issues' - that is, controversial decisions by powerful individuals/groups about science and technology (and related fields) that may adversely affect individuals, societies and/or environments. The book contains chapters written by and/or with teachers who have used STEPWISE to guide their instructional practices, as well as chapters written by education scholars who have used a range of theoretical lenses to analyze and evaluate STEPWISE - and, in several cases, described ways in which it relates to (or could relate to) their practices and/or ways in which the framework might logically be amended. Overall, this book offers educators, policy makers and others with resources useful for arranging science and technology education in ways that may assist societies in addressing significant potential personal, social and/or environmental problems - such as dramatic climate change, preventable human diseases, species losses, and social injustices - associated with fields of science and technology.

Based on the popular presentation of the same name, Lead Like the Legends uses the inspiring words of musical legends to help teachers and administrators learn the principles of effective leadership. The book is organized around 14 musical greats, including Ray Charles, Duke Ellington, Marian Anderson, Carlos Santana, The Beatles, Bob Dylan, and Louis Armstrong. As you examine the words of wisdom from these artists, you'll learn the keys to strong leadership, such as... being sincere; accepting no limits; leading with imagination; leading by participating; being daring and high energy; using teamwork; and being yourself. Each chapter includes motivational stories and examples from school leaders across the country, as well as reflection activities, self-assessments, and planning tools to help you implement the ideas. Whether you're a teacher looking to enhance your skills or an administrator in charge of managing a school or district, you'll come away from the book with fresh ideas and inspiration to help you on your journey.

Schools of Education are emerging academic units in higher educational institutions in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) nations. Most of these teacher training programs are in their infancy stages. Modern day educational discourse across teacher training programs globally, including the Middle East and in the GCC, have predominantly focused on student-centered approaches to teaching and learning. This approach to teacher training is infused with critical scholarship and marks a shift away from positivist approaches to educational scholarship. Integrating critical scholarship in GCC teacher training programs brings about a number of challenges, as this approach to education is a departure from traditional cultural and social norms for schooling in the region. This multidisciplinary volume highlights some of the challenges and complexities that inevitably arise from this paradox. Professors, researchers, and specialists working in the GCC have contributed to this volume with the intent of empowering educators with authentic and contextualized research and insights to advance collective understanding of the complexities and challenges of teacher education and training in the GCC. Ultimately, this work will serve as a practical tool and resource that can be employed by schools of education to provide authentic insights, strategies, and research to further develop teacher training in the GCC and globally.

A volume in Research Methods in Educational Technology Series Editor Walter F. Heinecke, University of Virginia This book is a result of collaboration between NTLS and SITTE. Framing Research is targeted at individuals or small teams of educational researchers who are interested in conducting high quality research addressing the effects of technology-enhanced instruction on student learning. The book summarizes and unpacks the methodologies of a variety of research studies, each situated in the context of school subject areas, such as science, mathematics, social studies, and English/language arts, as well as in the contexts of reading education, special education, and early childhood learning. Taken together, the analyses provide guidance on the design of future technology research grounded in student learning of K-12 curriculum. The conclusions also serve as a tool for teacher educators seeking to prepare teachers to integrate technology effectively in their instruction and to motivate reluctant teachers to overcome perceived inconveniences connected with technology use.

This is a book about behavioral threat assessment that focuses on prevention and early intervention. It's about thoughtful connection, inclusion, prosocial relationship building, and the restoration of meaningful and positive experiences for young people within the school environment. It's about the importance of staying objective, avoiding assumptions, and eliminating prejudgment. Finally, it's about redirecting that person to constructive, nonviolent solutions and avoiding arrest, institutionalization, or worse.

This edited volume offers new analytical and methodological approaches to the study of education in the post-pandemic educational context, through case studies from countries in South Asia such as Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Crossing disciplinary and national boundaries to advance collaborative knowledge production in South Asian education, the book explores how different colonial legacies, religious orientations, and positions in the global economy are played out in regional education systems. In doing so, this volume focuses on the educational challenges faced by the region to better understand South Asian society and the existing societal inequalities in the wake of COVID-19. The book highlights how the pandemic invites a re-thinking of current ways of approaching educational research in hybrid forms, and also opens up new areas of research ranging from pedagogical innovations to the well-being of teachers and students. Offering interdisciplinary perspectives on education in this unique context, this timely book will be highly relevant to students, researchers, and academics in the fields of international and comparative education, South Asian studies, teacher education, and education policy and politics.

This book provides a wide spectrum of research on young children's humor and illuminates the depth and complexity of humor development in children from birth through age 8 and beyond. It highlights the work of pioneers in young children's humor research including Paul McGhee, Doris Bergen, and Vasu Reddy. Presenting a variety of new perspectives, the book examines such issues as play, humor, laughing and pleasure within the context of learning and development. It looks at humor, wordplay and cartoons that can be used as educational tools in the classroom. Finally, it provides explorations of humor within a cultural and spiritual context. The book presents diverse and creative methods to study humor and provides practical implications for adults working with children. The book offers a powerful springboard for moving research and practice toward a deeper understanding of young children's humor as an integral and meaningful component of early development and learning.

This book explores innovative approaches to teacher professional learning, examples of teaching enacted in classrooms, and factors affecting the promotion of quality teaching in socio-scientific issues and sustainability contexts. Since educational settings and cultures influence teaching, the different approaches and perspectives in various cross-national contexts enable us to appreciate the diversity of different countries' practices and provide insight into seminal approaches to socio-scientific issues-based teaching internationally. The book consists of three parts: innovative professional development programs, innovative teaching approaches, and issues relating to student engagement with socio-scientific issues and sustainability education. The book targets those who can be expected to develop curriculum, enact teaching practices, and facilitate teachers' professional development in socio-scientific issues and sustainability education.

This open access book presents 8 novel approaches to measure and improve diagnostic competences with simulation. The book compares the effects of interventions on these diagnostic competences in both teacher and medical education. It includes analyses showing that important aspects of diagnostic competences and effects of instructional interventions aiming to facilitate them are comparable for teachers and doctors. Through closely analyzing projects from medical education, mathematics education, biology education, and psychology, the reader is presented with multiple options for interventions that may be used in each of the subject areas and the improvements in diagnostic skills that could be expected from each simulation. The book concludes with an outline of promising future research on the use of simulations to facilitate professional competences in higher education in general, and for the advancement of diagnostic competencies in particular. This is an open access book.

This edited volume brings together diverse thinkers and practitioners from the field of teaching and teacher education as it pertains to educational development in South Asia. In this volume, authors draw from their research, practice, and field experiences, showcasing how teaching and teacher education are currently being carried out, understood, theorized, debated, and implemented for the education of children and teachers alike in South Asia. The volume also includes practitioner voices, which are often marginalized in academic discourse. This book acts as a key reference text for academics and practitioners interested in the intersection of education and development in the region, and in particular what it takes to pull off ambitious teaching and teacher education in South Asia.

Written by experienced leaders in gifted education, this book is a foundational guide for supervisors, administrators, and districts seeking to create culturally responsive and equity-focused gifted policies and programs. Engaging chapters supported by real-world vignettes and interactive contemplation corners outline key elements of culturally responsive leadership and the administrative actions necessary for disrupting systems of oppression within gifted programs. Topics covered include culturally responsive gifted education, Multi-Tiered Systems of Support, authentic family engagement, using data to inform systemic change, and more. Featuring authentic applications of culturally responsive gifted leadership practices and an innovative tool to evaluate gifted program inclusivity, this book is essential reading for all current and future leaders in gifted education.

This book demonstrates school-based approaches to primary science teacher education. The models used involve partnerships between universities and primary schools to engage pre-service primary teachers in classroom teaching and learning that effectively connects theory with practice separate to the formal practicum arrangements. The book is a culmination of the research and collaboration of researchers from five Australian universities involved in the Science Teacher Education Partnerships with Schools (STEPS) project, funded by the Australian Government Office for Learning and Teaching. While the STEPS project focused on partnerships in primary science teacher education, a key strength of the partnership model (the STEPS Interpretive Framework) developed and explored in this book is its applicability for cross-case, national, international, and inter-state analyses of partnership practices. This is shown through a number of case studies where the STEPS Interpretive Framework is applied and evaluated in the context of other school- or learning-related partnerships. These broad-ranging analyses illustrate the relevance of the model to a range of settings, both within and outside of education.

Inclusive education continues to grow in popularity and acceptance in the United States. However, most teachers - general and special educators - are poorly prepared to be successful in inclusive classrooms and schools. Undoubtedly, the challenge to professionals involves the acquisition of new knowledge and skills. But inclusion requires far more. It calls upon educators to trouble everything they think they know about disability, to question their deepest ethical commitments, to take up the work of the Disability Rights Movement in the public schools, and to leap headlong into the deepest waters of the rich craft tradition of inclusive teaching. This book offers educators the guidance and resources to become great inclusive educators by engaging in a powerful process of personal and professional transformation.

This is a book about behavioral threat assessment that focuses on prevention and early intervention. It's about thoughtful connection, inclusion, prosocial relationship building, and the restoration of meaningful and positive experiences for young people within the school environment. It's about the importance of staying objective, avoiding assumptions, and eliminating prejudgment. Finally, it's about redirecting that person to constructive, nonviolent solutions and avoiding arrest, institutionalization, or worse.

The superintendent position is important to the overall quality of a school system. Staff would have difficulty succeeding without the support of an effective and efficient system. It is also potentially rewarding. There is great satisfaction in knowing that something you did had a major impact on the quality of education provided to children. You can change the future, but it comes at a cost. The superintendent position is difficult. In addition to all of the technical skills and knowledge required, doing this job well requires strength of character, mental toughness, and a high level of self-awareness. You must know who you are and what you believe in. Not only that, you must have the fortitude to represent those beliefs in the face of crises and adversity. These are not the topics taught in most graduate school education coursework. Through sharing of "ten truths" the author fills this void. More specifically, readers will learn the realities of being a school superintendent and practical suggestions for navigating the difficulties inherent in the role.

Would you want to be a student in your own classroom? In this bestselling book, Pernille Ripp challenges both novice and seasoned teachers to co-create a positive, interactive learning environment with students. Based on honest reflections on her own teaching experience, Pernille offers a wide variety of ideas for sharing control, developing your intuition, learning how to fail, giving yourself grace, building community and trust, creating more choice, allowing time for student expertise, and letting go of the punish, behave, and reward cycle so that intrinsic motivation can thrive. This fully enhanced new edition is chock full of additional strategies and tools on topics such as centering students' identities, overcoming barriers when creating student-centered lessons to emphasize ownership of the learning cycle, shoring up your boundaries to manage your time and stop the intense prepwork, changing your homework habits to reduce your load and give students more time, deemphasizing grades, and much more. With Pernille's heartfelt stories and practical strategies, you'll feel inspired to give your classroom back to your students and foster a community of truly passionate learners!

Mathematics Teaching On Target is a guidebook for improving mathematics teaching, based on the Teaching for Robust Understanding (TRU) Framework and its five dimensions - The Mathematics, Cognitive Demand, Equitable Access, Agency, Ownership, and Identity, and Formative Assessment. You'll be guided to refine your classroom activities across the five TRU dimensions, and, your students will become more knowledgeable and resourceful thinkers and problem solvers. Each chapter in Mathematics Teaching On Target introduces a set of easy-to-use questions for the hands-on improvement of lesson activities, such as: * Think of an activity you use with your students. Is it as mathematically rich as it might be? * Does it stretch your students in the right ways, inviting "productive struggle"? * Can all students engage with it, in ways that allow them to grow as mathematical thinkers? * What evidence will student work provide, helping you revise the activity so that it works better both in the moment and next time? You'll find examples at the elementary, middle, and secondary levels for each dimension that show how addressing these questions can enhance mathematics instruction. Ideal for your individual classroom, learning community, or district-level and wider professional development efforts, this book will enable you to help more students engage with mathematics in increasingly powerful ways. Beyond individual lessons, this book will also accelerate teacher development by helping you focus and reflect on what really counts in your instruction.

Teaching and education are awash with myths. This book helps you explore some of them and asks: - Where does this myth come from? - How do we know that it isn't true? - Why does it matter that we challenge it? Covering key teaching topics, it poses common myths and explores what the research actually says. Using research as a basis to explore what it true and what is false, it gives you a more informed understanding and encourages important discussions about teaching and learning.

This book focuses on the emerging area of partner-driven work-integrated learning inclusive of university or industry stakeholder development, and the integration of these two major stakeholders. It explores the significant interrelationship between university and school needs in this area of research. It uses a cross-institutional approach and focuses on local communities that educational providers interact with, to highlight and discuss the issues identified in various case studies. By doing so, this book aims to create a community of practice that explores work-integrated learning from an integrated stakeholder perspective, and develops a working model to extend existing understanding in this area through integrating the ideas explored in the various chapters.