This book explores the unique phenomenon of public alternative schools in Toronto, Canada and other large urban areas. Although schools of this kind have existed for more than a century, very little has been written about the alternative school movement. These alternatives focus more on child-centered instruction, give many students (and teachers) opportunities to organize the school differently, provide a greater voice for teachers, students, and parents, and engage students far more with experiential learning. When traditional school structures are failing to meet the needs of many children and youth, there is a rapidly growing need for information and discussion about alternatives that will encourage their talents and serve their needs. This book draws attention to the issue of alternative schooling to help make it more accessible to a wider audience.

This book describes the fifteen strategies identified through research reviewed by The National Dropout Prevention Center and Network at Clemson University. Each chapter in this book was written by a nationally recognized authority in that field. Research has shown that these 15 strategies have been successfully implemented in all school levels from K - 12 in rural, suburban, and urban centers; as stand-alone programs or as part of systemic school improvement plans. Helping Students Graduate: A Strategic Approach to Dropout Prevention also covers No Child Left Behind and its effects on dropout rates; Dealing with Hispanic dropouts; Differences and similarities between rural and urban dropouts. These fifteen strategies have been adopted by the U.S. Department of Education. They are applicable to all students, including students with disabilities.

Teachers in their first few years of their teaching career require high quality, structured support to begin the journey towards becoming experts. Establishing research-based best practices and working habits set up early career teachers for a fulfilling and successful career. The requirements of teachers are constantly changing, and teachers need to continually adapt their knowledge and practices to fit schools’ changing demographics. Having a toolbox of research-based best practices to draw upon can support early career teachers as they move from theory to practical application when the learning curve is the steepest. Strengthening the system of support includes increasing teachers’ influence over their day-to-day work and developing positive and supportive cultures of learning. Supporting Early Career Teachers With Research-Based Practices presents both theoretical and practical research to support the conceptual understanding of educational praxis for common areas with which early career educators may require additional expertise or support. This book is intended to be a valuable contribution to the body of literature in the field of education by supplying research-based teaching practices for modern education. Primary topics covered include professional learning, classroom management, student-teacher relationships, teaching diverse students and inclusive educational practices, and teacher self-care strategies. This book is a valuable reference tool for early career teachers of all subject areas and grade levels, school administrators, teacher mentors and guides, education faculty in higher education, educational researchers, curriculum developers, instructional facilitators, practicing teachers, pre-service teachers, professional development coordinators, teacher educators, researchers, academicians, and students interested in teaching practices and support for the early career teacher.

Handbook of Student Engagement Interventions: Working with Disengaged Students provides an understanding of the factors that contribute to student disengagement, methods for identifying students at risk, and intervention strategies to increase student engagement. With a focus on translating research into best practice, the book pulls together the current research on engagement in schools and empowers readers to craft and implement interventions. Users will find reviews on evidence-based academic, behavioral, social, mental health, and community-based interventions that will help increase all types of engagement. The book looks at ways of reducing suspensions through alternative disciplinary practices, the role resiliency can play in student engagement, strategies for community and school collaborations in addressing barriers to engagement, and what can be learned from students who struggled in school, but succeeded later in life. It is a hands-on resource for educators, school psychologists, researchers, and students looking to gain insight into the research on this topic and the strategies that can be deployed to promote student engagement. - Presents practical strategies for engagement intervention and assessment - Covers early warning signs of disengagement and how to use these signs to promote engagement - Reviews contextual factors (families, peers, teachers) related to engagement - Focuses on increasing engagement and school completion for all students - Emphasizes multidimensional approaches to disengagement

What is understanding and how does it differ from knowledge? How can we determine the big ideas worth understanding? Why is understanding an important teaching goal, and how do we know when students have attained it? How can we create a rigorous and engaging curriculum that focuses on understanding and leads to improved student performance in today's high-stakes, standards-based environment? Authors Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe answer these and many other questions in this second edition of Understanding by Design. Drawing on feedback from thousands of educators around the world who have used the UbD framework since its introduction in 1998, the authors have greatly revised and expanded their original work to guide educators across the K-16 spectrum in the design of curriculum, assessment, and instruction. With an improved UbD Template at its core, the book explains the rationale of backward design and explores in greater depth the meaning of such key ideas as essential questions and transfer tasks. Readers will learn why the familiar coverage- and activity-based approaches to curriculum design fall short, and how a focus on the six facets of understanding can enrich student learning. With an expanded array of practical strategies, tools, and examples from all subject areas, the book demonstrates how the research-based principles of Understanding by Design apply to district frameworks as well as to individual units of curriculum. Combining provocative ideas, thoughtful analysis, and tested approaches, this new edition of Understanding by Design offers teacher-designers a clear path to the creation of curriculum that ensures better learning and a more stimulating experience for students and teachers alike.

In this provocative book, authors Washor and Mojkowski observe that beneath the worrisome levels of dropouts from our nation’s high school lurks a more insidious problem: student disengagement from school and from deep and productive learning. To keep students in school and engaged as productive learners through to graduation, schools must provide experiences in which all students do some of their learning outside school as a formal part of their programs of study. All students need to leave school—frequently, regularly, and, of course, temporarily—to stay in school and persist in their learning. To accomplish this, schools must combine academic learning with experiential learning, allowing students to bring real-world learning back into the school, where it should be recognized, assessed, and awarded academic credit. Learning outside of school, as a complement to in-school learning, provides opportunities for deep engagement in rigorous learning.

Student engagement happens as a result of a teacher’s careful planning and execution of specific strategies. This self-study text provides in-depth understanding of how to generate high levels of student attention and engagement. Using the suggestions in this book, every teacher can create a classroom environment where engagement is the norm, not the exception.

Optimal Learning Environments to Promote Student Engagement analyzes the psychological, social, and academic phenomena comprising engagement, framing it as critical to learning and development. Drawing on positive psychology, flow studies, and theories of motivation, the book conceptualizes engagement as a learning experience, explaining how it occurs (or not) and how schools can adapt to maximize it among adolescents. Examples of empirically supported environments promoting engagement are provided, representing alternative high schools, Montessori schools, and extracurricular programs. The book identifies key innovations including community-school partnerships, technology-supported learning, and the potential for engaging learning opportunities during an expanded school day. Among the topics covered: Engagement as a primary framework for understanding educational and motivational outcomes. Measuring the malleability, complexity, multidimensionality, and sources of engagement. The relationship between engagement and achievement. Supporting and challenging: the instructor’s role in promoting engagement. Engagement within and beyond core academic subjects. Technological innovations on the engagement horizon. Optimal Learning Environments to Promote Student Engagement is an essential resource for researchers, professionals, and graduate students in child and school psychology; social work; educational psychology; positive psychology; family studies; and teaching/teacher education.

For more than two decades, the concept of student engagement has grown from simple attention in class to a construct comprised of cognitive, emotional, and behavioral components that embody and further develop motivation for learning. Similarly, the goals of student engagement have evolved from dropout prevention to improved outcomes for lifelong learning. This robust expansion has led to numerous lines of research across disciplines and are brought together clearly and comprehensively in the Handbook of Research on Student Engagement. The Handbook guides readers through the field’s rich history, sorts out its component constructs, and identifies knowledge gaps to be filled by future research. Grounding data in real-world learning situations, contributors analyze indicators and facilitators of student engagement, link engagement to motivation, and gauge the impact of family, peers, and teachers on engagement in elementary and secondary grades. Findings on the effectiveness of classroom interventions are discussed in detail. And because assessing engagement is still a relatively new endeavor, chapters on measurement methods and issues round out this important resource. Topical areas addressed in the Handbook include: Engagement across developmental stages. Self-efficacy in the engaged learner. Parental and social influences on engagement and achievement motivation. The engaging nature of teaching for competency development. The relationship between engagement and high-risk behavior in adolescents. Comparing methods for measuring student engagement. An essential guide to the expanding knowledge base, the Handbook of Research on Student Engagement serves as a valuable resource for researchers, scientist-practitioners, and graduate students in such varied fields as clinical child and school psychology, educational psychology, public health, teaching and teacher education, social work, and educational policy.

The second edition of the handbook reflects the expanding growth and sophistication in research on student engagement. Editorial scope and coverage are significantly expanded in the new edition, including numerous new chapters that address such topics as child and adolescent well-being, resilience, and social-emotional learning as well as extending student engagement into the realm of college attendance and persistence. In addition to its enhanced focus on student engagement as a means for promoting positive youth development, all original chapters have been extensively revised and updated, including those focusing on such foundational topics related to student engagement as motivation, measurement, high school dropout, school reform, and families. Key areas of coverage include: Demography and structural barriers to student engagement. Developmental and social contexts of student engagement. Student engagement and resilience. Engaging students through effective academic instruction and classroom management. Social-emotional learning and student mental health and physical well-being. Student engagement across the globe, languages, and cultures. The second edition of the Handbook of Research on Student Engagement is the definitive resource for researchers, scientist-practitioners and clinicians as well as graduate students in such varied fields as clinical child and school psychology, social work, public health, educational psychology, teaching and teacher education, educational policy, and all interrelated disciplines.