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Although school absenteeism trajectories can be studied through various parameters and dimensions, such as the amount of school absenteeism, sequence, and timing, most studies have only focused on changes in the amount of school absenteeism. However, when investigating the nature of school absenteeism, an analysis cannot be restricted to just changes in the amount of school absenteeism. In this article, I show how applying optimal matching on time-stamped half days of missed school (n = 6260) enables researchers, policy makers, and school professionals to uncover socio-temporal regularities in trajectories of non-attendance (i.e., the degree to which groups of pupils are absent at the same time and in the same rhythm within a given school year). Results indicated that students fall into five types of trajectories, and that these are highly predictive of student's examination results at the end of the school year. In the Discussion, I elaborate on the implications of these findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Introduction : Current research recommends that students returning to school after a concussion should receive a return to school plan that is tailored to their individual symptoms. School professionals play important roles in designing and implementing the supports outlined in return to school plans. Methods : This qualitative study explored middle and high school professionals' experiences with concussion, particularly their knowledge and perceptions of the injury and their experience with supporting students with concussion. Six focus groups were conducted with two to four school professionals per group, including two groups of teachers, two groups of school psychologists and counselors, and two groups of school nurses. Findings were coded into four categories: (a) challenges with identifying a concussion; (b) strategies for communicating with students about concussion; (c) barriers to implementing return to learn plans; and (d) establishing a collaborative school support team. Results : School professionals who participated in the focus groups were knowledgeable about concussion and the importance of helping their student recover. Participants also understood the importance of recognizing the signs and symptoms of concussion and communicating with students and parents about this injury. However, the study participants reported various challenges related to concussion identification and management, including the perceived validity of concussion symptom reporting by students. A team-based approach was mentioned across all groups as the preferred method for school-based concussion management for students. Conclusion : School professionals in this study were eager to address concussion in their schools, but desire guidance on how to overcome social norms around concussion identification and reporting. In addition, there is a need for consistent use of written instructions from healthcare providers to help guide return to learn (RTL) accommodations. Practical applications : The findings from this study can help inform the integration of concussion, and other health, management plans in schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economic, political, and demographic changes, technological advances, two crashes of the economy, ethical scandals, and other developments in the business environment have strained the roles and enrollments of American universities' business schools. The b-schools have not responded adequately. Prevailing theories in many of the management disciplines have broken down, partly as a result of the same environmental changes. Again, schools and curricula have not adapted. Collegiate business education is in dire crisis. In this paper we document the crisis, note measures that have been taken - both constructive and otherwise - and make further suggestions for improving the situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Teachers' professional talk produced the hybrid identity of teachers doing math. • This talk established a hybrid community concerned with teaching and discipline. • This hybridity challenges discourses pushing teachers to focus only on instruction. Teachers construct professional identities within community as they converse about their work and negotiate what it means to be a teacher. Grossman, Wineburg, and Woolworth (2001) suggest that such negotiation must account for an essential tension between focusing on pedagogical versus disciplinary concerns. How teachers navigate this tension and what this means for their joint production of identity and community is unclear. This gap in the literature became evident in our work with Math Teachers' Circles (MTC), where we observed K-12 math teachers indexing instructional experiences and concerns despite the program's explicit invitation to set teaching aside and do math problems together for pleasure. Drawing upon a community of practice framework and positioning theory, we consider the work this professional talk accomplished within MTC gatherings. We show how the teachers positioned themselves and established their community, thereby producing hybrid identities and MTCs as a kind of hybrid community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Provides new data on the acquisition of connectives from the written mode. • Shows a link between connectives' frequency and teenagers' ability to use them. • Discusses individual differences in teenagers' ability to use connectives. Connectives are complex lexical items for children, who do not even master connectives used frequently in speech until the end of their primary school years. In this paper, we assess the ability of two groups of 16-year-olds from two different academic levels (i.e., high school vs. professional school students), as well as a group of university students, to use four French connectives bound to the written mode in a constrained production task. These connectives were chosen to assess three potential sources of difficulties: the cognitive complexity of the encoded discourse relation, the connectives' frequency in corpus data, and their mono- or polyfunctional nature. Our results indicate that teenagers have a lower ability to use these connectives compared to university students, and frequency appears to be the best-suited factor to account for their difficulties. In addition, the teenage group with a higher academic level reached better accuracy with the two more frequent connectives tested. Taken together, our results indicate that teenagers do not yet have mastery over the wide array of connectives from the written mode in their native language, particularly those that are less frequent in corpus data. These connectives are especially problematic for teenagers with a lower academic background. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Student failure plays a productive role in college art and design pedagogy. • Professors assign open-ended projects that lead students to encounter failure as they create. • Professors engage in classroom practices that help students use failure to enhance creativity. There is evidence that failure can contribute to creativity, but there has been no research on whether failure plays a role in teaching and learning how to create. In this paper, I examine the role of failure in teaching and learning in professional schools of art and design, where creative practice is an important learning outcome. In the course of ethnographies at two professional schools of art and design, I interviewed professors and observed their classes to explore their pedagogical beliefs and practices. Using a grounded theory methodology to analyze this qualitative data, I found that failure is an important aspect of pedagogy in both art and design disciplines. The grounded theory methodology resulted in the identification of six emergent themes that elaborate how art and design pedagogy incorporates failure to foster creative learning outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]