School and district leaders are challenged to communicate with transparency and positivity with families and communities; however, over the past decade, social media has become an important avenue for communication. An appropriate use of social media can be a delicate endeavor, as errors in use or negative reactions can become a flashpoint. This…

Middle school students participated in a summer online book club as an opportunity to read and discuss texts during the summer months. The author provides considerations for educators who may be interested in conducting summer online book clubs with their students, based on student interviews and observations throughout the summer book club.

Despite the tragedies connected to the pandemic, tragedy has again presented an opportunity for technology and engineering teachers, students, and courses to shine--where we can demonstrate the value of adaptability and creativity in hands-on learning and technical content. Further, the COVID-19 pandemic coincided with the recently released…

Feedback is an essential form of communication between the student and teacher. Research has documented the importance of feedback in advancing student mathematical and critical thinking, with renewed recommendations to provide and use feedback in mathematical instruction during the era of COVID-19. Giving personalized feedback in an online…

Technology can help expand communities of practice in music education and promote a democratic schooling process vital to culturally sustaining pedagogy. Through careful and effective implementation, technology helps connect students to relevant musical communities and supports educators in achieving student-centered thinking and practices. The…

In the wake of all that educators are navigating these days, they've proven to be not only resilient, but also innovative. They continue intentionally finding new and exciting ways to create powerful learning opportunities for all students. Reinvent the Classroom, an initiative by Digital Promise, HP, Microsoft, and Intel, supports, celebrates,…

The pandemic changed how we viewed professional development. Our teachers reported needing support in the affective domain in addition to traditional professional development. To address this, we piloted Professional Development in Pajamas ("PD in PJs") that focused on sharing peer-to-peer technological pedagogical knowledge and added…

The City of Kitchener is the largest city in Waterloo Region in the province of Ontario, the third fasting growing region in Canada, yet it has only one air quality monitoring station. Our research group launched a pilot project in September 2020 to install a network of AQMesh multisensor mini air quality monitoring stations (pods) near elementary…

Today's world is no doubt one that continues to be shaped and influenced by the rise of social media platforms. These platforms have spread throughout the lives of contemporary students and, unfortunately, have heightened the severity and prevalence of cyberbullying. The purpose of this paper is to explore the intersections between social studies,…

COVID-19 challenged teacher educators and teacher candidates in ways we could have never imagined. Colloquialisms regarding the move from educator preparation to practice shifted from common truths to dynamic considerations in light of the pandemic and transition to emergency remote teaching and learning. In this essay, we share our experiences…

When people were forced to isolate themselves physically during the pandemic, many new connections sprung up through the Internet. In order to promote this newfound global oneness and to facilitate global education, this article examines a STEAM activity that promotes a holistic approach to education and make way for a global citizenry as students…

In this working group, we continue with previous efforts to consider design and research methodologies related to teacher learning in online professional development contexts. We then describe an innovative project designed to support the development of middle school mathematics teachers, with a focus on three distinct forms of online learning:…

Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) is an innovative approach which attempts to comprise holistic features, focusing on the meaning and at the same time providing opportunities for purposeful language use (Dalton-Puffer, 2007). Based on the triptych language of learning, language for learning and language through learning- this program…

LaRocque, Kleiman, and Darling (2011) characterized parental involvement as the "missing link" in school achievement. For this reason, especially, middle grades teachers and teacher leaders want very much to reach out to newcomer Latino families--and they do. Although Google Translate™ has emerged as a go-to tool for many teachers and…

The objective of this design case was to describe the development of an online graph-oriented tool to support the representation of collaborative argumentation for middle school students from a faculty expert's perspective and discuss the processes that were instrumental in developing the tool. Supported by the professional staff in the Digital…