Special educators who teach students with significant behavioral challenges may encounter frequent classroom crises. In these moments, they may feel overwhelmed, drained, or even reactive, as they navigate environments that may trigger a fight or flight response. Humble and compassionate approaches can lay the foundation for meaningful…

One of the methods of controlling test security in adaptive testing is imposing random item-ineligibility constraints on the selection of the items with probabilities automatically updated to maintain a predetermined upper bound on the exposure rates. Three major improvements of the method are presented. First, a few modifications to improve the…

The usual interpretation of the person and task variables in between-persons measurement models such as item response theory (IRT) is as attributes of persons and tasks, respectively. They can be viewed instead as ensemble descriptors of patterns of interactions among persons and situations that arise from sociocognitive complex adaptive system…

As demonstrated through the experiences of executive administrators who lost their jobs, higher education leaders experience pain when they fail. Leaders at any stage of their life and career can process the pain of failure in constructive ways using a recovery formula built on a "half-life of pain" concept. The time it takes for a…

In response to the growing awareness of trauma and its impact on student learning, schools across the country are implementing trauma-sensitive practices. Authors Maia Cucchiara and Mary Beth Hays describe an approach to trauma sensitivity in schools: the creation of restoration rooms, spaces designed to help students (and adults) return to a…

New questions and concerns arise every day about the impact of AI in schools, such as how teachers will learn about AI and leverage it in their classrooms, how they can use it to develop their own teaching expertise, and if AI for educators really leads to better teaching and learning. The authors believe that AI can help teachers become more…

Purpose: This study aims to consider the role of emotions, especially those related to empathy, in promoting a more humane education that enables students to reach out across kinship chasms to promote the development of communities predicated on a shared value on mutual respect. This attention to empathy includes a review of the rational basis for…

Learning to process feedback wisely is essential to school improvement--and personal growth, writes school principal Sanée Bell. Here, Bell shares hard-won tips for soliciting authentic feedback from staff and, even more important, for organizing, acting on, and reflecting on that feedback.

We describe an automated assessment process for team-coding assignments based on DevOps best practices. This system and methodology includes the definition of Team Performance Metrics measuring properties of the software developed by each team, and their correct use of DevOps techniques. It tracks the progress on each of metric by each group. The…

Principals face unexpected crises, big and small, regularly. Yet, as the COVID-19 pandemic illustrated, they aren't always prepared for them when they come. Mario Jackson describes some of the challenges principals faced during the pandemic and the specific attributes that helped them manage. Specifically, equity-oriented leadership, crisis…

Readiness for change is an important factor in successful implementation and scale-up of a new practice or program in schools. The process of assessing and developing readiness for change is a key feature of the Exploration Stage, which is the first of four implementation stages identified by the Active Implementation Research Network. Data-based…

Engagement with songs through performance and analysis is a key component of music curricula worldwide. Music learning has a significant impact on a number of student competencies, including enhancing students' communicative abilities as they learn to manipulate, express, and share sound in both voice qualities and lyrics. However, common analyses…

In this digital ITEMS module, Dr. Stella Kim provides an overview of multidimensional item response theory (MIRT) equating. Traditional unidimensional item response theory (IRT) equating methods impose the sometimes untenable restriction on data that only a single ability is assessed. This module discusses potential sources of multidimensionality…

Team experiences afford opportunities for students to expand their self-knowledge based on peer feedback, yet feedback processes tend to be cumbersome and difficult to manage. Thus, educators often provide feedback only on the team's work output. The purpose of this article is to introduce a simple, structured exercise in which team members share…

Informed by critical trauma theory and by implementing modified principles of trauma-informed care approaches, I conducted art pedagogical practices for women in transitional homes who may have experienced trauma. These artistic practices that possibly enabled their witnessing focused on embodiment, affect, and memory, challenging the traditional…