Education & Pedagogy

Special education is the most highly litigated area within the field of education. Therefore, the purpose of the current article is to highlight cases (court decisions, Office of Civil Rights rulings, and State Educational Agency hearings) involving students with disabilities in 2015. Highlights from the case law point to the need for school districts to ensure that students with disabilities are provided free appropriate public education, ensure timely and comprehensive evaluations once a suspected disability is of concern, ensure that students with autism have access to an range of services, provide evidence in factors considered when determining placement, remove students only when they present imminent threat to self or others, and appropriately address bullying/harassment instances.

This investigation of teacher candidates' (TCs) learning in their pre-service elementary education program demonstrates how TCs grappled with enacting culturally responsive pedagogy (CRP) in their practicum sites. Interviews with TCs, analyzed with Lucas and Villegas's (2002) tenets of CRP, reveal how TCs thought about equitable instruction in elementary schools. TCs and the teacher educator of the diversity course report on how such coursework supports TCs as they strive to educate multilingual, multicultural elementary school students. This examination, which focuses on TCs' learning rather than teacher education program design, provides implications for how teacher educators can support TCs in ways that are responsive to their personalized questions, experiences, strengths, and overall development as teacher learners. Implications for foundational diversity-oriented coursework that connects more directly with TCs' practicum experiences are discussed.

The content and structure of pre-service and teacher-aide programs has major implications for training, management, support and deployment of teachers and teacher-aides in mainstream schools working with students who have ASD. Data pertaining to course content and structure were collected from university and teacher-aide training websites, program enrolment guides, and through direct contact with institutions in Queensland, Australia. 101 education programs were narrowed down to 45 in early-childhood/primary education, and 8 online teacher-aide training programs. Findings indicate the urgent need for academics in institutions to begin working towards redesigning programs that deliver best practices in ASD for pre-service educators.

Preparing early childhood teachers for inclusion requires the blending of high quality developmentally appropriate practices with environmental adaptations and individualized instructional practices. This article describes how a field experience was redesigned to incorporate evidence based practices in teaming and collaboration, environment and instruction. A STEM learning center was the context for this case study on a preservice teacher and preschool child with special needs. Changes to the physical, social and temporal environment set the stage for promoting communication goals and led to increased child engagement and language use. Implications and recommendations for how to structure unified early childhood/early childhood special education teacher preparation programs for blended practices are discussed.

The goals of this descriptive study were to determine Turkish pre-service science teachers' perceptions of an ideal teacher education system. The sample consisted of 137 pre-service teachers, including 74 females and 63 males. The questionnaire was based on open-ended questions and was developed to investigate ideal teacher education system components as perceived by pre-service science teachers. Descriptive statistics were used to analyse the data. The results of this study showed that the Turkish pre-service science teachers defined the ideal teacher education system components as the following: the personality of the teachers, the teacher educators as possessing professional knowledge, teacher education curriculum and professional development process. The results and implications of this study are discussed in the context of teacher education studies.

In this article, we analyze the Supreme Court's decision in "Endrew F. v. Douglas County School District RE-1" (2017), interpreting the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and its provisions creating a right of every student with a disability to have an appropriate education. We compare the "Endrew" decision with IDEA and the Court's previous appropriate education decision, "Board of Education of the Hendrick Hudson Central School District v. Rowley" (1982), on four key concepts: educational program, reasonably calculated, progress, and child's circumstances. We discuss the case's implications for systems capacity development and interpret "Endrew" as a narrative about students' ethical claim to dignity.

The field of secondary special education and transition has long advocated for quality training at the preservice level. However, transition-focused coursework is not required for all special education licensure programs. Licensure programs requiring this coursework do not cover all transition-related knowledge and skills needed for teachers to implement effective planning and instruction. This article details results from an analysis of syllabi of transition coursework required for licensure sampled from institutions of higher education (i.e., named in 2015 U.S. News & World Report, 2014 National Council on Teacher Quality report). Results found 35% of universities sampled required a transition course for initial special education licensure. Courses identified covered roughly 85% of the subdomains identified in the Taxonomy for Transition Programming 2.0.

This paper examines holistic education initiatives of two high-performing education systems--Finland and Singapore. This qualitative analysis captures a phenomenological schooling experience of holistic education under the two systems. Our conceptualization of holistic education focuses on two key dimensions: transformative learning and community engagement. Indications of transformative learning were observed through the (un)structured play activities that students engaged in. For community engagement, we examined the imperatives that underpin community engagement initiatives that students were exposed to. A sociological explanation of this account discusses the context that shapes approaches to holistic learning, and how changes in schooling approaches mirror-changing educational landscapes in both Finland and Singapore. Implications on Singapore's holistic education will then be drawn.

Starting with a constructive critique of legal articles in special education journals concerning transition services under the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), this article presents an empirical analysis of relevant judicial rulings for the period 1990-2016 that shows a prevailing prodistrict approach that is not otherwise evident in the prior articles. The findings include an increased frequency of these judicial rulings generally in accord with the trajectory of special education litigation and, more significantly, an approximate 3:1 district-parent ratio in the outcomes of these rulings that, with up-and-down variation, prevails for the entire period. The conclusion is that the time is ripe for an elevated substantive standard for law-based articles in special education journals as well as a continued, but differentiated, rigorous normative standard for transition services.

One of the primary goals of physical education is for students to gain the motivation to continue to be physically active outside of curriculum time. The purpose of this study was to use a case study approach to examine elementary students' responses to Sport Education and how it influenced their choice to participate in the same sports during lunch recess. The Trans-Contextual Model of motivation (TCM) was used as a deductive lens to qualitatively examine this synergy. Findings revealed that Sport Education was effective in satisfying the students' basic psychological needs in physical education and specifically promoting male students' participation in the lunch recess context. Sport Education has the potential to promote trans-contextual participation if students' autonomy support is also facilitated within the extra-curricular sport context.

Although international teacher education partnerships necessitate relationships with host education communities, much of the literature addresses only the impact of the overseas teaching experiences on the American university intern. For this project, we investigated the benefits of participation in an international teacher education program for the Italian cooperating teachers and students in the host schools. The findings reveal that the Tuscan students profited by not only enhancing their English communication skills, but also by beginning to develop global awareness and understanding of their learning. Cooperating teachers were challenged in mentoring American interns, but ultimately benefited professionally and wanted to strengthen the partnership. Implications for engaging host teachers and primary students when building international education partnerships are shared.

This article analyses how political preferences, which are co-determined by the beliefs of decision-makers and influences of interest groups and the general public, affect the decisions to maintain or cut public funding for tertiary education during the economic crisis. Our sample included 29 European countries which we divided into two groups depending on the level of public funding for tertiary education before the crisis, which we used as a measure of revealed political preferences. We then observed the differences in changes in public tertiary education funding during the crisis between these two groups of countries using five different indicators. Three of the five indicators show that countries with a stronger political preference for tertiary education public funding cut their spending on tertiary education to a lesser extent (or even increased spending) during the economic crisis.

This article discusses the concept of culturally and geographically relevant content and provides suggestions for its implementation in secondary physical education. The authors define culturally and geographically relevant content as that which is congruent with the contextual environment in which it is being taught and is determined by the students' background and interests, the physical environment surrounding them, and what resonates with their way of life. The suggestions for including culturally and geographically relevant content in a physical education curriculum discussed in this article are a result of lessons learned through the Greenbrier CHOICES project, a three-year multicomponent school-based initiative funded by a U.S. Department of Education Carol M. White Physical Education Grant and implemented in two middle schools in an Appalachian state.

The importance of physical activity has received considerable attention during the past decade. Physical education has been viewed as a cost-effective way to promote physical activity as a public health initiative. In fact, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that a "substantial percentage" of students' overall physical activity should be obtained through school physical education. However, promoting physical activity as a part of adapted physical education (APE) has not been widely advocated within the current literature. The purpose of this article is to provide justification for physical activity promotion within the APE setting and to briefly address strategies for physical activity promotion. This article includes (1) federal legislation and regulations related to APE, (2) a discussion on the definition of physical activity, and (3) physical activity promotion strategies within and beyond APE classes.

Increasingly, career-technical and workforce education professionals are challenged with determining the best ways to prepare people for work, when many of the jobs those people will perform do not exist yet. Twenty-first-century work is evolving rapidly, with some jobs going away, other types of work appearing, and many people working in jobs that do not maximize their potential. To remain relevant in this emerging landscape, a framework is needed that can structure and guide research and curriculum development in workforce preparation in an increasingly volatile and uncertain future. We examine three key components--career navigation, work ethic, and innovation--that can situate career-technical and workforce education curricula to anticipate rapid changes in workplace demands and ensure student outcomes that will be lasting and durable in the 21st-century workplace.