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With this study we investigated strategies to support rural-based schools in teaching and learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. The research was conducted in 6 secondary schools in the Maune circuit, Capricorn North district of the Limpopo province, South Africa. A qualitative research approach using a case study research design was followed in the study. The population consisted of 42 school management teams (SMTs) and school governing bodies (SGBs) in the Maune circuit. Purposive sampling was used to select 18 participants. Data were collected through individual semi-structured interviews. A thematic approach was used to analyse the data. The social realist theory was adopted as theoretical framework using the concepts of structure, culture and agency as theoretical lenses. We found that the Department of Basic Education did not train SMTs and SGBs, which affected teaching and learning. We concluded that due to the unavailability of ICT infrastructure within the Maune circuit, teaching and learning during strict lockdown (coronavirus disease [COVID-19]) were impossible and difficult when learners were rotating attendance. We recommend a shift from a blanket approach to school support to conducting an intensive needs analysis for each school in order to provide appropriate and relevant support. A social realist approach to school support is also recommended, where structure and culture are considered critical attributes for school development. It will be good for policy makers, role players and stakeholders to work together towards a common goal and carry out their agential role in ensuring that the needs of marginalised learners are met in schools.

Although there is increased interest in social and emotional competence and mental health in Croatia, there are currently limited measurement options available for early childhood settings. Thus, the SSIS SEL Brief Scales (SSIS SELb), an efficient measure of social and emotional learning competencies developed in the United States, was translated to Croatian and used by 49 early childhood educators to rate a sample of 685 children (average age 4.3 years) from several counties in Croatia. Regarding measurement invariance, the final model cohered substantially with a CASEL-inspired framework. Overall reliability was also high especially for the SEL Composite ([alpha] = 0.94), with notably lower reliability for subscales. Regarding cross-group concurrent validity, concurrent coefficients were largely similar across age and gender, but there were regional differences in validity. Likewise, validity correlations were in line with expectations, with moderate relationships observed between the SSIS SEL Composite and Child and Youth Resilience Measure scores. In sum, the high level of reliability provided a foundation for applied and research usage of the Croatian SSIS SELb, although further validation research will continue to be necessary before widescale implementation. Limitations to the study are discussed and also point to needed additional research before utilizing the Croatian translated SSIS SELb for applied decisions with young children.

The SSIS SEL Brief + Mental Health Scales (SSIS SELb+MHS) are multi-informant assessments developed in the United States to assess the social and emotional learning (SEL) competencies and emotional behavior concerns (EBCs) of school-age youth. Although there are translations of the SEL items of the SSIS SELb+MHS available in other languages, a German translation has never been completed and validated, despite the growing need for SEL and mental health assessment in German-speaking countries. To address this need, this study's primary purpose was the examination of a German translation of the assessment with a specific focus on measurement invariance and concurrent validity invariance testing with 821 3rd through 6th-grade students in Austria and Germany. Results indicated that the SELb+MHS items clustered into 2 SEL factors and 2 EBC factors. With regard to measurement invariance, the SELb+MHS functioned similarly across both Austria and Germany and full scalar invariance was achieved. Additionally, the overall pattern of concurrent validity relationships was as expected and similar across countries. Implications and future directions are discussed.

French immersion (FI) programs are becoming increasingly culturally and linguistically diverse as a result of growing migration to Canada. In the present mixed-methods study, I explore the perspectives and ideologies of teachers, principals, and central office staff in eight school divisions in Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Alberta with respect to refugee-background students in FI programs. Through the triangulation of survey responses (N=126) and interviews (N=40), I examine perspectives pertaining to four themes: 1) suitability of FI for refugee-background students; 2) language learning; 3) challenges facing refugee-background students; and 4) supports and resources in FI programs. Adopting the theoretical perspective of sociolinguistics for change, I discuss three underlying ideologies shaping the perspectives of FI educators across the Canadian Prairies: 1) English-first ideologies; 2) deficit ideologies; and 3) ideological tensions between inclusion and support.

Existing research evidence pertaining to the occupational therapy (OT) role with adventure-based outdoor activities for military veterans and the authors' positive experience serving members of a non-profit veteran-run organization that promotes rehabilitation archeology suggest that outdoor rehabilitation for this client population is a promising avenue for the profession. Moreover, students' exposure to outdoor experiences designed for military veterans as well as other populations presenting with physical and mental health conditions has the potential to significantly augment OT curriculum by impacting both the learning trajectory and personal transformation of the students. This paper describes a unique service-learning experience involving graduate OT students who engaged with and provided services to veterans participating in archeological fieldwork, as well as the impact of this experience on the students.

Helping students make connections between the disciplinary study of communication and the development of student agency in career exploration can be an important part of the mission of the introductory course in communication. This study incorporates social cognitive career theory to examine the effects of a semester-long communication career awareness research project as an intervention in an introductory communication course at a large public university in the Midwest. Survey data from 83 undergraduate students were analyzed to measure perceptions of self-efficacy, perceived competence, autonomy support, and adaptability for career exploration. The results of paired samples t-tests found significant gains on all four dependent variables. These findings indicate the potential for such a project in introductory courses to promote career exploration agency.

Drawing upon autoethnographic experience as a music educator, I make the assertion that transformative learning is particularly amplified in locations where a person encounters the unfamiliar, for those are often the precise places where an individual's habitus no longer holds efficacy. To build this argument, I propose that when inner consciousness intersects with place-shaping processes, transformative learning takes place in a connected, compassionate, and creative manner. I infuse this framework with Pierre Bourdieu's work on habitus, in which he suggests that inner consciousness shapes, and is shaped by, a person's social encounters. Thus, in this lived aesthetic inquiry, I propose that transformative learning has substantial intersectionality with socially constructed understandings of place.

In counselor education programs, students acquire clinical experience through both practicum and internship; this time frequently marks students' first counseling experiences working with suicide in a clinical context. Often, students in practicum or internship working with clients who may be experiencing suicidal ideations do not feel properly equipped to deal with suicide. This study aimed to develop a practice model for online counselor education programs that increases counseling students' self-efficacy to work with clients who may present with suicidal ideations. Sixty online graduate-level clinical mental health counseling students completed a pre- and posttest self-efficacy assessment. Findings showed that students' self-efficacy increased due to taking the online basic counseling skills class that included teaching activities related to suicide screening, assessment, and intervention.

Maria Montessori's work remains popular and influential around the world. She provided fascinating descriptions of her observations of children's learning. Yet at the heart of her work is a lacuna: the issue of how children learn their first language. For Montessori, it was a marvel, a miracle--but a mystery. We argue that the later philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein offers a way forward. With the clearer view offered by Wittgenstein's reminders, we propose that Montessori's work can be reevaluated to better understand Montessori's contribution, child development and, in particular, how children acquire a first language.

Purpose: Globally, countries with both developed and developing economies are struggling to secure sufficient participation in vocational education to generate the range and quantum of skills required for their communities and realising national social and economic goals. In an era of high aspiration, vocational education and the occupations it serves are increasingly seen as being a less than desirable outcome by young people and their parents. Hence, there is a need to identify means by which to inform and engage young people in considering vocational education and the occupations it serves. The case study discussed in this paper is contextualised within the Australian state of Queensland, which, like many other countries is struggling to have a workforce sufficient to meet communities' healthcare needs as its population both grows and ages. Methods: The study data were collected from 1) interviews with healthcare-related stakeholders including health industry representatives, teachers or practitioners, and healthcare providers, 2) focus groups with senior secondary students, and 3) surveys with these participant groups. It provides a descriptive analysis of efforts to secure greater participation by young people in allied health roles, and, in particular, young Australian Indigenous people. Findings: The study participants included those from regional and metropolitan centres and from state and independent schools, and in all of which the focus on engagement was central. Findings indicated that engagement was necessary to advise young people about these occupations, the effective preparation for them, and likely retention in the workforce. Conclusion: This study highlights the need for intentional strategies to engage young people, their parents/guardians and with those efforts likely needing to be organised and enacted at the local level. This requires collaboration and engagement from education, industry, and local communities. Essentially, a systemic approach is required, specifying roles for government, employers, educational systems, and teachers and parents who engage directly with young people. In all, engagement, advice and opportunities locally are all emphasised in the study reported here.

This study examined the perceptions of participants regarding the use of embedded video demonstration lessons during literacy professional development sessions. The videos were captured in an urban elementary classroom and modeled two new literacy strategies. Based on survey responses from 160 kindergarten through fifth grade elementary school teachers and 117 school or district administrators and instructional specialists, the findings revealed positive participant perceptions and effective instructional use of the videos that modeled the implementation of the strategies in a relevant classroom setting. The analysis of the use of videos during the professional development (PD) sessions was found to positively affect the instructional capacity of teachers to implement the strategies in their classroom settings. The findings also suggest that school administrators more positively understood the process of using the strategies to support the standards, resulting in increased leadership capacity. Implications of using specifically created videos to enhance clarity and credibility of PD for participants are discussed.

This reflective essay addresses the nexus of two recent events in the United States: (1) the public scrutiny of the relationship between land grant universities and the expropriation of Indigenous lands and (2)the often uncritical and rapid uptake of settler land acknowledgments at public college and university events. We argue that written land acknowledgment statements need to accompany actions that align with declarations of respect and honor. Specifically, we offer readers three concrete ideas through which institutions may further land acknowledgments: challenging their historical legacies, fostering meaningful partnerships with Native Nations and Indigenous Peoples, and materializing resources for this highly underserved, long-neglected, often ignored community.

Junior high school is pivotal for developing skills and fostering a lasting interest in science subjects. Understanding the components that either lead to or hinder academic engagement is essential. This research investigates an indicator of the learning environment that significantly influences academic engagement in science of junior high school students. A quantitative descriptive correlational design was employed with 142 junior high school students selected through universal sampling, utilizing adapted instruments to assess the learning environment and academic engagement in science, and the gathered data was statistically analyzed using mean, standard deviation, Pearson r, and linear regression. This study revealed that the level of learning environment and academic engagement in science of junior high school students were both high. In addition, the study found a significant relationship between the learning environment and academic engagement in science among junior high school students. Moreover, the science learning environment indicators that significantly influence the academic engagement of junior high school students were the enjoyment of science lessons and investigation, highlighting the importance of cultivating a positive and enjoyable science learning experience, and the promotion of hands-on investigation in the educational process. Recommendations include fostering an improved overall student learning environment, schools continuing their commitment to quality education, teachers refining instructional delivery, and aligning science activities with student needs. This research is a valuable resource for future studies to contribute to enhancing knowledge in science education.

Service-learning in graduate education is commonly used but has limited studies on its effectiveness. Can service-learning be implemented in graduate education in a way that enhances the experience for the students? Most service-learning research has focused on service-learning at an undergraduate level in nursing, social work, public health, and occupational health (Lu & Lambright, 2010). This study replicates Lu and Lambright's study with Doctor of Physical Therapy program students to expand research on the impact of service-learning experiences on professional skills in graduate students. Our findings suggest "how integrated the project was into the curriculum" and "how much influence students have over how their project progressed" was significant and positively associated with improved professional skills.

Work-integrated learning (WIL) has been suggested as a potentially beneficial addition to modern doctoral education. However, there is little research outlining the specificities of WIL aimed at PhD students. This paper explores the range of WIL opportunities available to PhD students through a review of secondary data. The findings indicate that WIL opportunities are non-homogenous and vary widely across their structure and implementation. Patterns emerge to indicate that WIL opportunities tend to be optional, paid, short-term, focused on horizontal learning development, and provide opportunities for boundary crossing outside of academia. These findings imply that WIL has the potential to complement doctoral education by providing opportunities to experience cross-sector or cross-discipline learning and development. However, higher education institutes might consider becoming more involved in the design and implementation of WIL for PhD students. Additional research is required to understand how WIL opportunities fit into doctoral education and to evaluate existing WIL opportunities.

Many educators and professional organizations recommend Quantitative Reasoning as the best entrylevel postsecondary mathematics course for non-STEM majors. However, novice and veteran instructors who have no prior experience in teaching a QR course often express their ignorance of the content to choose for this course, the instruction to offer students, and the assessments to measure student learning. We conducted a case study to investigate the initial implementation of an entry-level university quantitative reasoning course during fall semester, 2018. The participants were the course instructor and students. We examined the instructor's motives and actions and the students' responses to the course. The instructor had no prior experience teaching a QR course but did have 15 years of experience teaching student-centered mathematics. Data included course artifacts, class observations, an instructor interview, and students' written reflections. Because this was a new course--and to adapt to student needs--the instructor employed his instructional autonomy and remained flexible in designing and enacting the course content, instruction, and assessment. His instructional decision making and flexible approach helped the instructor tailor the learning activities and teaching practices to the needs and interests of the students. The students generally appreciated and benefited from this approach, enjoyed the course, and provided positive remarks about the instructors' practices.

This mathematics classroom based experimental study determined the relative effectiveness of formative assessment techniques on students' academic achievement in Mathematics. Factorial research design was adopted for the study involving 100 students from 2 co-educational secondary schools drawn through multistage sampling procedure. Mathematics Achievement Test was the instrument used for data collection. The reliability of the instrument was established using Kudder Richardson (KR[subscript 20]) formula and a reliability coefficient of 0.92 was obtained. Descriptive statistics of mean and standard deviation were used to answer the research questions and Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) was employed to test the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The findings of the study revealed that the muddiest point formative assessment technique proved to be more effective in improving students' academic achievement in Mathematics than the think-pair-share technique. The findings also showed that the mean achievement scores of male and female students in Mathematics are not statistically significant. The muddiest point technique should be employed regularly by teachers for classroom assessment of the students since it is more effective in improving students' academic achievement in Mathematics.

On average, the college graduation rates for minority and/or high-need students are generally low. To address this situation, a Mid-Atlantic Consortium recently secured a grant to improve 4-year graduation rates of high=need students (i.e., new first-time students and transfer students who qualify as low-income students, first-generation college students, adult students, and/or students of color) by 20% over each selected college's baseline. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore the experiences of students and faculty mentors toward accomplishing this goal. Data were transcribed, coded, and analyzed thematically. Some of the effects identified in this study included enhanced academic and career planning, strengthening relationships between mentors-mentees through enhanced communication and trust building, enhanced research skills, development of mentorship skills, development of intellectual curiosity, and improved academic outcomes. We discuss implications for practice, policy, and further research.

From a linguistic perspective it seems intuitive that a strong link would exist between the study of linguistics and critical thinking (CT). After all, linguistics is about making sense of language analysis, which contributes to the enhancement of CT while CT, in reciprocation, enables meaningful analysis. Yet this link has virtually never been clearly defined or made explicit either in studies on linguistics teaching and learning or in those on CT development. This paper explores the relationship between linguistics study and CT in the Vietnamese context from the perspectives of undergraduate English Linguistics students and their lecturers, with a view to improving both students' linguistics study and their CT. Drawing on data collected in questionnaires and interviews at a public university in Vietnam, the findings of the study reveal a variety of aspects of linguistics tasks and classroom activities where the link is significant as well as a range of specific CT skills and dispositions that are related to linguistics teaching and learning. In general, the students and the lecturers showed a positive attitude towards the integration of CT into linguistics teaching and learning, but challenges and barriers to this integration were identified. The study suggests the use of problem-solving tasks and open-ended questions for fostering the reciprocal relationship between linguistics study and CT.

Active learning pedagogical practices are more effective than instructor-centered teaching in building students' knowledge, skills, and understanding of engineering content and concepts. As such, a large-scale professional development (PD) program was created to move faculty toward the use of active learning. The project aimed to engage faculty in active learning best practices through workshops and communities of practice to shift their attitudes, beliefs, and practices toward active learning strategies. This paper examines how and to what extent participation in a large-scale PD program shifts faculty awareness of, attitudes towards, and use of active learning. As such, this paper offers a model and evaluation framework for a large-scale PD program, which can be adapted to PD programs in engineering and across other STEM disciplines. In total, 82 faculty members from seven engineering disciplines participated in the PD program, comprising workshops and communities of practice sessions. Multiple assessments were utilized or created to measure the extent of faculty change using Roger's diffusion of innovation model for individual change and Coburn's cultural change model for organizational change. Faculty awareness, beliefs, and classroom practice shifted from instructor-centered teaching toward student-centered active learning. Instructors progressed moderately well through Rogers' five stages of individual innovation change and fulfilled the three tenets of Coburn's organizational change model. There were only minor shifts in student achievement, particularly for smaller classes, possibly due to insufficient time for instructors to fully implement active learning practices. The PD program influenced the initiation of a sustainable community of new and continuing active learning practitioners in the College of Engineering.

The movement of air into and out of the lungs is facilitated by changes in pressure within the thoracic cavity relative to atmospheric pressure, as well as the resistance encountered by airways. In this process, the movement of air into and out of the lungs is driven by pressure gradients established by changes in lung volume and intra-alveolar pressure. However, pressure never sucks! The concept that pressure never sucks, pressure only pushes encapsulates a fundamental principle in the behavior of gases. This concept challenges common misconceptions about pressure, shedding light on the dynamic forces that govern the movement of gases. In this Illumination, we explore the essence of this concept and its applications in pulmonary ventilation. Pressure is one of the most important concepts in physics and physiology. Atmospheric pressure at sea level is equal to 1 atmosphere or around 101,325 Pascal [Pa (1 Pa ¼ 1 N/m[superscript 2])]. This huge pressure is pushing down on everything all the time. However, this pressure is difficult to understand because we do not often observe the power of this incredible force. We used five readily available, simple, and inexpensive demonstrations to introduce the physics and power of pressure. This extraordinarily complex physics concept was approached in a straightforward and inexpensive manner while still providing an understanding of the fundamental concepts. These simple demonstrations introduced basic concepts and addressed common misconceptions about pressure.

Student-faculty interaction (SFI) is an important indicator of student engagement that positively associates with academic achievement and retention. Quantitative information regarding the impact of emergency remote teaching (ERT) during COVID-19 on SFI is limited. This retrospective, observational cohort study tests the hypothesis that COVID-19 ERT negatively affected SFI in a gender-dependent manner. Electronic records of office hour (OH) appointments, used to measure SFI, for first-year medical students across three time periods, before, during and after COVID, were obtained and analyzed. A concerning, marked decline in SFI during and after the COVID-19 pandemic is noted. Before COVID, significantly more women (75.20%) made at least one OH appointment compared with men (40.54%). During COVID, the proportion of women making an OH appointment (69.71%) was statistically indistinguishable from women before COVID-19. In contrast, significantly fewer men during COVID (10.34%) than before COVID made an OH appointment. On return to face-to-face teaching, no rebound effect was observed. Compared with before COVID gender-matched peers, fewer men and women after COVID made OH appointments. Discipline-based analyses show that for all three time periods physiology emerged as the content area in which students made most OH appointments. The reduction in SFI observed, combined with the consistency with which the participants in our study indicated a need for assistance with the physiology discipline, emphasizes the importance of active promotion of faculty support and deliberate efforts to reconnect with students in the post-COVID context.

One issue that has received little attention is how students factor distance from home into their decisions about college. In this study, we used data from the Education Longitudinal Survey of 2002 (ELS:02) to examine the distances between a student's home and the colleges to which they applied, and how far from home they enrolled. We focused on how demand- and supply-side factors were related to the distances applied and enrolled. We tested the sensitivity of our findings to alternative ways of measuring the supply of postsecondary education within commuting distance, and identified factors associated with differences between a student's application and enrollment distances. Finally, we used quantile regression analysis to determine if the associations between demand- and supply-side factors and distances applied and enrolled varied along the distance distributions.

Instrumental variables is a popular approach for causal inference in education when randomization of treatment is not feasible. Using a first-year college program as a running example, this article reviews the five assumptions that must be met to successfully use instrumental variables to estimate a causal effect with observational data: SUTVA, as-if random assignment, exclusion restriction, nonzero average causal effect of instrument on treatment, and monotonicity, and concludes with recommendations for researchers.

Providing behavioural support to all students is increasingly recognised as an integral part of teaching and learning in schools throughout the world. This small-scale, qualitative study reports on the perceived challenges faced by staff in implementing school-wide behavioural support at two remote Indigenous primary schools in Queensland, Australia. Individual semi-structured interviews held with two administrators and six teachers revealed implementation barriers to be clustered around four themes: staff turnover and leadership change; staff training; consistency in teaching and responding to student behaviour; and involvement of parents and remote community. These initial findings highlight the need to extend investigations into barriers associated with implementing and sustaining this behavioural approach in other remote schools throughout Australia, as student behaviour influences student learning, and lifting educational outcomes for Indigenous students is a national priority.

Background: Research suggests that a better awareness of how staff who directly support people with intellectual disabilities experience their working relationships, will contribute to understanding staff wellbeing and the quality of care they offer. This study aimed to gain insights into the lived experiences of support workers in supported living services in England. Method: Six support workers participated in semi-structured interviews, about their working relationships with service-users and colleagues. Data was analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis. Results: Six interconnected themes emerged: The essence of good relationships; a trusting relationship as the vehicle for meeting service-users' needs; belonging to the support team; the organisational context of relationships; the social context of relationships; 'a fine balancing act'. Conclusions: The findings provide insights into staff wellbeing, indicating that developing supportive, trusting relationships with both service-users and colleagues, plays an important role in delivering effective care. Potential implications for service providers are discussed.

Background: Documented inequalities in access to eye care for people with learning disabilities and/or autism are caused by poor uptake of primary eye care services, poor identification of eye problems, lack of signposting and reasonable adjustments of existing services, concerns about costs of care and the low priority historically given to these issues in eye care policy at a regional and national level. In 2019, the charity SeeAbility employed four eye care champions (ECCs) with lived experience of learning disability and/or autism to work in local communities in London and the Northwest of England. They provided peer-to-peer support on understanding the need for good eye health and engaged with policy makers, and learning disability, autism and eye care professionals at the local, regional and national levels to influence both the clinical practice of individual practitioners (within existing service/pathway models) and more widely to influence the commissioning of the Easy Eye Care pathway. This study explores the experiences of these ECCs. Methods: The study was conducted in April and May 2023. A case study approach was used to describe the experiences of the ECCs from March 2019 to March 2023. Data from structured interviews with the four ECCs and workload analysis were triangulated to provide a multifaceted understanding of this novel health promotion project. Findings: The ECCs found the role useful and reported that confidence in their practice and impact grew with time but they required ongoing support in the role. A good understanding of the promotional messages was reported. Developing a good network of contacts at an early stage, both people with learning disabilities and healthcare professionals, was key. Relationships with professionals were supportive and positive and a positive emotive response to their lived experience was reported in these interactions. Conclusions: From the perspective of the ECCs, the role is useful and beneficial. The work suggests some key recommendations for future development which include planning to build networks, support in presentation and communications skills and defining key messages and knowledge. Confidence of the ECCs builds with time in the role but also needs support the emotive impact of their lived experiences on audiences is highlighted. There is a need to evaluate how the programme is perceived by those who interact with it and how it changes behaviours which leads to better health outcomes.