Never Give Up is an amazing true story. It is a case study of an experienced elementary school teacher who was motivated to change her teaching practices from teacher-centered, transmission approaches to student-centered, transformational approaches in the context of a Professional Development School. You would think she would have accomplished her goal with support from the PDS participants in a year or two. Instead, she spent seven years encountering struggles, set-backs, and occasionally small triump until she achieved bone deep change in her teaching practice. What was she aiming for and why did it take so long? How did she finally achieve her goals? This book is about her journey of change. On one level, this is a story of a teacher as she struggles to change her teaching practice in way that center on childern's learning rather than on teacher centered rote learning. On a deeper level, it is a look at how innovative reform movements and wellmeaning professional development efforts fall short of bringing about deep seated change in teaching methods. It raises weighty questions such as how teacher preparation programs should begin the process of instilling habits of exploration, experimentation, research and learning in their pre-service teachers so that they continuously work at updating and upgrading their teaching practices. It is a message to curriculum developers, policy makers and the public at large that lasting teacher professional development takes more time and support than the more immediate workshop approaches. It raises many questions about how teachers learn and how they can keep their practices fresh and innovative throughout their careers.

Effective communication within learning environments is a pivotal aspect to students' success. By enhancing abstract concepts with visual media, students can achieve a higher level of retention and better understand the presented information. Knowledge Visualization and Visual Literacy in Science Education is an authoritative reference source for the latest scholarly research on the implementation of visual images, aids, and graphics in classroom settings and focuses on how these methods stimulate critical thinking in students. Highlighting concepts relating to cognition, communication, and computing, this book is ideally designed for researchers, instructors, academicians, and students.

This book addresses the role of appropriate, specialized, structured pedagogy for game-based learning. It is an important reference for researchers who have carried out studies in the field of game-based learning with a focus on the digital learning environment. The educational landscape has dramatically changed in times of global pandemic urging us to search for new solutions, new educational pathways, and new agents for knowledge development. There is a need to support learning by using digital learning materials during remote learning or distance learning, where pedagogically structured game-based learning elements can play a role in motivating students to achieve. Utilizing game-based learning in education is not new, but this book adds substantially to the research base of the topic. The book reveals many new concepts, such as, balancing games and learning, supporting knowledge development, supporting the development of motivation, supporting balanced cognitive load in an effort to avoid ineffective forms of game-based learning

Focusing on the partnerships and collaborations between teacher educators and students with regards to faculty members' professional development, contributors from around the world provide insight into professional development opportunities in the context of teaching and collaborating with students. Contributions from these distinguished scholars come from a broad range of countries and cultures to ensure that the presented studies reveal rich information about diverse systems of teacher education. The studies presented in the book demonstrate how these faculty student partnerships can significantly assist faculty members to develop professionally and produce benefits and impacts on their professional identity. Providing ideas and tools aimed at teacher educators around the world, this book explores partnerships and cooperation as a tool to lead to development and ultimately promotion. This book is a must-read for all researchers, teacher educators and lecturers looking to expand their knowledge of partnerships with students in higher education.

Secondary schools are continually faced with the task of preparing students for a world that is more connected, advanced, and globalized than ever before. In order to adequately prepare students for their future, educators must provide them with strong reading and writing skills, as well as the ability to understand scientific concepts. The Handbook of Research on Science Literacy Integration in Classroom Environments is a pivotal reference source that provides vital research on the importance of cross-curriculum/discipline connections in improving student understanding and education. While highlighting topics such as curriculum integration, online learning, and instructional coaching, this publication explores practices in teaching students how to analyze and interpret data, as well as reading, writing, and speaking. This book is ideally designed for teachers, graduate-level students, academicians, instructional designers, administrators, and education researchers seeking current research on science literacy adoption in contemporary classrooms.

Inclusion: Teachers' Perspectives and Practices delineates timely strategies that address teachers' concerns regarding the inclusive environment. Prior research is amalgamated with author Faith Andreasen's investigation to arm the reader with a variety of appropriate student supports with the goal of strengthening inclusionary practice. Multiple educators clarify why they prefer particular methods when addressing various situations, thus detailing how inclusive classrooms can be established and sustained. The participants herein work with various age groups in assorted settings and have diverse years of experience. Informative and compelling, the reader completes Inclusion: Teachers' Perspectives and Practices armed with a variety of ideas and easy-to-implement applicable strategies that were gleaned from those who practice it every day.

What are the issues that education raises for you? Beyond the technical skills and knowledge aspects of education, teachers and student teachers face questions which challenge their beliefs and approaches to their teaching and learning. This book contains a series of short articles each of which encourage you to reflect on your own practice and challenge your beliefs about how and what you teach. Questions explored include: When does inclusion become exclusion for the rest of the class? Do interactive whiteboards support or reduce creativity in the classroom? Is drama a luxury in the primary classroom? Should we be teaching other languages to children under seven? Learning outside the classroom, is it worth it? What makes a reflective practitioner? Essential reading for those training to teach children aged between 3 and 11, as well as practicing teachers looking to develop their practice.

The increasing lack of discipline in South African schools and the impact thereof is well known. In most instances, existing punitive measures do not yield the required results. Yet, schools continue to scramble to find alternative punishments that will result in a disciplined environment conducive to teaching and learning. Albert Einstein rightly said: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results.”

Restorative School Discipline: The Law and Practice seeks to provide an alternative approach to discipline. However, to implement this approach, a complete mind-shift is required. This mind set requires an understanding that to discipline learners is to teach socially acceptable behaviour. The restorative approach entails moving away from an approach that merely focuses on the ill-disciplined learner to an approach that focuses on preventing disciplinary problems, changing the culture of the school and restoring the harm done to those affected by the misconduct. The restorative approach involves focusing on finding solutions to address the needs and interests of all the role-players in the school community, rather than finding suitable punishments. Thus, focusing on the best interests of every learner as well as those of educators. Restorative discipline is a value-driven approach that respects the human rights of every stakeholder and also protects, promotes and fulfils everyone’s human rights.

This book explains the restorative approach to discipline in detail. The role of every stakeholder in the implementation of this approach also receives attention. Furthermore, it highlights the social justice implications as well as the impact of discipline on the neurological functioning and development of the child.

Restorative School Discipline: The Law and Practice provides practical advice for SGB’s, educators, school social workers and other role-players, such as the Department of Basic Education, on how to implement the restorative approach to discipline. It also examines the Constitutional imperatives and the legal framework related to school discipline. This ground-breaking book will provide guidance for school administrators, practitioners and academics on this innovative school discipline practice.

This book inspires educational practitioners with special regard to the way how practice in the frontline service is able to inform leadership and policy decision. It empowers them to identify what features are counted as professional and how they could be turned into sources for developing wise judgment and eliciting creative acts in teaching, lesson planning and course design, collaboration, and knowledge excavation to shape policy decision and planning. In addition, for those who are used to conceive the world and their practice from a positivist tradition may find the insights of this book illuminating particularly when they are looking for a paradigm shift in understanding their practice. Last but not least, educators and teacher educators in particular will find the ideas in this book more promising in escalating the awareness of teachers of the next generation towards what is 'good' (phronesis) in terms of their professional attitude and actual performance (informed by both techne and episteme) in their relevant settings.

With new student assessments and teacher evaluation schemes in the planning or early implementation phases, this book takes a step back to examine the ideological and historical grounding, potential benefits, scholarly evidence, and ethical basis for the new generation of test based accountability measures. After providing the political and cultural contexts for the rise of the testing accountability movement in the 1960s that culminated almost forty years later in No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top, this book then moves on to provide a policy history and social policy analysis of value-added testing in Tennessee that is framed around questions of power relations, winners, and losers. In examining the issues and exercise of power that are sustained in the long-standing policy of standardized testing in schools, this work provides a big picture perspective on assessment practices over time in the U. S.; by examining the rise of value-added assessment in Tennessee, a fine-grained and contemporary case is provided within that larger context. The last half of the book provides a detailed survey of the researchbased critiques of value-added methodology, while detailing an aggressive marketing campaign to make value-added modeling (VAM) a central component of reform strategies following NCLB. The last chapter and epilogue place the continuation of test-based accountability practices within the context of an emerging pushback against privatization, high stakes testing, and other education reforms. This book will be useful to a wide audience, including teachers, parents, school leaders, policymakers, researchers, and students of educational history, policy, and politics.

This book explores international perspectives on quality improvement within the field of early childhood education and care. Many countries and governments are focusing on preschool quality as a way to improve entrenched inequalities and reduce social disadvantage and segregation: this book draws together various global case studies to showcase how different countries tackle aspects of quality improvement. The concept of quality is understood in different ways both culturally and contextually, and the implementation of measures to improve quality will differ from country to country. The book draws together case studies from numerous contexts to showcase various ways of working with aspects of quality improvement. Sharing important insights into policy and practice, this book guides a shared understanding of the complex nature of quality improvement within early childhood education and care.

In an increasingly complex, competitive, and global world, organizations require highly skilled professionals who have the capacity to proactively answer challenges. Thus, educational institutions must update the curricula of their courses to better contribute to the training and development of professionals in order to ensure that they are prepared to face increasing levels of organizational competitiveness. Higher Education and the Evolution of Management, Applied Sciences, and Engineering Curricula is a collection of innovative research that fosters discussion on the evolution of higher-education in management, applied sciences, and engineering with an emphasis on curriculum development, pedagogy, didactic aspects, and sustainable education. This publication presents models, theories, and tools that allow individuals to take a more strategic role in their organizations. It is ideally designed for managers, engineers, human resource officials, academicians, researchers, administrators, and lecturers.

The "ideal" 21st century teacher in public schools has a keen understanding of the racialized history of education and has already taken a critical stance regarding that history. This teacher is a changemaker and able to create classroom conditions that enable children and youth to be changemakers as well. In order to convert teachers into this ideal educator, alternative professional development must be undertaken that has as its goal the transformation of teachers and teachings for the eventual transformation of classroom environments and educational experiences, particularly for students of color. Unfortunately, such transformative teacher professional development has been in short supply in the age of high-stakes standardized testing and the deprofessionalization of the teaching profession. Anti-Racist Professional Development for In-Service Teachers: Emerging Research and Opportunities is a crucial reference book that addresses the historical, sociological, and pedagogical background concerning racial issues in education and proposes an alternative model for professional development as a tool for transforming schools and teachers to be critically sensitive and become changemakers. The book includes data from the author's national survey of teacher professional development, examples of assignments, teacher work products, and the author's self-critique/reflections, which draw upon 20 years of working to transform teachers and teaching on how to improve outcomes. The book also presents composite profiles of P-12 teachers such as the transformations of teachers who already "knew it all," the new teacher at a punitive public charter school with high turnover, teachers who take leadership within the school and in the larger community, and teachers who significantly changed their practice for the long-term. Moreover, the authors offer policy recommendations for funding and designing teacher professional development experiences that meet the needs of professional teachers who intend to stay in the field of education, provide immediate impact on students, and that engage all students to become critical changemakers. As such, this book is ideal for teachers, educational leaders, administrators, policymakers, academicians, researchers, and students.

Immersive technology as an umbrella concept consists of multiple emerging technologies including augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), gaming, simulation, and 3D printing. Research has shown immersive technology provides unique learning opportunities for experiential learning, multiple perspectives, and knowledge transfer. Due to its role in influencing learners' cognitive and affective processes, it is shown to have great potential in changing the educational landscape in the decades to come. However, there is a lack of general cognitive and affective theoretical framework to guide the diverse aspects of immersive technology research. In fact, lacking the cognitive and affective theoretical framework has begun to hamper the design and application of immersive technology in schools and related professional training. Cognitive and Affective Perspectives on Immersive Technology in Education is an essential research book that explores methods and implications for the design and implementation of upcoming immersive technologies in pedagogical and professional development settings. The book includes case studies that highlight the cognitive and affective processes in immersive technology as well as the successful applications of immersive technology in education. Featuring a wide range of topics such as curriculum design, K-12 education, and mobile learning, this book is ideal for academicians, educators, policymakers, curriculum developers, instructional designers, administrators, researchers, and students.

This book focuses on practical and productive techniques that can be used in a variety of behaviour crisis situations that may occur in a classroom. Teachers have told us that one of their major concerns has been dealing with severe behavior problems in the classroom. While there are many different types of crisis situations that may occur having the proper ""tools"" can prevent a situation from becoming even worse. The Classroom Teacher's Behavior Management Toolbox provides a variety of crisis tools for all types of situations. These tools have been gathered over the years and have been very successful in actual classroom situations.