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The purpose of this study was to examine major issues and perspectives emanating from teaching and learning during the COVID-19 pandemic and proffer ways to reimagine P-12 (Pre-Kindergarten to 12th grade) education to achieve equity. The research question was “What major issues/challenges arose from COVID-19 pandemic teaching, and in what ways if any can these be ameliorated?” Tierney's concept of global meaning making provided a framework for the study in addition to critical digital pedagogy. Data for the study were collected from eight P-12 teachers drawn from both urban and rural school districts in the United States. Data sources were two questionnaires administered to teachers at the beginning and end of the study as well as teachers' reflective entries. Data analysis was done using thematic analysis. The major findings indicate that poverty and digital divide were the biggest challenges that impacted teaching and learning among the urban and rural students. Another major issue was teacher and student technology proficiency. In addition, there was a low level of student engagement which was caused by family dynamics, lack of accountability, and lack of self-regulation skills. Social emotional learning received great attention because students faced anxiety and stress. Findings from this study suggest the need to create equitable learning opportunities through equitable distribution of resources to disadvantaged students. Second, there is need to train teachers and students to effectively use digital tools for teaching and learning. We need to emphasize caring relationships and reconceptualize learning spaces.

For many years, public education has been concerned about the number of teachers of color in public schools, the experiences of teachers of color, and the ability of teachers to understand how to be culturally competent. These concerns have been addressed by programs and projects that focus on recruiting more teachers of color, providing more coaching and mentoring, and/or professional learning. So far, none of these have made a significant difference in addressing any of these challenges. It is time to move from projects and programs and examine the fundamental structures and systems of classrooms that limit, obstruct, and hinder the ability to create workplaces that are equitable and conducive to real inclusivity. In this chapter, we narrate how the Next Education Workforce (NEW) initiative at Arizona State University is cultivating diversity and inclusion in the education workplace by rethinking and redesigning the workplace for educators, especially those from marginalized groups. In partnership with multiple districts across Arizona, NEW is rethinking educator roles and responsibilities in the workplace and their accompanying entry, induction, specialization, and advancement practices and pathways. To mitigate these challenges of the current workplace – where a single educator is responsible for an entire classroom of students – and to work toward a more equitable one, the future workplace must be redesigned so educators operate in teams. By creating teams of educators who work in real time, recognizing educators' unique expertise, and focusing on deepening and personalizing learning – whether content, pedagogical, or lived experiences – we can redesign the workplace, learning environments, and the teaching profession.

Exploring how racism continues to persist throughout public and nonprofit organizations is central to undoing persistent society-wide injustices in the United States and around the globe. The authors provide two cases for identifying and understanding the ways in which philanthropy’s whiteness does harm to K–12 students and communities of color.

In this article, the authors draw on critical race theory and critical whiteness studies, specifically Cheryl Harris' work to expose the whiteness of philanthropy, not as a racial identity, but in the way that philanthropy is performed. The authors characterize one of the property functions of whiteness, the right to exclude, as working through two mechanisms: neoliberal exclusion and overt exclusion. Drawing on this construction of the right to exclude, the authors present two cases: the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the City Fund.

Whether intentional or not, the Gates Foundation and the City Fund each exclude communities of color in several ways: from changes to schools and districts, parents' experiences navigating school enrollment due to these changes, to academic assessments and political lobbying.

These cases provide a way for researchers and practitioners to see how organizations in real time reify the extant racial hierarchy so as to disrupt such organizational processes and practices for racial justice.

In this paper the authors have sought to create solid connection between theory and practices pertaining to the immense value of students' emotional engagement in online instruction. This conceptual paper is motivated by the inadequacy of literature translating the emotional engagement concept to the micro level of online instructions within the upsurge intention to the new trend of online teaching-learning. This paper aims to contribute by addressing the fundamental issues of emotional engagement starting from revisiting the roles of teachers in students' emotional engagement, reviewing and underscoring the importance of students' emotional engagement in higher education and finally conceptualizing and framing how to infuse emotional engagement into the instructions.

The explanation of how to advocate for students' emotional engagement in online learning praxis is inadequately discussed although the library of literature has informed the fundamental role of students' emotional engagement in establishing successful online learning. This paper aims to address this practical need by interactively connecting the theory, empirical findings and pedagogical practices in the area to provide praxeological contribution to the development of quality online teaching-learning practices.

This study presents a framework that advances the existing body of research at the juncture of emotional engagement and online learning. This conceptual paper foregrounds an examination of the roles of teachers in students' emotional engagement and underscores the significance of students' emotional engagement in higher education. Moreover, it proposes a conceptual framework delineating effective strategies for the integration of emotional engagement within instructional methodologies. This framework comprises four key aspects: (1) fostering students' learning autonomy and ownership, (2) establishing socioemotional construction through verbal and non-verbal expressions, (3) integrating a multimodal approach to online learning and (4) honing the art of constructive feedback.

This conceptual paper is rooted in a nested theory and draws upon empirical studies. While the presented framework holds promise, its efficacy in the classroom setting requires validation through further empirical investigation.

Those proposed pedagogical strategies detailed with the practical examples explained in the previous part would afford students with a better socioemotional amenities of learning environment benefitting them with positive affective engagement.

Given the imperative to enhance students' emotional engagement in online learning and the limited discourse surrounding its practical implementation, the proposed framework stands poised to enrich and inform online pedagogical practices.

There has been a reduction of arts funding the United States educational system, even though research has identified the need for socioemotional learning policy/guidelines/requirements in the US Ed. and more school teachers and counselors. In Texas, geopolitical issues and natural disasters impact learners in the state and corporal punishment is still allowed in some districts, such as Pampa Independent School District (ISD). A study of six art teachers across a large urban school district was conducted to better understand this conundrum vis-a-vis semi-structured interviews with art teachers working in public Middle and High Schools. This chapter investigates the impact of art practices and art teachers on socioemotional self-regulation of students, as we consider the impact on teacher retention using the Heuristic model of child self-regulation and reactivity and school outcomes (Liew, Erbeli, Nyanamba, & Li, 2020). Finally, the ironic finding that teaching art classes is financially emotionally draining for teachers to the point of decreasing retention, yet some are still impassioned to teach art classes, is juxtaposed with attachment theory. Recommendations for art education policy and pedagogy are made using the lens of socioemotional learning, art therapy, empathy, and emotional self-regulation.

This paper describes how an Ontario school board's majority First Nation, Metís and Inuit (FNMI) student population influenced the direction and priorities of the board toward culturally responsive and well-being focused initiatives. Using culturally sustaining/revitalizing pedagogy (CSRP) as a conceptual framework, it explores the board's efforts to meet the socioemotional and identity needs of its FNMI students (and families) through investments in professional learning communities (PLCs) and targeted programming and technologies.

This paper presents findings from one case in a larger multi-year (2015–2017), multiple-case (10 school boards) study by a university research team that included the author. Thematic analysis was used to code interviews and focus groups conducted with over 40 administrators, educators and community partners in the board featured in this paper.

The board's culturally responsive and well-being focused initiatives, while intended to support FNMI students' socioemotional success and sense of inclusiveness in schools, was inadequate at fostering and sustaining students' (and families') cultural survival and communal well-being.

Findings offer practical ways that schools serving large populations of FNMI students might support students' identity development and self-regulation skills in schools while also serving as a cautionary example of strategies that do not sufficiently address student challenges that are the result of ongoing legacies of colonization.

This study provides a distinctive example of a predominantly FNMI school board that, in recent years, has prioritized student well-being and identity development over achievement. It provides insight into the transformative possibilities and constraints of trying to support FNMI students' socioemotional healing and cultural sustenance in a colonized system.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the effects of a program to develop socioemotional competence (SEC) focused on self-awareness and emotional self-management as a resource for the well-being and stress relief of teachers at a Brazilian public school in a socially vulnerable region.

Eighteen (18) teachers took part in a participatory action research approach. The data collection techniques used were: conversation wheel, individual interview, participant observation and focus group. The emotional education program (PEEP) was conducted in ten 90-min meetings. The data were analyzed using thematic content analysis.

There were two categories identified: an increase in the teachers' self-awareness and emotional self-management skills. These findings yielded reports of improvements in their ability to deal with their own emotions, better management of the emotional demands of daily school life and positive reflexes on their well-being and teaching practice.

Dealing better with emotions involves several skills that need time to be developed and assimilated and PEEP has been applied in a relatively short time. In addition, its application in a wider range of situations has not been evaluated.

This study is linked to a few others that were carried out on the effects that intervention programs had on a teacher's SEC. It was evident that following the steps of the action research enhanced the researcher's connection with the teachers, and it provided a genuine understanding of what it means to be studied. Because of this, it was possible to get a deeper understanding of teachers' emotional states, and the actions and results were legitimized by the participants.

At the virus' US epicenter, New York City, teachers experienced the impact of the pandemic firsthand in real time. Consistent with intensification (Apple, 1986), as school struggles to adapt to a rapidly changing social and educational landscape, socioemotional stressors and occupational responsibilities increase. Through the metaphoric (Craig, 2018) image of a candle, and using the tools of narrative inquiry (Connelly & Clandinin, 1990) – broadening, burrowing, storying, and restorying – we surface four teachers' lived experiences in a year filled with incredible grief and loss, socio-political-cultural trauma, racial strife, and personal-professional challenges to show their resolve and resiliency to persevere through and beyond burning out.

This research paper explores the value of collaborative inquiry networks of headteachers and curriculum coordinators to cope with 2020's coronavirus pandemic in Chile. Specifically, the authors describe the main challenges that networks identify in their contexts, the collaborative practices performed by different schools to address these challenges, and the influence of the networks on the innovative responses of teachers in their own schools.

This is a mixed-method study from a complementary stance using different methods and data of a project implemented with a total of 54 headteachers and curriculum coordinators. The data sources were participants' individual reports, the network teams' reports of their collaborative inquiry projects, and a short open-ended questionnaire responded by teachers that did not participate directly in the networks but benefited from their work. The data were analyzed using content analysis, categories were created to organize and describe the main findings.

Participants of the networks reported that their active participation in the collaborative inquiry allows them to share knowledge among different schools and has helped them to support innovative practices in their own schools. Specifically, they have reported that collaborating has permitted them to maintain a pedagogical focus, foster distributed leadership within the school communities, provide them with greater autonomy, and develop skills to favor the emotional containment of their teams. Inquiry teams perform diverse collective practices; they designed and applied virtual surveys, planned and implemented virtual workshops with teachers, and generated meaningful reflection about formative assessment and pedagogical practices.

This work offers insights into how the Chilean school system has responded to COVID-19 challenges and shows how despite the negative aspects of the pandemic, it has become an opportunity to recognize and enhance teachers' professional development through the collaboration among different schools. Most headteachers and curriculum coordinators reported that an active collaborative inquiry changed how they used to think about their leadership and strengthened the value of professional relationships to address extremely difficult challenges as a result of the pandemic. These lessons can be taken for the future, to rethink and rebuild educational systems.