Search

Ungrading emphasizes formative feedback over summative judgment, promoting intrinsic motivation and student agency. While implementing ungrading requires effort, the benefit to students and teachers is significant.

Trauma, a prevalent experience among students, significantly affects their academic and personal lives. Trauma-informed practices offer an educational approach that acknowledges the impact of trauma, striving to create a safe, supportive, and healing environment. Implementing these practices in schools can enhance students' comfort, strengthen peer and teacher relationships, and promote overall success (Child Mind Institute, 2023; Peterson, 2023). This paper examines the benefits and effective implementation of trauma-informed practices in educational settings.‘Resilient Schools, Resilient Students: Trauma-Informed Education’ offers a transformative approach to cultivate resilience in both educators and learners. This program dives into understanding trauma's effects on students and equips educators with practical strategies for creating supportive classroom environments. By emphasizing resilience-building techniques, fostering empathetic connections, and implementing trauma-informed practices, this training aims to fortify schools as safe spaces for student growth. With a focus on collaboration, resource availability, and ongoing support, this initiative aims to empower educators in nurturing resilience among students.

Teacher educators have a significant responsibility in promoting anti-racist pedagogy and guiding preservice teachers to engage in critical self-examination regarding dominant narratives. However, many teacher education programmes fall short of adequately equipping aspiring teachers for diverse classrooms as they often perpetuate a predominantly white system and curricula. Informed by Critical Pedagogy and underpinned by a lens of Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies, this paper discusses the experiences of teacher educators facilitating anti-racist pedagogy within teacher education programmes at Australian universities. Semi-structured interviews were held with 23 experienced teacher educators employed at universities across Australia. Data reveal teacher educators’ efforts to promote anti-racist pedagogy are fraught with challenges when attempting to break the silence surrounding racism, with support for anti-racist pedagogy inconsistent amongst colleagues and within institutional structures. Teacher educators who actively embrace anti-racist pedagogy require resilience and a strong dedication to ongoing critical reflection. The findings have relevance for teacher education efforts not only in Australia, but also in countries where teacher education programmes continue to be predominantly centred on whiteness.

To complete the requirements of the 696 Capstone project, I have created a website. This website is a “Physical Impairment/OHD/TBI Guide for teachers''. I decided to make a website to aid teachers, case managers, and service providers. This website is a one stop shop for information about different diagnoses, the effects on students, accommodations/modifications and assistive technology. This website will be a working document I can add to as I come across new information as a physically impaired consultant.

Computation, modeling, and simulation practices are commonplace in the STEM workplace, yet formal training embedded in disciplinary practices is not as standard in the undergraduate classroom. Teaching and Learning in STEM With Computation, Modeling, and Simulation Practices: A Guide for Practitioners and Researchers gives instructors a handbook to ensure their curriculum bridges the gap between the classroom and workplace by equipping students with computational skills and preparing them for a rewarding career in STEM. Grounded in theory and supported by fifteen years of education research at the undergraduate level, this book provides instructional, pedagogical, and assessment guidance for integrating modeling and simulation practices into the undergraduate classroom., https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/purduepress_ebooks/1073/thumbnail.jpg

ABSTRACT Bullying is perceived in different ways according to the experience or training of individuals. In my practice, adults often misidentify disputes or incidents as bullying due to a lack of evidence or varying perceptions. This problem must be a theme of reflection for all stakeholders in traditional or charter schools. My study aimed to understand how teachers and parents perceive bullying in terms of social implications, cultural factors, and professional training. In my research, I provided insight into how the stakeholders in a public charter school perceive this phenomenon. The participants highlighted their perceptions and topics of communication, exclusion, and other social implications. Most parents indicated that they trust their students' teachers as the first contact to protect them. Therefore, it is essential to increase community communication for transparency and accountability to identify the reason for the communication gap in the community. School personnel must be trained to prevent, identify, and treat this problem. Future research is essential to continue investigating and combining intervention programs as well as strategies and techniques to incorporate bystanders and the vitality of professional development of all stakeholders.

Ed+gineering, an NSF-funded program, adapted hands-on robotics instruction for online delivery in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This qualitative multiple case study shares the experiences of participating education students in spring 2021 as they collaborated virtually with engineering students and fifth graders to engineer bioinspired robots in an afterschool technology club adapted to be virtual. The online context reduced the education students’ interactions with people other than the engineering students and fifth graders on their team and thus positioned COVID-19 as a metaphorical magnifying glass amplifying the critical role that these relationships played in influencing the project’s outcomes. Through analyzing short-answer reflections, the researchers observed patterns in the ways the education students’ interactions with their engineering and fifth-grade partners shaped their teaching self-efficacy and intention to integrate engineering and coding. Education students appeared to gain the most self-efficacy from feeling supported by, but not dependent upon, their engineering partners, and from adopting engineering-teaching roles. Satisfying interactions with fifth graders and successful production of functioning robots appeared to enhance education students’ intention to integrate engineering and coding into their future instruction. Education students reported gaining self-efficacy for both engineering and coding during the experience, but were more likely to report feeling confident about teaching engineering than teaching coding at the project’s end. Implications and lessons learned are shared, which may be particularly relevant for educators who prepare elementary education students to teach engineering in K-6 settings.

A student's life is mentally demanding and time-consuming for any learner. U.S. culture values hard work, no excuses mantras, and discipline to achieve a graduate degree or the next promotion, and often it is a badge of honor to be overcommitted, stressed out, and exhausted. As mental and physical health issues arise, the implementation of a health and wellness statement for graduate students was utilized to open the proverbial door to hold space and grace for life's challenges and empower learners in an inclusive setting.

The purpose of this study was to analyze the responses of Indigenous students as they experience situations that are adversarial and precarious. One of the goals of this study was to empower voices of Indigenous students in providing an avenue to share their genuine stories of resilience. I served as both researcher and mentor as I applied a Navajo framework to the analysis of the data known as Nitl‘iz Saad bee Hozho Iina Sila (NSBHIS), or beautiful lifeways exist within the language of precious elements. The four areas of this framework held up the salient outcomes from the research which were Personal Development/Passions, Peer Support, Family/Educator Support, and Spiritual Identity. The students I interviewed all attended Wingate High School in Fort Wingate, New Mexico which is a Bureau of Indian Education residential school.

How does analytically comparing the Girl Scouts of the United States of America’s (GSUSA) Leadership Experience program to the Diné philosophy of Hózhó (harmonious way of life) and the Kinaaldá (female puberty ceremony) positively affect the unique diversity of each Diné girl and give attention to leadership skills, self-identity, and the Diné language? This is the research question that guided this research study of comparative analysis. In addition, there are three subquestions: (a) How does aligning the GSUSA Leadership Experience program to the Diné philosophies of Hózhó and the Kinaaldá build leadership skills, positive self-identify, and a healthy social and emotional well-being of Diné girls? (b) How does aligning the GSUSA Leadership Experience program to the Diné philosophies of Hózhó and the Kinaaldá build positive relationships with Diné girls, their families, their school, and their community; and (c) How does aligning the GSUSA Leadership Experience program to the Diné philosophy of Hózhó and the Kinaaldá build connections between the Diné philosophies and Western educational systems/values? Leading this research study are four frameworks: (a) the sociocultural theory of Lev Vygotsky, whose viewpoints and emphases of being culturally relevant and culturally responsive; (b) the personal well-being of each girl, which speaks to the 16 pillars of Secatero’s Indigenous Well-Being Model in Leadership and Wellness (2015); (c) the Indigenous autoethnographic experiences of the researcher and research subjects, as well as the themes of chosen authors, research, and readings; and (d) the vision and mission of the GSUSA Leadership Experience program. For more than 100 years, GSUSA has provided the tools to lead, to break barriers; and to create positive change with a strong sense of self, seeking challenges and learning from setbacks, displaying positive values, forming and maintaining healthy relationships with peers, family members, an

The pandemic caused by the COVID-19 virus has impacted the educational landscape in unbelievable ways. The changes to the learning environment in schools required leaders to obtain and exercise different competencies. New Mexico charter leaders are leading in the new normal of public education. With the additional roles, requirements, and expectations brought on by the pandemic, leaders cannot return to their prior leadership practices. The purpose of this qualitative hermeneutic phenomenological study was to understand and give voice to the lived experiences of NM charter leaders working through the COVID-19 pandemic. The narrative of the participants highlighted four major themes: charter leadership, reinventing school, communication, and social emotional. Situational leadership provided the theoretical framework for the study and traits were present in the rich descriptions of the participants’ characteristics and behaviors. Crisis management and communication were exhibited by participants as part of their practices leading through the pandemic. The data collected in this study supported the uniqueness of charter leadership as well as revealed the challenges faced during the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings from this study suggest that leaders must be flexible, supportive, understanding, courageous, and humble, especially when navigating a crisis. Recommended topics for future research included: expanding this study to include teacher, student, families, and community perspectives on how charter leadership navigated the pandemic; and expanding to charter leaders nationwide.

This study examines the commitments of an alternative teacher education program in linking theory and practice, one of the most prominent problems of the field. This qualitative phenomenological study drew from semi-structured interviews with seven faculty members and associate instructors, electronic surveys with seven program students, participant observation and field notes in seminar sessions, one program faculty meeting, and one community meeting, and curriculum materials. The findings suggest that the design of the program and the roles and (inter)actions of the stakeholders within the program created a dialectical interplay. Linked with this interplay, Teachers’ Society provided a setting for collaborative learning during which theory is extracted from experience.

The ongoing shortage of special education teachers coupled with an increasing attrition rate has prompted many researchers to investigate why teachers are choosing to leave the field. Multiple studies (Lehmann 2008, et al Cheng 2022, et al Bryant 2023) have been conducted to determine the rates of attrition at multiple levels in education. Results of studies (Hughes 2012, et al Robinson 2019, et al Ogakwu 2022) indicate that there has been a statistically significant relationship between job satisfaction and burnout among special education teachers. This project provides a literature review focused on special education teacher burnout and attrition along with a discussion offering potential solutions to this persistent problem. Bridging the gap between teacher perception and administrative support is a hoped for outcome of this project.

The development of student teachers’ beliefs about good teaching needs to be integral to their education programmes. This study attempts to scrutinise the contribution of a theatre education course to the conceptualisation of a group of eight student primary teachers’ notion of good teaching and a teacher’s ethos. The findings reveal that, within the coursework, student teachers’ learning experiences are interwoven with the ethics of the beautiful, the ethics of the dialogue and the ethics of the will. This nexus of learning experiences enabled them to identify three internal goods of good teaching: the awakening of learners’ positive emotions; the activation of their learning energy through play; and the strengthening of their embodied understanding by using theatre semiotics. Concerning a teacher’s pedagogical dispositions in good teaching, they consider trust, respect, empathy, open-mindedness, vigilance and playfulness as pivotal for the ethos of a teacher connected to both teaching and their pupils.

This study aims to investigate how pre-service EFL teachers’ individual innovativeness levels affect their TPACK development during an educational technology course. Employing a quasi-experimental research design, the participants were 59 pre-service EFL teachers. The course followed the Diffusion of Innovation Theory steps. Analyzing the data, TPACK and individual innovativeness scales were implemented as pre- and post-tests. The results showed a significant increase in participants' TPACK, while their individual innovativeness did not exhibit a significant change during the course. Although there was a notable difference in pre-service teachers' initial TPACK levels based on their innovativeness, this difference was no longer significant in the end. Education for TPACK development is critical in bridging the initial knowledge gap arising from differing innovativeness levels.

Teachers’ communication skills are integral to classroom management skills. If teachers implement effective communication skills and appropriate communication strategies, they are more likely to support learner autonomy, engagement, self-concept, well-being, or responsibility and succeed in behaviour management. This study examines student teachers’ awareness and use of communication strategies to address common disruptive learner behaviours. Although the participants showed limited ability to support learners through communication, they were more likely to identify effective communication responses than to produce them themselves. The study unveils that student teachers in the last year of a graduate program cannot respond to disruptive behaviour without communication roadblocks. They need to develop communication strategies to address disruptions in the classroom, while supporting learner engagement, motivation, self-concept, and autonomy. These findings correspond with other research studies that show a lack of opportunities to develop communication skills during preservice teacher education.

Preservice secondary mathematics teachers’ perceptions of teacher knowledge and of possible sources of that knowledge is investigated through examining their responses to an open-ended questionnaire. Participants place greatest emphasis on mathematics content knowledge and mathematics pedagogical knowledge and expect to gain most of their knowledge through formal preparation within the professional learning system rather than through self-study or through interactions with peers. This emphasises how important it is for schools and professional associations to provide regular formal learning opportunities, because future teachers may otherwise not be self-motivated to continue improving their skills independently of this.

Every child has a right to feel culturally safe in schools, yet for countless Indigenous students this is not the case. Many White pre-service teachers in Australia enter initial teacher education with a limited understanding of racial identity, Indigenous knowledge or White anti-racism. This autoethnographic study applies Social Cognitive Theory and the Theory of Planned Behaviour to understand the role of the White teacher educator in racial conscientisation of White pre-service teachers. We examine how White teacher confidence in enacting anti-racist behaviours builds when White teacher educators role-model the professional approaches which White teachers can use to teach about race and be culturally reflexive in K-12 classrooms. Such cultural reflexivity requires that White teachers acknowledge their positionality and make visible Indigenous cultural authority over course material. In doing so, this culturally reflexive approach provides an effective and authentic critical pedagogy for developing anti-racist conscience and practice amongst White educators.

This article reports on some of the findings from a doctoral research project that explored how the vocationally interested and vocationally disinterested pre-service teachers in selected teacher training colleges in Zimbabwe experienced transformative learning. Through multiple-site case study and qualitative approach within an interpretive paradigm, guided by Mezirow’s ten-phase Transformative Learning Theory, the study sought to understand the pre-service teacher transformative learning experiences. The study employed a multi-modal approach which involved focus group discussions, individual face to face interviews and continuum drawing and discussions to generate data from a purposive sample of 40 participants. Findings suggest that, both vocationally interested and vocationally disinterested pre-service teachers experienced transformative learning through two avenues: disorienting dilemmas and learning experiences. The findings also suggested that while the majority of pre-service teachers experienced transformative learning, a few did not experience transformation. We argue that if vocationally disinterested pre-service teachers are to transform during teacher training, vocational supports should be built into processes and activities to purposefully cushion their transformative paths, given the lack of interest in teaching at the start of the course.

Establishing a reciprocal relationship between mentors and pre-service teachers is critical in pre-service teacher mentoring. Highlighting self-regulation as a means for managing emotions in the pursuit of meeting long-term goals, this study examined the constructive features that help develop a reciprocal relationship between pre-service teachers and mentors. The study has captured a range of qualitative data from the dyadic process of mentoring (two-way interaction between a mentor teacher and a pre-service teacher): within the pre- and post-lesson conferences between mentors and pre-service teachers and post mentoring interviews with mentors and pre-service teachers. The study highlighted the strengths of mentor facilitated THIINK4 reflective thinking to enhance professional learning: think ahead (at the preparatory stage), think while (at the performing stage), think back, and think forward (at the appraisal stage). The paper highlights the critical role that the reciprocal relationship plays in each THINK stage of mentoring to foster preservice teachers’ self-regulation.

“I think I can, I think I can’ puffed “The Little Engine That Could.” The American folktale taught the value of optimism and hard work reflecting a growth mindset belief about abilities. A growth mindset positively impacts academic achievement, motivation, and children’s agency for learning. Few studies have explored how early childhood teachers can develop children’s growth mindsets. We report on a study that developed design principles to assist early childhood teachers to foster a growth mindset in children in early childhood classrooms at one school in Western Australia using design-based research. Two iterations of the principles were designed and examined with teachers of children aged 3.5 years to 6.5 years of age. During three focus groups conducted at the beginning, middle and end of two iterations, the researcher and teachers collaboratively developed, reflected, and refined the principles. Weekly video diaries recorded the participant’s reflections on the principles. The nine principles were found to improve early childhood teacher knowledge and practice to foster a growth mindset in children. The results from this study contribute theoretical and practical knowledge to support the inclusion of mindset theory in early childhood contexts to foster children’s growth mindset for positive learning outcomes. © 2023 NAECTE.

The purpose of this study was to gather information on Early Intervention (EI) practices and the implementation of the Special Education High Leverage Practices (HLPs) with parents and children ages birth through age two. In the past, EI staff took the lead as they provided a medical model of services where the staff went into the homes of parents and “fixed” problems the child was having, essentially leaving the parent out of the equation (NICHCY, 2022). The programs involved parents, but many of the parents seemed to take a back seat and watch what was going on with their child (NICHCY, 2014, Edwards, 2019). In recent years, EI services have moved toward a family-centered approach where EIs are expected to interact with the child during daily routines but also coach parents during this time. The Council for Exceptional Children CEC (2023) focuses on including the HLPs in current EI practices. This project describes how reflected on my coaching and then used HLPs to better communicate with parents and coached them in implementing interventions into their child’s daily routines. It consisted of creating forms and using a coaching practices checklist to keep track of coaching fidelity. Through this reflection and analysis, I more effectively organized and facilitated meetings with professionals and families, prioritized long- and short-term learning goals, and enhanced coaching through explicit instruction.

Global efforts are underway to include engineering in pre-college curricula. In the USA, this pursuit led to the inclusion of engineering content in the most recent version of the Next Generation Science Standards that guide K-12 science. As these standards become part of the K-12 curriculum, teachers face the challenge of gaining basic engineering literacy, while developing the associated inclusive pedagogies necessary to integrate engineering content into their classrooms. In this context, teacher preparation programs can benefit from easy-to-implement tools that measure preservice teachers’ readiness to integrate engineering content in their future classrooms. This work describes the development and validation of an instrument to help assess educators’ perceived levels of pedagogical content knowledge for engineering integration at single or multiple time points throughout their academic preparation. The proposed instrument can complement other assessment methods, such as classroom observations, interviews, and journal entries. Additionally, the instrument can be used to help discern the effectiveness of teacher preparation programs in preparing future teachers to integrate engineering.

Initial teacher education plays an important role in preparing music teachers for schools. There is a growing interest in Chinese music teacher education, though limited research currently exists. This study investigated early-career teachers’ perspectives concerning the efficacy of the initial music teacher education program at Yu Cai Normal University (pseudonym), China. This mixed-methods study used a sequential explanatory design where qualitative interview data were used to provide further explanation and detail regarding survey results. The perceptions of early-career music teachers were sought on the importance, effectiveness, and usefulness of their initial teacher education and the most rewarding and challenging aspects of their beginning careers. Phase 1 of the data collection consisted of an online survey with 32 music education graduates of Yu Cai Normal University from 2015–2019. Phase 2 involved one-on-one semi-structured online interviews with three participants offering a range of views. Phase 3 was a combined analysis and discussion of the findings from Phases 1 and 2. Findings indicate that early-career music teachers highly valued their initial teacher education and their studies adequately prepared them for work, though the quality of their university subjects could still be improved. Early-career music teachers embrace the challenges of the profession and choir, competitions, and the act of teaching are their greatest rewards. Practical subjects remain the most critical components of music teacher education, and theory must be situated in contextualized practice.

This is an autoethnographic case study about the value of storytelling through digital family narratives in composition studies and critical culturally sustaining/revitalizing pedagogy. Using the Diné Educational Philosophy, Sa’ah Naaghai Bik’éh Hozhoo, and the four learning areas Nitsáhákees (Thinking), Nahat’á (Planning), Iiná (Living), and Siihasin (Reflection), as my conceptual framework, I create an assignment prompt for an all Diné composition classroom that asks students to collect family stories as a way to explore their cultural and academic identities, and to create digital family narratives to be housed on a website. I also complete the assignment myself and reflect on my choices in creating and completing the assignment, using Western academic scholarship and my own experiences as a Diné woman to validate my decisions in completing and creating the assignment. I argue for the centering of storytelling and cultural/personal identities/experiences in the composition classroom and pedagogical practice.