Using an Ecological and Systems Approach to Support Early Learning Readiness

2020 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 87-103
Author(s):  
Andrea Coddett ◽  
Margaret Terry Orr
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
School Readiness ◽  
Systems Approach ◽  
Early Learning ◽  
District Leaders ◽  
Improvement Science ◽  
Community Partners ◽  
Learning Challenges ◽  
Early School ◽  
Systemic Improvement

This case is to help district leaders and community partners understand the complexity of pursuing a principles-based approach to improving early school readiness. Wyckoff Public Schools adopted the Boston Basics to support young children’s early learning and readiness for school. It required district leaders and partners to work across organizational and institutional sectors through trial-and-error efforts. The case describes the complexity, learning challenges, and early inquiry cycles that the district pursued to turn this model into a community-embedded educational change and student-readiness strategy. It reflects how systemic improvement theories—particularly the ecological perspective and improvement science—guided their approach and identified areas for improvement.

Teacher Layoffs: An Empirical Illustration of Seniority versus Measures of Effectiveness

2011 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 439-454 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donald Boyd ◽  
Hamilton Lankford ◽  
Susanna Loeb ◽  
James Wyckoff
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Public Schools ◽  
School Districts ◽  
Teacher Effectiveness ◽  
District Leaders ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
School District Leaders ◽  
Alternative Approaches ◽  
Teacher Layoffs ◽  
Measures Of Effectiveness

School districts are confronting difficult choices in the aftermath of the financial crisis. Today, the financial imbalance in many school districts is so large that there may be few alternatives to teacher layoffs. In nearly all school districts, layoffs are currently determined by some version of teacher seniority. Yet, alternative approaches to personnel reductions may substantially reduce the harm to students from staff reductions relative to layoffs based on seniority. As a result, many school district leaders and other policy makers are raising important questions about whether~other criteria, such as measures of teacher effectiveness, should inform layoffs. This policy brief, a quick look at some aspects of the debate, illustrates the differences in New York City public schools that would result if layoffs were determined by seniority in comparison to a measure of teacher effectiveness.

A Collaborative Problem-Solving Approach to Improving District Attendance Policy

2020 ◽  
pp. 089590482097440
Author(s):  
Sarah Winchell Lenhoff ◽  
Erica B. Edwards ◽  
Joi Claiborne ◽  
Jeremy Singer ◽  
Kate Rollert French
Keyword(s):  
Problem Solving ◽  
Collaborative Problem Solving ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Shared Understanding ◽  
District Leaders ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Community Partners ◽  
Collaborative Problem ◽  
Attendance Policy ◽  
Shared Narrative

Collaborative problem-solving research approaches have the potential to support improvement in educational policy and practice beyond instruction, by facilitating the development of a shared understanding of complex problems and creating social structures where district, community, and research partners can work together to solve them. This study investigates how findings from a developmental evaluation of a district attendance initiative were incorporated into the initiation process of a networked improvement community to create a shared narrative about how members conceptualized the problem of absenteeism and how they should adapt their levers to better align to that problem. The developmental learning process created an infrastructure within which district leaders and community partners could develop a partnership culture that facilitated change in policy. This study suggests the need to revisit the assumptions that have driven non-instructional improvement efforts and highlights the potential of collaborative problem-solving to strengthen the implementation of district reforms.

scholarly journals Religion, Democracy and the Public Schools

2009 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-56 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael J. Davis
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
A Priori ◽  
United States Supreme Court ◽  
The United States ◽  
Religious Activities ◽  
The Public ◽  
School Prayer ◽  
Political Policy ◽  
Early School ◽  
K 12

In the six decades since it began adjudicating issues involving religion and K-12 education, the United States Supreme Court has issued numerous opinions on various aspects of that relationship. Several of the Court's viewpoints have changed over time. It explicitly reversed itself on the constitutionality of using publicly-paid specialists in parochial schools, and dramatically changed its perspective on public funds flowing to those institutions. But the Court has never wavered on issues regarding religious activities in public schools—it has struck down every policy or program it has chosen to review. No opinion was unanimous, and rationales changed. But no result has diverged from the Court's original perspective that the Establishment Clause's brightest line ran just outside the public school grounds.This piece begins with first doctrinal, then policy reviews of the Court's nine school prayer decisions. Parts I and II analyze the decisions as constitutional doctrine, dividing them along parallel lines of time and quality. In Part I, I show that the holdings and rationales of the Court's early school prayer decisions are both sound and commendable as constitutional doctrine. Part II takes a longer look at the remaining later decisions however, and reveals a struggling Court often relying on specious, fabricated or a priori reasoning to reach the apparently inevitable, but questionable, conclusion of unconstitutionality. Part III takes up the effects of the Court's decisions on social and political policy. I argue that the early decisions, though controversial, freed America from a past of sectarian domination, while the later decisions helped sow the seeds of several related and unhappy developments, especially ones promoting the very religious divisions they purported to guard against.

Letramento Estatístico na Formação Continuada de Professores dos Anos Iniciais com Foco nas Representações Gráficas

2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 341
Author(s):  
Ruy Cesar Pietropaolo ◽  
Angélica Da Fontoura Garcia Silva ◽  
Maria Elisabette Brisola Brito Prado ◽  
Maria Elisa Esteves Lopes Galvão
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
Teacher Development ◽  
Graphical Representation ◽  
Professional Knowledge ◽  
Mathematical Object ◽  
Graph Representation ◽  
Statistical Literacy ◽  
Video Recordings ◽  
Initial Stage ◽  
Early School

Este artigo tem como objetivo identificar conhecimentos e reflexões sobre a prática realizada por professores participantes de um processo formativo a respeito da estatística, sobre a interpretação de representações gráficas e seu ensino. Participaram desta investigação vinte e um professores, que lecionam matemática para os anos iniciais de escolas públicas paulistas. Para a coleta de dados foram utilizados registros recolhidos em encontros presenciais, gravações em áudio e vídeo. Teoricamente, esta pesquisa foi fundamentada em estudos de Zeichner e Ball, Thames e Phelps, com a finalidade de analisar aspectos ligados à formação de professores reflexivos e ao conhecimento profissional; em Gal, para discutir o Letramento Estatístico e Monteiro e Ainley sobre a relação entre o conhecimento específico da representação gráfica e o desenvolvimento do senso crítico. No início da formação foi possível identificar algumas práticas, por parte dos professores como, por exemplo, trabalhar com situações ligadas ao dia a dia da criança. Por outro lado, foi possível relacionar tais práticas com as limitações do conhecimento dos professores a respeito da interpretação de gráficos e seu ensino, como a redução do ensino à organização de listas, gráficos de colunas e a problematização focada, predominantemente, na leitura das informações. A análise dos dados permitiu identificar que a reflexão observada durante o processo propiciou, além do avanço na compreensão do objeto matemático, o aprimoramento da análise de questões didáticas do conteúdo. Foi possível relacionar tais equívocos com as limitações do conhecimento dos professores a respeito da interpretação de gráficos e seu ensino. Para esta pesquisa foram analisados os dados das discussões ocorridas a partir da análise de um cenário de aprendizagem, utilizando o tipo de gráfico que os professores estavam habituados a utilizar para promover a reflexão sobre o seu ensino. A análise dos dados permitiu identificar que a reflexão observada durante o processo propiciou, além do avanço na compreensão do objeto matemático, o aprimoramento da análise de questões didáticas do conteúdo.Palavras-chave: Formação de Professores. Representação Gráfica. Conhecimento Profissional Docente.AbstractThis article aims to identify types of knowledge and reflection about practices developed by a group of teachers participating in a development process on the statistics field, mainly on graphical representation interpretation and its teaching. The participants of this research were 21 teachers who teach mathematics at the early school years at public schools in the state of Sao Paulo. Data collection was made through the registration of on-site meetings and audio and video recordings. The theoretical basis for this research used the studies of Zeichner and Ball, Thames and Phelps for the analysis of features related to the development of reflective teachers and professional knowledge; Gal’s studies were used to discuss Statistical Literacy, and Monteiro and Ainley’s supported the relation between the specific knowledge of graphical representation and the development of critical thinking. At the initial stage of the development it was possible to identify some practices developed by the group of teachers as they prioritize working with routine-like situations that the children experience. Other practices, however, showed misconceptions such as equating teaching to list organization and column graphs, and problematization focused mainly on information reading. It was possible to relate such misconceptions with the teachers’ limitations in terms of knowledge regarding graphs interpretation and its teaching. For this research, the data were analysed which were obtained from the discussions held on the analysis of a learning scenario using the type of graph that the teachers were used to applying so as to promote reflection about its teaching. Data analysis allowed us to identify that the reflection observed during the process, besides enhancing the understanding about the mathematical object, also enabled the improvement of the analysis of teaching issues related to content.Keywords: Teacher Development. Graph Representation. Teacher’s Professional Knowledge.

Balancing the School Readiness Equation in Early Learning Environments

2014 ◽  
Vol 90 (6) ◽  
pp. 418-426 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher P. Brown ◽  
Hali Pickard
Keyword(s):  
School Readiness ◽  
Learning Environments ◽  
Early Learning

The Development of Methodical Approaches to the Implementation of the Propedeutic Course of Informatics in Primary School by Means оf Kodu Game Lab

2021 ◽  
Vol LXIV (4) ◽  
pp. 380-394
Author(s):  
Dmitry Pavlov ◽  
◽  
Adel Kaplan ◽  
Kirill Butarev ◽  
◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Primary School ◽  
Early Learning ◽  
School Age ◽  
Global Impact ◽  
Early School ◽  
Early School Age

The article describes the problem of teaching programming at an early school age. The main objective of the article is to demonstrate the results of research on the problems of early learning. The authors analyzed teaching programming in Russian schools, its past, present and prospects. The local (subject) tasks and the global impact of early learning in programming on learning in primary school have been determined. The authors, as the results of their research, highlight several problems that arise in early learning to program. And they establish the reasons, as well as possible ways to overcome these problems.

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