Does musical training improve school performance?

In a retrospective study, we compared school performance of 53 children practicing music (group 1) with 67 controls not practicing music (group 2). Overall average marks as well as average marks of all school subjects except sports were significantly higher in children who do (group 1) than in those who do not practice music (group 2). In a multiple regression analysis, musical training, parent’s income, and educational level (grades) correlated significantly with overall average marks. A slight decrease of overall average marks over 4 years from grades 3 to 6 was found in the control group only. Musical training evidently correlates with children’s better performance at school, but is obviously part of a multifactorial dependence. Continuous musical training appears to help achieve and maintain school performance at a high level over time.     

"Does god have a cochlear implant?"

This article describes psychological and ethical considerations when providing family therapy for parents considering cochlear implantation for their deaf/hard-of-hearing child. Family dynamics, multilevel criteria of informed consent, therapist bias, intervention strategies are illustrated. The clinical vignette of 8-year-old Tommy and his family is largely factual, with enough changes to disguise the participants' identities. I took more creative liberties narrating my daydream to best illustrate the relevant impacts of the pathological and culturally affirmative models.     

Shame: Does it have a place in an education for democratic citizenship?

Shame, shame management and reintegrative shaming feature in some restorative justice literature, and may have implications for schools. Restorative justice in schools is effective when perpetrators of wrong-doing can accept and take ownership of their wrongful acts, are appropriately remorseful, and seek to make amends. Shame may be understood as an ethical matter if it is regarded to arise because of the contradiction between the wrongful act and the individual’s sense of self and self-worth. Shame management (that is, seeking reintegrative over stigmatising shaming) can be regarded to reflect a form of social responsibility as it contributes to community restoration by repairing ruptured social relationships. The notion of shaming and acknowledgement of harm thus assumes norms of acceptable community behaviour, attitudes and relationships, and is therefore also an ethical matter. Successful restorative practices in schools depend on the school-wide existence and practice of such norms, and mesh with virtues education, stimulated by the contemporary demand of many national curricula to promote so-called key competencies. Although the concepts of restorative justice and reintegrative shaming serve as a context for this article, its chief impetus was provided by an evaluative study of a group of New Zealand schools, in the course of which notions such as shame, reintegration and exclusion became evident. The chief purpose of this article is to consider and problematise shame from the perspective of the philosophy of education, and ask whether the concept of shame has a place in schools, whose important aims ought to include the development of democratic citizenship.     

Self-generated questions and reading recall: Does training help?

Several authors have recommended that reading teachers encourage students to ask questions while reading to improve comprehension and recall. This improvement seems to be influenced by the quality of the questions generated, and therefore it has been suggested that poor comprehenders be trained how to construct good questions before using this technique. Trained junior high school students were compared with untrained students on comprehension and recall after both were told to construct questions while reading text passages. Results indicate that training improved the question quality only for those students who had above average pretest free recall scores, although improvements in the question quality were directly related to improvements in reading recall. The implications of these results for teachers and for theories of the development of comprehension strategies are discussed.     

Precision teaching: does training by educational psychologist have an impact?

This study looked at the impact of a precision teaching training programme which was delivered by the authors to primary school staff at a range of training settings. A questionnaire was used to gather information and data were interpreted using thematic analysis. Following training, a questionnaire was sent to all the primary schools that had attended. Of the schools that returned the questionnaires all schools were using precision teaching three to five times a week. Precision teaching was being used to measure progress with a variety of key skills. The impact of the precision teaching training programme is discussed in terms of facilitating factors and barriers to implementation. Implications for future research are also considered.     

Does spatial awareness training affect anatomy learning in medical students?

Spatial ability (SA) is the cognitive capacity to understand and mentally manipulate concepts of objects, remembering relationships among their parts and those of their surroundings. Spatial ability provides a learning advantage in science and may be useful in anatomy and technical skills in health care. This study aimed to assess the relationship between SA and anatomy scores in first- and second-year medical students. The training sessions focused on the analysis of the spatial component of objects' structure and their interaction as applied to medicine; SA was tested using the Visualization of Rotation (ROT) test. The intervention group (n = 29) received training and their pre- and post-training scores for the SA tests were compared to a control group (n = 75). Both groups improved their mean scores in the follow-up SA test (P < 0.010). There was no significant difference in SA scores between the groups for either SA test (P = 0.31, P = 0.90). The SA scores for female students were significantly lower than for male students, both at baseline and follow-up (P < 0.010). Anatomy training and assessment were administered by the anatomy department of the medical school, and examination scores were not significantly different between the two groups post-intervention (P = 0.33). However, participants with scores in the bottom quartile for SA performed worse in the anatomy questions (P < 0.001). Spatial awareness training did not improve SA or anatomy scores; however, SA may identify students who may benefit from additional academic support.     

Light's retention scale: Does it have content validity?

The content validity of the Light's Retention Scale (LRS) was examined by assessing the use of selected retention criteria from the scale. Results indicated that several criteria were not typically considered in retention decisions and the remaining criteria varied widely in their use. Suggestions for limitations on use of the LRS were included.     

Does research degree supervisor training work? The impact of a professional development induction workshop on supervision practice

Supervisor induction and continued professional development programmes constitute good practice and are enshrined in institutional policies and national codes of practice. However, there is little evidence about whether they have an impact on either supervisors’ learning or day-to-day practice. Set in a discussion of previous literature, this article unpacks the concepts ‘impact’ and ‘evaluation’ and assesses the medium- and longer term impact of the University of South Australia's doctoral supervisor induction programme, Supervising@UniSA. It suggests that the workshop leads to the acquisition of understanding and knowledge and, for the majority of attendees, also has an impact on supervisory practice.     

Does training matter? Comparing the behaviour management strategies of pre-service teachers in a four-year program and those in a one-year program

Survey-based research was conducted with Australian pre-service teachers to identify the classroom management strategies that they would employ, their confidence in employing them, and the effectiveness of the strategies. Furthermore, the study aimed to identify significant differences in these variables between pre-service teachers in the final year of a four-year teacher training course and pre-service teachers undertaking a one-year, stand-alone teaching program. The results of this study indicate that the most frequently reported strategies by all the Australian pre-service primary teachers surveyed were rewards and initial corrections. The pre-service teachers were selective in the type of corrective strategies they would employ, with a preference for relatively less intrusive reactive strategies. All of the pre-service teachers here found rewards and preventative strategies to be the most effective. The only significant differences found between the four-year trained and one-year trained pre-service teachers were around preventative strategies. Specifically, four-year trained pre-service teachers employ preventative strategies significantly more often than pre-service teachers in the one-year teaching course. Similarly, four-year trained pre-service teachers are significantly more confident in using preventative strategies than those in the one-year course. The implications of the results for teacher education programs are considered.     

Does school‐based initial teacher training affect secondary school performance?

This article investigates the effects of trainee teachers on secondary school student outcomes. The additional resources which schools receive from being involved in teacher training offer them an opportunity to raise standards, but this has to be set against the possible losses due to school students being taught by inexperienced beginning teachers and the diversion of mentors' efforts away from the classroom. Inspection evidence is used to assess whether trainee teachers affect school students' test and examination results. The findings of this research are that the number of trainees has no significant effect on school results at A‐level or General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE), or on the overall value added between Key Stage 3 and GCSE level. However, at Key Stage 3 level at age 14, while there appears to be a very small depressing effect on achievement in schools with low numbers of trainees, there is a significant positive effect on achievement in schools with larger numbers of trainees.     

I have a dream

"I plan to interview Phelps as a reporter during the Beijing Olympics". As soon as I opened my mouth, everyone burst out laughing in a class meeting about summer plans. But I do swear I was serious.Swimmer Michael Phelps is very great and he is my idol.     

Does Philosophy of Education Have a Future?

Abstract

The apparently simple question, ‘Does philosophy of education have a future?’, is without a simple answer. Like so many other questions, it all depends on what we mean, and in this case, what we mean by the expression ‘philosophy of education’. I shall look at it in all of three ways: as a social institution, as an academic activity and as an intellectual pursuit. By doing so, it will become evident that consideration of each of them in turn will give somewhat different answers, which not only adds to the complexity of the question, but also adds to the richness of the answer. From this we, as individuals and as members of a particular community, can begin to reflect on the sort of future philosophy of education might have and what, if anything, we ought to do about it.