Education
Improving Outcomes for Students with Diabetes: The Role of the School Psychologist
Pediatric Type 1 diabetes is one of the most common chronic childhood illnesses and affects approximately 1 of every 550-600 school-aged children. Schools are increasingly identified as logical and practical sites for public health promotion, and school psychologists are ideally situated to advocate for students with chronic health issues that are at-risk for academic or behavioral difficulties. The purpose of this poster is to present information on pediatric diabetes, address findings from the current literature on diabetes and school outcomes, and review the literature on school-based efforts to address health- and school-related outcomes for this at-risk population. Session participants will gain knowledge and skills to effectively support and advocate for the educational success of students with diabetes.
Taking Strides in Family Involvement: Directions for Measurement and Intervention
Influenced by a multidimensional conceptualization, family involvement measurement and intervention is addressing an array of involvement behaviors that cross home, school, and community contexts in addition to examining the distinctions in involvement behaviors among mothers and fathers. This symposium will present an integrated discussion of three contemporary research endeavors, investigating the development of a family involvement measure for toddlers, father involvement, and home visiting as an intervention for promoting involvement. All three presentations share a focus on low-income and ethnic minority urban families. Implications for practice and future research will be discussed.
As the World Spins, Technology Spins Faster: A Global Long-Distance Education Program
In 2000, the educational leadership program of a major private U.S. university developed the Office of International Programs, designed to serve international educators and administrators in leadership positions. The student population grew from 10 students from nine countries in 2000 to 250 students from 63 countries in 2008. In the beginning, courses were delivered via asynchronous methods then later on, synchronous methods were integrated. Interviews were conducted in 2003 and follow-up online and paper-and-pencil surveys were administered in 2006 and 2008 respectively to examine students’ perceptions about international long distance learning, and the impact of the technologies used on their learning. › Continue reading
Distributed Leadership as a Strategy for School Improvement: A Case Study
Current educational literature suggests that distributing leadership in schools can leverage individual and organizational development, however, this model of leadership is far from the dominant practice of leadership in most schools. The paper presents a case study of implementation efforts to develop distributed leadership as a planned strategy for building school’s leadership capacity in support of instructional improvement in high schools in Slovenia. Using a recently developed framework designed to study distributed leadership development and implementation in schools, this study examines an in-service professional development program and its role in promoting distributed leadership practice and improvement of school’s instructional capacity.
Using GIS in the Classroom to Investigate Energy
The National Educational Technology Standards for Students called for a classroom that is student-centered, with collaborative work in a multisensory, multimedia-based information exchange, where active inquiry-based learning and critical thinking are fundamental (International Society for Technology in Education [ISTE], 2000).
The purpose of this session is to illustrate how a Geographic Information System (GIS) can be incorporated into the classroom to support science and geographic inquiry and promote spatial thinking skills. According to the National Research Council (2006), spatial thinking is the knowledge, skills, and habits of mind to use concepts of space, tools of representation, and processes of reasoning in order to structure problems, find answers, and express solutions to those problems. › Continue reading