What 37,000 citations can tell

A longitudinal study at the TUT （Tshwane University of Technology） used citation analysis to analyze the reference lists of 480 Master＇s and Doctoral （M and D） theses and dissertations submitted at TUT between 2004 and 2007. The purpose was to determine what types of information sources M and D students at TUT use most, how the patterns of use differ across the 7 faculties of the university, and to what extent the LIS （Library and Information Services） keeps or provides access to the journals that are mostly used by M and D students. More than 37,000 citations were analyzed over the 4-year period. The study found several similarities but also some distinct differences in the use of information sources across the 7 faculties of TUT. It also identified more than 60 different information sources used by M and D students. With regard to journal use, the study found that out of 3,641 different journals cited, most journals were only cited once over a period of 4 years. However, a small percentage of journals were highly and/or frequently cited.     

What time may tell: Towards a new conceptualization of developmental dyslexia

This paper is a written version of the Norman Geschwind Lecture delivered to the International Dyslexia Association on November 13, 1998. The first purpose is a theoretical one: to describe a new conceptualization of reading disabilities, the double-deficit hypothesis, that depicts and integrates work on two core deficits in the phonological system and in processes underlying naming speed. Implications for subtyping, diagnosis, and, in particular, intervention are described. The second purpose is to thank the women and men whose commitment to children with reading disabilities has transformed our field over the last century. Within that double set of purposes, I wish to dedicate this paper to five research teachers whose insights have been the foundation for my work and the efforts of many of us in the field of reading disabilities research: Jeanne Chall, Carol Chomsky, Martha Bridge Denckla, Helen Popp, and especially, Norman Geschwind.     

Everything is illuminated: What big data can tell us about teacher commentary

What happens to writing instructors’ feedback when they use a common rubric and an online tool to respond to student papers in a first-year composition course at a large state university in the United States? To investigate this question, we analyze the 118,611 comments instructors made when responding to 17,433 student essays. Using concordance software to quantify teachers’ use of rubric terms, we found instructors were primarily concerned with global, substantive, higher-order concerns—such as responding to students’ rhetorical situations, use of reason, and organization—rather than lower-order concerns about grammar or formatting. Given past research has determined teachers overemphasize lower-order concerns such as grammar, mechanics, and punctuation (Connors and Lunsford, 1988, Lunsford and Lunsford, 2008, Moxley and Joseph, 1989, Moxley and Joseph, 1992, Schwartz, 1984, Sommers, 1982, Stern and Solomon, 2006), these results may suggest the possibility of a generational shift when it comes to response to student writing. Aggregating teacher commentary, student work, and peer review responses via digital tools and employing concordance software to identify big-data patterns illuminates a new assessment practice for Writing Program Administrators—the practice of Deep Assessment.     

What can age by grade tell us about education in Australia?

The education systems in the States and Territories of Australia are analyzed using age by grade (Year) tables produced by the Australian Bureau of Statistics from the 1 July returns from government and nongovernment schools. The demographic patterns of 8-year-olds at Year levels show that the system of promotion through school and the rates of retention in the early years differ by State and Territory. The factors producing these variations are explored. Indigenous/non-indigenous differences in school progress are uneven across States and Territories and there are small differences favoring girls. Policy implications for the findings are discussed.     

Metacognition and affect: What can metacognitive experiences tell us about the learning process?

This paper aims at highlighting the importance for learning of one of the facets of metacognition, namely metacognitive experiences (ME) that comprise feelings, judgments or estimates, and online task-specific knowledge. The emphasis is on the affective character of ME, which has received little attention in the past. Unlike online task-specific knowledge, which is conscious and analytic, the other ME are products of nonconscious, nonanalytic inferential processes. Because of their nature, ME can trigger either rapid, nonconscious control decisions or conscious analytic ones. However, ME can make use of both the affective and the cognitive regulatory loops, and this has a series of implications for learning. Evidence is presented regarding the relations of ME with affect and cognition, and the implications of the lack of accuracy of ME for the self-regulation of learning. Particular emphasis is given on judgment of learning, feeling of difficulty, and feeling of confidence. The challenges for future research on metacognition are underscored.     

What can ethnographic studies tell us about the consequences of literacy?

The ethnographic literature on literacy is marked by a characteristic divide between ‘ideological’ and ‘autonomous’ positions, the former being associated with the sociocultural approach adopted within the ‘New Literacy Studies’ (NLS) and the work of Brian Street, and the latter with the work of Jack Goody. The polarization between the approaches has led to certain themes associated with the work of Goody and his ‘literacy thesis’ being excluded from ethnographic writing and theory. Such themes included the attributes and consequences of literacy as a ‘technology’, and the association of literacy acquisition with social mobility and progressive forms of social change. The article is based on ethnographic fieldwork in Bangladesh and a review of the recent ethnographic literature from a range of cultural settings. It examines the case for a more inclusive and comparative approach based on the emergent ‘situated’ perspective. It suggests revisionist readings of ethnographic accounts recognizing cross‐cultural patterns of utility, and the significance of literacy for human agency, gender relations, and well‐being. Presenting an ethnographic case study of women’s literacy in N/W Bangladesh it draws out the theoretical significance of such a shift in how we research and understand the consequences of literacy acquisition. The paper concludes by suggesting some implications of such a perspective for adult literacy policy and practice.     

What can age by grade tell us about education in Australia?

The education systems in the States and Territories of Australia are analyzed using age by grade (Year) tables produced by the Australian Bureau of Statistics from the 1 July returns from government and nongovernment schools. The demographic patterns of 8-year-olds at Year levels show that the system of promotion through school and the rates of retention in the early years differ by State and Territory. The factors producing these variations are explored. Indigenous/non-indigenous differences in school progress are uneven across States and Territories and there are small differences favoring girls. Policy implications for the findings are discussed.     

Teacher identity past and present: What can a genealogy of schooling tell us?

ABSTRACT

The evolution of teachers’ identities in Australia highlights the struggles between state and civic over the control of schooling and also the contingent nature of the teacher identity itself. A genealogical analysis of this history makes visible these contingencies, but more importantly suggests that little reckoning has been afforded to teachers’ agency within these social struggles. This gap in understandings of teacher identity, as even potentially agentic, highlights the need for a more nuanced understanding of teachers and their transformative potential. In particular, it calls for a focus on teachers within elite private schools because these costly schools are highly influential as the aspirational model for schooling provision. If teachers’ agency in these neoliberalised spaces were possible, if they could be empowered in their stewardship of the educational enterprise, then their activation would be crucial in any wider reform effort.     

What church examination records can tell us about the inheritance of reading disability

Long before the establishment of a general school system in Sweden (1842), a vast majority of the adult population had reached some reasonable level of reading literacy. The level of reading skill among the members of a household was assessed by the parish priest at annual catechetical examinations, and the results of these examinations were recorded in church registers. Eventually (in the 18th century) a 5-point grading scale was developed. In the present investigation, these unique records were used to study the transmission of low reading marks over successive generations in 17 families. For comparison, a set of 17 family trees originating from good readers was traced. The average scores of the descendants of poor readers were significantly lower than corresponding scores for descendants of good readers. However, the transmission patterns in the family trees of poor readers did not indicate any simple genetic mechanism. In another study, two dyslexic cases living today were traced backward to ancestors born around 1750. In one of the cases, a massive familial pattern of reading disability down to the eighth generation was observed, while most ancestors of the other case had average or above average reading skill as judged by the priests. The reasons for the absence of a simple hereditary pattern were critically discussed. This research was supported by a grant from the Swedish Council for Research in the Humanities and the Social Sciences. Birgitta Esberg served as research assistant.     

What can national data sets tell us about inclusion and pupil achievement?

Recent developments in the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) have produced a national pupil database (NPD) that contains information about the attainments of individual pupils. Every child in the country has been allocated a unique pupil number (UPN), which means that the academic progress of individuals can be tracked over time. It is possible to combine data on attainment with the demographic information which is obtained from the pupil level annual schools census (PLASC). These innovations make it possible to combine 'value added' information about pupil progress from one key stage of education to the next with data from the PLASC, which contains pupil background information, to produce a single matched data set. Thus the NPD and the PLASC are able to provide much of the necessary information to explore issues of individual pupil performance over their school careers. Notably, more specific information about the academic achievement of pupils who are described as having 'special educational needs' is now available. Lani Florian, lecturer in inclusion and special educational needs, Martyn Rouse, senior lecturer in inclusion and special educational needs, Kristine Black-Hawkins, senior research associate, and Stephen Jull, research associate, are all based at the University of Cambridge Faculty of Education. In this article, drawing on their work in the 'Inclusion and Achievement Project', they explore the problems and possibilities for researching issues of pupil achievement and inclusion through the use of these new national data sets.     

What can persuasion research tell us about conceptual change that we did not already know?

The chapters included in this special issue are innovative in their attempt to bring together research on persuasion with research on conceptual change. Although persuasion and conceptual change are not similar in all respects, they both involve belief change. They also both require that we better understand the variables that make a text persuasive and thus influence the reader to change his/her beliefs. These chapters are instrumental in bringing about three important characteristics of persuasive text that can also be useful in inviting conceptual change. These characteristics are the comprehensibility, clarity and credibility of the text; the importance of explicitly addressing the readers’ prior beliefs; and affective and motivational factors.     

What the processing of real words and pseudohomophones can tell us about the development of orthographic knowledge in prelingually deafened individuals

This study represents an attempt to determine the nature and efficiency of the strategies used by prelingually deafened individuals for the recognition of written words with reference to an orthographic self-teaching concept (D. L. Share, 1995). A research paradigm asking the participants to make categorical judgments for real words and pseudohomophones of the real words was used for gathering the data. Participants were prelingually deafened, native signers (n = 11, age = 14.18) and a hearing control group (n = 25, age = 15.00). In general, findings suggest that, although the participants with deafness were very impaired in their phonological decoding abilities, their efficiency in recognizing and categorizing written words was similar to that of their hearing counterparts. This suggests that they must have developed strategies for the acquisition of orthographic knowledge that do not rely on phonology.     

From the playful to the profound: What metaphors tell us about gifted children

Although some metaphors have lost their novelty through overuse, the unexpected quality of other metaphors appeal to creatively gifted children given their proctivity for language and imagination. The unexpected connections that comprise metaphor manifest the creative process and can give rise to innovative expressions and concepts. Creatively gifted children have an extraordinary facility with metaphor, using these expressions in ways that reveal advanced metalinguistic ability. In addition, the metaphors they create reflect a wealth of ability from profound emotional and spiritual dimensions to playful and humorous insights into the human condition.

A range of metaphors composed by children are presented and discussed in terms of what they indicate about the personal worlds, special talents, and emotional insights that are often typical of the gifted. Moreover, some of these metaphors appear to play a cathartic role for their authors whereas others seem to provide an engaging vehicle for creatively gifted children's delight in the world of language and ideas. The approach to creative writing described in this article also has the potential to assist with the identification of those with linguistic talent.     

赏识教育:应为、难为与可为

赏识教育作为一种颇具活力的教育方法,能否有效实施关乎儿童的全面发展。赏识教育在儿童主体意识激发、生命意识唤醒以及和谐关系维系等方面体现出诸多可为之处。但由于受到多重因素影响,当前中小学生赏识教育存在为难之境。如:赏识教育形式化、物质化、偏差化、泛滥化、片面化等问题,使赏识教育遭到不同程度的批判,致使赏识教育备受质疑。笔者认为,采取多元赏识,注重差异;适度赏识,把握原则;分层赏识,强化互补等措施是应对赏识教育所面临的难为之境的可为之举。     

Creativity polymathy: What Benjamin Franklin can teach your kindergartener

Creative polymathy at the very highest levels is rare, but this is largely the result of a long period of training usually necessary to become proficient in any field. We explain why creative polymathy is not ruled out by arguments for the domain specificity of creativity and argue that consideration of multiple levels of creativity (Big-C, Pro-c, little-c, and mini-c) leads to the conclusion that creative polymathy may actually be fairly common. We introduce a hierarchical model of creativity (the APT Model) to help understand some constraints on and possibilities for creative polymathy, suggest different ways creative polymathy may be expressed, and offer guidelines for recognizing and nurturing creative polymathy in students.