Orphanage life places children at risk of developmental delay, particularly with regard to speech and language acquisition. The aim of this study was to evaluate opportunities for children in an orphanage in South Africa to acquire communicative competence, by examining adultÁchild and childÁchild interactions and by evaluating the structure and resources of the environment. To meet this aim, the researchers familiarized themselves with the structure and daily functioning of the orphanage, and observed and videorecorded the caregivers and the children. A matrix-based analytic method was used to analyse the data. The analyses revealed chronic deprivation of developmentally appropriate learning opportunities for the acquisition of communicative competence. The caregivers did not use child-directed speech, and were unresponsive to the children as communicative partners. In addition, there was almost no child-to-child language use and almost every child was delayed in the development of communication skills. The environment was well equipped but the children did not interact with a variety of people and did not attend pre-school. Findings are discussed against the framework of the development of communicative competence in non-traditional developmental contexts. In addition, the suggestion is made that caregiverÁchild connectedness, which is fundamental to the development of communicative competence, could be enhanced by caregiver training in fundamental processes of caritas.

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The purpose of this study was to examine the design, implementation, and initial outcomes of a collaborative professional development program intended to prepare middle and high school educators to implement effectively the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) in classrooms with diverse learners. The professional development program discussed herein was designed by a university in partnership with a local school district and incorporated key principles of effective professional development associated with promoting substantial changes in teacher knowledge and practice recommended in the research literature (Darling-Hammond et al., 2009;Guskey, 2002;Reiser, 2013). Topics covered in the professional development included NGSS practices and crosscutting concepts, Universal Design for Learning, and disciplinary literacy. Results suggest that the impact of this professional development program was positive. Feedback from participants was favorable and will be shared as well.

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The authors investigated the impact of exposure to computational thinking activities and professional development on inservice teachers' perceptions and teaching practices in elementary and secondary school education. The participants of this 2017/2018 research study were STEM teachers from the Baltimore County (Maryland) Public Schools in the United States of America. The major focus of this study was on the impact of professional development activities on the inclusion of computational thinking activities in the k-12 mathematics and science classrooms. The analysis of the data indicated that most of the participating teachers felt that the professional development activities were valuable and made a positive impact on the quality and quantity of computational thinking activities they implemented in their classrooms. Most of these teachers stated that they would implement computational thinking activities on a weekly or monthly basis. Based on the analysis of the data and the results of this study, a list of future research questions is included.