Too often teachers and students doubt their own abilities to forge collective work and dynamic critical learning in the midst of education reform practices that limit their opportunities to do so. This doubt can be heightened for elementary school teachers or even their students who are led to believe that they are not capable of engaging critically with their education and their world. The Problem-Solution Project erases this doubt through merging service-learning, critical pedagogy, and constructivism. This approach to teaching and learning is designed to empower teachers and students while they meet curriculum standards and actively contribute to the transformation of their world. Unique to this collection are the reported experiences of teacher educators who implement Problem-Solution Projects in their courses; preservice teachers’ reflections on cohort-driven Problem-Solution Projects; and first-year and veteran teachers stories featuring Problem-Solution Projects initiated by their PK-5 students. Features include: • Describes how Problem-Solution Projects advance service-learning and critical pedagogy. • Discussion of how Problem-Solution Projects build on curriculum standards but resists standardization of implementation and repressive education reforms. • First-hand accounts of teachers implementing Problem-Solution Projects. • Detailed description of the steps and outcomes of doing Problem-Solution Projects with preservice teachers, inservice teachers, and elementary students. • Examples of Problem-Solution Projects across courses, subjects, disciplines, and contexts. Readers will find worthwhile the theoretical connections and the practical applications. Service-learning, urban education, multicultural education and teacher education, teacher preparation practitioners will find this text beneficial. The main audience: teacher educators across disciplines, pre- and in-service teachers working in elementary (PK-5) settings.

Twelve essays present current thinking on the subject of community service learning programs for youth. The essays integrate research with descriptions of innovative programs and recommendations for program design, advocating an approach that engages youth not only in helping others but in critical reflection. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

We want students to master academic standards, and we want them to be confident, adaptive, and socially responsible. Above all, we want them to find meaning and satisfaction in their lives. Achieving these goals requires a concerted focus on the social-emotional skills that empower students in and beyond the classroom. In Teaching to Empower, Debbie Zacarian and Michael Silverstone explore what an empowered student looks like in our increasingly diverse contemporary schools and prompt educators to examine their own relationship to empowerment. The book's evidence-based strategies and authentic examples show you how to foster an inclusive culture of agency, self-confidence, and collaboration that will give each of your students—regardless of race, culture, language, socioeconomic status, abilities, sexuality, or gender—the opportunity, responsibility, and tools to become an active learner, thoughtful community member, and engaged global citizen. Whether you're a preservice teacher, a classroom novice, or a veteran, you'll find the practical guidance you'll need to * Create inclusive and empowering physical learning spaces. * Set up self-directed learning and promote positive interdependence. * Promote student self-reflection. * Teach the skills of collaboration. * Foster the self-advocacy that fuels deeper, more autonomous learning. * Partner more effectively with families and the community to support student empowerment.

Active blended learning (ABL) is a pedagogical approach that combines sensemaking activities with focused interactions in appropriate learning settings. ABL has become a great learning tool as it is easily accessible online, with digitally rich environments, close peer and tutor interactions, and accommodations per individual learner needs. It encompasses a variety of concepts, methods, and techniques, such as collaborative learning, experiential learning, problem-based learning, team-based learning, and flipped classrooms. ABL is a tool used by educators to develop learner autonomy, engaging students in knowledge construction, reflection, and critique. In the current educational climate, there is a strong case for the implementation of ABL. Cases on Active Blended Learning in Higher Education explores strategies and methods to implement ABL in higher education. It will provide insights into teaching practice by describing the experiences and reflections of academics from around the world. The chapters analyze enablers, barriers to engagement, outcomes, implications, and recommendations to benefit from ABL in different contexts, as well as associated concepts and models. While highlighting topics such as personalized university courses, remote service learning, team-based learning, and universal design, this book is ideal for in-service and preservice teachers, administrators, instructional designers, teacher educators, practitioners, researchers, academicians, and students interested in pedagogical approaches aligned to ABL and how this works in higher education institutions.

Create environments where students ask questions, not just answer them! When students become questioners, learning improves for all. Yet, even though research has repeatedly shown that student questioning increases ownership of learning and narrows opportunity gaps, studies show that students ask less than five percent of the questions in classrooms today. How do you turn this teacher-centric dynamic around? In this book by bestselling author and education expert Jackie Walsh, the author shifts the focus to student-centric learning and how to develop student questioning strategies, including self-questions, academic questions, exploratory questions, and dialogic questions. Other highlights include: - Vignettes of quality questioning in action in various grade-level and content-area classrooms - Examples of how to use questioning to harness the power of formative assessment and create a culture of inquiry - Student questioning models for distance learning

"This book provides teachers, faculty and educational leaders with an opportunity to share their recent research with focus on best teaching practices through the use of online platforms"--

In Empower, A.J. Juliani and John Spencer provide teachers, coaches, and administrators with a roadmap that will inspire innovation, authentic learning experiences, and practical ways to empower students to pursue their passions while in school. Empower will provide ways to overcome challenges and turn them into opportunities for our learners.