Classroom Needs of Community College Students with Asperger's Disorder and Autism Spectrum Disorders

Community college students with Asperger's Disorder and Autism Spectrum Disorders can experience significant challenges from the social aspect of classroom learning and college life in comparison to their peers. This article explains unique challenges of postsecondary learners with Asperger's Disorder and Autism Spectrum Disorders. It also presents several classroom practices than can be beneficial to college students with these disorders. Practices discussed include those related to helping students get started and make the transition into a new course, organizing learning space, following class routines, and directly addressing individual social concerns.     

Teaching introductory statistics to blind students

The challenges of learning statistics, particularly distributions and their characteristics, can be potentially monumental for vision impaired and blind students. The authors provide some practical advice for teaching these students.     

A shifting landscape: using tablets to support learning in students with diverse abilities

As technology becomes a larger part of people’s everyday lives, it is logical to think that it should also become a part of the learning process. The use of tablets in classrooms is becoming an area of interest as researchers are trying to understand what the benefits are – if any – to using these devices. This article gives an overview of some of the recent literature related to the benefits and challenges associated with the use of tablets with students in middle schools. Prevalent themes include the benefits of using tablets with students who have learning disabilities, and the challenges that can arise in the classroom, specifically issues of safety and security, access to apps and disruptive behaviours when using these devices. The authors share qualitative case studies of two teachers who have used tablets extensively with their students and discuss how their experiences resonate with the literature. The authors conclude with a summary of the affordances and constraints of using tablets with students who have special needs and offer workable solutions for some of the challenges educators face when using these devices.     

Reference Books for Teachers

In basic science research, student researchers are often challenged with not only the technical portion of the research design but also the team dynamic. Understanding how a student prefers to learn can provide an advantage for mentors to better meet these challenges. In this article, the authors describe the experience of working with student researchers with different preferred learning styles and how knowing this information contributed to creating a positive learning environment resulting in a winning combination for the research team.     

Teacher preparation for equitable access through the integration of TESOL standards,multiple intelligences and technology

Abstract

Schools need teachers who can provide English language learners with equal access to academic content and to information technologies. The authors propose that the integration of standards in TESOL (teaching English to speakers of other languages), the theory of multiple intelligences (MI) and technology can provide an equitable education, support learning differences and develop English language skills across the curriculum. The authors suggest how the integration of TESOL standards, MI theory and technology can become a part of pre-service teacher education and discuss some of the challenges to transferring this integration into the classroom     

Genomics Literacy: Implications for Teaching Students with a Range of Special Needs

Recent developments in genomic-based knowledge is challenging educators to learn more about the early precursors of various difficulties children experience in learning and how they can use this information to identify preventative strategies or strategies that minimise their effect. The purpose of this article is to provide a brief outline of what is already known about some genetic disorders and some other disorders currently identified in the genome, the role of the teacher in understanding individual student needs, and how teachers can address some of the challenges posed. This article is fundamentally a review of the literature concerning genomics and genomic literacy and the implications for teachers in regular classes.     

Learning from the Past,Looking to the Future: issues and agendas in education

This year, EJE has marked its 50^th anniversary with a special set of four linked issues, the organisation of which was inspired in part by the four pillars of learning first set out in the 1996 Delors Report, Learning: the treasure within. In this article, the authors highlight key themes that have emerged. Several of the contributing authors suggest that deepening tensions have driven education systems further away from the holistic, humanist vision of the Delors Report. At the same time, there are innovative policies and practices that address a broader range of aims of learning and have flourished despite challenges. Moving forward, the authors examine the challenges of citizenship, creativity and innovation in education. The article concludes with suggestions on important themes for the education agenda in the near future to which EJE may contribute further insights.     

Jumping the hurdles: challenges of staff development delivered in a blended learning environment

When the University of Glamorgan embarked upon an ambitious e‐learning development project, it quickly became clear that before teaching online, academic staff would need a training programme, which could introduce them to the pedagogy associated with this very different form of teaching and learning. This paper addresses the challenges for the staff development process when delivered in a blended learning environment. The paper is presented in three sections, the first outlines the development process of an e‐learning initiative, the second examines the model of teaching and learning, and the final section outlines the challenges to change encountered along the way. The paper concludes that a blended learning environment lends itself well to staff development for e‐learning initiatives. The authors also explore future developments including further module and course development inspired by this successful model.     

Using the Stepped Care Model to Empower University Students With Learning Disabilities

Students with learning disabilities face several challenges in postsecondary education settings. The authors explore the issue and shed light on the importance of self‐advocacy for academic success. The stepped care model (SCM) is suggested as an approach to assist college students with learning disabilities in developing these skills and obtaining services. A brief case example from 1 of the authors' work is shared to illustrate the use of the SCM with a student with a learning disability.     

Hard to teach: inclusive pedagogy in social science research methods education

Amidst major new initiatives in research that are beginning to address the pedagogic dimension of building capacity in social science research methods, this paper makes the first move to apply the lens of inclusive pedagogy to research methods pedagogy. The paper explores the ways in which learning social science research methods is hard and may be anxiety-provoking, which has sometimes led to a deficit discourse in which learners are positioned as ill-prepared and fearful. Learners can then be blamed for being hard to teach when an inclusive pedagogical lens would support a more asset-based discourse. Nonetheless, the authors argue that without traditional deficit-based solutions of the remedial class, special needs label or special teacher within the methods learning environment, methods teachers have developed their own responses. These pedagogic responses, elicited from the authors’ research using methods of expert interviews, focus groups and video-stimulated dialogue, address challenges associated with the learner, the learning material and the teacher’s context. The paper differentiates between practical solution-focused strategies and more holistic approaches. The authors illustrate how methods teachers reach out to diverse learners and they conclude that data and standpoints are used in inclusive teaching to make connections and to support learning.     

高校学习型校园建设的研究动态和存在的问题

本文通过对目前我国学术界高校学习型校园建设的研究现状和发展趋势的分析,肯定了当前学术界对高效学习型校园建设研究所取得的巨大成绩,着重分析了研究中所面临的困境和存在的问题,并通过探讨,对困境和问题进行追根溯源,力求寻找到高校学习型校园理论研究的未来发展方向,从而在更大程度上促成高校学习型校园的实现.     

PANdora’s box: distance learning technologies in Asia

This article provides an international perspective on learning technology developments, with emphasis on the special challenges of designing distance learning technologies (DLT) in the developing countries of Asia. A commentary on the current achievements and problems of DLT designers is provided, based on the authors’ recent study tour of distance education (DE) initiatives in 11 Asian countries: Bhutan, Cambodia, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Laos, Mongolia, Pakistan, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. The authors compare these initiatives with others they observed in their previous visits to DE institutions in North America and Europe, China and Japan. The prospects for collaboration among DLT projects and research initiatives are discussed and the emergence of a ‘Pandora’s box’ of educational possibilities is described—innovative, economical, and occasionally troubling in the challenges it provides to accepted DE practice.     

Widening the Circle: Faculty-Student Support Groups as Innovative Practice in Higher Education

Faculty-student support groups have the potential to promote strategies for co-mentorship in places of learning. They can also function to facilitate alternative forms of pedagogical practice in the context of lifelong learning. The purpose of this paper is to describe ideas and practices in the innovative development of faculty-student support groups in higher education. The authors provide a context for introducing the model of a co-mentoring support group, for considering institutional dynamics in forming co-mentoring support groups, for illustrating a case study analysis of a university-based support group, for providing a collegial response to the mentoring literature, for considering the need to formalize mentoring programs and outcomes, for exploring challenges to and benefits of the support group effort, and finally for envisioning co-mentoring support groups more generally. The authors argue that more attention needs to be given to studying alternative pedagogical practices that enable mutualistic relationships to endure. This article accordingly offers an original holistic guide for viewing mentoring as interconnected cycles and phases of lifelong learning.     

网络时代的学习理论新进展：关联主义

关联主义自2004年西蒙斯提出以来就备受关注。有人说它是数字时代的学习理论,也有人提出质疑。从关联主义提出的时代背景看,其时的行为主义、认知主义和建构主义三种主流学习理论学习观的局限性已面临着时代的挑战;而数字时代学习理论之关联主义,包括其对节点、连接和网络等基本概念的理解,对学习的解释及其八个基本原理等,为数字时代进一步探讨学习的本质提供了有益借鉴,找出学习理论研究发展的新方向。     

Pedagogical aspects of integrating wikis in pre-service teacher education

The study examines pedagogical approaches in using wikis in teaching and learning in teacher education colleges. It focuses on: instructors’ motivation for wiki-based teaching; course types; teaching methods; evaluation; content structure; characteristics of student collaboration and learning outcomes; involvement of instructors in the learning process. The study is based on semi-structured interviews with 11 teacher educators from six colleges of education in Israel. The authors discuss added value and challenges of wiki-based teaching, the impact of assessment on shaping the learning process, as well as general conclusions regarding wiki-based pedagogy.     

Support Groups for College Students With Attention Deficit Disorders

The use of support groups for students diagnosed with attention deficit disorders is discussed. The authors also review some of the challenges and issues faced by college students and the benefits of using support groups as a means of exploring some of their concerns. Experience in setting up and facilitating such groups is shared.     

Adoption of flipped learning in social humanities education: the FIBER experience in secondary schools

ABSTRACT

FIBER (Flipped Issue-Based Enquiry Ride) is a teacher-facilitated interactive pedagogic framework that the authors propose to integrate flipped learning into social humanities education. This paper reports a quasi-experimental study (with mixed methods) which examined the pedagogic effectiveness of FIBER in the authentic setting of formal curriculum learning and teaching. The study involved totally 611 Secondary-4 students from academically top, middle and bottom schools in Hong Kong. In comparison with the conventional issue-based enquiry learning approach, FIBER had different intensity of positive effects on the high, moderate, and low academic-achieving student participants. This paper provides researchers and educational practitioners with empirical evidence for supporting wider adoption of FIBER in social humanities education, as well as harnessing flipped learning in formal schooling. Apart from discussing the benefits, the authors also underline the challenges of FIBER and suggest future work.     

Practice What We Preach: Differentiating Instruction and Assessment in a Higher Education Classroom as a Model of Effective Pedagogy for Early Childhood Teacher Education Candidates

Teacher education faculty are experiencing increasingly diverse higher education classrooms. In many ways, the diversities present in collegiate classrooms mirror the differences in classrooms of young children. The diversity may be a result of a range of ethnic, socioeconomic, and linguistic differences. Or it may be differences resulting from previous experiences, background knowledge, learning style, needs, or interests. In this article, two university colleagues present challenges related to meeting a plethora of learner needs in a course with participants from three different programs of study. The authors describe the challenges faced, steps taken to use the challenges as opportunities for growth, and the outcomes of their efforts. The authors candidly describe how they used the principles of Differentiated Instruction to model effective pedagogy for their early childhood teacher educator candidates.     

Writing it down—writing it out—writing it up: researching our practice through action learning

We dedicate this article to the late Professor John Morris, an appreciative inquirer into and true enabler of the writing of practice for each of us.

What value is added for writer and reader by intentionally keeping personal learning part of public researching? When a practitioner attends conscientiously to ‘the relationship with their research,’ does it make a difference to their learning and researching? If it does, can this difference also make a difference to the reader …? This paper addresses these kinds of queries from the standpoint of ‘scholarly practice,’ the research undertaken by mature managers and professionals who account in text for initiating and sustaining change within their complex contexts of work. Through exploring a variety of learning frames, the authors identify the distinctive opportunities and challenges in practice-led enquiry, and raise implications critically for the researching professional as well as for their ‘enablers’—the academic supervisors or fellow action-learning set members—who support and challenge the efforts of scholarly practitioners to make sense of and explicate their action. Revans's praxeology of action-based learning (systems alpha, beta and gamma) is extended as a research analogue for practice-led knowing. Ontological, methodological and epistemological perspectives are progressively deployed to examine critically the essentially reflexive nature of scholarly practice. The authors depict challenges in scholarly practice of establishing focus, incorporating others' thinking alongside one's own and asserting one's own voice. The paper concludes by warning of two ways in which enablers can unwittingly hijack the purpose of practice-led research.