This study explored the influence of a 12-hour professional learning community for family child care providers in an urban Midwest city on the participants' beliefs and practices. A secondary purpose was to explore the potential of the professional learning community as a format for professional development of family child care providers. Data for…

"Democratic life skills" are social-emotional capacities that children need to be productive citizens and healthy individuals in a modern, diverse society. The construct for these skills comes from many sources. One helpful source is Maslow's concept of two coexisting sets of motivational needs in each individual: one set for security, belonging,…

This article examines how early childhood (K-3) preservice teachers perceive the use of popular culture in teaching. In particular, it focuses on possible reasons for their negative perceptions of using popular culture by discussing what they have experienced in teacher education and in early childhood classrooms. Moreover, it explores other…

This paper identifies salient practices of faculty mentors of undergraduate research (UR) as indicated in the extensive literature of the past two decades on UR. The well-established benefits for students involved in UR are dependent, first and foremost, on high-quality mentoring. Mentorship is a defining feature of UR. As more and different types…

This article focuses on the development of assessment tools to enhance the acquisition of the grade-level outcomes developed in the K-12 curriculum. Physical education is one of the few educational programs that does not have a multitude of available state and national tests to measure student progress. This distinction has been both a strength…

This article offers a practical model for fostering emotionally safe learning environments that instill in music students a positive sense of self-belief, freedom, and purpose. The authors examine the implications for music educators of creating effective learning environments and present recommendations for creating a safe space for learning,…

This article presents the WDT Framework, which consists of three levels of integrating field-based technology experiences into early childhood education coursework. Early childhood teacher education programs have historically utilized field experiences for the purpose of helping pre-service teachers build their understanding of developmentally…

The increasing awareness and impact of mental health problems in university students in addition to a need for objective measures of teaching quality provide the impetus for a new approach to supporting students. There is a need for more effective tools that integrate the institutional silos of teaching, learning, support, and wellbeing to help…

Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, as of this writing, 21 states and three U.S. territories have ordered or recommended school building closures for the rest of the academic year, with closures impacting at least 124,000 U.S. public and private schools and affecting at least 55.1 million students. In addition, districts in nearly all other states…

This article is presented by four librarians who have come together as a creative team at Ethical Culture School in New York City. As elementary school librarians, their goal is to develop and support curriculum where children's developmental needs are given central importance. By putting the thinking, interests, information needs, and the…

With our expertise and experiences in teaching language development and early literacy instruction courses at a teacher education college, we argue that it is imperative to find ways to integrate learning standards with developmentally appropriate play-based methods. We examined what literacy coach candidates found in their classroom observations…

Medical and technological advances in neonatology have prompted the initiation and expansion of developmentally supportive services for newborns and have incorporated rehabilitation professionals into the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) multidisciplinary team. Availability of therapists specialized in the care of neonates, the roles of…

Children may be biased toward accepting information as true, but the fact remains that children are exposed to misinformation from many sources, and mastering the intricacies of doubt is necessary. The current article examines this issue, focusing on understanding developmental changes and consistencies in children's ability to take a critical…

For early emerging adults with serious mental health conditions, vocational services with peer mentors are a promising adaptation of adult system evidence-based practices. Peer mentors were added to the Individual Placement and Support model of supported employment for 17- to 20-year-olds receiving residential and psychiatric care. To explore the…

Factors associated with Head Start staff participation in a classroom-based professional development project to promote their use of evidence-based child learning opportunity practices and evidence-based responsive teaching procedures were examined in a study of 36 teachers and teacher assistants in 19 different classrooms. The factors…