Best Practices for Education Professionals

Best practices currently advocate that education professionals consult and collaborate with colleagues across disciplines as a means of providing students and their families a comprehensive, developmental approach to students’ academic, career, and social/personal growth. Best Practices for Education Professionals has been developed to inform in-service and pre-service professional educators, including teachers, school counselors, school psychologists, speech language pathologists, administrators, and other school professionals, about useful techniques, ideas, competencies, and skills when addressing the comprehensive development of children in schools and school settings.

The book is comprised of both research (qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-design) and conceptual pieces about the most effective, current professional practices for professionals who work with P-12 children in schools. It will be highly useful for individuals studying to be practicing teachers, school counselors, school psychologists, speech language pathologists, administrators, as well as other school professionals. The book informs in-service and pre-service individuals about useful techniques, ideas, competencies, and skills when working with children in schools and school settings. The volume is also important to individuals undertaking academic (master and doctoral) level research on best practices for school professionals.

The book includes recent, research-based ideas in the field of education. Topics include cultural competencies for school professionals, learning communities, educational technology, literacy, and special education. This book is particularly important in the field of education since becoming informed on the latest techniques and ideologies is an essential component of both professional preparation and continuing professional development of school professionals. Currently, education practitioners struggle with finding time for professional development and ways to inform themselves of the latest research. This book—with many timely findings—is important to offer to the education community, as well as the academic community, in higher education. As students continually change, so must the practices of the professionals who work with them. This volume attempts to highlight some of the most recent practices in the field of education and for educators.

This book is unique and valuable in that while other books focus on a particular profession within the education field, this book covers best practices of a variety of professionals who work in the schools.

Heidi Schnackenberg, PhD, is an Associate Professor in Educational Technology in SUNY Plattsburgh’s Teacher Education Unit. She currently teaches both undergraduate and graduate classes on the use of technology to enhance teaching and learning in the P-12 classroom, social issues in education, ethical issues in educational technology, and childhood education courses as a member of one of the faculty cohorts in the BS program in Childhood Education. She previously taught in the graduate educational technology program at Concordia University, and worked as an instructional designer for both Intel and Motorola corporations. Her various research interests include the integration of technology into pedagogical practices, the legal and ethical implications of western technologies in non-western and third world cultures, and collaborative and cooperative learning strategies within student learning communities. Dr. Schnackenberg recently designed and developed an extensive MyEducationLabs online supplement for the book Foundations of American Education: Perspectives on Education in a Changing World (15th ed.) published by Pearson Higher Education Publishers. Dr. Schnackenberg began her education career as an elementary music teacher.

Beverly A. Burnell, PhD, is an Associate Professor in Counselor Education at SUNY Plattsburgh, and also serves as the Employee Assistance Coordinator for the campus. She teaches graduate students in the department’s three nationally accredited counseling programs, including school counseling. Some of her areas of professional focus have been career development in schools, professional roles and identity, ethical practice, cultural competence, and transition processes for students with disabilities. Dr. Burnell has been an active contributor to the design of nationally accredited graduate programs in teacher education and counselor education and coordinates the accreditation process for the Counselor Education Department. Dr. Burnell began her education career as a secondary mathematics teacher.