Search Results (28)

The transition from school to university and subsequently into the workforce is increasingly non-linear, shaped by diverse socio-economic realities and interrupted learning pathways. This study examines the effectiveness of Readiness Programs in preparing students for higher education and explores the potential of integrating the African Ubuntu philosophy to enhance these programs. Using a quantitative research design, a structured survey was administered to 1132 participants enrolled in the University of Namibia’s 2024 Readiness Program. Descriptive statistics and ordered logistic regression were employed to analyse key predictors of readiness, including program structure, delivery, academic skills, and resilience to challenges. The findings indicate that program delivery, improved academic skills, and academic performance significantly influence students’ readiness to pursue university studies, while resilience to personal challenges shows a weaker correlation. The results suggest that structured interventions play a more pivotal role than individual perseverance in ensuring academic preparedness. The study concludes that integrating Ubuntu principles, such as communal support, ethical leadership, and collaborative learning into readiness programs can strengthen student engagement and institutional inclusivity. This integration aligns with decolonial imperatives in African higher education and contributes to more contextually relevant, supportive, and transformative readiness initiatives. Full article

In response to systemic inequities in mathematics education, we developed and evaluated a five-year, multi-phase curriculum model to cultivate effective secondary mathematics teacher leaders. Supported by NSF Noyce Master Teacher Fellowships, the APLUS in MATH (APLUS in Math: Alabama Practitioner Leaders for Underserved Schools in Mathematics) program engaged 22 inservice teachers through graduate coursework, National Board Certification preparation, and leadership project development. Using a mixed-methods design, we analyzed data from classroom observations (MCOP²), National Board Certification assessments, course performance ratings, and teacher leadership project proposals. Results indicate significant improvements in instructional practices, content knowledge, and leadership readiness. Findings underscore the importance for sustained, structured professional development to prepare teachers as instructional experts and change agents in high-need educational contexts. Full article

This paper explores how redesigned Education Doctorate (EdD) programs in educational leadership can serve as a lever for strengthening the use of research evidence (URE) in schools and districts. Drawing on the COM-B framework, we conceptualize a theory of action that links EdD program design to leaders’ capabilities, motivations, and behaviors in applying research to educational improvement. We identify key dimensions of leadership preparation that align with well-documented URE practices. Finally, we discuss how these insights can inform doctoral programs as well as in-service professional learning and suggest the need for additional empirical work on these relationships and a deeper understanding of how local contexts shape the effectiveness of leadership preparation in supporting research-informed decision-making. Full article

This essay argues for the inclusion of mindfulness training in educational leadership preparation programs in the United States. Educational leaders have a determining influence on school effectiveness, and their success depends on the quality of the preparation they receive. As such, increased attention to school leadership and school leader preparation has emerged, and important efforts to improve the preparation of school leaders have been undertaken, including the development of the National Educational Leadership Preparation standards. However, while the standards are extremely valuable, they concentrate on what leaders know and do for others, not on their well-being, who they are, or how they determine what to do. Hence, the standards may contribute to the increasingly technocratic orientation in the narrative about and preparation of educational leaders. While such orientation supports the development of necessary knowledge and skills, it may leave gaps in relational and internal capacities; capacities that have been identified as increasingly important for today’s school leaders, not just for their job performance, but also for their well-being and longevity on the job. This essay highlights some of the ways in which mindfulness can support the preparation of school leaders while enhancing their relational, internal, and standards-based capacities. Full article

Background/Objectives: This study aims to fill gaps in the existing literature through a qualitative evaluation of stakeholders involved in Food Is Medicine (FIM) programs. The primary objective was to examine the structural components, implementation process, and perceived impact of the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and Venice Family Clinic (VFC) Emergency Prepared Meal Program (UCLA-VFC Food Program), developed as a collaboration between a university and Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) during a period of community crisis. A secondary objective was to compare this program with three other FIM initiatives, identifying convergences and divergences in design and effectiveness. Methods: The methodology involved semi-structured interviews conducted with stakeholders across all four programs. Participants were recruited based on their direct involvement with program ideation, design, or implementation. Interviews were conducted online between July and September 2022, with 11 stakeholders. A thematic analysis was applied to the transcribed responses using an inductive thematic analysis. Results: Key findings highlighted four recurrent themes: (1) the critical role of leadership and a collaborative culture; (2) the importance of community partnerships and health education; (3) challenges related to logistics, funding, and sustainability; and (4) the need for assessment and evaluation. These findings provide valuable insight into the design of future FIM interventions, particularly those embedded in healthcare settings. Conclusions: In conclusion, this study offers preliminary evidence supporting the unique potential of university–community partnerships to address food insecurity. Unlike previous research that emphasized clinical outcomes, our findings provide a contextualized understanding of programmatic implementation. While further quantitative evaluation is necessary, this work lays the groundwork for a collaborative model between various entities including universities, healthcare systems, clinics, and community health/food services aimed at addressing social determinants of health. Full article

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has increasingly been integrated into daily life, yet many individuals, including teacher candidates, remain unaware of its presence, despite the rise in Generative AI and its influence on personal and professional spaces. AI offers promising advancements in education by enhancing efficiency, streamlining administrative tasks, and personalizing learning experiences. Recognizing the need to address AI’s role within their instructional practice and teacher preparation program, the authors describe their AI journey, detailing a multi-phase approach to integrating AI into higher education through individual exploration, faculty partnerships, pilot study implementation, and expanded partnerships and professional development. This article includes concrete examples of how a semester-long action research project was intentionally reimagined to align with AI-driven learning. Using the Digital Education Council’s AI Literacy Framework as a guiding structure, the authors examine the competencies necessary for AI literacy and leadership in education. This retrospective review highlights lessons learned, challenges faced, and emerging strategies for fostering responsible AI integration in K-12 and teacher preparation programs. Full article

Globally, many school systems face leadership shortages and challenges in building strong principal pipelines, making career intentions to pursue school leadership a critical area of study. This study examines how key features of educational leadership preparation programs (ELPPs) influence graduates’ intentions to become school leaders. Guided by Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT), we analyzed data from 2994 graduates across 51 U.S.-based ELPPs collected between 2016 and 2020, using structural equation modeling and estimation thinking to assess direct and mediated relationships among program features and career outcomes. Findings reveal that internship quality plays a pivotal role as both a direct predictor of career intentions and a mediator for other program features, including faculty quality, program rigor and relevance, and peer relationships. Faculty quality influences intentions primarily through rigor and relevance, while cohort participation contributes indirectly by fostering peer relationships and internship quality. Graduate attributes, including prior leadership experience, also shape career aspirations. This study extends SCCT by demonstrating how ELPP features shape candidates’ career intentions through interconnected pathways, offering insights that inform policy and program design aimed at strengthening pathways into school leadership. Full article

Preservice teachers’ beliefs play an important role in shaping their future instructional practices. While creativity is increasingly recognized as a key element in education, little is known about how preservice teachers perceive creative versus good teachers. The current study explored preservice teachers’ views on the characteristics associated with creative and good teachers, identifying both shared and unique attributes. A total of 438 preservice teachers participated in this study. The results revealed that preservice teachers value relationship building, professional competence, and creativity in both categories. Notably, the emphasis on creativity in both creative and good teachers suggests an evolving perspective on teaching that highlights the significance of fostering creativity in classrooms. Additionally, good teachers were associated with a wider range of social and personality traits, whereas creative teachers were characterized by a stronger focus on adaptability and leadership. The findings underscore the need for teacher education programs to adopt an integrative approach that values both teaching effectiveness and creativity, ensuring that future educators are well-prepared to meet the demands of 21st-century education. Full article

Students as Partners (SaP) programs have centered student voices since their inception. Student–faculty pedagogical partnerships are grounded in the notion that students have the expertise to contribute to faculty in preparing for, reflecting on, and revising teaching and learning practices in ways that are inclusive and responsive to all learners. This expertise is based in part on their lived experiences—both as students and as members of the student populations that SaP programs were intentionally created to help empower (e.g., first generation, low-income, BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and people of Color) and others marginalized in higher education). These students, in dialogue with faculty, help to expose equity issues across classrooms. As SaP programs have proliferated in colleges and universities across the globe, the student partners’ role as social justice advocates in these programs have expanded too. This review explores the pedagogical partnership literature over the past 20 years, to establish the ways in which undergraduate students and post-bacs have flourished in leadership roles in SaP programs: (a) acting as leaders for social equity on campus, (b) serving as peer mentors to new student partners in existing programs, (c) co-creating new programs, and (d) publishing in the literature. This review reveals opportunities for new directions with peer mentorship in SaP programs through the role of lead student mentors who can help to scale up SaP programs, support the emotional labor involved in partnership work, and create pathways to future social justice leadership opportunities. Full article

Middle school principals are essential to creating a successful learning environment. They should possess expertise in adolescent development, foster a diverse and equitable school community, and invest in teacher development. This review searched, organized, and analyzed the literature between 2019 and 2024 specifically regarding middle school principal preparation programs and leadership approaches. We sought to identify any alignment with the leadership and organization characteristics outlined in the Association of Middle Level Education’s The Successful Middle School: This We Believe framework The findings revealed a slight relationship between principal preparation programs and the leadership and organizational characteristics outlined by Bishop and Harrison. Our findings also revealed that many states lack specific credentialing requirements for middle school principals. To strengthen the field of middle school education, specifically principal preparation, further research will help educational leaders align their practices with middle school characteristics and advocate for the required credentials in this field. Full article

There is a compelling literature base in the field of education that highlights how school leaders are crucial to improving academic processes and outcomes, including instruction and raising student achievement. Research has also demonstrated that effective school leaders exhibit behaviors aligned with promoting the core issues of teaching, learning, and school improvement. Less well-known is what science says about the effectiveness of professional development and leadership preparation programs for developing the competencies needed for addressing the diverse mental health needs of students. Better understanding the science is important as school leaders are increasingly tasked with connecting leadership behaviors to students’ social and emotional outcomes, and these leaders play a large role in whether, and to what extent, mental health promotion and prevention are effectively implemented in school settings. Drawing from diverse literature bases of education and psychology, the primary objective of this narrative literature review is to determine and define effective leadership behaviors, skills, and competencies in the context of implementing school mental health programs and strategies. The secondary objective is to summarize the existing research examining leadership preparation and professional development programs that promote effective leadership practices and highlight examples of leadership programs focused on enhancing school mental health. Full article

The Fourth Industrial Revolution (Industry 4.0) has profoundly transformed industries worldwide through the integration of advanced digital technologies, including artificial intelligence, digital twins, building information modeling (BIM), and the Internet of Things (IoT). The Architecture, Construction, and Engineering (ACE) sectors are increasingly adopting these innovations to meet the evolving demands of the global market. Within this dynamic context, Saudi Arabia has emerged as a front-runner and significant investor in this sector, as evidenced by the launch of ambitious mega-projects such as NEOM and The Line. These developments prompt valuable discussions about the readiness of graduates to adapt to rapid technological advancements and meet the current demands of the Saudi market. Although numerous studies have explored this issue, the Saudi context presents unique challenges and opportunities due to the accelerated pace of change within the ACE sectors, driven by the goals of Vision 2030. For this reason, this paper aims to address this gap by exploring the readiness of architectural programs in the context of Saudi Arabia to meet the demands of Industry 4.0. To achieve this, a comprehensive literature review was conducted, developing an analytical framework. Subsequently, a multiple-cases approach was employed, with an overall top-level discussion on the undergraduate architecture program subjects available in the five regions in Saudi Arabia. A combination of field observations, domain expertise, and evidence-based coding methods was employed to develop the SWOT analysis. The SWOT framework was utilized to identify key strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats within the current academic programs. The findings were then analyzed in a comprehensive discussion, highlighting necessary transformations in existing programs. The methodology employed in our study involves prolonged engagement and persistent observation to enhance the quality and credibility of the discussion. This paper serves as a roadmap for guiding future educational reforms and aligning architectural education with emerging industry demands and technological advancements in the field. Four key themes are essential for aligning architectural education with Industry 4.0: sustainability in the built environment, innovation and creativity, digital applications in the built environment, and entrepreneurship and leadership in venture engineering. It also strongly emphasized sustainability courses and noted notable deficiencies in preparing students for a digitally driven professional landscape. For example, the average program comprises 162 credit hours and 58 courses, with only six related to Industry 4.0. The top five institutions offering Industry 4.0 courses ranked from highest to lowest are ARCH-U11, ARCH-U8, ARCH-U3, ARCH-U4, and ARCH-U15. ARCH-U11 offers the most Industry 4.0 courses, totaling 15, which account for 26.8% of its courses and 15% of its credit hours, in contrast to ARCH-U20, which offers no courses. The novelty of this research lies in its comprehensive analysis of the readiness of architecture program curricula from 20 Saudi universities to meet the requirements of Industry 4.0. Importantly, these findings support previous studies that established guidelines that mandate the inclusion of sustainability, innovation, and digital skills in architectural education programs. Contribution to the knowledge and findings is valuable for educational institutions, policymakers, and industry leaders, offering insights into evolving architectural education to meet future industry demands and foster technological innovation and sustainable development. Moreover, it provides actionable recommendations for curriculum development in alignment with Vision 2030. Contrary to expectations, findings show that lower-ranked universities offer more Industry 4.0-related courses than higher-ranked ones, emphasizing the need to align university evaluation standards with labor market demands. Full article

This paper introduces an intersectional leadership identity development framework to support both the leadership development of aspiring school leaders and the study of educational leadership. By combining aspects and insights from critical sensemaking, role identity, and intersectionality, this framework aims to expand the understanding of the flexible sensemaking of aspiring educational leaders, provide educational leadership preparation programs with necessary insights to better support the increasingly diverse cadre of aspiring leaders, and open new avenues of empirical research and practical application in the study of role identity and its influence on the preparation of successful school leaders. Full article

Throughout the globe, there is growing attention being paid to issues of equity and efforts to produce more equitable student learning outcomes in schools, and much of the scholarship internationally has begun to center school leaders as key drivers of more equitable conditions. Indeed, in the United States, persistent inequities in education have highlighted the need for K-12 principals who can effectively support diverse students. Effective leader preparation and development, particularly with a focus on equity, is crucial, as it equips school leaders with the knowledge and skills to create inclusive and equitable learning environments. U.S.-based research highlights that high-quality, equity-centered preparation programs can significantly impact student outcomes, emphasizing the importance of integrating equity-focused training in leadership development. However, we know less about the design of high-quality preparation programs oriented around equity, and scholars have noted that current programs are often ill-equipped to prepare equity-centered leaders. Therefore, this study provides an integrative review of the U.S.-based equity-centered principal preparation literature to extract learnings from several types of publications, including descriptive and empirical studies, literature reviews, and conceptual essays. This study provides insights into four key elements of equity-centered principal preparation and development: program vision, curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment. This review consolidates insights from the existing literature into a single, accessible article, offering valuable learnings for program faculty, others who prepare school principals, and researchers focused on equity-centered preparation. Additionally, while centered on the U.S. context, this review is likely to be of value to leadership preparation and development programs in other national contexts, particularly those that have more recently begun to form. Full article

Co-curricular participation is a required component of the pharmacy program. Assessment of co-curricular activities has proven challenging due to lack of manpower to address the workload of reviewing multiple critical reflections. This project documented the professionalization impact of co-curricular involvement and secondarily explored the utility of our assessment tool, the Co-curricular Impact Scale (CIS), developed to streamline the assessment process. First- through third-professional-year students (P1, P2, P3) participated in five co-curricular domains: (i) professional development/education; (ii) patient care service; (iii) legislative advocacy; (iv) leadership/service to the pharmacy profession; and (v) healthcare-related community service. For the CIS, 16 questions were developed and mapped to 11 educational outcomes and included assessing the impact of immersing in an authentic learning experience, collaborating with healthcare professionals, and preparing for the pharmacist role. A group of 296 students rated the impact of participation as low, moderate, or significant for five events annually. Based on 717 entries, the two attributes deemed most impactful were: “Activity immersed me in an authentic learning experience” (95% ≥ Moderate Impact) and “Activity improved my self-confidence” (93% ≥ Moderate Impact). P1 students found slightly less impact in co-curricular participation (83.5%) than P2 (88.4%) and P3 (86.8%) counterparts. The CIS proved to be an efficient method to collate impact of co-curricular involvement upon student professionalization. Full article