Early Focus


Book Description

Early Focus synthesizes and makes understandable the experience of professionals from such fields as: education, orientation and mobility, pediatrics, ophthalmology and optometry, psychology, occupational therapy, and social work. This is a resource for both professionals and parents.




Focusing with Children


Book Description

Listening to children is a skill that parents, teachers, caretakers and school counsellors need to employ every day. With a deep respect for the already existing skills of these adults, the authors offer an extra dimension to the art of communicating with children.




Investigating Ramps and Pathways With Young Children (Ages 3–8)


Book Description

Children are intrigued by moving objects, even more so when they can engineer the movement. This volume in the STEM for Our Youngest Learners Series uses ramps and pathways as a context to provide children ages 3–8 opportunities to engage in STEM every day. Ramps and Pathways is a meaningful and fun way for children to develop engineering habits of mind as they explore concepts in force and motion, properties of objects, and how those properties affect their movement. In the process, children develop spatial thinking that is essential for future careers in STEM. The text also offers guidance for arranging the physical, intellectual, social–emotional, and promotional environments of a classroom to embrace the natural integration of literacy learning. Each volume in this series includes guidance for forming partnerships with families and administrators that support STEM learning, vignettes showing educators and children engaging in inquiry learning, tips for selecting materials, modifications and accommodations for diverse learners, ways to establish adult learning communities that support professional development, and more. Book Features: Alignment with both the Head Start Early Learning Outcomes Framework (ELOF) and the NGSS Science and Engineering Practices, with specific descriptions of how those science and engineering practices in Ramps and Pathways look and feel in Pre-K–2 classrooms.Examples of how to integrate literacy learning in a meaningful way.Descriptions of how the open-ended nature of ramps and pathways aligns with the Universal Design for Learning Framework (UDL). Guidance to help teachers anticipate and plan for all children to become purposeful, motivated, resourceful, knowledgeable, strategic, and goal-directed about learning.Examples of how to stage, introduce, and support children’s designs to develop engineering habits of mind (systems thinking, optimism, creativity, communication, collaboration, attention to ethical considerations).A meaningful and healthy context to grow children’s executive function skills (EFs), including inhibitory control, working memory, and cognitive flexibility. Contributors: Sherri Peterson, Jill Uhlenberg, Linda Fitzgerald, Allison Barness, Rosemary Geiken, Sarah VanderZanden, Brandy Smith, Kimberly Villotti, Shelly Counsell, Lawrence Escalada




Focus on Children


Book Description







Developing Children's Behaviour in the Classroom


Book Description

The authors of this text suggest that teachers need to be able to cope with pupil behaviour before thay can even begin to deliver the National Curriculum. Often classes contain both statemented children those offcially recognize as having behavioural problems and unstatemented but difficult children. Teachers have few strategies to deal with the kind of behaviour that these children present as little, if any, of their training is allotted to classroom and child management.; The authors aim to raise awareness of behavioural needs in the classroom and avoid exclusions. They do this by encouraging school staff to work together to develop policies which will encourage good behaviour.




Powerful Environments for Promoting Deep Conceptual and Strategic Learning


Book Description

Over the past years a substantial amount of research has been undertaken relating to the development of powerful learning environments for the acquisition in students of worthwhile educational objectives focussing on conceptual understanding, higher-order cognitive and metacognitive skills, and self-regulated learning. This research has been mainly undertaken from three distinct, but related perspectives in the study of learning and instruction, namely instructional psychology, instructional technology, and instructional design. Against this background a "research community" involving 14 European research teams has recently been initiated with the aim of interactively contributing to the advancement of theory and methodology relating to the design, implementation, and evaluation of powerful learning environments.This volume, based on the plenary lectures and working sessions during the community's third workshop, constitutes a collective output of this research community, focussing on the identification and analysis of major components and dimensions of powerful learning environments aimed at the promotion of deep conceptual and strategic learning in major domains of school curricula, like mathematics, physics, history, and social sciences.In Part I of the volume three chapters present general perspectives on the central theme of the third workshop. In Part II six studies are reported wherein novel learning environments for elementary and secondary mathematics education have been designed, implemented and evaluated. In Part III of the volume another set of five investigations is presented relating to the design, implementation and evaluation of powerful learning environments in other subject-matter domains (physics, history, social sciences) and in teacher training.




Children's Transitions in Everyday Life and Institutions


Book Description

Written by a team of international contributors and featuring case studies from a range of educational settings in Australia, Denmark, Spain, Sweden, and the USA, this edited book is the first in the field of early childhood and youth studies to draw on Vygotsky's cultural-historical theory to give insights into transitions in childhood, what they are and how they are differently experienced. Transitions are explored holistically so the chapters not only focus on the person transitioning but also the institutions in which the person is transitioning from and to, with a focus on schools and daycare. The contributors look at how societal values and policies impact these transitions and comparison are drawn between international settings. The book includes chapters on expatriate families, immigrant children, home-school transitions, the role of play and communities. Through interviews, case studies and the analysis of empirical material from fieldwork, Children's Transitions in Everyday Life and Institutions reflects on the best ways to engage children so that they may emerge as competent actors in their new settings and transition well.




Handbook of Research on Schools, Schooling and Human Development


Book Description

Children spend more time in school than in any social institution outside the home. And schools probably exert more influence on children’s development and life chances than any environment beyond the home and neighbourhood. The purpose of this book is to document some important ways schools influence children’s development and to describe various models and methods for studying schooling effects. Key features include: Comprehensive Coverage – this is the first book to provide a comprehensive review of what is known about schools as a context for human development. Topical coverage ranges from theoretical foundations to investigative methodologies and from classroom-level influences such as teacher-student relations to broader influences such as school organization and educational policies. Cross-Disciplinary – this volume brings together the divergent perspectives, methods and findings of scholars from a variety of disciplines, among them educational psychology, developmental psychology, school psychology, social psychology, psychiatry, sociology, and educational policy. Chapter Structure – to ensure continuity, chapter authors describe 1) how schooling influences are conceptualized 2) identify their theoretical and methodological approaches 3) discuss the strengths and weaknesses of existing research and 4) highlight implications for future research, practice, and policy. Methodologies – chapters included in the text feature various methodologies including longitudinal studies, hierarchical linear models, experimental and quasi-experimental designs, and mixed methods.




The Eyes of our children


Book Description