Some experiments in diagnostic teaching

Three teaching experiments are reported which study aspects of a diagnostic teaching methodology based on identifying key conceptual points and misconceptions, focusing on these, giving substantial open challenges, provoking cognitive conflict, and resolving it through intensive discussion. An experiment in the field of directional quantities showed a positive relation between the intensity of discussion and amount of learning; one on fractions and another on geometric reflections both showed — in comparison with individualized booklets, for which retention was very low — strikingly good two-month retention under the experimental teaching methods. The particular misconceptions found in each topic are also described.     

Increasing student participation in the learning process

This paper is about increasing student participation in the teaching and learning process. It describes a methodology designed and implemented by the author for an Industrial Analysis unit in 1990–91 and emphasises the underlying educational philosophy. Industrial Analysis is a second year subject within the course Industrial and Business Systems, Department of Mechanical and Production Engineering in De Montfort University (former Leicester Polytechnic).The test of educational quality is assumed to be — What students are able to do on their own after exams. The programme aimed to train second year engineering undergraduates for industrial placement in the third year and, more generally, to bridge the gap between Institutes of Technology and industries.The subject — Industrial Analysis — is compared to the rest of the course — Industrial and Business Systems. The purpose is to assess how second year students perceive learning. With such knowledge a teaching approach could be devised to improve learning outcomes.The student-centred teaching approach is based on three pillars: explanation of theory, instruction on research methods, industrial applications. A total of 111 students form 25 teams and research 18 industries. The focus is on Research capability and Group interaction.Helpful guidelines emerge from student performance — how to avoid common pitfalls in research, such as unclear objectives, wide scope, vague approach, excessive data, superfluous technicalities and digressions. Advantages of early focusing are illustrated. Factor analysis is applied in order to find out how concepts are integrated by students.Sharing of experiences and team-working routines in class is used to bring down psychological barriers to learning. Individual and team levels of learning are examined through successive exposures and cycles.     

Applying Lakatos' theory to the theory of mathematical problem solving

In this paper, the relation between Lakatos' theory and issues about mathematics education — especially issues about mathematical problem solving — is reinvestigated by paying attention to Lakatos' methodology of a scientific research programme. By comparing the same findings about mathematical problem solving with the discussion in Lakatos' theory — e.g. research programmes' hard cores, their negative and positive heuristics, and their goals — we establish the correspondence between research programmes and solver's structures of a problem situation, i.e. structures given by a solver to a problem situation. After establishing this, the implications of Lakatos' theory, i.e. the nature of selection from competing programmes and the social origins of the cores of programmes, are applied to the discussion about mathematical problem-solving, with indications of the related evidence in the theory of mathematical problem solving which seems to support the application of those implications. Such an application leads to one view of mathematical problem solving, which reflects the irrational nature and social aspects of problem-solving activities, both in solving problems and in selecting better solutions.     

FACT — Families and children together

Following is a project sketch of a day program for adjudicated, abusive^* and high risk families with babies 8–18 months of age.In order to broaden understanding and treatment of the battered child, four major agencies coordinated efforts to design a network of services under one administration, titled the Parental Stress Center, which houses a residential treatment center for babies 0–12 months. The FACT program is a very recent addition to the Parental Stress Center. This day program may be a transitional placement for families leaving the residential program but in need of continued support and further training, or an initial placement by court mandate.The goals of the program are to insure growth and development of the child and the parent; to assist in establishing more scientific and legally acceptable criteria for court determination and disposition, and to research the effectiveness of the program plan.The FACT program is both diagnostic and therapeutic in nature. The modality simulates a home environment — living, dining, play, nursery, kitchen and bathroom — with an interdisciplinary approach to parent and child, alleviating frustration and stress. By use of materials and affective behavior, a creative learning environment is established. In the church converted apartment parents and children experience a “typical” day's routine alongside teachers who are surrogate, model mothers. Each set of parents are given one day off per week. This “normalizing” factor aids the family in developing a routine which can easily be transferred to their own homes and lives. Simultaneously judicious use of social services helps remove environmental frustrations. In addition case conferences allow other ancillary services to assist in evaluation, diagnosis, prognosis and implementation. Joint conclusions are submitted to the courts quarterly or biannually for further jurisdiction. Although the program is relatively new, emotional and behavioral changes are quite evident in the initial program participants.Pre-service and in-service staff training, based on the program plan and program evaluation, are an integral part of the program.Areas are being explored for further in-depth study. “Effective ways to care for and educate stressful toddlers” or “Methods of transferring modes of parenting from institution to the home” could be areas proposed to the Parental Research team for exploration.     

Getting the most from your conference experience

Attendance at professional conferences is encouraged by most child care centers as a way for staff to improve their competence while meeting state requirements. Countless hours are devoted to planning, executing, and evaluating conferences to ensure that conference attendees will be able to keep abreast of new developments and will be able to more effectively meet the needs of young children and receive personal inspiration. Such organizations as the National Association for the Education of Young Children and the Association for Childhood Educators provide many conferences on national, regional, state, and local levels. Additionally a number of seminars and workshops are offered by publishers, agencies, and individuals.Donna M. Bagley is Assistant Professor, Early Childhood Education, University of Missouri — St. Louis, St. Louis, MO. and Ione M. Garcia is Associate Professor, Early Childhood Education, Illinois State University, Normal, IL.     

Education in the Light of Liberspace Evolution and Transition to Cyberspace

The article considers main education trends while society is moving towards totally new information environment—cyberspace. Aims and tasks of education are justified and specified. As a solution a new pedagogical technology (projective pedagogy) is suggested. It is based on system methodology of design and the so called productive knowledge, which generates new knowledge, indicating the most probable ways of quality improvement of the objects under study.     

The introduction of Total Quality Management at Oregon State University

Oregon State University became one of the first research universities in the United States to introduce the Total Quality Management methodology into its administrative structure in 1989. Beginning with finance and administration, quality improvement teams were introduced and achieved significant improvement in process effectiveness and efficiency. Improved quality was also achieved and measured by customer satisfaction.TQM was expanded to all administrative areas — including student affairs, research, and faculty administration — over the next four years. TQM has also been used in curriculum development, teaching improvement, and research proposal development.This paper describes the implementation strategy used by Oregon State University and presents some of the results achieved. Particular attention is paid to implementation barriers found in university settings.Today, Oregon State University has over 85 process improvement teams working in both administrative and academic areas and has received many awards for its work in Total Quality Management.     

Students,parents, educators: An approach to conflict of rights

Summary The two main approaches available for conflict resolution — in education as elsewhere — suffer from serious defects. The fundamental rights approach, popular with groups advocating certain real or fancied rights, presupposes that each individual or class of individuals has basic, over-riding entitlements. In the absence of an arbitrary or compelling consideration, however, this approach is torn and immobilized by inflexible, absolutistic claims. Our analysis in this paper shows no justification in the rhetoric of children/student rights' advocates, parent power movements, or beleaguered educators that their respective rights should be regarded as pre-eminent in educational conflicts. The second approach, intended to balance competing interests, either capriciously gives undue weight to one competing claim or leads to uncritical decisions based on unarticulated value presuppositions. Hopefully, a third approach could remedy these difficulties. The reconstructed Millian-Utilitarian approach suggested in this paper combines the use of balancing and of substantive principles based on defensible utilitarian values and pre-suppositions. In making this suggestion, the paper hopes to highlight the necessity for justices and decision-makers to deliberate more consciously, adequately, and rigorously on the values that undergird educational and social policies.     

Women’s participation in academic conferences in Israel

This article examines the participation of women in academic conferences in Israel, a country in which women are under-represented in academia vertically and horizontally. Data were retrieved from announcements of academic conferences in Israel, for one academic year, covering 56 conferences that attracted 997 participations. Participation was measured according to a three-level vertical hierarchy and a three-level horizontal divide that was based on academic discipline. Statistical z-tests and χ² tests were conducted to compare the proportions of male and female participation. Findings show that male participation in conferences was three times that of women. It was also found that the conferences reflected the social agenda in Israel. It is suggested that women are subjected to two forms of gender marginality, one stemming from the gendered division of labour and the other from the characteristics of the academic conferences that reflect the masculine military social agenda in Israel.     

Bilingual education in Ontario: Issues and directions

Conclusions The impact of the immersion phenomenon in Ontario has been striking and complex. This brief review of research on bilingual education and its relationship to a variety of language teaching settings has shown that the immersion experiment has produced several constructive side effects. First, it has caused the re-examination of first language teaching in regular English classrooms and it is now sparking a move toward increased contact between educators of French as a first language and French as a second language. Second, it has heightened parental interest and led to the increased involvement of parents in their children's education. Canadian Parents for French, a national association formed in 1977, grew directly out of the excitement and interest created by bilingual education programs in Canada. Along with increased parental involvement has come the realization that the school — whether it is francophone or anglophone — cannot be expected to go it alone, that support for French must be generated in the media and in the community.Two recent conferences have resulted in part from this realization:Apprenons en français/Learning in French held at Glendon College in June, 1978, and the OISE Conference on French Language Instruction, the proceedings of which make up this issue ofInterchange. These were landmark events, since never before in Ontario had educators and parents involved in French as a first language and French as a second language come together to share their problems, ideas and hopes. Such meetings could and should represent the beginning of a continuing dialogue.     

Discursive practices, genealogies, and emotional rules: A poststructuralist view on emotion and identity in teaching

This paper invokes a poststructuralist lens—and, in particular, Foucauldian ideas—in conceptualizing teacher emotions as discursive practices. It is also argued that within this theoretical framework, teacher identity is theorized as constantly becoming in a context embedded in power relations, ideology, and culture. In terms of the methodology used when studying teacher identity and emotion through this lens, it is shown that long-term ethnographic investigations offer important advantages. This is shown through an ethnographic study of the emotions of teaching with one teacher over three years (1997–1999) and a semester long follow-up study with the same teacher four years later (spring 2003). The contribution of this study in what is presently known about teacher emotions in educational settings consists in the following three ideas: first, that emotional rules in teaching are historically contingent; second, that a teacher plays a part in her own emotional control; and third, that a teacher's identity is constituted in relation to the emotional rules in the context in which she/he teaches. The contribution of a poststructuralist perspective in research on teacher emotion is discussed and analyzed.     

An analysis of diverging approaches to simple arithmetic: Preference and its consequences

Earlier research by the author indicated that many below average attainers do not remember number facts and use alternative strategies to obtain solutions to basic arithmetical problems. These alternatives were frequently seen as the best way of finding a solution.This paper considers the relationship between the various strategies used by mixed ability children aged 7 to 12. An analysis of alternatives suggests that the selection is not underpinned by regression through the learning sequence, but by regression dominated by the child's preference for certain strategies over others. Through the evaluation of a hierarchy of preferences, divergence between the strategies available to the less able and the more able child is revealed. The alternative strategies used are based either on counting — procedural strategies, or on the use of selected known knowledge — deductive strategies. Above average children have both available as alternatives; evidence of deduction is rare amongst below average children. The more able child appears to build up a growing body of known facts from which new known facts are deduced. Less able children — relying mainly on procedural strategies — do not appear to have this feedback loop available to them.The paper contends that, for some children, procedural methods do not encourage the need to remember; the procedure provides security. On the other hand, deductive methods initially enhance the ability to remember other basic facts and eventually help children make extensive use of facts that are known to remove the need to remember new ones. More able children appear to be doing a qualitatively different sort of mathematics than the less able.     

Student Motivation to Learn via Computer Conferencing

This study investigates why some university students appear motivated to learn via computer conferencing (CC) whereas others do not, exploring the correlations of three key aspects of student motivation—reasons for engaging in academic learning (goal orientation), beliefs that they can acquire the ability to use CC (self-efficacy), and beliefs that learning to use CC will help them learn the course material (outcome expectations)—with satisfaction and with the frequency of CC contributions. Participants (n = 79) came from 4 graduate-level face-to-face courses and 1 undergraduate DE course. The results suggest that students who believe that CC will help them learn the course material are more likely to express satisfaction and to be active online, that students who believe that they are capable of learning how to use CC are more likely to be active online, and that students who are concerned about their relative performance compared to others tend to send fewer messages to conferences where online activity is not graded. Practical implications for instructors and suggestions for future research are described.     

Some effects of Ph.D. training on the academic labour markets of Australian and British Universities

This article examines whether Ph.D. training is leading to better academics or whether it is causing a severe dysfunction between the experience of academics and the roles which universities must play in the community. From two surveys — one of Australian and the other of British academics — the background of Ph.D.s is tabulated to show the loss to the stock of university manpower of non-academic but educationally valuable experience through growing competition for jobs by Ph.D.s. The conclusion is that the forces causing the Ph.D. displacement of labour in the university academic labour market should be constrained.     

Do local contributions affect the efficiency of public primary schools?

Are public schools that rely on local resources for a greater share of their financing more cost-effective? Could financial decentralization lead to more efficient schools? This paper attempts to answer these questions using cost, financial sources and student achievement data from Philippine primary schools, which are financed primarily from central sources but which also raise funds from other sources, to differing degrees. It concludes that schools which rely more heavily on local sources, such as contributions from the local school board, municipal government, parent-teacher associations (PTA) and other sources are more efficient—i.e. have lower cost, holding constant for enrollment and quality. A 1% increase in the share of financing coming from local sources will lead to a decline in total costs of 0.135%, or about the cost of providing for a place for one more student.     

Big books: How to make them and use them

Big — bold — beautiful — they're called big books, and preschool teachers are regularly discovering their exciting educational potential. Traditionally, using books with children is a practice that adults have used since they were first developed in the sixteenth century. Indeed, most preschool classrooms include centers which are called by a variety of names — book nook, book corner, book center, storytime center, reading center, or some other title. It's rare to find a child who does not respond to book reading or storytelling, and teachers of young children routinely plan time each day to read a book to their youngsters. Educationally, their use is acceptable practice for children of all ages. Laverne Warner is a professor of early childhood education at Sam Houston State University, Huntsville, TX. This article draws on material published by the author in Texas Child Care Quarterly,(Summer, 1990), 13:4, 3–8.     

Faculty ratings as a measure of departmental and administrator quality

This study examined the usefulness of faculty ratings as a measure of departmental quality. Two hundred and thirty-three faculty members from six departments responded to two questionnaires relating to the department—the Department Evaluation Survey (DES)—and to the department head—the Administrator Evaluation Survey (AES). A factor analysis of the DES revealed three underlying dimensions: Satisfaction with the Department's Academic Environment, Satisfaction with the Department's Governance and Operating Procedures, and Satisfaction with Student Quality. The factor analysis of the AES identified only one underlying dimension. Both the DES and AES were found to be highly reliable and effective in discriminating among departments. Very high positive correlations were also found between selacted DES and AES items suggesting that the performance of the head plays a very important role in faculty perceptions of the departments, and vice versa. Faculty ratings would appear to be a useful initial criterion in evaluating a department or head.     

Learning style and program design in interactive multimedia

This study was conducted to investigate the effects of variations in the design and delivery of interactive multimedia (IMM) on the learning and attitudes of elementary education majors. A multivariate analysis of variance was conducted with three independent variables—small group or individualized format, inductive or deductive design of instruction, and match of learner style to instruction—and four dependent variables—content scores, observation skill scores, overall satisfaction, and attitude toward learner control of instruction. Scores on the observation skills evaluation were significantly higher when the student's learning style was matched with the design of instruction. Satisfaction and attitude outcomes were significantly different for format: students in the small group were more satisfied, while those using the individual learning station were more strongly agreed that they controlled the pace and sequence of their own instruction. Content scores were not significantly different. In the future, the use of interactive multimedia with various formats and designs may serve to meet the needs of students with differing learning styles and at different developmental levels.     

Toward better research on child abuse and neglect: Making definitional issues an explicit methodological concern

In the United States, research on child abuse and neglect is frequently criticized for being poorly performed and largely irrelevant to the important policy questions facing the field. Many of the problems plaguing research on child abuse and neglect are endemic to social science research generally, and this paper does not trod over such issues, which are well known and well described elsewhere. Instead, this paper describes how the inadequacy of definitions of “child abuse” and “child neglect” used by research studies places an additional—and largely unnoticed—burden on research, which aggravates the impact of these more general problems. Existing definitions of “child abuse” and “child neglect” fail to meet research needs because they lack: (1) comparability, (2) reliability, and (3) taxonomic delineation. As a result, they compromise the findings of incidence studies, sequelae studies, etiological studies, and program effectiveness studies. Therefore, if real progress is to be made in understanding child abuse and neglect, definitional issues must become an explicit methodological concern. Specifically, future research should include: (I) a careful determination of definitional needs, (2) the development of operational definitions to meet those needs, and (3) the circumspect statement of findings based on the limitations imposed by such definitions.     

Multiple orthographic codes in reading and writing acquisition

A modified Stroop Test (single-letter, letter-cluster, and whole-word colorinconsistent stimuli) showed greater interference for the more automatic orthographic coding unit—the word—than for the less automatic coding units—single letters and letter-clusters—in developing readers in second, fourth, and sixth grade (N=72, Study 1). A developmental trend was observed from relative skill in word-level orthographic-phonological correspondence in second graders to relative skill in subword level orthographic-phonological correspondences in sixth graders. A previous finding that whole word coding > letter coding > letter cluster coding in relative rate of development was replicated (N=300, Study 2). Multiple orthographic codes—for whole words, single letters, and letter clusters—were correlated with both reading and writing but patterns of correlations with the component reading and writing skills changed from first to third grade; by third grade whole word coding was not correlated with reading and writing skills but letter cluster coding was correlated with all reading and most writing skills. Cue validity —categorization of letters on the basis of differentiating rather than distinctive features—improved from second to sixth grade and may account for developmental gains in letter cluster coding. Level of cue validity was correlated with speed of sentence comprehension (N=60, Study 3). The theoretical and practical significance of multiple orthographic codes for orthographic-phonological connections in word recognition and for literacy acquisition in general is discussed.This research was supported, in part, by Grant No. 25858-01 awarded to the first author from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.Study 1 is based on a presentation at the 1990 meeting of the American Education Research Association. Study 2 is based on a presentation at the 1991 meeting of the American Education Research Association. Study 3 is based on a presentation at the 1989 meeting of the American Education Research Association.The authors thank the participating children from the Shoreline Public Schools (Study 1), Bellevue, Northshore and Seattle Public Schools (Study 2), and the Mukiteo Public Schools (Study 3). They also thank Sylvia Mirsepassi for secretarial assistance.