Integration on an Individual Basis

Dr Darcy Dale, senior lecturer in the education of the deaf, Department of Child Development and Educational Psychology, London University Institute of Education, describes the integration of individual children into ordinary schools in north London     

African American Educators’ Perspectives on the Advanced Placement Opportunity Gap

This study examines perspectives of educators on the advanced placement opportunity gap for African American students. Using interviews with 11 educators from 10 high schools, we explored their perceptions regarding the impact of a local academic achievement program on the enrollment of African American students in honors and advanced placement courses. Results of the analysis suggest that there is a perceived and real gap in the participation of African American students in AP courses. Findings also revealed that educators were concerned about the lack of access for African American students to AP courses. Further, issues of belonging and operational citizenship within the school environment were raised. Recommendations for pedagogical techniques are presented as well as suggestions for future research. Jocelyn D. Taliaferro is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Social Work at North Carolina State University. Dr. Taliaferro earned her BA degree in Psychology with minors in African American Studies and English from University of Delaware and her MSW from Howard University in Washington, D.C. She returned to University of Delaware to earn her PhD in Urban Affairs and Public Policy. Dr. Taliaferro’s teaching and research interests include African American student achievement, social policy, community development, and family support. Jessica T. DeCuir-Gunby is an Assistant Professor of Educational Psychology in the Department of Curriculum & Instruction at North Carolina State University, CB#7801, Raleigh, NC, 27695, USA. Dr. DeCuir-Gunby earned her BS degree with a double major in Psychology and Spanish from Louisiana State University. She earned both her MA and PhD degrees in Educational Psychology at the University of Georgia. Dr. DeCuir-Gunby’s research and theoretical interests include race and racial identity development in education, Critical Race Theory, mixed methods research, and emotions.     

Flexible Learning Environments: Leveraging the Affordances of Flexible Delivery and Flexible Learning

The purpose of this article is to explore the key features of flexible learning environments (FLEs). Key principles associated with FLEs are explained. Underlying tenets and support mechanisms necessary for the implementation of FLEs are described. Similarities and differences in traditional learning and FLEs are explored. Finally, strategies and techniques for becoming a successful learner and facilitator in FLEs are presented.Initial ideas for this paper were generated after viewing a presentation created by Marie Jasinski, MindMedia, Douglas Mawson Institute, Adelaide, Australia ().Janette Hill is an Associate Professor in the Department of Educational Psychology and Instructional Technology at The University of Georgia, Athens. She received her Ph.D. from The Florida State University in Instructional Systems. Dr. Hill's research focuses on online learning with adults, specifically exploring issues related to building community and connections with others in virtual environments. Dr. Hill can be reached at janette@uga.edu.     

Collaboration in Support Systems

The ways in which schools organise learning support influence the extent to which teachers work together and provide it. Dr Judith Ireson, Department of Educational Psychology and Special Educational Needs, London University Institute of Education, discusses findings from a research project.     

Rediscovering Post-modern perspectives in IT: Deconstructing Voithofer and Foley

My original paper, “Toward a Post-Modern Agenda in Instructional Technology” (Solomon, 2000), was an interdisciplinary review of the literature and offered multiple perspectives of the subject, a post-modern approach sometimes referred to as multivocality. I found several themes inherent in the literature, which I presented as eight general assumptions about post-modernism for consideration, discussion, and adoption. Then, I concluded the paper with a discussion about the potential contributions of post-modern concepts in instructional technology. In a reaction to my paper, Voithofer and Foley (this issue) misinterpreted some of the purposes and assumptions expressed, by seeing my view as an effort to construct a model of a post-modern agenda, which could not be further from my original purpose. This paper serves to clarify my position as a sequel to their response. David L. Solomon is Creative Director in Training Operations at PentaMark Worldwide. He is also Research Fellow at the Learning Development Institute Author's note: I was introduced to post-modernism during a group project in one of Rita Richey's graduate classes at Wayne State University. My interest in the subject flourished, and post-modernism became the focus of my dissertation research. Clearly, I found a problem to solve: No one I knew could explain post-modernism, and almost everyone I encountered in the field had no idea what it was. Gary Morrison was a member of my doctoral committee and introduced me to the classic works of Morris (1946), Knowlton (1964;1966), Stevens (1969; 1970), and Cassidy (1982). Under his guidance, I submitted my work to the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT) and was awarded the 2000 ETR&D Young Scholar Award. Richey and Morrison encouraged me to explore this topic with rigor and clarity and I am grateful for their support.     

'We're Doing History'— What Does It Mean?

Is it credible to claim 'We're doing history' in schools for pupils with severe learning difficulties or is it merely playing with words? Dr Jean Ware and Nick Peacey believe the claim can be justified through the use of the programmes of study for history in the National Curriculum. Dr Ware is now at the School of Education, University of Wales, Cardiff, and Nick Peacey is at the Department of Educational Psychology and Special Educational Needs, Institute of Education, London University.     

Interactions between Pupils with Severe Learning Difficulties and their Mainstream Peers

Dr Jean Ware, Department of Educational Psychology and Special Educational Needs, Institute of Education, London University, Maeve Sharman, Sue O'Connor and Mall Anderson describe four studies on the interaction between pupils with SLD and their mainstream peers.     

The contradictions of suppression: Notes from a study of approaches to gangs in three public high schools

This article is based on data collected from two years of ethnographic gang research in three inner-city high schools. Two of the schools are situated in the same city on the West Coast, and the third is located on the East Coast. The aim of the research was to describe and analyze the range of responses of three secondary schools as they struggled to cope with the problem of youth gangs among their student populations. I argue that the common repertoire of suppression strategies used by the schools, although based on commonsense reactions to rising student violence, are futile responses to the problems of gangs and have antieducational “unintentional consequences” for the pursuance of a democratic public pedagogy. Dr. David Brotherton gained his Ph.D. in sociology from the University of California at Santa Barbara and is currently an assistant professor of sociology at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York. During the early research for this article, he was a research fellow at the School of Public Health, University of California at Berkeley, and a postdoctoral fellow at the Alcohol Research Group. Dr. Brotherton was also a senior analyst at the Institute for Scientific Analysis working on the Home Boy Study supervised by Dan Waldorf.     

Parental Views of a Jewish Day School

In 1927, while I was a senior in the high school division of Yeshiva University, formally known as the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary, I was offered and accepted appointment as a part-time administrative assistant. About a year later, this work led to my appointment as Secretary of the Teachers Institute of the Yeshiva. In the latter role I was responsible for all operational details of the school under the supervision of its Principal, the late Dr. Pinkhos Churgin of blessed memory, a gifted scholar and teacher, activist educator and communal leader, and fine human being.     

Student self-evaluation,teacher evaluation,and learner performance

A total of 341 Latvian students and eight teachers participated in this study of student self-evaluation and teacher evaluation. Students completed a 12-lesson teacher-directed instructional program on conducting and writing a report of their own experimental research. Sixteen classes were randomly assigned to one of four treatment conditions: (1) no in-program evaluation, (2) self-evaluation and revision at the research design and draft final report stages, (3) teacher evaluation and student revision at both stages, (4) self-plus-teacher evaluation and student revision at both stages. Students in the teacher-evaluation and self-plus-teacher evaluation conditions received significantly higher ratings from an independent rater on their final research reports. However, students under the self-evaluation conditions had greater confidence in their ability to conduct future experiments. This research is based on Dr. Olina's dissertation at Arizona State University, and was supported by grants from the Arizona State University Graduate Research Support Program and the Assessment Training Institute Foundaton in Portland, Oregon. We gratefully acknowledge their support.     

LEARNING ABOUT LEARNING: EARLY CHILDHOOD STUDENTS EXPLORE REGGIO

One of the greatest challenges we face as an early childhood professional community is providing short-term, affordable professional development that results in depth of understanding and change of practice. The University of Wyoming Early Childhood Summer Institute is a model for professional development that fosters reflection, inquiry, and change in beliefs and practice for early childhood practitioners. The 3-day Institute has an innovative structure and constructivist quality that allows for intense, authentic learning among participants. The research reported in this article supports this claim and clarifies key components of the model critical to the transfer of knowledge gained through the Institute to application in the workplace. In a 6-month follow-up study after the Institute, participants, Institute facilitators, and keynote speakers describe how the Institute has continued to influence their beliefs and practice over time.

Exploring a Plum

I had to do an observation of a child for a class that was part of the Institute, so I chose my grandson who was about 13 months at the time. I had planned on giving him some really cool blocks and things. Instead (it was right after I went to the Institute), I was sitting there eating a plum trying to figure out how to set things up and I looked up and he was watching me so intently that I decided to do my observation on that. I introduced him to his first plum and sat back and watched him explore and discover it. I watched him, I took pictures of him and put the story and pictures together. I could really see what they were talking about at the Institute … just stepping back and watching. (T. D. Participant 6).     

25年来中国大陆中国美学史研究综述

“中国美学史”是中国美学一个相对独立的研究领域。据本文统计,自1980—2004年间,中国大陆共发表2546篇研究中国美学史的学术论文。通过对它们进行科学的统计、分类,用图表的方式加以分析,展示了25年来中国大陆中国美学史研究的整体状况、基本特征,以及存在的问题。     

Looking at the Doctor's Role

Dr John Cash, senior lecturer in community paediatrics and child health, Institute of Child Health, Birmingham University, outlines the responsibilities of the community health doctor in relation to the new Act and the value of a team approach     

German — a Dying Language in Science

In the second May issue of the Deutsche Universitäts-Zeitung [German University Journal] there was an article entitled "Is There Still Any Demand for German?" by Doctor Maas, which deals rather thoroughly with the importance of the German language and generally gives a positive impression, even in the realm of science. I have taken Dr. Maas's article as an opportunity to present my own observations over the years on this topic. The changes I have observed are not positive. In my opinion, their effects are harmful over the long term.     

The research assistant

Conclusions An improvement to the process used in the development of the program would be to implement a team approach.The Research Assistant took me more than a year to create. A team approach for such an ambitious project would have added the benefits of multiple perspectives and greater efficiency, and taken less time to build. I wish to thank the faculty and students at Florida State University for their support. The quality and uniqueness of their contributions amazed me. Although I alone wrote the code for the program, my colleagues contributed tremendously on the content and theory base. Three faculty members were especially helpful and deserve mention and thanks: Dr. Walter Wager, Dr. David Lebow, and Dr. Robert Reiser.     

Background and general attitude variables distinguishing satisfied and dissatisfied engineering teachers

Nine background variables and six general attitude variables were correlated with expressed job satisfaction. The significance of the difference between the means of the highly satisfied and the highly dissatisfied group was tested by the t-test. The sample consisted of 158 engineering teachers taken from 9 different higher technological institutions in India. The four variables which had a high correlation with job satisfaction and which distinguished between the two groups were, research involvement, research output, permanence of career plan and time satisfied.This article is based on a doctoral dissertation approved by the Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi. The author wishes to express her gratitude to Dr. Purnima Mathur, for her very valuable guidance.The author is currently at the Zakir Husain Centre for Educational Studies, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Mehrauli Road, New Delhi-110057.     

Tourette Syndrome: a Training Day for Teachers

Recent research indicates that Tourette syndrome is more prevalent than was once thought and that teachers in most mainstream schools are likely to encounter pupils displaying the characteristics of Tourette syndrome. Research also indicates that these characteristics, and the range of responses that may be appropriate, are not well understood by school staff. In this article, Dr Uttom Chowdhury, Consultant Child Psychiatrist at the CAMHS Academic Unit in Dunstable and Honorary Child Psychiatrist at the Neurodevelopmental Disorders Clinic at Great Ormond Street Hospital, London, and Dr Deborah Christie, Consultant Clinical Psychologist and Honorary Senior Lecturer at the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychological Services at University College London and Middlesex Hospitals, describe a training day for teachers facilitated by members of the Tic Disorders Clinic at Great Ormond Street Hospital. The day provided a mix of information–giving and discussion of current practice. Uttom Chowdhury and Deborah Christie relate the outcomes of the day to their own professional knowledge and experience and offer an interesting agenda for further developments.     

Individual Education Plans in the Republic of Ireland: an emerging system

The Education for Persons with Special Educational Needs Act in Ireland advocated the development of individual education plans (IEPs). However, this section of the Act has never been fully implemented and there is no obligation upon schools to develop IEPs. Research conducted across the country by Richard Rose and Yu Zhao of the University of Northampton, Michael Shevlin of Trinity College Dublin, and Eileen Winter and Paul O'Raw of the Institute of Child Psychology and Education Europe, examined the extent to which IEPs have been developed and implemented in schools, and attitudes towards their use. Interviews were conducted with teachers, parents, pupils and other professionals to gain data related to IEP development and implementation. The findings of the research suggest that schools are taking the initiative in developing IEPs, though there is inconsistency in their use and in perceptions of their usefulness.