The Milwaukee Platoon School Battle: Lessons for Activist Teachers

During the 1920s, activist teachers within the Milwaukee Teachers Association (MTA) engaged in a successful campaign to prevent widespread adoption of the platoon school model within their city's public school system. In the course of this campaign, MTA leaders had to develop skills as educational researchers, coalition builders, and policy advocates. Their struggle sheds light on discordant conceptions of effective urban education in early twentieth century America, and provides lessons for contemporary teachers on how to collaborate to advance their own visions of effective and equitable schooling.     

‘To be numerate is to be someone…’: Tracing the doings of students labelled ‘at risk’

Scores from the Australian National Assessment Program—Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) identify students ‘at risk’ of not meeting minimum standards deemed necessary for future success in school and employment. The NAPLAN tests include items related to numeracy but also mathematics content and skills. Research in the area of mathematics education examining the effectiveness of pedagogical interventions in improving student scores on NAPLAN and other international measures is not only shaped by the standardised testing regime, it also effectively corrals the problem within the school context. As such, it is unable to answer questions related to other factors implicated in the lives of those who continue to ‘fail’ in relation to numeracy outcomes. This paper critically examines the type of funded research being done in relation to numeracy and mathematics education, the ‘social’ turn and the disconnect between this research and the widening ‘gap’ in NAPLAN numeracy outcomes. It argues for a research approach informed by institutional ethnography that begins with the ‘doings’ of individual students labelled ‘at risk’.     

The role of reflection in mathematics learning

Reflective abstraction is central to the theory of constructivism as put forth by von Glasersfeld. In coming to know, persons make major cognitive advances by taking their actions as objects of thought. Leamers move beyond being in the action when they engage in reflection. There are serious limitations in the explain-practice method of instruction and active learning. Performing even self-generated mathematical operations does not have the power which results from reflecting on the activity. Problem-centered learning, an instructional strategy which has been shown to provide rich opportunities for reflection, is examined. The nature of reflection in mathematical activity is also considered.     

Student counselling services in a Nigerian University

Universities the world over exist to respond to the conditions of their environments. Thus universities in a multi-ethnic Nigeria are not only for the production of high level manpower but also for fostering national consciousness, cultural integration and unity as well as for producing in the students appropriate values and attitudes for psychologically healthy citizenry. The University of Ilorin, Nigeria, in its organizational structure and services recognizes its obligation for the facilitation of human development in its fullest capacity. The application of student counselling for the development of this whole person is viewed from the perspective of primary prevention. That is, student counselling is considered developmental rather than therapeutic and is aimed at assisting students to learn the techniques and skills involved in problem-solving and long-term planning. To this end, the University of Ilorin addresses itself to the dimensions of learning such as personal and interpersonal development, citizenship and leadership skills training apart from academic development. Services provided include admission, housing, advisement/counselling, health, social relations, sports, leisure-time activities and financial aids. Various units and committees of the university share in the responsibilities for rendering these services through provision of facilities and various informal learning opportunities for the production of psychologically matured citizenry for the Nigerian nation.     

A tale of 804.573 horses: Arithmetic teaching in Victoria 1860–1914

Between 1860 and 1902, the arithmetic curriculum in government elementary schools in Victoria, Australia changed little. It was based on British models and valued highly computational skills, speed and accuracy. Teaching practice was dominated by the payment by results examination, and was mechanical, rules-based and often ineffective. By the end of the nineteenth century, dissatisfaction with both the principles and practice of this instrumental form of education was widespread; and the ideas of the New Education were incorporated into the courses of 1902 and 1911. However, teaching practice lagged behind the new aims, and continued to be largely mechanical, rules-based and abstract. The inspectors continued to demand the computational skills of the old courses, and the education and training of teachers did not keep pace with the new demands.     

Excellence and relevance-two sides of the same coin

Direct Government funding of higher education research began in 1965 with the establishment of the Australian Research Grants Committee. The emphasis was on (pure) basic research and excellence was the sole selection criterion. The emphasis shifted in 1988 with the establishment of the Australian Research Council and the enunciation by Government of a research policy which focused on the relevance of research to Australia's social and economic development. The Council's 1992 Mission Statement identified the five major benefits which the council's programs should deliver to the community. Two structural priorities, international links and higher education-industry links, were identified and new programs established. A third, research training, was given additional emphasis in an existing program. Thematic priorities will be addressed in all programs following an analysis of the balance of funding between research and research training strategies being developed jointly by researchers and research users.     

Crisis? What crisis? The academic professions in the 'knowledge' society

At present, the higher education systems in most highly developed countries find themselves amidst a difficult process of change that will obviously have an impact on the positioning of their principal workers. We live in times of great uncertainties about the future of the academic profession. This article reflects on the analytical problems research on the academic profession has to face and summarizes recent trends and debates on the entrenched profession. Possible future developments of the academic profession are highlighted in the context of four scenarios -- 'key profession', 'academic worker', 'mediator' and 'antiquity'. Selected findings and results of the International Study on the Academic Profession are resumed to discuss the contribution of survey studies to the ongoing debate on the academic profession and to draw some preliminary conclusions on the challenges for further research in this area.     

Computer frequency control of vocabulary in language learning reading materials

Vocabulary is one of the major obstacles to attaining reading fluency in a second language. The major European literary languages have vocabularies of many tens of thousands of items. For efficient learning, the vocabulary systems must be structured in terms of frequency groupings so that the more frequent items are mastered before the less frequent ones. The learner, however, has no way of determining the relative frequency of the words in his text. The solution involves: 1) the establishment of various word frequency groups and 2) marking the words in the reading text so that the learner has a clear set of rational priorities. Statistical studies suggest that approximately the most frequent 5,000 words constitute a minimum vocabulary for liberated reading and account for about 90% of the different words in an average text. The learning of the less frequent items should be deferred until these are mastered. Further, the presentation of the higher frequency words within the 1,000–5,000 range should be sequenced by groups in terms of their relative frequencies. Each group might correspond to a particular level of language proficiency. This goal can be attained by means of a system in which the frequency category of each text word is marked so that the learner knows its relative importance and can structure his vocabulary acquisition accordingly. A marking procedure by frequency is integrated with a marginal translation or glossing routine. The article proposes a set of frequency groups and describes an algorithm for the implementation of a frequency identification and marking procedure on an IBM 360 computer. A sample page of a Russian text book utilizing the technique is given and several other potential utilizations are described.     

Growth and development of college administrative structures

Current research suggests that organizations tend to move through distinct growth stages from a more person-centered to a more task-oriented bureaucracy. The study reported here examined the structural characteristics of community colleges at regular intervals. Five major growth stages were found, each similar to a theoretically derived growth period.The colleges progressed from having, in their early years, decentralized decision-making, few and flat reporting spans, and few structured and controlled activities, to having, in their later years, many tall reporting spans and many structured and controlled activities. They moved toward centralized decision-making in the middle years and then reverted to decentralized forms in later years.     

Student learning work: Grounds for anin situ analysis

The ethnomethodological programme of studies of work is drawn on to provide a general framework within which we might develop ways to undertake thein situ analysis of the competencies which constitute student learning activities. The objective of such research is to describe the locally managed and temporally organised nature of student learning work. Emphasis is placed on the development of methods of investigation which will enable us to describe the whatness of the work from within the setting of that work's accomplishment. The twin conceptions of the visibility and sequential order of student activities are discussed in detail. The implications of this approach for the notion of student learning are also examined.     

Mathematics teaching as problem solving: A framework for studying teacher metacognition underlying instructional practice in mathematics

The purpose of this exploratory study was to use a teaching as problem solving perspective to examine the components of metacognition underlying the instructional practice of seven experienced and seven beginning teachers of secondary school mathematics. A metacognitive framework was developed to examine the thoughts of teachers before, during and after lesson enactments. Data were obtained through observations, lesson plans, videotapes, and audiotapes of structured interviews during the course of one semester. Data analysis suggests that the metacognition of teachers plays a well-defined role in classroom practice. These findings provide useful insights for researchers and teacher educators in their preservice and inservice mathematics programs.     

Hong Kong Student Achievement in OECD-PISA Study: Gender Differences in Science Content, Literacy Skills, and Test Item Formats

This study examined gender differences in students' scientific literacy as measured by OECD-PISA. In particular, we focused on the 2437 students from 140 Hong Kong schools. Hong Kong boys' and girls' science scores did not differ overall. However, boys scored higher than girls at the higher percentiles (75th and above). Moreover, specific test components showed gender differences. Boys tended to score higher on tests with more earth and physical science items, understanding of scientific knowledge items, and closed items. Meanwhile, girls tended to score higher on recognizing questions and identifying evidence items. These results suggest that a science test assessing diverse content and literacy skills in a variety of response formats provides both a more comprehensive picture of students' capabilities and a more likely gender-equitable assessment.     

A linguistic analysis of the sample numeracy skills test items for pre-service teachers issued by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER)

In 2015, the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) was tasked with developing literacy and numeracy skills testing for pre-service teachers. All undergraduate and postgraduate trainee teachers are now required to pass these literacy and numeracy tests at some stage on their journey to becoming a teacher; for commencing students from 2017 in all states (except New South Wales), successfully passing these tests is a requirement for graduation. Following this announcement, ACER released a number of sample test items for both literacy and numeracy. This study used multimodal analysis to study the nature of the language, symbolic notation and visual representations in the sample test items for numeracy, with a focus on the linguistic complexity of the questions. The findings suggest that the types of linguistic constructions found in the  assessment questions create significant challenges in terms of reading and comprehension which could impact on how the students engage with the numeracy assessment items.     

Development of the metalanguage and the acquisition of literacy: A progress report

In this paper we examine the relation between literacy, broadly conceived, and children's understanding of a set of concepts for representing language and meaning, primarily the concepts of what a text says as opposed to the interpretations one may make of that text. We refer to these concepts as the say/mean distinction. A series of studies are reported on children's developing understanding of this distinction and its implications for their progress in reading and interpreting texts. These studies indicate that while such interpretive distinctions are indeed important and while they are related to literate competence generally, it is a mistake to assume that they are strictly associated with the practices of learning to read and write. Far from being identified with reading and writing skills, these concepts appear to be a part of the general orientation to language and to forms of thought that are of particular relevance to a literate society. Consequently, they are acquired as much from the oral practices of literate parents as from the actual activities of reading and writing.This project was funded jointly by SSHRC and the Ontario Ministry of Education under its Block Transfer Grant to OISE.     

Content and form in mathematics

The present article is based on the premise that mathematical activity exhibits an important duality. On the one hand pre-school children do mathematics spontaneously; the mathematics they do is often called informal arithmetic. On the other hand, the mathematics we teach is a cultural product developed by generations of mathematicians (Byers and Herscovics, 1977). Whatever premium school mathematics puts on individuality and original thought, it seems obvious that the mathematics done in school is neither spontaneous nor informal; the bulk of it is formal mathematics. We expect our pupils to do mathematics in a conventionally acceptable manner. In short, mathematics is both an individual and a social activity. We shall endeavour to show that duality in mathematical activity reflects a duality of mathematics as a discipline. The latter is a duality between content and form; in fact, it is the importance of form in this discipline that resulted in mathematics being classified as a formal science.     

“Orientation” in Spanish universities

In the present period of change, the Spanish systems of secondary and higher education, too, are confronted with new challenges. People have realized that factors within and outside universities demand the development of effective helping services for students, particularly on the level of orientation. Two different models are described, one that relies on tutors, mainly; the other one employs orientation professionals. The article also describes the skills and the training experiences that are necessary for professionals in orientation services.Facultat de Psicologia i Pedagogia, Universitat Roman Llull     

Child and home predictors of early numeracy skills in kindergarten

The present study investigated the influence of home numeracy experiences on early numeracy skills in kindergarten after controlling for cognitive and linguistic precursors. Eighty-nine children (mean age = 6.1 years) were tested on cognitive, linguistic, and early numeracy skills, and their parents completed a questionnaire on home numeracy practices and expectations. The results showed a unique contribution of parent–child numeracy activities and parents’ numeracy expectations on early numeracy outcomes next to individual child factors (i.e., early literacy skills and grammatical ability), stressing the importance of home numeracy experiences on early numeracy skills.     

Generated meanings in the comprehension of word problems in mathematics

A Generative-Predicational Model is proposed and applied to the generation of meanings of simple mathematical word-problems. The model suggests that a fundamental property of cognition is a generative process that takes arguments and that produces results, such as events, answers and inferences. This fundamental property, called predication, generates a task-environment i.e., a problem and its corresponding problem-space i.e., its solution. More precisely, a task-environment is a predication consisting of a written mathematical problem and a writer's life experience. A problem-space is a predication consisting of a leamer's problem solving schema and of the meaning that the learmer generates for the text.The case with which relations can be established between a task-environment and a problem-space depends on the problem's coherence and complexity and the leamer's experiences and thought processes. Faceted definitions of task-environment and problem-space are used to analyze talk-aloud protocols of fifty Israeli sixth-graders tested with thirty word-problems. The empirical results support the proposed model.     

The meaning of response categories: How often is “occasionally,” “often,” and “very often”?

Samples of undergraduates from 30 colleges and universities responded in two ways to statements about how often they had engaged in various activities: first by indicating never, occasionally, often, or very often, and second by indicating the number of times they had engaged in the activity. Comparisons of the two sets of responses indicates that: (1) there are wide individual differences in the meaning attributed to each response category; (2) despite individual differences, the group data show clear modal differences between occasionally and often and between often and very often; (3) the median difference in the meaning of each of the response categories is very small between one institution and the next and between types of institutions; and (4) based on the present data, there is no compelling need to develop separate norms for different types of institutions.Presented at the 1981 Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, April 13–17, Los Angeles.     

A bibliometric analysis of higher education literature

The bibliometric laws formulated by Bradford and Lotka have been applied to the literatures of a number of disciplines. In this instance, the laws are applied to citations to journals in 569 papers on higher education. Bradford's Law focuses on scatter, that is, the distribution of use of items; Lotka's Law concentrates on the productivity of authors. The conformity of higher education literature, as represented by the database used, is not perfect with the two bibliometric laws, but the results do suggest that the underlying concepts of the laws may well have applicability to examination of the discipline. A further suggestion is that this kind of examination has implications with regard to the means by which scholarship is communicated.