This book helps teachers gain confidence and build sensitivity when interacting with caregivers and families who speak different languages and may come from different cultural, racial, and social backgrounds. By presenting various scenarios, the authors invite readers to reflect on issues they will face as practicing teachers in classrooms and…

Teacher education programs historically offer little opportunity to develop skills necessary for communicating effectively with parents. Mixed reality simulations, such as TLE-TeachLivE, can ameliorate this lack of instruction. This study examines the communication skills demonstrated by preservice educators during a mixed reality conference…

School innovation expert John B. Nash demonstrates how design thinking can be adapted successfully by busy school leaders seeking student-centered solutions to a range of challenges. Based on a decade of work teaching school leaders nationally and internationally, "Design Thinking in Schools" shows how leaders can adopt a design thinking…

The thematic curriculum is defined as a learning method that integrates attitudes, skills, knowledge, learning value, and creative thinking using themes in the learning process. By implementing this curriculum, it is expected that it would bridge the school and daily-life learning experiences. The present study investigated some challenges in…

The purpose of this pilot study is to understand the impact of Family Group Conferencing (FGC) on the collaboration among general education and special education teachers, teachers' attitudes toward family outreach and perceived outcomes of preschool students with and without disabilities enrolled in inclusive classrooms during distance learning.…

Parents and teachers must work together for the good of the child in assisting the latter to achieve more optimally. Each school day is salient in guiding the learning process. There is much to learn and individuals need to be ready for college or career high school graduation.

This article describes the collaborative journey of two elementary education instructors at a large metropolitan university in the Southeast Region of the United States as they transformed and developed an innovative, engaging, and meaningful assignment utilizing adult avatars in TeachLivE™ to simulate parent-teacher reading conferences. The…

This study preliminarily examined the multiple dimensions of Chinese family involvement in early childhood education across demographic variables through a pilot translation and validation of a revised 36-item measure of the Family Involvement Questionnaire (FIQ; Fantuzzo, J., E. Tighe, and S. Childs. 2000. "Family Involvement Questionnaire:…

In this article, a narrative inquiry approach is used to investigate how mothers report their experiences of parenting children with learning disability (LD) within the culture of American motherhood and to explore what impact such experiences of motherhood might have upon their relationships with school professionals. Analysis of the mothers'…

There is a serious need to reconsider the adult-led, grade-centered parent teacher meetings which are standard school practice. Schools and students would benefit from elevating PTMs with student voice and formative assessment that celebrates students' efforts and motivates them to continue learning. Under a reinvented framework for meetings,…

This study focuses on the effects of involving fourth grade students in an experiential learning task that improves the school and requires the students to call on community agency, area business, and high school student support. Data related to students' learning were collected by using evaluative writing surveys, student and parent conferences,…

Video based instructional approaches have become very popular in teacher education. In this context, fictional video cases (FVCs) are a promising format because they can make discrete situations (e.g., parent-teacher conversations) accessible for learners. We critically discuss the concept of authenticity of FVCs with respect to their use for…

This study aims to investigate the trust of pre-service elementary mathematics teachers in students and parents and their burnout levels. The correlations between the trust in students and parents, exhaustion, cynicism, efficacy and the differences between these variables based on gender and year-level were investigated. One-hundred and…

Scholars have advocated for practice-based experiences, including high-leverage practices and metacognition, to be incorporated within preservice teacher programs, as they have the most pervasive impact on students' learning. One way in which teacher preparation programs have incorporated practice-based experiences is through the use of…

Native students thrive when supported by a proactive network that nurtures positive identity development, affirms Indigenous heritage, and recognizes their diverse strengths. Active family engagement is crucial for fostering a sense of belonging in school, which evidence shows is foundational to academic success. This resource is intended to help…