Learn how to use Relationship-Based Professional Development (RBPD) strategies to foster equitable, inclusive and socially just communities of collaboration and learning in PreK to age 8 programs. Packed with illustrative vignettes, checklists, and reflection questions to guide understanding, this resource helps administrators and teacher-leaders establish a cycle of inquiry to better understand each other’s common work and build more effective partnerships. Aligned with the NAEYC's Power to the Profession objectives, you'll find this book filled with invaluable tools to strengthen your professional community and better support your students.

Focus on the wonder of learning with infants, toddlers, and twos. Use sensitive and responsive interactions and curriculum planning that support their development as effective communicators, problem solvers, and creative thinkers.

Inclusive early childhood settings benefit all children, whether or not they have identified special needs. Including One, Including All provides theoretical, conceptual, and practical information on relationship-based, inclusive practices for early childhood classrooms, an approach that strengthens every child and supports the child’s behavioral, emotional, social, and learning challenges. Written by a team of professionals who are known for their successful work using this model, Including One, Including All includes blueprints for organizing this important work with children and their families and addresses the challenges and rewards of inclusion in early childhood classrooms, and chronicles the experiences of two children with special needs in early childhood settings.

A mentor, advisor, or even a friend? Making connections in college makes all the difference. What single factor makes for an excellent college education? As it turns out, it's pretty simple: human relationships. Decades of research demonstrate the transformative potential and the lasting legacies of a relationship-rich college experience. Critics suggest that to build connections with peers, faculty, staff, and other mentors is expensive and only an option at elite institutions where instructors have the luxury of time with students. But in this revelatory book brimming with the voices of students, faculty, and staff from across the country, Peter Felten and Leo M. Lambert argue that relationship-rich environments can and should exist for all students at all types of institutions. In Relationship-Rich Education, Felten and Lambert demonstrate that for relationships to be central in undergraduate education, colleges and universities do not require immense resources, privileged students, or specially qualified faculty and staff. All students learn best in an environment characterized by high expectation and high support, and all faculty and staff can learn to teach and work in ways that enable relationship-based education. Emphasizing the centrality of the classroom experience to fostering quality relationships, Felten and Lambert focus on students' influence in shaping the learning environment for their peers, as well as the key difference a single, well-timed conversation can make in a student's life. They also stress that relationship-rich education is particularly important for first-generation college students, who bring significant capacities to college but often face long-standing inequities and barriers to attaining their educational aspirations. Drawing on nearly 400 interviews with students, faculty, and staff at 29 higher education institutions across the country, Relationship-Rich Education provides readers with practical advice on how they can develop and sustain powerful relationship-based learning in their own contexts. Ultimately, the book is an invitation—and a challenge—for faculty, administrators, and student life staff to move relationships from the periphery to the center of undergraduate education.

The work presented here is a large-scale evaluation of a theory-driven school reform project in New Zealand, which focuses on improving the educational achievement of Māori students in public secondary schools. The project's conceptual underpinnings are based on Kaupapa Māori research, culturally responsive teaching, student voice, and relationship-based pedagogy. Data were produced by a research team who conducted a three-year external evaluation of the project in 22 of the 33 schools implementing its professional development initiative. The book shows the extent to which a well-conceptualized and culturally grounded program in culturally responsive pedagogy, supported by a well-conceptualized professional development program, can shift teacher practices and understandings. These shifts lead to a reduction in the achievement disparities of minoritized students, as well as support for the students as culturally located human beings. While the professional development project in this book addresses Māori students' educational achievement, the study's findings and messages are applicable far beyond New Zealand, because the educational experiences of Māori people are common to many Indigenous and other minoritized peoples in countries around the world.

Strong working relationships with families assist early intervention practices. This book provides new ways to develop the connections with families of children with disabilities and others that may be at risk.

Featuring both research findings and practical recommendations, this book presents an innovative framework for nurturing leadership in the care and education of young children. Early educators are often seen as the objects of change, rather than the architects and co-creators of change. Douglass calls for a paradigm shift in thinking that challenges many long-held stereotypes about the early care and education workforce’s capacity to lead change. Case studies show how educators use their expertise every day to make a difference in the lives of children and families. These accounts demonstrate concrete strategies for expanding current thinking about who can be leaders for change and for developing more inclusive pathways for leadership. This book has the potential to revolutionize the field with a new model for developing and nurturing innovative, entrepreneurial, and skilled early educator leaders capable of driving transformative change—from classrooms and home-based programs to communities and beyond. “Douglass boldly calls for a re-envisioning of access to leadership in early care and education.” —From the Foreword by Lea J. E. Austin, co-director, Center for the Study of Child Care Employment “Provides a new and motivating lens for improving early childhood education ‘on the ground.’ This is a welcome and significant contribution to the field.” —Stacie G. Goffin, principal, Goffin Strategy Group “Offers a new framework for thinking about leadership development, including research findings and practical recommendations to create clear pathways and a supportive ecosystem.” —Marilou Hyson, consultant, Early Childhood Development and Education