Preparing children for reading

Most practical in a situation where one-to-one relationships thrive, this constructive method of preparing children for reading will be of special interest to family day care providers, caregivers in infant and other centers with low caregiver/child ratios, and parents.Gerard Giordano is Associate Professor of Reading Education and Coordinator of Reading Programs at New Mexico State University's College of Education. He can be reached at the College, Box 3AC, Las Cruces, New Mexico 88003.     

Town artist

Glenrothes is a new town between Edinburgh and Dundee and is halfway towards its target population of 70,000. It was originally created to form a community for miners moving to a colliery being developed to the south, but when the mine failed the town set about attracting general industry. It has benefited socially from not being a satellite to a close-at-hand city.The town is pleasantly situated astride the River Leven to the south of the Lomond Hills. The coastline and countryside of Fife around offers excellent recreational facilities. The town itself has been developed throughout with low-rise housing and plenty of open spaces.In 1968 the Development Corporation advertised for an artist to contribute creatively to the external built environment of the town. David Harding was appointed and some of his work since then is described here. The text below is from an address given to officials of other new towns in Scotland, which — like many other local authorities — are keen to provide similar appointments.David Harding was born in Leith in 1937. He attended Edinburgh College of Art from 1955 to 1959 studying the uses of glass, ceramics and concrete in architectural situations. After a year at Moray House College of Education he spent three years teaching in various parts of Scotland. From 1963 to 1967 he developed an arts section in a bush teacher training college in Nigeria. He was self-employed the following year and executed works in Edinburgh, Falkirk, Paisley, Galashiels, Hamilton and the Outer Hebrides. In 1968 he was appointed town artist by Glenrothes Development Corporation. He is married with five children.     

S.U.C.C.E.S.S.ful pre-/in-service training requires planning

There are preservice and in-service workshops from which participants leave saying, Thank goodness that ordeal is over, and others from which participants leave invigorated and anxious to try new ideas and activities in their classrooms. The key to the successful preservice and in-service is staff input in the planning process.Sharon Wooden is Professor and Nancy Baptiste is CDA Program Coordinator and Instructor, Department of Curriculum and Instruction, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces.     

Educational “excellence” versus teacher “professionalism”: Towards some conceptual clarity

The educational literature of the last several years is replete with both continuing calls for educational excellence reforms and for enhancing and upgrading the teaching profession. Importantly, both types of calls rely on the contribution of science. The educational research-and-development community continues to push for and believe in the notion that educational innovation is based on scientific advances in understanding child development and school functioning. Similarly, many teachers and teacher educators continually call for increased classroom autonomy and social status among teachers, based upon the supposedly scientific nature of their professional training. This paper takes issue with both of these points, arguing that the origin and success of most educationally innovative policies have as their origin the changing political, economic, and social forces visible in the country during the history of American education. Relatedly, since the science of teaching and learning takes a back seat in issues of school policy, teachers cannot and will not be able to convince the public and those in authority in the school that their insights and practices derive from any privileged understanding of the real needs of children. Arguing that teachers should, in fact, have more input into policy decisions in education, the paper concludes with a review and discussion of various strategies currently visible for improving the autonomy and control of classroom educators.     

“It's Easier to Be Yourself When You Are Invisible”: Female College Students Discuss Their Online Classroom Experiences

There has been considerable scholarly interest in issues related to gender in the classroom, especially in terms of finding ways in which classrooms might be configured to be more welcoming--and less chilly--to female students. There is some evidence to suggest that the online learning environment may provide educators with opportunities to achieve a more female-friendly classroom, and this study was designed to gather information about that question. 125 female college students who had completed at least one online, college-level class were invited to discuss their experiences learning online. These data show that female college students respond to the online environment in a variety of ways. A small group of students indicated that they did not enjoy learning online, while others expressed mixed feelings. The majority, however, had positive things to say about their online classroom experiences; and of these, a large number identified anonymity as the most important positive aspect of the online learning environment.     

Computers and the emancipation of students: giving control to the learner

The paper considers two basic models of the teaching-learning process, described as the didactic and the communication model. These are applied to Computer Assisted Learning (CAL) in order to demonstrate that CAL has generally embodied a didactic model of teaching and learning. This imposes an unnecessary restriction on the student's freedom to choose their (Note 1) learning style, and the paper discusses how it is possible for CAL to support a less didactic model and to give more control to the student.     

A partitioning technique for defining instructional groups

A technique is presented for partitioning N students into K groups of fixed sizes using a given measure of proximity for all student pairs. The measure of proximity is typically calculated from a set of variables, such as completed curriculum units or learning style, and constitutes the data needed for a criterion of partition fit. This latter index is explicitly defined by the sum of within-group proximities and when used in conjunction with the optimization procedure discussed, homogeneous groups can be obtained that satisfy externally imposed size requirements. Finally, a simple generalization is suggested for the related task of grouping students to meet upper limit size constraints only.     

Wherever I look,I find

The best source of infant learning toys is the trash can. A noted authority on infancy made this statement...me. Many commercially made toys and learning materials are available. Some of them were developed out of a firm knowledge of developmental tasks of infancy and with aesthetic sensitivity. Unfortunately they cost, and many of us who have our own infants or work in day care do not have resources for a lot of commercial materials.Mr. Altham taught infants and toddlers while studying at Bank Street College. After teaching in a Head Start program for four years, he moved to his current job as teacher/director of a college campus child care center.     

Political systems vs. management systems in collegiate organizations

The emergence of the information age is necessitating that political systems, which govern collegiate organizations with bureaucracy, be replaced with management systems that employ third wave principles to produce a zenith of pedagogical productivity.Bruce Gunn is a Professor of Marketing in the College of Business at Florida State University. He has produced over 60 refereed articles and program papers in a wide variety of periodicals includingManagement Science, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, and theJournal of Marketing Education. His current research interests involve developing the theories, concepts and techniques for advancing the acceptance of the Steady State Economy, the Competruistic Ideology, National Economic Planning and the use of Systems Science methodology in raising organizational productivity.     

Systems thinking: An experimental course for college freshmen

An experimental interdisciplinary freshman course called The Systems Approach to the Universe was taught at North Carolina State University in the Spring of 1986. The goals of the course were to introduce principles of general systems theory; to provide examples through lectures and readings of applications of these principles in a wide variety of fields and disciplines; and to introduce and provide practice in critical questioning and evaluation. This paper outlines what was done, how it worked, and how the instructors and the students assessed the experience afterwards.He received his B.Ch.E. from the City College of New York, and his Ph.D. in chemical engineering from Princeton University. Barbara A. Soloman is Coordinator of Advising for the Academic Skills Program and Lecturer in the University Studies Program at North Carolina State University. She received her B.S. in mathematics from the City College of New York and her M.S. in mathematics from North Carolina State University.     

An investigation into the types of turning point events affecting relational change in student-faculty interactions

This study sought to determine whether students were able to identify significant turning point events contributing to relational changes with university instructors. Fifty-two senior university students were interviewed using the Retrospective Interview Technique. A total of 117 turning points were identified. Content analysis of the data revealed two mutually exclusive and exhaustive categories: Perception of Instructional Communication Competence and Character and Perception of Instructor's Management Style. These major categories were further divided into six subcategories. The paper concludes with discussion of the implications of these findings and recommendations for future research.Karen Lynn O'Neill is an M.A. graduate of the College of Communication, California State University at Chico (CSUC). Her thesis, upon which this article is based, was singled out for special distinction by the CSUC Communication Graduate Faculty. She currently teaches in the CSUC Department of Management. William R. Todd-Mancillas obtained his Ph.D. from the College of Communication, Florida State University. His present research interests concern factors affecting student evaluation of faculty and instruction.     

Visions for ICT, Ethics and the Practice of Teachers

The failure of educational computing is often attributed to deficiencies of practice: resisting teachers and lack of will, competence and sincerity on behalf of the teaching profession. But the complexity of school life and teachers work has been underestimated by the entrepreneurs of educational computing. Theoretically there is a need to approach this area from a different angle. We will suggest there is a need to reframe the issue of ICT in schools with educational policy and discourse with education, rather than with technology in mind. In order to reach that goal there is a need to inculcate technology as an ordinary part of teachers vocabulary about their own work and as a part of their professional ethos. Teachers need to examine the moral values inherent in their practices and use those values as bases for debate. Not taking up these issues and instead adopting defensive stances is dangerous to the profession. The danger is that defensiveness can be seen by others outside the school as rigidity and play into the hands of those who are impatient with teachers. It would serve teachers well if they had a more robust ability to communicate the nature of the difficulties they face and how they deal with them.     

An interview with John Christopher

John Christopher is a well known, prize-winning writer. His adult novelThe Death of Grass was runner-up for the International Fantasy Award when Tolkien'sThe Lord of the Rings won first prize. Similarly his children'sTripods trilogy,The White Mountains, The City of Gold and Lead, andThe Pool of Fire, were all runners-up to the Guardian Award, whileThe Guardians won the Guardian award for 1971. HisSword trilogy, The Prince in Waiting, Beyond the Burning Lands, and The Sword of the Spirits, has been reissued by Puffin in a single volume. Some critics, such as John Rowe Townsend (inWritten for Children), have accused John Christopher of an underlying pessimism, or of male chauvinism. Christopher has not replied to these criticisms. He prefers to let his books speak for themselves. Unlike other writers who keep a high public profile, he has not spoken at conferences on children's literature or published essays which present or defend his point of view.Early in 1983 I wrote to John Christopher. What began as a simple fan letter developed into a series of questions, which he was kind enough to reply to at length: from this correspondence, with John Christopher's agreement, I have compiled the interview which follows.He has published articles on C. S. Lewis's Narnia Chronicles (Cle 25), Patricia Wrightson's Wirrun trilogy, and on aspects of language education. He recently completed a graduate diploma in children's literature.     

Fostering Distributed Science Learning Through Collaborative Technologies

TACTICS (French and Spanish acronym standing for Collaborative Work and Learning in Science with Information and Communications Technologies) is an ongoing project aimed at investigating a distributed community of learning and practice in which information and communications technologies (ICT) take the role of collaborative tools to support social construction of knowledge. This community is composed of researchers, graduate students, and high-school teachers and their students, from six schools and four universities in Canada and Mexico. It set out in fall 2000 to develop a community around the general topic of integrating concepts in science school subjects. Once a prototype community is established, it can become a terrain where different aspects could be studied. Subsequently, researchers could gradually take a back seat allowing as well as ensuring the autonomy of the school members involved and, thereby, the viability of the learning community. The set up of the proposed prototype distributed science learning community was therefore an essential yet far from trivial first step. This paper discusses the process of setting up the community and the lessons learned.     

Let's play: Teaching social skills

Alex is watching three other boys engage in a super-hero play act. The boys are playing Star Wars, protecting their fort from the Evil Warriors. For the past couple of days, Alex has walked near the same small group of boys and watched intently as the boys play out their drama. He moves close but says nothing.In another corner of the room, Emily and Jessica are playing house. Emily plays the mother and wants Jessica to assume the role of baby. Their play is interrupted by Jessica's refusal to be the baby. While Emily insists, Jessica refuses and soon, the play disintegrates.Steven, a new boy in the classroom, had been introduced to the class earlier in the morning. Now he is wandering from center to center, looking on as others became involved in their free choice of activity. The teacher is busy working with a small group in the science center, and Steven is on his own.Linda M. LeBlanc is Assistant Professor in the Department of Education at Whittier College in Whittier, California.     

Anticipating the experience of higher education through computer simulation

In industry the advantages of realistic job preview have been much discussed, but lit-tle is currently done in British schools to prepare students for higher education. This article describes the development stages of a principled adventure game to simulate the experience of higher education. Playing this game is intended to provide realistic role preview for prospective students.The simulation has been developed out of an earlier board game derived, to some extent, from research findings. More recent research on student learning has provided the principles on which the new simulation game is being based. The game not only allows students to try out different study strategies, it also provides advice tailored to the specific strategies used by the individual stu-dent in interacting with the computer. This simulation can be seen as a simple expert system providing a form of intelligent tutoring.The architecture of the computer simulation is described, together with the strategies used to ensure that the game, and the advice provided, are both controlled by principles derived from the research on student learning. Illustrations are used to indicate how a student would experience the interactions with the computer, and how the rules produce tailored advice.     

The Changing Debate on Internationalisation of Higher Education

Internationalisation, the growing border-crossing activities between national systems of higher education is losing ground to globalisation, increasing border-crossing activities of blurred national systems which is often employed to depict world-wide trends and growing global competition. This article addresses recent issues of knowledge transfer. It points out tensions between increasing diversity in higher education and efforts to facilitate recognition of prior studies on student mobility. It shows the diversity of steering and management policies with respect to internationalisation and globalisation. Finally, it asks whether globalisation of higher education has to be viewed as a manifestation of turbo-capitalism or could be viewed instead as a move towards global understanding.     

Infusing humanistic activities into cognitively oriented curriculum

In our current quest for excellence, we often miss the essential nature of it. It is trendy to use such terms as back-to-basics, gifted education, and excellence to describe a new teaching strategy or innovative educational program. It is also true that many of these programs designed for children are really intended to benefit others.Harry Morgan is Chairman of Early Childhood Education at West Georgia College in Carrollton. He is author ofThe Learning Community (Charles Merrill).