This book presents the history of natural history dioramas in museums, their building and science learning aspects, as well as current developments and their place in the visitor experience. From the early 1900s, with the passage of time and changes in cultural norms in societies, this genre of exhibits evolved in response to the changes in entertainment, expectations and expressed needs of museum visitors. The challenge has always been to provide meaningful, relevant experiences to visitors, and this is still the aim today. Dioramas are also increasingly valued as learning tools. Contributions in this book specifically focus on their educational potential. In practice, dioramas are used by a wide range of educational practitioners to assist learners in developing and understanding specific concepts, such as climate change, evolution or or conservation issues. In this learning process, dioramas not only contribute to scientific understanding and cultural awareness, but also reconnect wide audiences to the natural world and thereby contribute to the well-being of societies. In the simultaneously published book: "Natural History Dioramas - Traditional Exhibits for Current Educational Themes, Socio-cultural Aspects" the editors focus on socio-cultural issues and the potential of using dioramas to engage various audiences with - and in - contemporary debates and big issues, which society and the natural environment are facing.

This book provides a research-based guide to using ePortfolios to develop critically reflective teachers capable of transformative learning. It begins with a reconceptualization of critical reflection in teacher education, then analyzes the social discourse of prospective teachers' teaching practice through the narratives in their ePortfolios, triangulated by longitudinal classroom teaching observation and interviews. The results of the research indicate that prospective teachers reflections are performative and do not typically trigger transformative learning, in large part because of mismatches among the structures of the ePortfolio, the goals of the teacher education program, and supervisory practices. With this analysis in hand, the book turns to practical questions, providing a framework, examples, and tips for teacher educators to use the author s methods to understand, analyze, and support prospective teachers transformative learning through their ePortfolio narratives and classroom practice. "

Expert-led, interdisciplinary, and international in scope, this insightful book aims to increase the representation and leadership potential of women working in academia, examining the intersection of multiple inequalities with a specific focus on gender, age, ethnicity, and disability. A carefully crafted response to educational inequalities, the volume posits an invitation for dialogue around what it means to have success in higher education. This book expands the reader's understanding of leadership in academia and the challenges specific to individual career pathways, offering a plethora of practical tried-and-tested strategies that individuals and institutions can adopt to create a more equal and socially just academic climate. Designed to encourage reflection on potential strategies and how they could be implemented, the ten co-authored chapters include first-person narratives, case studies inspired by interviews with academics, and links and recommendations for further reading. The personal accounts of the authors are enriched with those of other academics who have faced challenges in career progression. Each chapter is structured as a conversation between the authors in relation to an inequality issue, with a summary of scholarly literature and studies on the topic, followed by strategies successfully applied in practice. Strategies presented are firmly rooted in the everyday reality of working as a researcher, higher education lecturer, or academic administrator. This book is ideal reading for any minority working in higher education interested in promotion processes, equality and diversity in the workplace, and mentoring. It will also be of interest to providers of academic leadership courses, organisations, and institutions promoting gender equality in higher education, supporting women's careers, and improving the representation, progression, and success of Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic (BAME) staff and students within higher education.

At The MTPT Project we know that teaching can be a sustainable career choice for parents, and in this essential handbook, we show you how. Supported by case studies celebrating the best that the family friendly schools and happy teachers in our community have to offer, this book is a lifeline for both educators aspiring to combine their passion for teaching with becoming a parent, and the school leader who wants to empower them. However you become a parent, or choose to grow your family and your career, this handbook will provide you with the guidance and cheerleading that you need to fulfil your personal and professional aspirations. The book is divided into nine chapters, guiding readers from the first considerations of family planning, all the way through to the reality that some teachers and leaders may choose to leave classrooms for good. Each chapter includes: the latest research on working families legalities associated with different stages of working parenthood (including discrimination and how to avoid it as an employer and address it as an employee) case studies from our community suggestions for individuals and schools recommended further reading. Each chapter will help you to navigate the journey from planning a family, to stepping in and out of teaching to suit your parenting needs, to creating family friendly working environments, whatever your role in school. With its mixture of research-informed solutions, hints and tips, this text is perfect for colleagues embarking on their parenting journey and school leaders who want to take practical steps to retain and empower valued colleagues.

This book addresses the mind-body dichotomy in movement and dance. This book includes a description of the often-forgotten kinesthetic sense, body awareness, somatic practices, body-based way of thinking, mental imagery, nonverbal communication, human empathy, and symbol systems, what occurs in the brain during learning, and why and how movement and dance should be part of school curricula. This exploration arguers that becoming more aware of bodily sensations serves as a basis for knowing, communicating, learning, and teaching through movement and dance. This book will be of great interest to scholars and students interested in teaching methodology and for courses in physical education, dance, and education.

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 work explores and explicates learner motivation in online learning environments. More specifically, it uses a case-study approach to examine undergraduate students' motivation within two formal and separate online learning contexts. In doing so, it recognizes the mutually constitutive relationship of the learner and the learning environment in relation to motivation. This is distinctive from other approaches that tend to focus on designing and creating motivating environments or, alternatively, concentrate on motivation as a stable learner characteristic. In particular, this book identifies a range of factors that can support or undermine learner motivation and discusses each in detail. By unraveling the complexity of learner motivation in such environments, it provides useful guidelines for teachers, instructional designers and academic advisors tasked with building and teaching within online educational contexts.

Action research is a popular part of many teacher training courses but understanding how to do it well is not always straightforward. Previously known as Action Research for New Teachers, this book will guide you through each step of the process, from initial stages of planning and research, through to how to analyse your data and write up your research project. This second edition includes: * A new 'Critical task' feature, with suggested responses * Discussion of where action research 'fits' in the word of education research * Exploration of the skills and attributes needed for undertaking action research * Guidance on how to write with clarity and purpose.

Visualize Your Teaching offers a unique way of helping educators see their own teaching so they can strengthen their practice. Author Kyle Ezell uses a series of simple but compelling black and white graphics to take you through teaching's parts, flows, and signals. He demonstrates that it's important to be aware of what's happening when playing distinctly different parts as you teach, depending on the context. Flows connect parts together over a lesson. He shows how to visualize the impact of how flows connect over a range of circumstances. You also need to be aware of how you respond to many different signals that appear, pushing and pulling the lesson plan. Appropriate for teachers of all grade levels and subject areas, the book provides teaching scenario prompts for you to practice playing all the parts through self-observation and opportunities for you to diagram your own teaching. As you work through the pages, you'll be able to visualize your performance the way athletes do, becoming more in tune with yourself. With this book as your batting cage, you will be increasing your impact on students in no time!

Leading Dynamic Information Literacy Programs delves into the library instruction coordinator's work. Each chapter is written by practicing coordinators, who share their experiences leading information literacy programs that are nimble, responsive, and supportive of student learning. The volume discusses the work of instruction coordinators within 5 thematic areas: Claiming our Space within higher education and our institutions; Moving and Growing together; Curriculum Development; Meaningful Assessment; and Leading Change. Readers will gain insight from their colleagues' advice for situating information literacy within the higher education institution, developing meaningful curricula, and using assessment in productive ways. Many of the stories represent a departure from traditional models of library instruction. In addition, this book is sure to spark inspiration for innovative approaches to program leadership and development, including strategies for developing communities of practice. From leadership skills and techniques, methods for cultivating shared values, pedagogical approaches, team building, assessment strategies - and everything in between - the aspiring or practicing instruction coordinator has much to gain from reading this work.

This book presents how the neoliberal trends, as reflected in the grouplised school structure, affect teachers' professional learning and daily practice, and discusses how teacher agency is enabled and constrained at both individual and collective levels. The author interviewed teachers and administrators from eight different grouplised schools. He argues that the neoliberal trends in high-stakes accountability largely constrained teacher agency. School grouplisation was generally top-down, and a bottom-up structure is needed to support teachers' professional growth. Collective agency and administrator support could protect students against the neoliberal trends in education by enabling teachers to make conscious, moral decisions and take actions in their daily practice. He further identifies principles of invoking collective agency among teachers and proposes suggestions for educational reform implementation in neoliberal contexts. Policymakers, school administrators and teachers interested in grouplised schools and collective agency may find this book insightful.

This book explores the effects of the REACH program (Recruiting and Enlightening through Access to and Communication with High-need schools), a seven-year initiative devised to help find, attract, and prepare diverse teacher candidates interested in working with young children. The book analyzes how the program, set at a national liberal arts college in the US, used the three R's: recruitment, retention, and recognition, to successfully draw in diverse educators for young children who then go on to became leaders and role models in their schools and communities. Chapters examine ways to provide the academic, social, and enrichment supports necessary for diverse teacher candidates and identify current teacher education practices that are effective as well as opportunities for change.

This book describes and explains how digital technologies enter adolescents' everyday life and learning in different contexts and environments. The book is based on research conducted in recent years in the Czech Republic, the results of which are set within a broad theoretical and international framework. The authors consider the theoretical and methodological anchoring of the topic, describing various approaches in an effort to comprehensively describe and understand the learning process of today's pupils. They focus on ways to explore learning in the digital era, domestication of digital technology in families, and parents' approaches to digital technology. Attention is paid to adolescents' competences and autonomy in the use of digital technologies, as well as their views on technology in their lives and learning. The authors summarize the most important results of the research, but also consider the options of empirical research and their own experience with the research of such a complex concept.

The demand for effective communication and marketing at the campus level has never been more urgent and yet most administrators come into the role with little public relations expertise or background. Schools must navigate incredibly complex societal issues while they compete for students, engage families, and inspire staff and community members to give their best efforts and support. The Communicating Principal: Practical Strategies for School Leaders provides real-world stories, best-practice guidelines, and practical communication checklists designed to help school leaders better understand their community and bring them in to co-create a vision for positive transformation. From social media and websites to crisis and internal messaging, this book shares systems and supports that make communicating easier and more effective. Every topic is covered from the lens of a principal-what you need, how it can be done quickly and inexpensively, and how to measure success so that it can be shared and replicated. Not every school or district can afford a communication professional; The Communicating Principal is the next best thing.

*Addresses a shift in thinking about entrepreneurial education, away from business and toward school education internationally. *Supports learning about and through entrepreneurial thinking within the context of school teaching. *Encourages teachers to develop their own entrepreneurial thinking skills.

Updates existing prompts and introduces 50 new ones; Features prompts that are designed to be impersonal and avoid requiring students to express personal viewpoints or feelings on specific issues; Suited for seventh grade to adulthood.

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.

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!

This book invites readers to explore the critical interruptions occasioned by queer pedagogies. Building on earlier scholarly work in this area, as well as pedagogical production arising out of queer activism, the chapters in this volume examine a broad range of themes as they collectively grapple with the meaning and practice of queer pedagogy across different contexts. In this way, Queer Pedagogies provides a glance at new ways of thinking about and acting on contemporary educational topics and debates situated at the intersection of queer studies and education. In taking up the concept of queer pedagogy, the volume provides ample opportunities for scholars, educators, activists, and other cultural workers to critically engage with ongoing questions of theory, praxis, and politics.

The chapters in this text are designed to provide administrators and leaders with background and strategy to help assist them in designing their own "play" calls when dealing with employees, unions, and labor leadership. Each chapter herein contains "Coaches Corner" and "You Make the Call" case study sections to help review the educational leadership message that was set forth in the pages of the chapter and provide a real-life inbox scenario for leaders and aspiring school executives who can discuss different play calls to utilize in specific circumstances. Sharing these discussions among students and leadership teams allows for growth and a sharing of ideas among individuals in the field.

Theories of Early Childhood Education continues to provide a comprehensive overview of the various theoretical perspectives in early childhood education from developmental psychology to critical studies, Piaget to Freire. This revised and updated edition includes additional chapters on Michael Alexander Halliday's view of language learning and the attachment theory work of John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth. Each author questions assumptions underpinning the use of theory in early childhood education and explores the implications of these questions for policy and practice. Theories reported in this book are a timely reminder of the importance of the relationship between theory and practice necessary for teacher candidates, teacher educators, and early childhood teachers. Students will learn the fundamentals while in-service teachers and professionals will learn the theory behind field observations for their certification exams.

Focusing on creating learning environments, this book explores what it means to be an innovative leader of learning and teaching in higher education. Providing practical tips and guidance to support those designing or redesigning higher education curricula, this book highlights approaches and solutions to leading change in learning and teaching. Covering all areas from an overview of external pressures, through to developing a vision and strategy for a programme, to classroom practice and sustainability, leading thinkers in the field of university learning and teaching share their experiences of driving and sustaining change in departmental practice. It also introduces creative approaches into the role to support the innovation, enhancement, and development of agile programme teams. With insights and case studies from international contributors, this book highlights key approaches and solutions to leading change in learning and teaching that are implementable. It will be key reading for all those teaching in higher education, but particularly for academics who are interested in programme leadership roles.

This book is the third in a four volume series that focuses on research-based teaching and learning practices that promote social justice and equity in higher education. In this volume, we focus on the application of the scholarship of teaching and learning in higher education outside of the classroom to maximize the effectiveness of student affairs programming. Specifically, authors focus on the application of SoTL in higher education outside of the classroom (e.g., faculty development, leadership, student involvement, student affairs) in ways that promote greater equity and inclusion in higher education. Each chapter includes a description of how higher education may traditionally marginalize students from underrepresented groups, outlines a research-based plan to improve student experiences, and provides a program or activity plan to implement the recommendations from each chapter.

This book showcases the quality work that Latin American researchers have done on transition to school in Latin American countries by offering the English-speaking world, first-hand access to some Latin American transitions research, practices, and policies. This book shows the work carried out in countries such as Brazil, Chile, Cuba, and Mexico with regards to the way in which the transition to primary school is experienced from different stakeholders' perspectives, and how Latin American educational policies and cultural practices shape such an important process for stakeholders. This book was importantly framed by the COVID-19 pandemic which placed the world in a global health emergency, and it is our hope that this book will trigger future international collaborations between researchers, policy makers, and practitioners interested in transitions which could help produce a wealth of empirical evidence to inform educational policies and transitions practices across the world. Building networks where diverse experiences are valued and respected, as well as analysed, can help provide a platform that supports educators and researchers as they continue their work and branch out in new and challenging directions.