The first, and ultimately most important, magical concept to be demystified is the safe space. Among progressive educators, the author surmises, no goal is more holy. In each classroom, students are to feel comfortable enough with their various identities to be honest, open, and vulnerable. Conveniently alliterative, the term safe space captures…

Transforming learning spaces has become a priority for many schools, not only for implementing emerging methodologies but also for sanitary reasons due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Schools struggle to find solutions for the lack of space in order to respect the required safety distance, especially public schools with a very tight budget and many…

Understanding preservice teachers' (PSTs) classroom preferences offers the potential to inform school hiring and reduce early career turnover. This large-scale qualitative study (n = 2,798) explores rich PST responses to the open-ended survey item: "Describe a classroom setting in which you would enjoy teaching." Results indicate three…

This study investigates two latent constructs (Engagement and Value) of dialogic interaction to examine the epistemic climate. Since the new reform movement emphasizes creating generative learning environments, it is important to examine whether a classroom promotes students' knowledge generation or limit students' epistemic growth through rote…

As technology advances, learning analytics is expanding to include students' collaboration settings. Despite their increasing application in practice, some types of analytics might not fully capture the comprehensive educational contexts in which students' collaboration takes place (e.g., when data is collected and processed without predefined…

Educators are beginning to consider the physical learning environment as an additional resource in meeting learning outcomes in modern classrooms. In order to better utilise classroom space, schools have begun to eliminate desks and chairs and to replace 'traditional' furniture with 'flexible' furniture that is capable of multiple reconfigurations…

Save for the most callous among us, all of humanity knows the chaos wreaked upon the world by the COVID-19 Virus. The losses are of unspeakable proportions. Those losses continue. Among those losses is lost educational opportunity for our children and young adults. The debate among world experts continues unabated: when should we re-open schools?…

Test anxiety is a major concern in education because it causes uncomfortable feelings in test-anxious students and may reduce the validity of exam scores as a measure of learning. As such, brief and cost-effective interventions are necessary to minimize the negative impact of test anxiety on students' academic performance. In the present…

In recent years, considerable attention has been given to how the physical structure of active learning classrooms affects academic performance, but little is known about how these spaces influence learners' personal capability beliefs. The purpose of this study was to investigate how students' beliefs and performance varied in two physical…

This study explores how infant and toddlers become caring individuals, an aspect that has received little attention among young children's interactions in educational settings. Research findings demonstrate how acts of caring support, embellish and expand infants' and toddlers' interactions. The meanings of these acts are explored based on…

The "Pre-K Classroom Assessment Scoring System" (CLASS) is commonly used to measure three domains of teacher-child interactional quality in preschool classrooms (Emotional Support, Classroom Organization, and Instructional Support). However, there is considerable debate regarding the validity of its three-domain factor structure and the…

The purpose of this study was to investigate how content area teachers of the deaf integrate writing instruction, and factors that impact content area writing practices. Integrating writing into the disciplines is currently emphasized in order to support literacy and content learning. Teachers of the deaf (N = 134) responded to a national survey…

The study aimed to scrutinize the views of pre-school teachers on children's readiness for reading and writing in relation with the classroom environment and the practices. This case study adopted descriptive design based on the qualitative data. The participants of the study comprised 47 pre-school teachers, who were selected via purposive…

Assessing learning outcomes for students who are d/Deaf or hard of hearing presents ongoing challenges given the largely verbal nature of classrooms and the presentation of information. Educators should carefully consider several factors when assessing their students who are d/Deaf or hard of hearing. Those factors include, but are not limited to:…

A learning environment can either enhance or prevent access to information and social interaction for children and youth with deaf-blindness as well as impact their attention and engagement. The process of preparing learning spaces to optimize learning should consider: (1) How a child will navigate within those spaces; (2) How and where the child…