Makerspaces@your School Library

Community centers called “Makerspaces,” “Hackerspaces,” and “Hubs” are materializing in schools, libraries, and industrial buildings across the globe. Educators believe that the Maker movement has the potential to stimulate interest in learning in the STEAM areas (science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics) because hands-on inquiry learning is embedded in every Maker activity. School libraries have always been resource centers for student inquiry learning and many school librarians see Makerspaces as a means to attract students and faculty to the school library for instructional collaboration. This paper provides an overview of Makerspaces in school and community settings and offers advice for school librarians interested in becoming involved in the Maker movement.

How Teachers Experience Collaboration

Collaboration has been found to be a powerful tool for professional development and central for creating opportunities for teachers to reflect on their practice. However, school districts continue to have difficulty both implementing and sustaining collaboration. The purpose of this research was to investigate the experience of the teacher in a creative, instructional collaboration. The teachers in this study found that teacher-initiated collaboration offered them trust and they were more open with their partners. The results also supported the claim that teacher collaboration can facilitate school reform. Participating teachers felt less isolation and developed more teacher knowledge.

Bagaimana self-efficacy calon guru siswa dengan disabilitas di sekolah inklusi?: Studi di berbagai Perguruan Tinggi

The prospective teacher must have both academic and competency readiness. Besides, they must have self-efficacy on their own ability to later teach in schools, especially inclusive schools. However, until now research that discusses how Prospective teachers’ self-efficacy in teaching students with disabilities is still very limited and unclear. The purpose of this study is to reveal the self-efficacy profile of prospective teachers in teaching students with disabilities in inclusive schools as seen in three sub-constructs namely using inclusive instruction, collaboration, and managing behavior. The type of research is a survey. The population is the students of the Elementary School Teacher Education Study Program with a sample of 234 people. The data were collected using a scale of self-efficacy for prospective teachers with alpha coefficient 0,983. The data analyzed using descriptive statistics. In general, the self-efficacy of prospective teachers is in the moderate category. Based on the three sub-constructs of self-efficacy, prospective teachers in using inclusive instructional, collaboration, and managing behavior also are in a medium category. Implications may be reviewed further by the Ministry of Higher Education and University.Key Words: Prospective Teachers; Collaboration; Managing Behavior; Self-Efficacy; Using Inclusive InstructionAbstrakCalon guru harus mempunyai kesiapan baik akademik maupun kompetensi sebelum mengajar di sekolah. Selain itu, calon guru harus mempunyai self-efficacy atas kemampuannya sendiri untuk nantinya mengajar di sekolah terutama sekolah inklusi. Namun, hingga kini penelitian mengenai bagaimana self-efficacy calon guru untuk mengajar siswa dengan disabilitas masih sangat terbatas. Tujuan dari penelitian ini adalah menjelaskan gambaran self-efficacy calon guru untuk mengajar siswa dengan disabilitas di sekolah inklusi yang dilihat pada tiga sub konstruk yaitu using inclusive instructional, collaboration, dan managing behavior. Metode penelitian adalah survei dengan pendekatan kuantitatif. Populasi penelitian adalah mahasiswa Program Studi Pendidikan Guru Sekolah Dasar dengan partisipan sebanyak 234 orang. Pengumpulan data menggunakan skala self-efficacy calon guru dengan koefisien alpha 0,983. Analisis data menggunakan statistik deskriptif. Secara umum self-efficacy calon guru berada pada kategori sedang. Berdasarkan ketiga sub-konstruk self-efficacy calon guru yaitu dalam using inclusive instructional, collaboration, dan managing behavior juga memiliki kategori sedang. Implikasi dapat dikaji lebih lanjut oleh Kementerian Pendidikan Tinggi dan Universitas.Kata Kunci: Calon Guru; Kerja Sama; Manajemen Perilaku; Self-Efficacy; Pembelajaran Inklusif

Teacher peer excellence groups (TPEGs)

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to study the viability of implementing a protocol-guided model designed to provide structure and focus for teacher collaboration from Shanghai in today’s US public schools. The authors examine whether the new model, Teacher Peer Excellence Group (TPEG), fosters the desired key features of productive communities of practice where teachers can jointly construct, transform, preserve, and continuously deepen the meaning of effective teaching. The authors also explore the extent to which existing school conditions – principal instructional leadership, trust, teacher efficacy, and teachers’ sense of school-wide professional community – enable or moderate the desired outcomes. Design/methodology/approach Data for this paper are drawn from a series of surveys administered to teachers from 24 pilot schools in six school districts over two school years. Descriptive and multilevel modeling analyses are conducted. Findings The findings provide encouraging evidence that, given sufficient support and guidance, teachers report higher levels of engagement in deprivatized practice and instructional collaboration. These findings also hold after controlling for key enabling conditions and school characteristics. Social implications The TPEG approach challenges school leaders to take on the responsibilities of helping teachers make their practice public, sharable, and better – three critical objectives in the shift to develop the profession of teaching. Originality/value The indication of TPEG model’s positive impact on strengthening the features of communities of practice in selected public schools provides the impetus for further efforts in understanding the transformational changes needed and challenges ahead at the classroom, school, and district levels.

Designing An Innovative School Library Environment To Facilitate 21st Century Literacy Skills

School librarians have an unprecedented opportunity to assume an instructional leadership role and create a facility that promotes instructional collaboration, inquiry and collaborative learning that will have a dynamic impact on academic achievement. Through the facilitation of these activities, school librarians provide a vital connection to student acquisition of 21st century literacy skills.

Heeding the CALL (Comprehensive Assessment of Leadership for Learning)

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine what school leadership practices are associated with a school’s level of instructional collaboration among school professionals and also investigates what school characteristics are linked to the level of instructional collaboration in a school. Design/methodology/approach – This study drew data from the Comprehensive Assessment of Leadership for Learning (CALL) survey. CALL is a multi-source measure of distributed leadership, comprised of five domains of school leadership practices. Responses from 3,767 teachers and 167 administrators working at 129 schools were analyzed using ordinary least squares regression analysis. Findings – The findings show that there are significant relationships between school leadership practices and the extent of instructional collaboration taking place within schools, both in terms of quantity and quality. In particular, school leadership practices that are closely related to facilitating instruction and allocating resources are associated with a school’s instructional collaboration, whereas a leadership practice related to environmental factors tends not to be significantly correlated with a school’s collaborative culture. This study also found that leadership perspectives on instructional collaboration are an important predictor of both quantity and quality of collaboration among school professionals. Originality/value – This study clarifies the importance of school leadership in a collaborative culture and also provides empirical evidence of what specific practices of school leadership predict the frequencies of professional collaborative activities in school as well as their quality. In addition, this study demonstrates how schools’ contextual factors are related to the level of instructional collaboration among professionals.