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The purpose of this study was to understand perspectives of doctoral students about their compulsory online experience and aspects of their compulsory online experiences which were strongly associated as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, a disorienting dilemma.

Exploratory descriptive survey research was the approach taken. Notable descriptors and associations were interpreted based on statistical analysis complimented by respondent comments.

Respondents included students who were at various stages of completing their doctoral degree. Overall findings indicated preference for face-to-face classes, the switch to online learning was well-received, primarily as a result of perceptions of quick and supportive communication from doctoral program leadership, strong student and instructor connections, and high-quality collaborative opportunities.

The COVID-19 pandemic represented a disorienting dilemma provoking cognitive dissonance among doctoral students who were compelled to move from a hybrid to a completely online learning model. Fear, anger and discontent induced by broken assumptions were mitigated through shared experiences creating new meaning and habits of mind in the process of adjusting to new expectations. Study results reveal that engagement, collaboration and support among instructors and classmates eased the transformative process transitioning into online learning.

The results of this study provided real-time understanding of students' needs in order to be successful in the quest and persistence of doctoral study online. Though the process of seeking official and state approvals to move the educational leadership doctoral program fully online, program faculty made a series of teaching and program adaptations informed by these results.

Research about doctoral student experiences during a compulsory transition from a hybrid to online delivery model has not been explored and offers original perspective to improve future practice transitioning into online programs for student acceptance, engagement and retention.

Guided by an interest in how K-12 history teachers think about teaching race and related concepts in their courses, this paper explores the impact of a workshop put on by a history and civics professional learning organization that explicitly focused on historicizing race, racism and whiteness as a method for furthering teachers' understandings and commitments to antiracist teaching.

This paper draws on Critical Race Theory and Critical Whiteness Studies to make sense of the idea of history teaching as a racial project. Using surveys and a focus group discussion as data.

The authors found that, after the workshop, teachers reported increased comfort and interest in teaching more about race and racism, while fewer stated explicit commitments and plans to teach about whiteness. The authors also found that teachers' definitions of whiteness were largely framed as habits of mind and individual practices and situated within an educational sphere. Additionally teachers initially grappled with systemic interpretations of whiteness, yet ended up landing on identity as the starting point for critical history instruction.

These findings prompt the authors to discuss the continued challenges of linking whiteness with antiracist history teaching and also grapple with the affordances and pitfalls of identity as a starting point for race work.

This mixed-method, collaborative study investigated parents’ perceptions of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) learning through use of STEM kits specifically designed for in-home use by parents and preschool-age children.

Parents with a child attending a community-based childhood development center and ranging in age from three to four were invited to participate. Data were analyzed for the participants’ surveys, which were completed at two different times (pre and post) for this study.

After utilizing the STEM materials with their child over a two-week period, the parents’ perceptions of STEM content changed. The results indicate that regardless of the at-home STEM materials, positive outcomes for their child occurred, including the likelihood that their child would pursue additional STEM opportunities.

With a small sample size and a short timeframe for conducting the study, the results lack generalizability. The findings add information about the effectiveness of STEM materials for preschoolers while providing insight into educational opportunities in home environments.

As the nation addresses workforce shortages in many areas, including STEM, rethinking STEM education during the first five years is important. The more opportunities for young children to engage in meaningful STEM, the greater the potential to pique interest and develop critical thinking skills.

The research on the positive effects of children’s learning in and with nature is persuasive yet a deeper examination of the contemporary and historical discourses suggests that the school garden has been neither welcoming nor accessible to all children. Its detrimental effects on groups of children have been masked within the discourses of urban children’s health and wellbeing, environmental stewardship, and children’s connection with nature. The school garden has been used historically to enact adult agendas to contain and protect urban children from the social ills of modernity; civilise and assimilate marginalised, impoverished, and immigrant groups; and make future industrial and agricultural labourers who would in turn, entrench the white affluent society’s economic and social positions. In this sense, the school garden was used to reinforce patriarchal, colonial, white supremacist, and eugenic aspirations. We consider the school garden movement in North America through a discourse analysis of historical school garden texts to explore how childhoods were culturally constructed and how these discourses have influenced children both in the past and present.

This study introduces an ecological framework for disabilities meant to provide a new model of viewing and learning about disabilities and special education. This model projects a multi-systemic view of factors that influence a person's life, where people with disabilities are active actors in the development of the world. The increased awareness about interconnectedness, globalization, inter- and trans-disciplinarity, influences on human experience, greening, sustainability, inequality, inequity and lack of opportunities is shifting how people think about potential and growth.

The methodological approach is qualitative, interpretive research.

In disability studies, the Ecological Model of Disabilities helps reframe this uniqueness as part of the spectrum of human experiences. In special education, the Ecoducation Model helps reframe the learning experience.

This research is conceptual, but it is also all-inclusive, rendering itself to a wide application in educational settings.

The Ecoducation Model for Special Education is specific to the education of children and adults with disabilities, and it is directly compatible with the broader Ecological Model of Disabilities. These ecological models can be applied to all levels of the ecological system, and to different ecodemes of population. Nevertheless, the ecological models need to be locally implemented, with general principles tailored to national traditions, laws and resources.

Advocating for the pursuit of individual well-being within the larger society, both models call for practical changes in a multitude of areas, including legislation and policy, training of professional personnel, sufficient financial input in programs designed for the care of children and adults with disabilities, change in societal mentalities to fight discrimination, disempowerment and isolation. Because the scope of ecological frameworks is incommensurate, being both interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary, further research possibilities are countless. The ecological perspective opens the fields of disability studies and special education to new theoretical and empirical possibilities.

Two epistemological models are described as new frameworks in disability studies: the Ecological Model of Disabilities and the Ecoducation Model for Special Education. Both are original models that look into the education and inclusion of the person with disabilities.

This article describes an effort to ease the tension between boundary spanning roles for interns participating in a yearlong Professional Development School (PDS) program. In order to do this, the structure of a Social Studies Methods course was revised to mimic a professional learning community (PLC) and assignments were not evaluated for grades.

A conceptual paper that relies on self-reflection as well as student reaction, work samples and survey data.

The findings demonstrate both practices contribute to a collegial and less stressful environment for interns, while not affecting the quality of work submitted.

This paper highlights two of the nine NAPDS essentials, Professional Learning and Leading (3) and Boundary Spanning (8), and describes the ways both are incorporated and addressed in a PDS situated methods course. Describing course revisions, including the implementation of an ungrading practice, provides examples for potential replication.

Why is it that highly trained and seasoned executives fail? On the surface, this doesn’t make sense because they are very successful; yet research in the organization sciences provides no shortage of evidence to prove just that. From the classic Mann Gulch fire disaster of Weick’s famous collapse of sensemaking study, to studies of myopia of learning, escalation of commitment, threat-rigidity, dominant logic, the architecture of simplicity, the Icarus Paradox, to core competencies turning into core rigidities, and navigating new competitive markets using “old” cognitive maps, and many more such examples point to a ubiquitous phenomenon where highly trained and experienced professionals find themselves “stuck” in the heat of battle, unable to move and progress. On the one hand, for some, there is a desperate need for change, but are unable to do so, due to their trained incapacities. On the other hand, some simply cannot see the need for change, and continue with their “business as usual” mentality. For both, their visions of the world shrink, they have a tendency to cling onto their past habitual practices and oversimplify the complexity of the situation. In moments like these: DROP YOUR TOOLS and UNLEARN! This book chapter introduces a framework (grounded in clinical psychology) that has had consistent success in helping seasoned executives and key decision-makers open up the alternatives whenever they find themselves stuck with complexity.

The present study provides insight on Roma students' understandings and experiences during their participation in a learning program under the aegis of Future Literacy Approaches and reports on the range of cognitive and social skills which can be cultivated through such literacy experiences. A case study research design was applied with an after-school evening class attended by 12 Roma students in a region of Greece. Thematic analysis of the qualitative data indicates that Roma students' engagement in the Future Literacy tasks of the program strengthened the acquisition of skills that could be useful for their daily lives, including the capacity to construct their own representations of daily life, and finding creative solutions to real-life situations. Activities provided students with the space and time to express their aspirations for self-empowerment and changed life conditions in the future. Findings provide one way to address the urgent need for Roma to challenge marginalization through leveraging their own active roles as citizens.