Education Commons^™

Enhancing Student Engagement: Exploring The Participating, Investing, And Driving Pathways Of A Continuum Framework, Bryan Matera

Essays in Education

This article examines three levels of student engagement on a specified continuum and includes actionable strategies that can be implemented by practitioners in the field of Education. The writing highlights the three necessary components that lead to increased student engagement and lands on the work of a specific framework to progress this research forward. As students become increasingly involved in their learning experiences and engagement opportunities, students will tend to climb the student engagement continuum toward a more active role in their own learning.

Book Review: Teaching With A Social, Emotional, And Cultural Lens, Shauna Mayer

Essays in Education

Successful teachers are continually looking for ways to improve student achievement. Nancy Markowitz and Suzanne Bouffard write about how the incorporation of teaching through a social, emotional, and cultural lens allows students to be successful inside the classroom. The authors provide several tips, tools, and research-based strategies that align with the Anchor Competencies Framework. The book prepares new teachers, and provides new insights for current and veteran teachers.

A Call For Digital Citizenship Curriculum In Early Childhood Education, Jenna K. Ladd, Joel J. Traver

Essays in Education

Accessibility of information (factual or fabricated), social interconnectedness, and more of our daily lives being lived in the digital world has created challenges and opportunities for children and families around the world. As a result, there exists an emerging need for families with children aged birth-to-five to receive education and support through standards-based digital citizenship curriculum to navigate living online. Several models of digital citizenship curriculum have been created for the K-12 education to provide education and guidance for teachers, administrators, and parents of older children. Thus, we call for the development and implementation of standards-based digital citizenship curriculum in …

Implementation Of A Novel Social-Emotional Learning Program To Advance Integration Of Wellness In Education Practice, Kit Knier, Gauri Sood, Will Ruffin Ii, Jennifer Arroyo, Ankit Sabharwal, Michael Bostwick, Chris Pierret

The Journal of Advancing Education Practice

Social-emotional learning (SEL) programs aim to enhance emotional intelligence by teaching problem solving, self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship building skills. SEL interventions have been shown to improve quality of life and wellbeing, increasingly important outcomes in the wake of the staggering effects of the COVID-19 crisis on mental health. HappiGenius is a novel SEL program with the addition of mindful attention and self-compassion. We hypothesized HappiGenius would improve positive emotions, self-compassion, attention, mindful self-awareness, and social skills in a group of students. This observational cohort study took place at a diverse elementary school in a midsize midwestern city and …

All Young People Of Scotland Will Flourish Under Curriculum For Excellence: Mainstream Primary Teacher Perception Of Additional Support Need Resources In Curriculum For Excellence, Fraser Mcguinness

The Journal of Advancing Education Practice

An increase in the number of pupils with Additional Support Needs (ASN) in Scottish mainstream schools has brought with it a wide variation of learners’ educational needs and corresponding support. Despite this, there is anecdotal evidence sufficient support has not been supplied effectively to meet these needs.

Given repeated policy statements by the Scottish Executive (2004) and Scottish Government (2009; 2016) that Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) will “enable all of the young people of Scotland to flourish as individuals”, one may call into question whether CfE is indeed a curriculum that can facilitate such promise. The purpose of this research …

Utilizing Counter Narratives To Develop Culturally Sustaining, Critically Conscious Preservice Teacher Practitioners, David Wolff

Essays in Education

The content areas that get most attention in an elementary classroom include mathematics and English/Language Arts (ELA), and little time is devoted to other content areas like social studies. Preservice elementary teachers can learn to maximize instructional time by integrating social studies content in the ELA block. Using counternarratives, preservice teachers can learn to use children’s literature to teach multiple perspectives to the dominant narrative in the textbooks. This article shares strategies to present counternarratives and examples of children’s literature that can be used in an elementary classroom.

Bridging Teacher Candidates, School Communities, And The World During A Pandemic, Sarah Jean Baker, Jennice Mccafferty-Wright, A. Minor Baker, Stefanie D. Livers

The Journal of Advancing Education Practice

The Covid-19 pandemic caused distance that separated the teacher from the learner as schools and higher education moved to virtual and flexible learning communities. Likewise, at the same time racial tensions were growing further increasing the distance and divide across the country. This positions teacher educators with the responsibility to bridge this distance.

The challenges of preparing educators for activism in a post-Covid educational context that considers cultural literacy, ethical leadership, and community engagement is explored with three narratives. These narratives provide the opportunity to think with and through our commitments in early childhood and elementary teacher education. Collectively, these …

Teacher Candidates’ Emerging Perceptions Of Reader Response Theory, Khaled Alazzi

Essays in Education

What are the possibilities when teacher candidates participate in focused instruction in reader response theory and connected opportunities to experience response to literature, then design and implement response experiences with their elementary students? Consideration of this question led to this study that describes teacher candidates’ knowledge about reader response theory and their perceptions of the value and usefulness of reader response theory throughout a semester of focused experiences in university and elementary classrooms. Through qualitative analysis, four distinct, but related themes emerged. These themes describe teacher candidates who: 1) are at differing stages of understanding, 2) find that responding to …

Factors Affecting The Enrollment And The Retention Of Students At Primary Education In Andhra Pradesh - A Village Level Study, Ravinder Rena

Essays in Education

There is an imperative need to change the education pattern to achieve universal primary education in India. Even after 60 years of Independence, India faces obstacles in providing Education For All. This study was conducted in a primary school of Errabelly village of Karimnager district of Andhra Pradesh, India. The study revealed that children dropped out of school so as to assist in household and agricultural activities. It also reveals that the dropout rate of girls is more than that of boys. The study recommended that budgetary allocations should be increased so as to encourage the primary school participation and …

Perception’S Of Preservice Teachers ’Toward Children’S Literature, Khaled Alazzi

Essays in Education

Children’s literature is used across the curriculum in elementary classrooms today. How is this literature viewed by preservice teachers and how will their viewpoints affect their use of literature with students? The purpose of this study was to describe preservice teachers’ written responses to children’s literature with geometric content. Six related, but distinct themes emerged after multiple readings of the responses; these themes depict preservice teachers who are: (1) making personal connections with literature, (2) reading for children, (3) being the teachers, (4) looking for the math, (5) finding instructional ideas, and (6) focusing on the morals.

Maximizing The Student Teaching Experience: Cooperating Teachers Share Strategies For Success, Donna R. Sanderson

Essays in Education

This article critically examines the results of a survey completed by fifty-seven cooperating teachers from nine different school districts in the greater Philadelphia area. All of the cooperating teachers had welcomed elementary education student teachers into their classrooms. Strategies used to help alleviate student teachers’ fears and concerns related to their student teaching experience are shared and explored. Findings suggest that teachers use a multitude of strategies to calm their student teachers and set them up for a successful student teaching semester. Cooperating teachers detailed the tasks needed to be accomplished BEFORE the beginning of the student teaching semester to …