The rationale for a wider concept of Inclusive Education for teacher education: A case-study of Serbia

Teacher education for inclusive education (IE) is recognized as vital for improving quality and equity in education globally. In the Western Balkan countries it is also part of the transition process towards joining the European Union and has attracted international funding for IE-related projects. A key finding from research funded by the European Training Foundation, carried out by the authors as members of a seven-country research team in 2009-2010, was that the prevailing local understanding of IE was very narrow. In this article we hypothesize the reasons for this finding. We use a case study of school and teacher education systems in Serbia to explore how this understanding has constrained the development of IE and associated teacher education and limited the efficacy of some recent internationally supported developments. We identify both challenges and possible ways forward for teacher education for IE based on promoting a concept of IE that is both collaboratively agreed and comprehensive. © 2012 UNESCO IBE

Coding to Connect: Centering Joy and Community in Elementary Computer Science Education

In this piece, we weave together personal reflections to explore the design and implementation of an unplugged, elementary computer science (CS) event, and examine the underlying pedagogical principles guiding this work.  Critical CS scholars have increasingly called for centering joy and connection within CS, while simultaneously decentering the neoliberal focus on workforce development.  We aimed to forefront these ideas with a CS event supported and led by a multi-stakeholder partnership between preservice teachers, staff, and faculty within California State University, Dominguez Hills’ College of Education, and the students, inservice teachers, and administration at 186th St. Elementary School.  Historically, CS is an inequitable and inaccessible field that does not prioritize diversity or inclusion.  By bringing together numerous stakeholders from across the community for a CS event centering joy, we hoped to shift perceptions and experiences of CS and find better ways of supporting and inspiring all our students and teachers. &nbsp

Pedagogy, curriculum, teaching practices and teacher education in developing countries

This rigorous literature review focused on pedagogy, curriculum, teaching practices and teacher education in developing countries. It aimed to: 1. review existing evidence on the review topic to inform programme design and policy making undertaken by the DFID, other agencies and researchers 2. identify critical evidence gaps to guide the development of future research programme

Educational Leadership Training, the Construction of Learning Communities. A Systematic Review

Instructional leadership notions and practices allow educators to engage in relevant roles within schools. Instead of implementing these concepts in professional programs, Mexican and Spanish education systems still preserve a “technically oriented” training model that separates educational and professional aims. Diverse studies have identified the benefits of implementing instructional leadership orientations within “Educational cooperation”, “Cooperative education”, “Team teaching” and “Teacher leadership” at schools. This systematic review conducted usingWeb of Science—contributes by organizing the produced knowledge and identifies the main findings reported by the academic literature on this topic. It seeks to answer the following questions: (1) What are the contributions of this research to the education systems examined? (2) What kind of knowledge about educational leadership and professional learning communities can be inferred from them? Results from the majority of studies found that instructional leadership offers a useful tool to promote shared responsibility between teachers and head teachers and supports professional learning communities. A main conclusions of the present study is that it highlights the importance of bypassing existing bureaucratic practices within schools in order to replace the traditional “technical orientation” of training programs. Instructional leadership may facilitate some of the required transformations in the context of global educational reform

Teacher research projects in computing

The introduction of computer science (CS) to the National Curriculum for schools in England has led to a situation where teachers must develop both subject knowledge and pedagogical expertise in parallel, which presents a significant challenge. Professional development to address this may be most effective when situated in the teachers' own working practices. This paper describes a project to support CS teachers in developing pedagogical skills by planning, designing and implementing their own classroom-based research, supported by university colleagues

Bridging the gap between digital libraries and e-learning

Digital Libraries (DL) are offering access to a vast amount of digital content, relevant to practically all domains of human knowledge, which makes it suitable to enhance teaching and learning. Based on a systematic literature review, this article provides an overview and a gap analysis of educational use of DLs.The research work presented in this paper is partially supported by the FP7 Grant 316087 AComIn ”Advanced Computing for Innovation”, funded by the European Commission in the FP7 Capacity Programme in 2012-2016.peer-reviewe

Teacher competence development – a European perspective

This chapter provides an European perspectives on teacher competence development

EU–originated MOOCs, with focus on multi- and single-institution platforms

No abstract available