What Early Childhood Educators Need to Know About Divorced Fathers

Early childhood professionals can play an important role in helping divorced fathers to be more involved in the lives of their children. They can include involving fathers in all school and classroom activities from parent conferences to class celebrations. Educators can also serve as child care consultants to help fathers become better caretakers. By taking these measures, teachers will not only improve the emotional health of children and their fathers, but will also improve the educational experiences of children     

What We Know,What We Still Need to Know: Teaching Adolescents to Write

The purpose of this study was to uncover any differences in the early reading and spelling processes of children learning to read in a first language (L1) and children learning to read in a second language (L2). The reading and spelling development of native Dutch-speaking children and minority children in the first two grades of elementary school were compared. The children were given a number of tasks to test their vocabulary knowledge and the efficiency of their word decoding (including grapheme knowledge and word blending), word spelling (including cipher knowledge and phonemic segmentation), and reading comprehension processes. Analyses of variance were used to test for differences between the L1 and L2 learners. LISREL analyses were used to explore the components underlying the reading and spelling processes in the 2 groups of children. The results showed that the minority children kept up with the native Dutch-speaking children on word blending and word decoding tasks. On word spelling and reading comprehension, however, the minority children were found to be less efficient than their monolingual Dutch peers. The structural models for word decoding and word spelling were highly comparable for the 2 groups. For reading comprehension, vocabulary knowledge was found to have more of an impact on the L2 learners than on the L1 learners. This finding suggests that children learning to read in an L2 should be helped to build their lexical knowledge and that reading instruction should be matched to this knowledge.     

What Schools Need to Know About Fostering School Belonging: a Meta-analysis

Belonging is an essential aspect of psychological functioning. Schools offer unique opportunities to improve belonging for school-aged children. Research on school belonging, however, has been fragmented and diluted by inconsistency in the use of terminology. To resolve some of these inconsistencies, the current study uses meta-analysis of individual and social level factors that influence school belonging. These findings aim to provide guidance on the factors schools should emphasise to best support students. First, a systematic review identified 10 themes that influence school belonging at the student level during adolescence in educational settings (academic motivation, emotional stability, personal characteristics, parent support, peer support, teacher support, gender, race and ethnicity, extracurricular activities and environmental/school safety). Second, the average association between each of these themes and school belonging was meta-analytically examined across 51 studies (N?=?67,378). Teacher support and positive personal characteristics were the strongest predictors of school belonging. Results varied by geographic location, with effects generally stronger in rural than in urban locations. The findings may be useful in improving perceptions of school belonging for secondary students through the design of policy, pedagogy and teacher training, by encouraging school leaders and educators to build qualities within the students and change school systems and processes.     

Outsourcing STEM Jobs: What STEM Educators Should Know

Outsourcing is a business strategy to cut costs by relocating jobs from high-cost countries, like the USA, to low-cost ones, like India. The practice involves moving the jobs and transferring knowledge, technologies, and capabilities. Outsourcing has been growing in scale and scope in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) occupations, and it has implications for the current and future demand of STEM workers. Some jobs will be rendered obsolete as they migrate to low-cost locations, while others, which are complementary to outsourcing, will see demand increases. The paper reviews the theories about which jobs will be vulnerable to outsourcing and the empirical data. It describes the political and policy discussion about STEM outsourcing and how it has been coupled with the STEM workforce shortage debate. Lastly, it explores the implications for STEM educators, workers, and students. Many STEM jobs have already been outsourced and many more are vulnerable. STEM educators, workers, and students can take practical steps to adapt to outsourcing. STEM educators can modify curricula towards skill and knowledge areas less vulnerable to outsourcing and provide tools to students to become better stewards of their own careers. Workers can better steer their careers by closely tracking outsourcing trends.

     

Cross-Cultural Counseling Supervision: What do we Know? What do we Need to Know?

This article provides a critical review of the theoretical and empirical literature on cross-cultural counseling supervision. In addition to summarizing and critiquing this literature, recommendations for future research or “what do we need to know” are presented.     

Reading Comprehension in Adolescents with LD: What We Know; What We Need to Learn

The changing job market requires a sophisticated array of literacy skills that adolescents with learning disabilities reading below grade level have not yet acquired. This summary of the research on reading comprehension highlights emerging findings and related instructional conditions necessary to achieve optimal student outcomes with limited instructional time. Limitations in the existing evidence base are addressed via four factors for future research and development agendas: (a) use theory to inform research and practice, (b) study the role that dosage plays as an independent variable, (c) study tiered models of instruction that are applicable for use in middle and high school settings, and (d) study factors that can enhance scaling of reading comprehension interventions.     

What Parents Need to Know About Counseling and Psychotherapy

Today's college and university students find mental health services far more available and acceptable than did students in their parents' generation. But even bright and well-educated people still tend to attach stigma to getting help with emotional problems and the considerable developmental challenges of the college years. Parents are advised to acknowledge their sons and daughters needs to grow psychologically and to try to reduce the stigma. Practical information about services is provided, major kinds of crises-including sucicide threats, substance abuse and psychotic breakdown- are discussed, and psychotherapy is described as a process of experiential learning. In conclusion, some results of college student psychotherapy are noted.     

Human Sexuality: A Survey of What Counselors Need to Know

A nationwide sample of counselor educators and practicing counselors responded to a survey questionnaire containing 20 items about human sexuality. Their ratings of the items' importance to a new, master's degree counselor about to begin practicing led to conclusions about the sexual information that counselors may need to have and priorities for instruction in sex counseling.     

What We Know and Need to Know about Preventing Problem Behavior in Schools

When chronic problem behaviors occur in schools, the tendency is to react with stringent and restrictive consequences. Recently, emphasis has shifted toward proactive prevention strategies. In this article, we focus on what we know and need to know about school-wide applications of effective practices and systems for preventing problem behaviors. We describe why this emphasis is important, what defines one prevention approach called school-wide positive behavior support, what current research results indicate about this approach, and what future research is needed to prevent development and occurrences of problem behavior in schools.     

What Teachers of Science Need to Know about Models: An overview

The purpose of this article is to provide an overview of the nature of models and their uses in the science classroom based on a theoretical review of literature. The ideas that science philosophers and science education researchers have in common about models and modelling are scrutinised according to five subtopics: meanings of a model, purposes of modelling, multiplicity of scientific models, change in scientific models and uses of models in the science classroom. First, a model can be defined as a representation of a target and serves as a ‘bridge’ connecting a theory and a phenomenon. Second, a model plays the roles of describing, explaining and predicting natural phenomena and communicating scientific ideas to others. Third, multiple models can be developed in science because scientists may have different ideas about what a target looks like and how it works and because there are a variety of semiotic resources available for constructing models. Fourth, scientific models are tested both empirically and conceptually and change along with the process of developing scientific knowledge. Fifth, in the science classroom, not only teachers but also students can take advantage of models as they are engaged in diverse modelling activities. The overview presented in this article can be used to educate science teachers and encourage them to utilise scientific models appropriately in their classrooms.     

At-Risk High School Students Recovering Course Credits Online: What We Know and Need to Know

The majority of American high school students enrolling in online education are doing so in credit recovery courses. These are online courses specifically for students who previously failed a face-to-face version of the course. Despite the popularity of credit recovery courses, the literature on online learning largely ignores credit recovery courses and students. Assuming credit recovery students are similar to other online learners can be misleading. In this article, the existing literature on credit recovery is reviewed in 3 specific areas: the proliferation of credit recovery courses, the student experience in credit recovery courses, and outcomes and impacts of credit recovery. Suggestions are given for how to advance the credit recovery literature in future research of online learning.     

Outside of School Matters: What We Need to Know in Urban Environments

This article focuses on factors outside of school that we have identified from the established research literature as essential for educators to consider in supporting students in urban environments. We start by conceptualizing what it means for a school to be “urban.” Following this discussion, we describe four outside-of-school factors that emerge from the literature: (1) Understanding Student and Family Homelessness; (2) Understanding Geography and Social Contexts; (3) Understanding Policy and School Funding; and (4) Understanding Parental and Family Involvement. These factors are important to helping educators, especially pre- and in-service teachers, in their understanding of and, consequently, the practices they use to meet the needs of students in these social contexts. We conclude with recommendations for educational practice.     

Hiring Good Colleagues: What You Need to Know about Interviewing New Teachers

Employers need a systematic approach for sorting and selecting the best new hires, and hiring may be enhanced by the use of teachers in the process. This article discusses information-rich job advertisements, behavior-based interview questions, and how to objectively evaluate candidates in preliminary and on-site interviews. Candidates' past behavior is the best predictor of their future performance, and developing an approach to hiring that evaluates applicants' preparation, experience, and expertise is the best way to ensure the hire of a strong new colleague. The article specifically addresses what teachers need to know when involved in hiring their colleagues.     

What Teachers Need to Know About Augmented Reality Enhanced Learning Environments

Augmented reality (AR) enhanced learning environments have been designed to teach a variety of subjects by having learners act like professionals in the field as opposed to students in a classroom. The environments, grounded in constructivist and situated learning theories, place students in a meaningful, non-classroom environment and force them to collaborate with each other in order to solve an ill-defined problem. AR content, accessed via a mobile broadband device (MBD) such as a phone or tablet, is used to guide the learning experiences. Student participants have reported an increased interest in the settings of the experiences and have expressed a positive attitude towards this innovative form of instructional delivery. Using newly available software loaded on MBDs, teachers and/or students can design and share AR enhanced learning environments that are tied to unique places in their communities.