Research Findings: Kindergarten is the gateway to education and a point of great variability in children's knowledge and skills. As a result, there is keen interest in kindergarten entry assessments (KEAs) to understand and address gaps in early skills. This study rigorously investigated the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania's Kindergarten Entry…

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to explore how the phenomenon of academic professional development looks through the eyes of graduate students navigating the increasing complexity of postgraduate careers. This study pays particular attention to how current students navigate the interplay between their beliefs, intentions and behaviors when…

Purpose: This study examines object permanence development in infants with motor delays (MD) compared with infants with typical development (TD) and in relation to sitting skill. Methods: Fifty-six infants with MD (mean age = 10 months) and 36 with TD (mean age = 5.7 months) were assessed at baseline and then at 1.5, 3, and 6 months postbaseline.…

A growing literature provides evidence of long-term effects of childhood sexual trauma (CST), however the intergenerational consequences of CST are not well understood. In the current study we examine the adjustment of children whose mothers reported a history of CST compared to children whose mothers did not report childhood trauma across…

Conventional wisdom and antiquated stage development theories have had a negative effect on children's spirituality. This paper looks at an innovative spiritual practice (embodied prayer) that instead promotes children's agency and embodied engagement in multi-layered meaning making. It traces both the ways in which children respond to higher…

At Villanova University, with approximately 11,000 students enrolled across six colleges and a law school, generating ways to engage faculty in assessment professional development can be challenging, particularly for an institution with a decentralized assessment system. During faculty interactions, it is often heard that faculty dislike attending…

The second year of life is a time of formative developmental change as basic behavioral systems undergo rapid integration and expansion. This study examined the developmental trajectories of social-emotional (SoE) outcomes and the effects of infant sex and household chaos (HC) on the development of SoE outcomes across the second year of life. The…

Objective: This study investigated the efficacy of a two-component professional development approach to improving school wellness in Pennsylvania secondary schools. Design: Circle of Wellness (CoW), a year-long, two-phase programme, involved providing Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child (WSCC) workshops to Pennsylvania school staff and…

Children in rural settings are less likely to receive mental health services than their urban and suburban counterparts and even less likely to receive evidence-based care. Rural schools could address the need for mental health interventions by using evidence-based practices within a tiered system of supports such as positive behavioral…

Participants in this research study found themselves suddenly forced into remote instruction during the COVID-19 pandemic, unfamiliar with online teaching and with little guidance from the field of education. Survey data was used to capture the voices of 18 K-12 educators to share their lessons learned, the challenges they encountered, and the…

The COVID-19 pandemic caused widespread closures of early care and education (ECE) facilities that negatively impacted children's socioemotional, behavioral, and academic development. Policies permitting child care centers to remain open by obtaining waivers from closure directives involved varying levels of administrative burden. This study…

In this article, the author summarizes his efforts to design the Cultural Proficiency Continuum Dialogic Protocol (CPCDP), a tool purposed to assess and codify educators' cultural competence. The design and development of the CPCDP took place within four school-university partnerships (e.g., Professional Development School and Hybrid Partnership).…

Responding to concerning reports regarding common world language classroom practices failing to meet a communicative standard (Burke, 2011; 2014), acknowledging the critical shortage of teachers in the United States, and reacting to the call by Madel (2020) to leverage teacher leadership to promote pedagogical development within the field, this…

Coaching is a popular and high-leverage instrument for instructional reform. Coaching holds potential to accelerate teacher learning and school improvement. Linking results from current research, we portray how coaching benefits from robust infrastructure. This article offers three design recommendations that leaders can implement to optimize…

In collaboration with an urban public school, teacher candidates at a nearby university created a social-emotional skills project called Knight Brigade. The author discusses the project planning, implementation, and results as part of this ongoing partnership.