Aligning teacher competence frameworks to 21st century challenges: The case for the European Digital Competence Framework for Educators (Digcompedu)

Teachers need to update their competence profiles for 21st century challenges. Teaching strategies need to change and so do the competences teachers need to develop so as to empower 21st‐century learners. The European Framework for the Digital Competence of Educators (DigCompEdu) represents a paradigmatic example of this endeavour, taking stock of these needs. Defining the requirements of education professionals by teacher competence frameworks can serve multiple purposes at different levels in education systems. At the micro level, it can support and guide teachers' practice and continuous professional development. At the meso level of local education governance, it can support the development of school institutions as learning organisations, providing common ground for dialogue, collaboration and reflection in professional communities of practice. At the macro level of quality assurance, it can provide reference standards for initial teacher education, and for education professionals' quality along the career continuum. The European Framework for the Digital Competence of Educators was designed to align with institutional and contextual requirements in different countries, whilst remaining open to adaptation and updating. It links teachers' and students' digital competence development, and can be linked to institutional capacity building. At the same time, the framework is generic enough to apply to different educational settings and to allow for adaptation as technological possibilities and constraints evolve.     

Changing roles in sustaining successful charter school leadership in high poverty schools: Voices from the field

Effective educational leadership is essential for the success of schools and ultimately student achievement. The impact of school leadership may be even more pronounced in charter schools. Due to current and unprecedented growth, unique design, and complexities of political, financial, and governance issues they face, there is a need for more highly qualified charter school leaders and perhaps even “differently” prepared leaders. In this qualitative study, the authors documented the characteristics and skills of two successful, sustained charter school leaders who retrospectively described their evolved and evolving roles over twenty five years. Each transformed high-poverty, low-performing schools with at-risk populations and led with vision, passion, and a relentless desire to positively influence their organizations and ultimately improve student success in their communities. Although many of their skills and characteristics fall within existing theories, such as situational leadership, transformational leadership, and distributive leadership, they embodied a level of dedication and commitment to the original communities in which they founded charters lasting over a quarter of a century. The findings suggest that founding a charter school and seeing it through to success over time may more closely resemble missionary work than traditional school leadership.     

Let's Talk About Maths: The Role of Observed “Maths‐Talk” and Maths Provisions in Preschoolers' Numeracy

Developmental cognitive neuroscience highlights the importance of interactions between children and their environment. As young children spend increasing time in childcare, it is key to investigate the impact of “maths‐talk” and maths provisions in preschools. Qualitative insights from early educators indicate a greater bias toward counting activities than would be expected given the Early Years curriculum. In addition, we quantified the observed breadth of preschool practitioners' maths language (e.g., place‐value language), setting‐based maths provisions (e.g., quality of maths‐related activities), and their relation with children's early numeracy skills. In settings with greater practitioners' breadth of maths language, children display greater cardinality skills although our data call for the further investigation of parental socioeconomic status and education. We conclude with a discussion on the need to operationalize children's maths learning environments as diversely as possible. Enriching practitioners' skill sets may be an effective and needed way of improving early maths outcomes.     

Links between socio-emotional skills,behavior, mathematics and literacy performance of preschool children in Serbia

European Journal of Psychology of Education - Young children’s socio-emotional skills are important for understanding their own and others’ behaviors and interactions. No study in...     

Normative data and reliability estimates for eight dimensions of reading attitude,part IV—private school learning disabled students

The Survey of Reading Attitudes was administered to 167 intermediate and high school students who were enrolled in three private schools for LD children in the Southeast. Statistical analysis consisted of computing means, standard deviations, standard errors of measurement, and coefficient alpha reliability estimates for the eight dimensions of reading attitude included in the Survey. The reliability estimates for the respective dimensions were as follows: Expressed Reading Difficulty, alpha = .82; Reading as Direct Reinforcement, alpha = .72; Reading as Enjoyment, alpha = .87; Alternative Learning Modes, alpha = .72; Reading Group, alpha = .74; Reading Anxiety, alpha = .71; Silent vs. Oral Reading, alpha = .78; and Comics, alpha = .75. The current results viewed in conjunction with the results of the three previous normative studies seem to support the psychometric soundness of The Survey of Reading Attitudes across differing samples.     

Useful terms in psychoeducational reports: A survey of students,teachers, and psychologists

The usefulness of terminology in psychoeducational reports is examined. Students, teachers, and psychology interns rated the usefulness of 25 terms frequently found in reports. Psychology interns also rated each term on the frequency with which they used it in their own reports. Significant differences were found in the usefulness ratings of the terms, depending on major, category, and whether or not the rater had taken a special education course. Special education majors were found to be more comfortable with technical terms than were students who had prepared to be regular classroom teachers or students in other majors. Findings suggest that it is necessary to use clear, unambiguous terms in reports, and to explain more technical terms in context.