A safe environment for a child is one that provides freedom from harm and offers a strong sense of security and belonging from which to play, learn and develop. A healthy and safe environment also promotes children’s psychological wellbeing by allowing them to exercise their independence through making decisions and taking on new challenges. Educators are responsible for providing and maintaining safe environments for children in their care, including the development of strategies to prevent injury in indoor and outdoor environments. Injury prevention promotes safety, protects the child and minimises risk. Injury prevention also provides procedures to manage injuries as they occur. By protecting children from hazards, injury prevention offers children the sense of safety and security that allows them to develop to their fullest potential.

Chapter Abstract: This chapter explores how to cultivate wisdom through public education. To educate for wisdom, we need to be clear about our target outcome. We suggest a wise student is one who is healthy and well-integrated physically, personally, intellectually and socially—what Rogers called “a fully functioning person.” Educational programs need specific indicators of progress, so we propose six connections to being, feeling, and thinking. These connections are established and strengthened by curricula that include: studying inspirational exemplars; teaching strategies to become like those exemplars (e.g., journaling); teaching concepts related to wisdom (e.g., critical thinking); and building real and virtual educational environments. Although the best teachers already teach for wisdom, many (perhaps most) teachers in public education do not. Making teaching for wisdom more common requires changes to current teacher education, student assessment and educational policy.

The learning sciences (LS) is an interdisciplinary field that studies teaching and learning. This chapter explains how the thirty-three chapters are organized. The chapter is grouped into four key themes: (1) a shift from thinking of knowledge as facts and procedures to a conception of knowledge as situated in visible practice; (2) an expansion of a view of learning from purely cognitive to a sociocultural view that also incorporates collaboration and conversation; (3) the role of technology in learning; (4) research methodologies used in LS. The chapter closes with a short history of the field of LS from the 1980s through the present.

This chapter explores the concept of design in MALL. Design can take place at multiple levels, starting with the larger learning environment, to the digital artefacts that are used by learners, and the design of tasks for using the artefacts within the given environment. Some of the key models of general design of the learning environment, artefacts and tasks are provided with examples of how they relate directly to MALL. The complexities of designing assessment are also discussed. The chapter concludes with fundamental guidelines to bear in mind when designing MALL and outlines a list of principles for the successful implementation of mobile devices in language teaching and learning contexts.

This chapter and the preceding chapter describe the various ways in which you might manage your classroom. Chapter 9 introduced some of the main theoretical frameworks for classroom management and how these connect to teaching and learning practices. In this chapter, we extend the discussion by considering classroom management in relation to creating engaging and motivating learning environments. Engagement and motivation are essential to young people’s success in various educational contexts, including early years, primary and secondary settings, and they can only occur in positive teaching and learning environments. Establishing and fostering such environments through effective classroom management is a source of concern for many preservice teachers, and will continue to be as teachers progress throughout their career. This chapter provides an overview of various proactive strategies that serve to promote positive teaching and learning environments along with strategies for responding to student disengagement or off-task behaviour. Positive student–teacher relationships will also be described as an essential component for engaging and motivating students’ learning.

How would you go about identifying and then setting up a successful STEM learning space in a school? Some teachers hold the view that STEM education is complex, difficult and requires a range of expensive resources to be used in a particularly designed STEM learning space. In the first section, we explore the research related to STEM learning environments and the history and design of makerspaces.The chapter then identifies key aspects of STEM learning spaces, and looks at those materials/resources that are essential and those that are optional for supporting STEM activities. The chapter then examines the views of experienced teachers regarding STEM education and considers the mindset required by STEM teachers.