Global Consultation Processes: Lessons Learned from Refugee Teacher Consultation Research in Malaysia

ABSTRACT

The process of global consultation has received little attention despite its potential for promoting international mutual understanding with marginalized communities. This article details theory, entry, implementation, and evaluation processes for global consultation research, including lessons learned from our refugee teacher intervention. The first half of the article addresses the entry process, culture-specific strengths, and challenges that can be faced in global consultation, including our experience with a lack of formal regulatory oversight of refugee education. The second half of the article details feedback collected from consultants, peer trainers, and peer trainees indicating which training content was most valuable; how some Burmese refugee teachers strive for a more student-centered, “free” classroom for their refugee students; and, finally, the toll that intense refugee teacher consultation took on the consultants.     

Lessons Learned

In the current context of standards-based reform and heightened accountability for school performance, state education agencies (SEAs) have an important, but not yet well-articulated, role to play in local school improvement efforts. This article starts to articulate such a role by examining the variety of approaches and strategies used by 7 SEAs to support schools and districts applying for and ultimately implementing the federal Comprehensive School Reform (CSR) program. Building from the assertion that SEAs can and do make choices about how to best implement federal programs, we explore the choices that the studied SEAs have made around (a) the integration of the CSR program with other state and federal initiatives, (b) the different levels of funding provided to schools, (c) the continuity of SEA leadership around CSR, and (d) the variety of support strategies provided to participating schools. Although these SEAs have supported CSR in different ways, we conclude that the most important state strategy for leveraging systemic advantage from CSR involves the extent to which SEA staff have stayed with the program and thus gained in-depth knowledge of the program necessary to improve CSR in their states.     

Academically Supporting STEM Students From a Distance Through Videoconferencing: Lessons Learned

Student demand for distance learning, changing student demographics, and low retention compel institutions of higher education to develop alternative forms of academic support that can effectively serve the increasingly diverse needs of students. Videoconferencing provides institutions with the capacity to provide interactive real - time academic support that can successfully accommodate these needs. This article discusses the technical, pedagogical, staffing, training, and marketing factors that were important in the development and management of an online academic support program delivered synchronously through videoconferencing to students in high-risk Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) courses. The factors emerged from a mixed-method study that showed the efficacy of the online academic support program and identified influences that affected student adoption of academic support through videoconferencing.     

Measuring the Computer Classroom Environment: Lessons Learned From Using a New Instrument

Research over the last four decades has shown that the classroom learning environment impacts on students' cognitive and affective outcomes. Different approaches have been taken to measure students' perceptions of their learning environment, and this has led to the development of a large number of survey instruments. One such instrument is the College and University Classroom Environment Inventory (CUCEI) which was developed in 1987. The CUCEI was recently modified and both the original and modified versions were validated in a number of studies. This article reports the use of the modified CUCEI in two independent studies in computing classrooms in secondary schools and tertiary institutions in Wellington, New Zealand. The statistical performance of the CUCEI was not completely satisfactory in either study and revealed a number of problems common to these two studies. The difficulties are discussed and recommendations made to increase the validity and reliability of this instrument.     

Intelligent Job Aids For Professionals: Lessons Learned From Medicine

With the rapid advancements in artificial intelligence, computer science, and information management seen today, it is becoming increasingly feasible to improve the performance of professional white collar workers with intelligent job aids (i.e., expert systems). Already, performance technologists are advocating and predicting their wide spread adoption. Nevertheless, while such high tech performance interventions are relatively new to business, they have existed in medical research labs and clinics for nearly 20 years. Because of the almost ideal match between medical decision making and the emergent capabilities of knowledge engineering, artificial intelligence researchers made medicine one of their major testing grounds. In this article, I summarize the use of intelligent job aids in medicine as a source of insights for anticipating how they can and should be used by professionals in other areas. These insights include three generalizations which form the conclusion of the paper: (a) intelligent job aids must address a real need, (b) they must be compatible with professionals' larger “performance systems,” and (c) the adoption of intelligent job aids will depend as much on future trends as on the professionals' needs or performance systems.     

Lessons From the Classroom: Using a Cooperative Learning Arrangement to Facilitate Consultation

The literature supports a collaborative approach for instructing special education students. Further, instruction should promote self-regulated learners who are involved participants in goal-directed, self-motivated, collaborative activities. Given the foregoing, we developed a program for upper elementary language/learning impaired students. Our program included (a) a collaborative model of service that also involves the learner, (b) mechanisms of transfer of strategies from the resource room to the classroom, (c) mechanisms to enhance learner self-regulation, and (d) instruction in comprehension strategies. As a result of this program, students improved their comprehension ability and their ability to self-assess and regulate. Communication among team members was greatly enhanced.     

Lessons Learned for Successful Dissertation Completion From Social Work Doctoral Graduates

A dissertation demonstrates a doctoral candidate’s knowledge of a content area, mastery of research methodology, and readiness for future scholarship. Doctoral candidates, social work programs, and the profession as a whole are invested in ensuring that candidates successfully complete dissertations and enter academic, research, and leadership positions. This strengths-based study offers the wisdom of recent social work doctoral graduates (N = 196). Data were collected by an online survey and analyzed through thematic analysis. Findings described sources of support, managing a project of this scope, considerations in study design, and effective research attitudes and behaviors. Implications for social work education are discussed.     

新督导模式带来的启示

新督导模式是通过借鉴发达国家和地区教育督导的先进经验,特别是中英甘肃基础教育项目的成果,结合西南地区项目县的实际情况,融入新的督导理念和方法,探索和形成新的中小学学校督导模式。论述新督导模式与传统督导模式的区别与联系,指出新模式对督导工作的启示。     

Writing Effectively as Counseling Center Directors and Administrators: Lessons Learned From a 2-Minute Speech

Administrative writing is a crucial skill needed for the counseling center professional to be able to transmit knowledge and values for the rest of the campus community. This article highlights both conceptual and technical aspects of effective writing.     

Cognitive Tutors: Lessons Learned

This article reviews the 10-year history of tutor development based on the advanced computer tutoring theory (J. R. Anderson, 1983, 1993). We developed production system models in ACT of how students solved problems in LISP, geometry, and algebra. Computer tutors were developed around these cognitive models. Construction of these tutors was guided by a set of eight principles loosely based on the ACT theory. Early evaluations of these tutors usually, but not always, showed significant achievement gains. Best case evaluations showed that students could achieve at least the same level of proficiency as conventional instruction in one third of the time. Empirical studies showed that students were learning skills in production-rule units and that the best tutorial interaction style was one in which the tutor provides immediate feedback, consisting of short and directed error messages. The tutors appear to work better if they present themselves to students as nonhuman tools to assist learning rather than as emulations of human tutors. Students working with these tutors display transfer to other environments to the degree that they can map the tutor environment into the test environment. These experiences have coalesced into a new system for developing and deploying tutors. This system involves selecting a problem-solving interface, constructing a curriculum under the guidance of a domain expert, designing a cognitive model for solving problems in that environment, building instruction around the productions in that model, and deploying the tutor in the classroom. New tutors are being built in this system to achieve the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) standards for high-school mathematics in an urban setting.     

Lessons Learned from Exemplary Schools

This article presents lessons learned about successful professional development for promoting technology integration from eight exemplary schools. Through a qualitative investigation into school leaders’ and teachers’ intentional goals of improving student engagement and achievement, formal, informal, and individual opportunities are described from these schools. The data led to a deep understanding of the ways these schools implemented PD; in most schools purposeful reconfiguration of the entire curriculum was a corollary to the professional development. We found that the most effective models incorporated district wide, school based, formal and informal opportunities that accommodated preferences in both learning and delivery models.     

Comparing Classroom Enactments of an Inquiry Curriculum: Lessons Learned From Two Teachers

Abstract

Examining how teachers structure the activities in a unit and how they facilitate classroom discussion is important to understand how innovative technology-rich curricula work in the context of classroom instruction. This study compared 2 enactments of an inquiry curriculum, then examined students' learning outcomes in classes taught by 2 teachers. The quantitative data show that there were significant differences in the learning outcomes of students in classes of the 2 teachers. This study then examined classroom enactments by the 2 teachers to understand the differences in the learning outcomes. This research specifically focused on how teacher-led discussions (a) helped connect the activities within a curriculum unit and (b) enabled deeper conceptual understanding by helping students make connections between science concepts and principles. This study examined the role that teacher facilitation played in helping students focus on the relations between the various activities in the unit and the concepts that they were learning. The results point to important differences in the 2 enactments, helping to understand better what strategies might enable a deeper conceptual understanding of the science content.     

Effective Partnerships in School Reform: Lessons Learned From the Midwest Child-Parent Center Expansion

The Midwest Expansion of the Child-Parent Center Education Program (MCPC) is a pre-K to 3rd grade intervention program aimed at improving economically disadvantaged children's school success by enhancing continuity in instruction and increasing parental involvement. Opened in Chicago in the 1960s, this school reform model has undergone significant changes and is currently being expanded in five demographically heterogeneous school districts in Illinois and Minnesota. This article describes the collaborative process that has contributed to effective implementation of the expansion project within at-risk communities. Three themes of collaboration are emphasized: (a) improving the quality of data, (b) establishing and maintaining implementation fidelity, and (c) using research to inform practice. We discuss lessons learned from our partnerships with a number of collaborators including those involved with implementing the pre-K program, researching and evaluating the project, and providing professional development to teachers. Consideration is given to advancing the field of implementation science by successfully initiating and enhancing exemplary partnerships in comprehensive school reforms through effective research design.     

Mayoral Leadership Matters: Lessons Learned From Mayoral Control of Large Urban School Systems

“Mayoral takeover” has emerged as a major reform option for struggling urban districts since it was launched in Boston in 1992 and Chicago in 1995. This article examines the design, implementation, and the effects of mayoral-led school systems. Our research addresses issues that are critical to systemwide improvement: Are there variation in how mayors govern their schools? How can mayors “add values” to current school reform efforts in their cities? Have more resources been provided for teaching and learning? Is the public more confident in their city's school system? Are test scores improving? In addressing these issues of student outcomes and management improvement, we highlight lessons learned from our research project's mixed-methods approach, including case studies and statistical analyses using a multiyear database on a purposeful sample of 100 urban districts.     

Lessons Learned from Large-Scale Randomized Experiments

Large-scale randomized studies provide the best means of evaluating practical, replicable approaches to improving educational outcomes. This article discusses the advantages, problems, and pitfalls of these evaluations, focusing on alternative methods of randomization, recruitment, ensuring high-quality implementation, dealing with attrition, and data analysis. It also discusses means of increasing the chances that large randomized experiments will find positive effects, and interpreting effect sizes.