PRODUCTS

In the challenging world of doctoral studies, where less than 5% of the U.S. population holds a doctorate degree, support and guidance are crucial for success. From ABD to PhD and EdD: Navigating the Final Stretch of Your Doctoral Journey offers a unique and powerful approach to completing your doctoral degree through the often-overlooked strategy of peer mentoring/coaching groups.

Drawing from years of experience mentoring doctoral students at prestigious institutions, Dr. Vickie E. Lake presents a comprehensive guide for both faculty and students. This book addresses the critical gap in support that many doctoral candidates face after completing their coursework, a period when guidance is most needed but often least available. From ABD to PhD and EdD is divided into three essential chapters:

1. Doctoral Group Mentoring/Coaching: Learn the fundamentals of establishing and maintaining effective peer support groups. Understand the difference between mentoring and coaching, and how to leverage both for maximum benefit.
2. Strategies for Success: Discover proven techniques for tackling each milestone of your doctoral journey, from comprehensive exams to the dissertation defense. This chapter offers practical advice on pre-writing strategies, time management, and overcoming common obstacles.
3. Resources for Completion: Navigate the often-confusing world of university resources. Learn how to effectively utilize writing centers, librarians, graduate colleges, and professional organizations to support your research and writing process.

Recognizing the diversity crisis in regards to the cultural mismatch between educators and their diverse students, Diversifying the Educator Pipeline provides a critical examination of the mistakes we have made in our efforts to bolster the presence of Black educators. Acknowledging the cyclical nature of potential trauma and harm that occurs in educational spaces, Shaylyn Marks offers insights and recommendations for all stakeholders to consider in their efforts to recruit, prepare, and retain Black educators. Diversifying the Educator Pipeline illuminates issues pertaining to the ways in which Black students and educators are disenfranchised in educational spaces, and serves as a call to action for the education community.

Do you have the desire to build relationships with the special education teachers in your school or district but constantly feel weighed down by compliance issues? Special education teachers are leaving the field at alarming rates, and positive change through transformational leadership practices can help administrators build confidence and self-efficacy as leaders of special education programs and strengthen special education teachers’ commitment to remain in the field.

In a book that guides an affective journey using John C. Maxwell’s teachings, Natasha Veale, a former special education teacher, professor of special education, and certified Maxwell Leadership consultant, demonstrates how to address administrators’ belief in their ability to become influential special education leaders and connect with their special education teachers, even without a background in special education. This book is ideal for pre-service and in-service assistant principals and principals, special education administrators, and general and special education teachers. Embedded school administrators’ anecdotes reveal experiences, challenges, and desires to build an emotionally supportive environment for their special education teachers. Practical advice and tips are offered to help administrators positively influence, individually consider, intellectually stimulate, and inspirationally motivate their special education teachers.

In How to Retain Special Education Teachers: A Transformational Leadership Guide for School Administrators, you learn how to:

• Support special education teacher workload
• Build self-efficacy as a leader of special education
• Build relationships with special education teachers
• Strengthen Principal Preparation Programs

African American males are confronted with formidable barriers in their pursuit of quality education, resulting in stark disparities in academic performance, economic opportunities, and social outcomes. Despite numerous educational initiatives striving for parity, African American males persistently bear the brunt of the highest rates of suspensions, expulsions, and dropout rates, surpassing all other demographic groups.

Educational environments often fail to acknowledge and integrate the cultural and social needs of Black males, viewing them as "problems" rather than recognizing their immense potential for academic and leadership success. The prevalence of negative stereotypes in media, particularly in video games, exacerbates societal biases, portraying African American males as inherently violent and criminal. These representations contribute to implicit biases that affect perceptions and treatment in real-life scenarios. The systemic issues within the education system, coupled with socioeconomic factors, result in African American males being underrepresented in advanced placement and gifted education programs. This underrepresentation limits their opportunities for higher education and professional advancement.

Confronting these challenges necessitates a comprehensive approach that encompasses the creation of inclusive educational environments, the eradication of systemic racism, and the promotion of positive representations of African American males in media. By acknowledging and fostering the potential of Black males, society can strive to reduce disparities and cultivate a more equitable and just education system that recognizes and celebrates their academic and professional achievements.

African American Males and Video Games explores the perspectives of four African American male college students aged 18 to 21 on the impact of video games on their academic growth and development. The participants, all maintaining a GPA of 3.0 or higher, shared their experiences with teachers, video games, and coping mechanisms. This qualitative approach allowed for a rich understanding of the participant's experiences and the role of video games in their academic and mental well-being.

Video games emerged as a significant coping tool for the participants, providing a mental escape from academic and social pressures. The games allowed them to engage in competitive and creative activities, fostering a sense of accomplishment and reducing stress. For example, games like NBA 2K21 and Forza Horizon 4 enabled them to explore alter egos and interests in a virtual space, offering entertainment and a sense of community.

African American Males and Video Games is a critical text for exploring alternatives in providing a quality education experience for young African American males. It is vital reading for educators in all areas of higher education, and a valuable teaching tool in Colleges of Education.

Perfect for courses such as: Educational Psychology; Sociology of Education; African American Studies; Media Studies; Game Design; Youth Development; Digital Literacy; Cultural Studies; Educational Technology; Social Psychology; Gender Studies

PreK-12 schools across the United States are adopting social and emotional learning (SEL) programs for both students and educators. However, most of these schools are adopting non-contextualized, trendy, and traditional SEL programs, in which students and educators are conditioned to apply certain knowledge and skills that speak to only a small subset of students rather than utilizing authentic, equity-driven SEL models. As such, SEL programming must be transformed and sustained to reflect new and shifting identities of both students and educators, like the expanding ability, cultural, gender, linguistic, race, religion, and socioeconomic formations and their intersections, as well as tensions within predominantly white institutions.

Moving from Trendy Social-Emotional Learning to Transformative Social-Emotional Learning presents a diverse collection of chapters that discuss authentic and contextualized equity and justice models that are focused on the possibilities of transformative SEL programming.. The book’s primary focus is on innovative and creative methodologies and practices that aspiring and practicing educators can use right away. Because the editors and contributors are former or current PreK-12 practitioners and/or educational scholars, this book is written for a broad educational audience. Directed to both preservice and practicing teachers across PreK-12 grade levels, school types, and geographic regions looking to improve their practice, the text provides entry points for transforming the SEL landscape in favor of liberatory, justice-based, and equitable practices. Additionally, this book is ideal for teacher and administrator preparation programs, as well as PreK-12 professional development, because it guides readers through theoretical and empirical discussions, punctuated by hands-on applications that enable real-time application, and concludes with interactive features, including case studies, extension activities, and discussion prompts.

Specific topics include enacting culturally-relevant SEL; addressing youth mental health through cultivating authentic belonging and mindfulness in classrooms; equitable SEL curricular and pedagogical practices; developing adult SEL; culturally-grounded identity development, ensuring safe environments for building identity and relationships; and SEL in teacher education and mentorship.

Perfect for courses such as: Introduction to Educating For Equity And Social Justice; Introduction to Cultivating Culturally Responsive Classrooms; Foundations of Classroom Management; Introduction to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Schools; Principles of Professional Collaboration In Education; Introduction To School Improvement, Introduction to Teacher Leadership And School Improvement; Introduction to Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment; Principles of Building Classroom Communities; Principles of Teaching Diverse Learners; Principles of Youth Voices in Education

In metropolitan areas across the United States, city and suburban public school students receive grossly unequal funding. Since funding is critical to student success, this means the primarily Black, Latinx, and low-income students attending city schools are being denied an equal education. So entrenched is this system, that it can feel normal, or too big to undo. Yet recent student activism in the form of an innovative, cross-community school partnership offers new hope. The Metropolitan Community: Partnering for Equality Across the Educational Divide tells the story of two Chicago-area schools—one suburban, one urban—whose students come together to examine the disparities between their schools and advocate for change. It follows these students over a year as they meet, tour each other’s schools, wrestle with how to discuss unfairness, and ultimately commit to fighting together for a more equal education. In-depth interviews and detailed observations chronicle the students’ advocacy, which unfolds in conversation with teachers and administrators and eventually brings them to the table with legislators, from whom they demand better policies. Through the examples set by students, readers are invited to develop their own “metro outlook,” to see how our seemingly separate worlds are connected by the educational system we hold in common and must work together to reshape. The first book to depict sustained allyship between city and suburban students, The Metropolitan Community offers an invigorating pedagogical approach, organizational model, and political strategy for achieving educational justice through youth-led partnerships and collaboration.

Improving Together: Case Studies of Networked Improvement Science Communities examines a range of network improvement communities who are using improvement science to examine problems of practice. Operating in varying contexts, NICs provide a platform for communication and other forms of data sharing in order to create meta-findings on a particular phenomenon. The text focus on not only the use of IS in each context/node, but also processes of building and launching networks and considers how particular media and infrastructure are used to share knowledge within the network.

Improvement Science: Methods for Researchers and Program Evaluators moves beyond traditional research methods textbooks by responding to people working in improvement science and program evaluation. This book is tailored to the need for specific improvement research methodologies and frameworks collected and presented in an edited volume written by research faculty associated with or teaching in leadership programs.

An Introduction to Critical Autoethnography and Education: The Vulnerable Researcher examines the practice of critical autoethnography, which combines critical pedagogy, autoethnography, and often, critical ethnography, as a research methodology for conducting research in vulnerable communities without establishing hierarchical systems. Researchers who work collaboratively with participants in these communities can provide a means for often-unheard voices to reach wider audiences.

Researchers function as collaborators/participants in the research, asking themselves the same questions they ask the other participants in the research. This methodology requires reflection and introspection, as researchers examine the Self and the complexities of their cultural perspectives, whether visible or invisible, hidden beneath layers of socially constructed beliefs and behaviors. This interrogation and problematization of words and actions surpasses chronological and supposedly objective recounting of autobiography, leading to a deep understanding of the sociocultural, socioeconomic, political, and historical beliefs that created their ways of understanding and navigating the world. Traditional research situates researchers as experts. Pushing against existing norms, critical autoethnography negates hierarchical thinking, believing all collaborators co-construct equally valuable knowledge and meaning.

Accessible to diverse audiences, this book would be appropriate in graduate qualitative methods or foundations courses, at introductory or advanced levels. It would also be a good addition to any undergraduate courses preparing students to conduct research in vulnerable communities.

Perfect for courses such as: Qualitative Research Methods I | Qualitative Research Methods II | Advanced Qualitative Research Methods | Social Justice in Education Research | Case Study | Ethnographic Research in Education | Anthropology in Education | Critical Qualitative Inquiry | Multicultural Research Methods

Ubuntu Pedagogy: Becoming an Ubuntu Responsive Educator is a compelling narrative born from the author's lived experience and extensive teaching in the United States. The book chronicles her journey to Southern Africa, where she sought to understand what it means to "teach in the spirit of ubuntu." The book explores the transformative power of Ubuntu, an ancient African philosophy rooted in human interconnectedness and mutual care. It demonstrates how the principles of Ubuntu can be applied to create an engaging, inclusive, and effective learning environment. This work blends personal stories, practical examples, and a conceptual framework of Ubuntu pedagogy, illustrating its profound impact on both teaching practices and student achievement.

Part One
In this section, the author recounts her challenging first year of teaching within a large urban public school district. Through reflection, she recognizes how the traumatic events of 9/11 impacted how she showed up as a teacher. These experiences underscored the importance of reflective practice, which became a cornerstone of her teaching philosophy. Through these reflections, she emphasizes the need for educators to engage in self-examination and continuous learning to navigate and overcome initial challenges effectively.

Part Two
In part two of the book, the author unpacks the essence of teaching in the spirit of Ubuntu, focusing on its six core components. Central to this approach is understanding oneself and building positive relationships with others. This section explores creating unity among students from a place of love and care and the importance of using evidence-based practices to cater to diverse learning needs. It provides actionable insights into fostering a classroom environment rooted in compassion and mutual respect.

Part Three
This part of the book transports readers to the author's time working with children and teachers in the rural and inner-city schools of Botswana and Namibia. As an outsider, she observed and documented numerous instances of Ubuntu in action. These experiences highlighted the profound sense of community and support inherent in the Ubuntu philosophy, offering valuable lessons for educators worldwide.

Part Four
This section examines the role of Ubuntu in creating a harmonious learning environment through a compassionate approach to discipline. It discusses how Ubuntu-based discipline strategies can foster respect, responsibility, and positive student behavior, enhancing the classroom atmosphere.

Part Five
In part five of the book, the author distinguishes between cultural competence and Ubuntu competence, elaborating on what it means to be a truly competent teacher. Drawing from real-life experiences of educators in inner-city schools across the United States, this section highlights the importance of embracing diverse cultural perspectives and fostering an inclusive learning environment.

Part Six
This section explores the intrinsic link between who educators are as individuals and how they teach. It provides a step-by-step guide for educators to develop and articulate their teaching philosophy, emphasizing the importance of authenticity and self-awareness in fostering meaningful connections with students.

Part Seven
The book's final section focuses on practical applications of Ubuntu principles to cultivate good character among students. It includes the use of proverbs, aphorisms, and adinkra symbols as tools to promote ethical decision-making and positive behavior. This chapter offers concrete strategies for educators to help students develop moral integrity and make sound choices.

Ubuntu Pedagogy: Becoming an Ubuntu Responsive Educator is more than a pedagogical guide; it is a testament to the power of human connection and compassionate teaching. By integrating Ubuntu into educational practices, the author will inspire educators to create nurturing, inclusive, and effective learning environments that honor the humanity of every student.