This textbook prepares teachers to incorporate gamified learning experiences into middle school classrooms. Its focus provides concrete examples of how to seamlessly integrate literacy across disciplines in a fun, engaging, and unique way for all learners. Furthermore, this book offers practical information related to pedagogy, content, and differentiation for each lesson. Preservice teachers, practicing teachers, instructional coaches, and administrators can benefit from this user-friendly text and its companion digital components, allowing for replication of lessons based on national standards, backed by best-practices, and supported by differentiated pedagogy. This unique book begins with engineering marvels that span across centuries and locations. The ten chapters, in chronological order, are titled: Acropolis, Petra, Colosseum, Chichen Itza, Moai, Red Square, Taj Mahal, Neuschwanstein, Eiffel Tower, and Sydney Opera House. By focusing on specific examples of human ingenuity, opportunities are created to delve into the historical and social aspects of each chapter’s focus. There are also chances to explore the artistic merit and the art created about and around each marvel. Additional teaching moments lie in understanding the science, engineering, technology, and math embedded in all featured marvels. Each chapter offers material lists, resource materials, and visual/graphic images to support understanding. Teaching tips and differentiation strategies are also provided to support novice and career teachers alike.

The roles of school leaders are ever-expanding. Along with the increase comes heightened expectations to create and sustain school environments that embrace the cultures of all students and families. To accomplish this optimally inclusive learning culture and climate, school leaders must possess the acumen to view all aspects of their responsibilities through a culturally responsive lens, hence, culturally responsive leadership. Culturally Responsive Leadership for Social Justice and Academic Equity for All offers a multi-faceted approach to culturally responsive leadership as it connects the concept to the various responsibilities of school leaders. The book also challenges school leaders to see the connective and comprehensive nature of culturally responsive leadership in their daily duties and responsibilities, introduces the concept of culturally responsive leadership and its benefits for all students, and prompts and initiates an educational leadership mindset that seeks to explore the impact of culturally responsive leadership further. Covering key topics such as equity, school culture, and professional development, this premier reference source is ideal for administrators, policymakers, researchers, scholars, academicians, practitioners, instructors, students, preservice teachers, and teacher educators.

This textbook provides real world examples of how disciplinary literacy can incorporate gamified learning opportunities in elementary classrooms (grades K-5 or ages 5-11). It also presents concrete examples of how to seamlessly integrate literacy within other subjects in engaging and unique ways. Furthermore, this text offers practical information related to pedagogy, content, and differentiation for each lesson. Preservice teachers, practicing teachers, instructional coaches, and administrators can benefit from this user-friendly text and its companion digital components, allowing for replication of lessons based on national standards, backed by best-practices, and supported by differentiated pedagogy. This unique volume begins with engineering marvels that span across centuries and locations. The eight chapters focus on the following marvels in chronological order: Great Pyramid of Giza, Stonehenge, Leaning Tower of Pisa, Great Wall of China, Machu Picchu, Panama Canal, Golden Gate Bridge, and International Space Station. By focusing on these specific examples of human ingenuity, opportunities are created to delve into the historical and social aspects of each chapter’s focus. There are also occasions to explore the artistic merit and the art created about and around each focus. Additional teaching opportunities lie in understanding the science, engineering, technology, and math embedded in all featured marvels. Each chapter features an adventure roadmap in the form of a narrative quest set against the chapter’s marvel that guides teachers and student players through embedded activities. Activities are designed for lower elementary school (grades K-2 or ages 5-8) and upper elementary school (grades 3-5 or ages 8-11). Instructional support for both novice and career teachers is provided through differentiation strategies, resource materials, and teaching tips.

The function of reinforcement and punishment in the behavioral paradigm illustrates the intricacies of learning processes, fostering a deeper understanding of behavioral modification strategies. Moreover, the interplay between environment and behavior has underscored the necessity of context in facilitating effective learning experiences. Although critiques and limitations have been thoroughly examined, they serve to highlight the evolution of behaviorist thought and its ongoing relevance amidst a broader landscape of learning theories.

This book is related to the educational networking (EN) domain, an incipient but disrupting trend engaged in extending and improving formal and informal academic practices by means of the support given by online social networks (OSNs) and Web 2.0 technologies. With the aim of contributing to spread the knowledge and development of the arena, this volume introduces ten recent works, whose content meets the quality criteria of formal scientific labor that is worthy to be published according to following five categories: · Reviews: gather three overviews that focus on K-12 EN practice, mixed methods approaches using social network analysis for learning and education, and a broad landscape of the recent accomplished labor. · Conceptual: presents a work where a theoretical framework is proposed to overcome barriers that constrain the use of OSNs for educational purposes by means of a Platform Adoption Model. · Projects: inform a couple of initiatives, where one fosters groups and networks for teachers involved in distance education, and the other encourages students the author academic videos to improve motivation and engagement. · Approaches: offer three experiences related to: Wiki and Blog usage for assessment affairs, application of a method that encourages OSNs users to actively post and repost valuable information for the learning community, and the recreation of learning spaces in context–aware to boost EN. · Study: applies an own method to ranking Mexican universities based on maximal clique, giving as a result a series of complex visual networks that characterize the tides among diverse features that describe academic institutions practice. In resume, this volume offers a fresh reference of an emergent field that contributes to spreading and enhancing the provision of education in classrooms and online settings through social constructivism and collaboration policy. Thus, it is expected the published content encourages researchers, practitioners, professors, and postgraduate students to consider their future contribution to extent the scope and impact of EN in formal and informal teaching and learning endeavors.

A private conversation about the culture of education related to Black Americans always yields poignant and sometimes painful truths. As the reader of this text, you are on the receiving end of a personal dialogue based on experiential polemics unrestrained by the politics of academic marketing. In this treatise of thought on the intersectionality of education, society, and Black Americans, Alonzo DeCarlo engages the reader with textbook flair in some places and subtle diatribes in others about a philosophy of Being Black in the United States while pursuing educational mainstays. In a world where the legal and constitutional support promises so much yet delivers so little, this book is in part a research text that specifically puts Black American education at front and center. It polemically discusses the academic enterprise in the United States. It offers novel insights for all parties involved in the educational ecosystem, which continues to disfavor Black Americans and others in the general population. The book can be thought of as a flowchart that connects factors, which contribute to underachievement in many educational domains and over-representation in institutions that wittingly or unwittingly stifle Black American’s socioeconomic mobility. It explores within-group and between-group differences on an array of issues that affect Black Americans’ educational state and well-being. A discussion on topics as diverse as psychiatry, sexual orientation, religion, culture, social justice, neuroscience, identity, psychology, and technology is undertaken, as they correlate with Black Americans traversing the academic enterprise from preschool through pre-med. This is admittedly as intriguing as it is ambitious. It is what distinguishes the text from others surrounding it on the bookseller’s shelves. In sum, this book is a result of thoughts and ideas compiled from observations on the connectedness of many areas related to and affected by the education of Black Americans.

These proceedings represent the work of researchers participating in the 9th European Conference on Games-Based Learning, which is being hosted this year by Nord-Trondelag University College, Steinkjer, Norway, on the 8-9 October 2015. The Conference has become a key platform for individuals to present their research findings, display their work in progress and discuss conceptual advances in many different areas and specialties within Games-Based Learning. It also offers the opportunity for like-minded individuals to meet, discuss and share knowledge. ECGBL continues to evolve and develop, and the wide range of papers and topics will ensure an interesting two-day conference. In addition to the main streams of the conference, there are mini tracks focusing on the areas of the design of multiplayer/collaborative serious games, applied Games and gamification, the teacher's role in game-based learning, games for STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) learning, assessment of digital game-based learning and pervasive and ubiquitous gaming for learning. In addition to the presentations of research we are delighted to host the third year of the Serious Game competition, which provides an opportunity for educational game designers and creators to participate in the conference and demonstrate their game design and development skills in an international competition. This competition is again sponsored by SEGAN - Serious Games Network. With an initial submission of more than 60 games, 28 finalists will present their games at the conference. Prizes will be awarded to the games judged to demonstrate the best quality and originality of game play itself and the positioning and articulation of the game's contribution to the educational domain. With an initial submission of 190 abstracts, after the double blind peer review process, there are 75 research papers, 15 PhD research papers, 4 Non Academic papers and 8 work-in-progress papers published in these Conference Proceedings. These papers represent research from more than 40 countries, including Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Norway, Portugal, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan/ROC, The Netherlands, The Netherlands, United Arab Emirates, UK and USA

As education becomes more dependent on data-intensive algorithmic systems, private corporate power continues to grow. Left unregulated, the implications for children's basic rights and future life chances are not to be underestimated. In this book, Velislava Hillman argues that datafication, i.e. turning all human actions into data, and surveillance have been normalised in eductional settings and shows how edtech products are not improving education equally for all children. She calls for a licensing regime which drives the edtech industry towards ethical practices and meeting appropriate standards before they are allowed to operate in schools. Looking beyond edtech's potentials, this book outlines a governance framework across socio-technical, ethical, critical pedagogic, and human rights imperatives for governing the digitisation of education.

This accessible book will help elementary school teachers improve literacy instruction inside or outside the Common Core environment. The authors address teachers' instructional needs by introducing key concepts from current trends in literacy education--from high-level standards to the use of 21st-century literacies. Readers then follow teachers as they successfully implement the curriculum they developed to promote high-level thinking and engagement with disciplinary content. The text focuses on three disciplinary literacy units of instruction: a science unit in a 2nd-grade classroom, a social studies (history) unit in a 4th-grade classroom, and a mathematics unit in a 6th-grade classroom. Each unit revolves around a central inquiry question and includes research-based strategies for using reading, writing, and classroom talk as tools to foster disciplinary understandings. This unique, insider's look at how real teachers build and implement a Common Core-aligned curriculum will be an invaluable resource for teachers, schools, and districts as they move forward to align their own curricula.

This practical resource will help K–5 teachers incorporate digitally supported disciplinary literacy practices into their classroom instruction. With an emphasis on reaching all learners, the authors present Planning for Elementary Digitally-supported Disciplinary Literacy (PEDDL)—a six-phase framework that introduces readers to an approach for integrating disciplinary literacy into instruction using various types of digital tools to support literacy learning. Including instructional methods and lesson plans, the text demonstrates how the tools can be incorporated into the English language arts, mathematics, science, and social studies classroom. Included are core practices for disciplinary literacy learning, along with the rationale behind each, and examples of the PEDDL Framework in action. Book Features: A structured framework and lesson planning template to guide teachers in planning for digitally supported disciplinary literacy. Guidance for using the framework in the everyday curriculum, including eight completed lesson plans, two for each focus discipline. A variety of classroom activities, such as reading across texts, making real-world connections, text analysis, and using disciplinary vocabulary. Digital methods and examples for reaching and supporting all learners, including readers and writers who may struggle. Connections to national standards in English Language Arts, Mathematics, Science, and Social Studies.