This book looks at the sensible and meaningful role of self-review in creating sustainable improvement in all areas across secondary schools. It outlines a self-review approach focussed on key principles which ensure this approach is transparent, purposeful, does not negatively impact on workload, that does not use the same approach for all teams and that does actually result in clear ideas for school improvement. It discusses claims of effective self-review including that it challenges thinking, leads to improvement, incorporates a range of stakeholders, skills people up, and helps build professional communities. The book is full of examples and case studies so that the reader can transfer some of these ideas to their context, discuss them at meetings and help generate new ideas. It challenges the 'deep dive' approach as something that should be left to Ofsted and instead suggests that leaders should know daily what is happening in their schools, and instead work with staff to design self-review activities that are bespoke and fit for purpose. The main theme is around 'improve not prove', where stakeholders feel involved, valued and empowered to be change-makers at a range of scales. It examines how effective self-review can reduce workload and support improvements in wellbeing.

Dear Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, And Transgender Teacher: Letters Of Advice To Help You Find Your Way is full of the voices of queer educators and calls for educational leaders to be allies in their social justice leadership roles. Queer professionals write personal letters to junior queer colleagues answering the general prompt, "What have you learned as a queer educator that you believe is essential to the success of current or future gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgendered educators?" The responses are thoughtful, powerful, poignant, and direct. The collection of letters includes senior queer professionals, pre?service teachers who were currently in university courses at the very beginning of their careers, PreK?12 professionals at the beginning, middle, and end of their careers, administrators, counselors, teacher?educators at the university level, community educational leaders, lawyers, and heterosexual allies. There are early childhood teachers, elementary teachers, middle school and high school teachers representing nearly every content area, special education teachers, GSA (Gay Straight Alliance) leaders, school counselors, university professors of education across various fields of specialization, and activists. There are many races and ethnicities represented as well as eight countries. There are rural professionals and urban professionals. There are gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered educators represented. This group of letters represents the intersectionality of queerness in all of its rich splendor.

This volume examines the agency of second/foreign language teachers in diverse geographical contexts and in both K-12 and adult education. It offers new understandings and conceptualizations of second/foreign language teacher agency through a variety of types of empirical data. It also demonstrates the use of different methodologies or analytic tools to study the multidimensional, dynamic and complex nature of second/foreign language teacher agency. The chapters draw on a range of theories and approaches to language teacher agency (including ecological theory, positioning theory, complexity theory and actor-network theory) that expand our understanding of the concept, while at the same time presenting various analytic approaches such as discourse studies and narrative inquiry. The chapters also analyze the connection of agency to other relevant topics, such as teacher identity, emotions, positioning and autonomy.

The coaching metaphor first entered the educational literature over twenty-five year ago when Ted Sizer urged classroom teachers to model the pedagogical relationship between coaches and athletes. Yet, since then, educators have rarely drawn direct lessons from the athletic arena for their practice... until now. DeMeulenaere, Cann, Malone and McDermott, in this groundbreaking analysis, explore the implications of athletic coaching for improved pedagogy. They offer concrete lessons and suggestions for best practices in the classroom. "Reflections from the Field is quite simply a tour de force - one of the most powerful books on teachers, teaching, and learning I have read. Compelling, useful, and emotionally inspiring, it should be read by every pre-service teacher, teacher-educator and practicing educator in the U.S." -From the Foreword by Sarah Michaels, Co-Author of Ready, Set, Science , Professor of Education at Clark University "Reflections from the Field is an invitation to meet a set of teachers who are reflective practitioners, relationship-builders, and also, not coincidentally, coaches - they know how to improvise, how to nourish and challenge, how to recognize the uniqueness of each and power of all, and how to dance the dialectic between thought and action. This vivid kaleidoscope offers an opportunity to see how it's done." -William Ayers, Author of To Teach, Distinguished Professor of Education and Senior University Scholar at the University of Illinois, Chicago (retired)

A tremendous amount of money is being steered toward personalized learning (PL) initiatives at the federal, state, and local levels, and it is important to understand the return on the investment in students' futures. It is only through rigorous discussions that educators and policymakers will be able to determine if PL is a passing fad or if it possesses the staying power necessary to show a positive impact on student achievement. Evaluation of Principles and Best Practices in Personalized Learning is a critical scholarly publication that explores the modern push for schools to implement PL environments and the continuing research to understand the best strategies and implementation methods for personalizing education. It seeks to begin creating a standardized language and standardized approach to the PL initiative and to investigate the implications it has on the educational system. Additionally, this book adds to the professional discussion of PL by looking at both the advantages and disadvantages of PL, the teacher's role in PL, creating a PL program to scale, the role of technology and PL, the special education population and PL, emerging research on PL, and case studies involving PL. Featuring research on a wide range of topics such as blended learning, preservice teachers, and special education, this book is ideal for teachers, administrators, academicians, policymakers, researchers, and students.

This book explores how science learning can be more relevant and interesting for students and teachers by using a contextualized approach to science education. The contributors explore the contextualization of science education from multiple angles, such as teacher education, curriculum design, assessment and educational policy, and from multiple national perspectives. The aim of this exploration is to provide and inspire new practical approaches to bring science education closer to the lives of students to accelerate progress towards global scientific literacy. The book presents real life examples of how to make science relevant for children and adolescents of diverse ethnic and language backgrounds, socioeconomic status and nationalities, providing tools and guidance for teacher educators and researchers to improve the contextualization and cultural relevance of their practice. The book includes rigorous studies demonstrating that the contextualization of science learning environments is essential for student engagement in learning science and practitioners' reflections on how to apply this knowledge in the classroom and at national scale. This approach makes this book valuable for researchers and professors of science education and international education interested in designing teacher education courses that prepare future teachers to contextualize their teaching and in adding a critical dimension to their research agendas.

This book brings together contributions on learner autonomy from a myriad of contexts to advance our understanding of what autonomous language learning looks like with digital tools, and how this understanding is shaped by and can shape different socio-institutional, curricular, and instructional support. To this end, the individual contributions in the book highlight practice-oriented, empirically-based research on technology-mediated learner autonomy and its pedagogical implications. They address how technology can support learner autonomy as process by leveraging the affordances available in social media, virtual exchange, self-access, or learning in the wild (Hutchins, 1995). The rapid evolution and adoption of technology in all aspects of our lives has pushed issues related to learner and teacher autonomy centre stage in the language education landscape. This book tackles emergent challenges from different perspectives and diverse learning ecologies with a focus on social and educational (in)equality. Specifically, to this effect, the chapters consider digital affordances of virtual exchange, gaming, and apps in technology-mediated language learning and teaching ranging from instructed and semi-instructed to self-instructed contexts. The volume foregrounds the concepts of critical digital literacy and social justice in relation to language learner and teacher autonomy and illustrates how this approach may contribute to institutional objectives for equality, diversity and inclusion in higher education around the world and will be useful for researchers and teachers alike.

With the rapid availability of information, it becomes essential to keep pace with this availability as well as process the information into knowledge that has real-world applications. Neuroscientific methods allow an approach to this problem based on the way that the human brain already operates. Over the centuries and through observation and trial and error, we already know a great deal about how we can teach and learn, but now we can verify this with scientific fact and discover previously unknown aspects of brain physiology. These observations of brain functioning have produced many learning theories, all of which have varying degrees of validity. These theories, in turn, give birth to theories and models of instructional design, which also have varying degrees of validity. A Conceptual Framework for SMART Applications in Higher Education: Emerging Research and Opportunities is a critical scholarly publication that explores how the brain acquires and processes information to turn information into knowledge and the role of SMART technology and how it combines and integrates visual and aural data to facilitate learning. The book also discusses ways to apply what is known about teaching to how the brain operates and how to incorporate instructional design models into the teaching and learning process. Highlighting various topics such as neurogenesis, smart technologies, and behaviorism, this book is essential for instructional designers, online instruction managers, teachers, academicians, administrators, researchers, knowledge managers, and students.

Restorative practices in schools emphasize a focus on non-punitive strategies to handle student disciplinary issues within schools and can include practices such as peer mediation, conflict resolution, restorative circles enabling a respectful dialogue, reparation of harmful and/or wrongful actions, and a primary emphasis on building relationships between all members of a school community. With a movement away from harsh disciplinary policies including suspensions, expulsions, and zero tolerance policies, restorative practices encourage school community members to work together in a productive and meaningful way without the use of exclusionary discipline practices, which often result in the removal of a student from a school community. Restorative practices emphasize inclusive strategies that aim to restore a school community and provide schools with strategies to improve their school climate overall. Transforming a School Community Through Restorative Practices: Emerging Research and Opportunities is a critical scholarly resource that can provide schools with the tools needed to successfully implement a restorative approach to effect change within a school. Featuring a wide range of topics such as conflict resolution, school safety, and school community, this book is ideal for teachers, counselors, school administrators, principals, academicians, education professionals, researchers, policymakers, and students.

This book focuses on integrity throughout the PhD journey and beyond, and is organised around two main themes: (1) integrity in relation to the capabilities developed by doctoral candidates for professional practice; and (2) integrity and coherence at the PhD system level. The working methods of key participants such as PhD candidates, supervisors, university managers, government agencies and politicians are central to achieving integrity goals within PhD programmes. In this context, a number of constructs are developed that inform the practice-based elements of the book in relation to conducting doctoral research, research supervision, academic writing, and research training support systems; in particular, these include our Moral Compass Framework for professional integrity, notions of collective morality, decision-making when faced with 'wicked' problems, connected moral capability and our double-helix model of capability development, negotiated sense in contrast with common sense, completion mindsets and contexts, mindfulness, liminality, and mutual catalysis in joint authorship. While the data the book employs stems from practice-led research within the Australian doctoral system, the conclusions drawn are of global relevance. Throughout the book, wherever appropriate, comparisons are made between the Australian context and other contexts, such as the doctoral systems of the United Kingdom, Europe and the United States.

This edited volume presents the current state of the art of genetics education and the challenges it holds for teaching as well as for learning. It addresses topics such as how genetics should be taught in order to provide students with a wide and connected view of the field. It gives in-depth aspects that should be considered for teaching genetics and the effect on the student's understanding. This book provides novel ideas for biology teachers, curriculum developers and researchers on how to confront the presented challenges in a way that may enable them to advance genetics education in the 21st century. It reviews the complexity of teaching and learning genetics, largely overlooked by biology textbooks and classroom instruction. It composes a crucial component of scientific literacy.

This book reports on a study on physics problem solving in real classrooms situations. Problem solving plays a pivotal role in the physics curriculum at all levels. However, physics students' performance in problem solving all too often remains limited to basic routine problems, with evidence of poor performance in solving problems that go beyond equation retrieval and substitution. Adopting an action research methodology, the study bridges the `research-practical divide by explicitly teaching physics problem-solving strategies through collaborative group problem-solving sessions embedded within the curriculum. Data were collected using external assessments and video recordings of individual and collaborative group problem-solving sessions by 16-18 year-olds. The analysis revealed a positive shift in the students' problem-solving patterns, both at group and individual level. Students demonstrated a deliberate, well-planned deployment of the taught strategies. The marked positive shifts in collaborative competences, cognitive competences, metacognitive processing and increased self-efficacy are positively correlated with attainment in problem solving in physics. However, this shift proved to be due to different mechanisms triggered in the different students.

This book is a step-by-step guide for instructors on how to teach a psychology research methods course at the undergraduate or graduate level. It provides various approaches for teaching the course including lecture topics, difficult concepts for students, sample labs, test questions, syllabus guides and policies, as well as a detailed description of the requirements for the final experimental paper. This book is also supplemented with anecdotes from the author's years of experience teaching research methods classes. Chapters in this book include information on how to deliver more effective lectures, issues you may encounter with students, examples of weekly labs, tips for teaching research methods online, and much more. This book is targeted towards the undergraduate or graduate professor who has either not yet taught research methods or who wants to improve his or her course. Using step by step directions, any teacher will be able to follow the guidelines found in this book that will help them succeed.How to Teach a Course in Research Methods for Psychology Students is a valuable resource for anyone teaching a quantitative research methods course at the college or university level.

Understanding new educational innovations is essential for the improvement of the training and learning process. In order to effectively implement these new tools in the classroom, teachers and trainers need access to real-life cases in which these methods were successfully used. Innovative Trends in Flipped Teaching and Adaptive Learning is a critical scholarly resource that examines current advances in educational innovation and presents cases that allow for the improvement of personalized and active learning. Featuring a wide range of topics such as higher education, teacher education, and learning strategies, this book is ideal for educators, instructional designers, academicians, researchers, and students.

Music and arts education have a long-standing orientation of seeking a practice where everyone interacts and communicates in, and through artistic activities. However, an overspecialized and professionalized stance in arts education diminishes the spirit of playing music together, and leaves little room for creativity during teaching and learning activities. In order to gain a richer and deeper knowledge of music and the arts, interaction and the meaning of creative and humanely kyosei interactions between and among individuals, groups, and institutions must be emphasized. Cases on Kyosei Practice in Music Education is an essential reference source that discusses the meaning and significance of music making as a human and social practice, as well as reflecting creative inquiry into practical aspects of music and arts teaching. Featuring research on topics such as multicultural music, community music, and sociological perspectives, this book is ideally designed for P-12 educators, pre-service and in-service teachers, administrators, principles, music instructors, administrators, caregivers, and researchers.

The mission of higher education in the 21st century must focus on optimizing learning for all students. In a shift from prioritizing effective teaching to active learning, it is understood that computer-enhanced environments provide a variety of ways to reach a wide range of learners who have differing backgrounds, ages, learning needs, and expectations. Integrating technology into teaching assumes greater importance to improve the learning experience. Optimizing Higher Education Learning Through Activities and Assessments is a collection of innovative research that explores the link between effective course design and student engagement and optimizes learning and assessments in technology-enhanced environments and among diverse student populations. Its focus is on providing an understanding of the essential link between practices for effective "activities" and strategies for effective "assessments," as well as providing examples of course designs aligned with assessments, positioning college educators both as leaders and followers in the cycle of lifelong learning. While highlighting a broad range of topics including collaborative teaching, active learning, and flipped classroom methods, this book is ideally designed for educators, curriculum developers, instructional designers, administrators, researchers, academicians, and students.

An award-winning teacher takes a journey into alien territory: Austria, Hitler's birthplace, and the territory of her own hatred. A teaching memoir that offers a pedagogy of hope.

Conquering Fourth Grade is a fun workbook designed to help students master key grade-level skills. This inspiring workbook covers the entire school year in 10 motivating units, making at-home learning quick and easy. Challenge students to expand their reading, writing, language, math, science, and social studies skills with effective daily practice activities. Watch as students build confidence and develop critical-thinking skills and art appreciation with effective independent learning activities.Parents appreciate the teacher-approved activity books that keep their child engaged and learning. Great for homeschooling or to provide extra practice. Each unit allows students to work at their own pace. Includes easy to follow instructions, an answer key, and supportive family activities.Teachers trust the standards-based activities to reinforce learning and address learning gaps. The easy-to-use workbook covers the key grade-level skills students need to master.

This textbook for in-service and pre-service training uses the "reflective teaching" approach as popularized by Andrew Pollard. The book is written to coincide with the introduction of Further Education National Training Organisation (FENTO) standards - every tutor will have to demonstrate that s/he can meet these standards. Covering both further and adult education, the textbook is written in a variety of styles to suit different kinds of readers: each chapter contains narrative/description of typical issues and incidents, theoretical explanation, practical advice (with checklists) and questions. It is designed to suit both course adoption and individual learning.

A study of teaching, learning and motivation in a multicultural context. It is divided into sections on: theoretical and methodological perspectives - issues and applications; multicultural perspectives on teaching and teacher education; and success and failure in multicultural settings.