The COVID-19 pandemic emerged as a disruptive force that exposed numerous challenges. From the sudden shift to virtual learning accompanied by technology disparities to issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion, the crisis impacted students, families, educators, and leaders alike. The social and emotional well-being of learners took center stage, and the need for academic rigor became even more pressing as learning gaps widened. Teachers faced the challenge of maintaining motivation, while complications in students' home lives became increasingly apparent. The involvement, or lack thereof, of families and communities in the education process added another layer of complexity. It is within this complex educational landscape that our book presents itself as a beacon of hope and transformation. Challenges and Transitions in Education in Times of Crisis is the solution to the unprecedented challenges that COVID-19 brought to the education sector. It goes beyond just analyzing the problems and delves deep into innovative and actionable solutions that have emerged from this crisis. The book provides a comprehensive overview of the educational environment, from pre-pandemic to post-pandemic, through a lens of opportunity. It is a guide for all stakeholders in education, presenting evidence-based strategies and best practices to address the complex issues facing our schools.

Based on twenty case studies of universities worldwide, and on a survey administered to leaders in 101 universities, this open access book shows that, amidst the significant challenges caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, universities found ways to engage with schools to support them in sustaining educational opportunity. In doing so, they generated considerable innovation, which reinforced the integration of the research and outreach functions of the university. The evidence suggests that universities are indeed open systems, in interaction with their environment, able to discover changes that can influence them and to change in response to those changes. They are also able, in the success of their efforts to mitigate the educational impact of the pandemic, to create better futures, as the result of the innovations they can generate. This challenges the view of universities as "ivory towers" being isolated from the surrounding environment and detached from local problems. As they reached out to schools, universities not only generated clear and valuable innovations to sustain educational opportunity and to improve it, this process also contributed to transform internal university processes in ways that enhanced their own ability to deliver on the third mission of outreach

This textbook presents both a conceptual framework and detailed implementation guidelines for computer science (CS) teaching. Updated with the latest teaching approaches and trends, and expanded with new learning activities, the content of this new edition is clearly written and structured to be applicable to all levels of CS education and for any teaching organization. Features: provides 110 detailed learning activities; reviews curriculum and cross-curriculum topics in CS; explores the benefits of CS education research; describes strategies for cultivating problem-solving skills, for assessing learning processes, and for dealing with pupils’ misunderstandings; proposes active-learning-based classroom teaching methods, including lab-based teaching; discusses various types of questions that a CS instructor or trainer can use for a range of teaching situations; investigates thoroughly issues of lesson planning and course design; examines the first field teaching experiences gained by CS teachers.

Counseling and Coaching in Times of Crisis and Transition explores how threats and challenges caused by rapid social and technological changes require counselors and coaches to rethink their usual ways of working, and, in some cases, even abandon their traditional theoretical anchors. The authors of this forward-thinking book argue that practitioners who aim to help others strengthen their resources can no longer afford to wait for clients in their offices or offer them protected, objective and neutral professional relationships. Contributors from around the world argue that there is a real need for new counseling and coaching actions to be delivered in different contexts: counselors and coaches should be able to use heterogeneous languages and interventions, as well as numerous relationship modalities and activities in order to streamline the support that they offer to people in sectors as diverse as health and well-being, life and career design, prevention and community inclusion, work inclusion, and schools. The book provides an evidence-based framework, with numerous counseling and coaching examples that are capable of promoting people’s strengths, whether this be face-to-face, in groups, or online. This book will appeal to academics, researchers and postgraduate students in the fields of counseling and coaching, as well as those with an interest in psychological, social and educational science. It should also be essential reading for practitioners and policymakers in a diverse range of contexts, including those working on intervention and support for vulnerable people, non-traditional and disadvantaged students, and people with disabilities.

This book brings together a broad range of approaches and methodologies relevant to international comparative vocational education and training (VET). Revealing how youth in transition is affected by economic crises, it provides essential insights into the strengths and weaknesses of the various systems and prospects of VET in contexts ranging from North America to Europe, (e.g. Spain, Germany or the UK) to Asia (such as China, Thailand and India). Though each country examined in this volume is affected by the economic crisis in a different way, the effects are especially apparent for the young generation. In many countries the youth unemployment rate is still very high and the job perspectives for young people are often limited at best. The contributions in this volume demonstrate that VET alone cannot solve these problems, but can be used to support a smooth transition from school to work. If the quality of VET is high and the status and job expectations are good, VET can help to fill the skills gap, especially at the intermediate skill level. Furthermore, VET can also offer a realistic alternative to the university track for young people in many countries.

In March of 2020, our daily lives were upended by the COVID pandemic and subsequent school closures. With work and school shifting online, a new and ongoing set of demands has been placed on parents as school moved to online, virtual and hybrid models of learning. Families need to balance professional responsibilities with parenting and supporting their children’s education. As education professors, we find ourselves in a particular position as our expertise collides with the reality of schooling our own children in our homes during a global pandemic. This book focuses on the experiences of education faculty who navigate this relationship as pandemic professionals and pandemic parents. In this collection of personal essays, we explore parenting in the pandemic among education professors. Through our stories, we share our perspectives on this moment of upheaval, as we find ourselves confronting practical (and impractical) aspects of long held theories about what school could be, seeing up close and personally the pedagogy our children endure online, watching education policy go awry in our own living rooms (and kitchens and bathrooms), making high-stakes decisions about our children’s (and other children’s) access to opportunity, and trying to maintain our careers at the same time. In this collision of personal and professional identities, we find ourselves reflecting on fundamental questions about the purpose and design of schooling, the value of our work as education professors, and the precious relationships we hope to maintain with our children through this difficult time. Praise for Parenting in the Pandemic "Lowenhaupt and Theoharis have curated a magnificent collection of essays that captures the hopes, fears, tensions, and possibilities of parenting in a time of crisis. A gift to parents and educators everywhere as we continue to process and reflect on what the pandemic has taught us about what it means to educate others, and perhaps through a renewed imagination, our very own children." - Sonya Douglass Horsford, Teachers College, Columbia University "In this powerful collection of essays, we have a rare window into how the personal and professional worlds of academics collided during the COVID-19 pandemic. What emerges from these reflections is an intimate portrait of the longstanding tensions in our lives as public intellectuals and parents that have long burned as embers, but are now set ablaze by the public health, economic, and educational crisis we have lived through during the last year. Reading these essays will help us to see questions of education policy and practice in a new, more personal light." - Matthew Kraft, Brown University

Exploring the creative opportunities opened up by ICT in the modern classroom, this text presents an authoritative survey of ICT's impact upon core teaching functions, and draws from the experiences of leading practitioners in the field.