Glenda L. Black and Maria Cantalini-Williams
Based on the success of the Welcome to KindergartenTM initiative, The Learning Partnership (TLP), a national advocacy organization for public education, initiated a pilot project called Family and Community Engagement Strategy (FACES), in the three Ontario communities of Cornwall, Durham and Sudbury. The overall goal of the FACES Project, funded by the Ontario Trillium Foundation, was to develop a coordinated community-based model and extend and enrich the Welcome to KindergartenTM , a program to help prepare children for school success. As part of the agreement, TLP was to provide evidence of progress made toward the objective of the grant: to increase and expand opportunities for all children to be ready for school. An evaluation component was included in the project to measure the results and impact on each community. The FACES Project is an example of a community network, as it involves a process of building partnerships among schools and agencies for the benefit of children and their families. A qualitative case-study design was used for the research. Themes that emanated from an analysis of the data across the three sites were: the nature of FACES as a community network, champions as leaders, establishing and sustaining FACES networks, challenging conditions, assessment of the impact, and innovative features of FACES networks.
Planning Science Classroom Facilities and Resources to Improve Students’ Attitudes
Angel Ford and Philip Alsup
Over half of the school facilities in America are in poor condition. Unsatisfactory school facilities have a negative impact on teaching and learning. The purpose of this correlational study was to identify the relationship between high school science teachers’ perceptions of the school’s science environment (instructional equipment, demonstration equipment, and physical facilities) and ninth grade students’ attitudes about science through their expressed enjoyment of science, boredom with science and value of science. A sample of 11,523 cases was extracted from the High School Longitudinal Study (HSLS:2009), a nationally representative survey of ninth graders located throughout the United States. The research design was multiple linear regression. The results showed a weak and yet significant relationship between the science classroom conditions and students’ attitudes. Demonstration equipment and physical facilities were the best predictors of effects on students’ attitudes. The results from this study show the importance of appropriate school facility and resource planning as well as areas for future research.
Caitlin Riegel and Rosina Mete
As technology continues to evolve, the gap between those who have grown up with technology (digital natives) and those who have not (digital immigrants) continues to widen. This gap is very present in the K-12 classroom, where both digital natives (students) and digital immigrants (teachers) work together. This gap highlights a stigma associated with each group; digital natives are comfortable with technology and digital immigrants are not. However, just as digital natives can teach digital immigrants a lot in terms of using, navigating, and harnessing the efficiency of technology, digital immigrants can offer digital natives a lot in terms of learning to use, troubleshooting, and operating without technology.
Canute Thompson
This article explores the quality of teacher-student relationship as it relates to the academic performance of Jamaican male high school students when compared to their female counterparts. The study examined data from a regional examination body and found that girls out-performed boys in all subjects in the period 2011–2016. In extracting data from another study, it was found that boys had less positive perceptions of their relationships with their principals and teachers than girls. This article points to the need for educational practitioners and policy makers to adopt new ways of engaging boys in the teaching and learning process. Attention needs to be paid to the emotional and interpersonal needs of boys.