Dynamic assessment of literacy: English as a third language

The aim of this paper is to valuate the applicability of Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory and the concept of dynamic assessment to the problem of assessing reading comprehension in English as a third language (L3). The study was conducted with immigrant students from Ethiopia studying at pre-academic centers in Israel. The assessment procedure included a pre-test, mediation, and post-test. The pre-test was based on a standard reading comprehension placement exam. Based upon the pre-test material, a very detailed analysis of the required pre-existing knowledge and necessary strategies was then mediated to the students. The post-test was identical to the pre-test regarding structure, requirements in terms of pre-existing knowledge and strategies, length, etc., but with different content. The results demonstrated: (1) A dynamic assessment procedure significantly improved the text comprehension performance of L3 students; (2) The dynamic assessment procedure added information regarding students’ learning potential over and beyond their initial performance level; (3) The learning potential profile of immigrants from Ethiopia is somewhat different from that of non-immigrant students.     

Teaching Black Immigrant Students in Urban Schools: Teacher and Peer Relationships and Academic Performances

The Urban Review - This study examines teachers’ cultural awareness of Black immigrants and the pedagogical strategies they implemented that aided in the academic success of Black immigrant...     

Increasing student participation in the learning process

This paper is about increasing student participation in the teaching and learning process. It describes a methodology designed and implemented by the author for an Industrial Analysis unit in 1990–91 and emphasises the underlying educational philosophy. Industrial Analysis is a second year subject within the course Industrial and Business Systems, Department of Mechanical and Production Engineering in De Montfort University (former Leicester Polytechnic).The test of educational quality is assumed to be — What students are able to do on their own after exams. The programme aimed to train second year engineering undergraduates for industrial placement in the third year and, more generally, to bridge the gap between Institutes of Technology and industries.The subject — Industrial Analysis — is compared to the rest of the course — Industrial and Business Systems. The purpose is to assess how second year students perceive learning. With such knowledge a teaching approach could be devised to improve learning outcomes.The student-centred teaching approach is based on three pillars: explanation of theory, instruction on research methods, industrial applications. A total of 111 students form 25 teams and research 18 industries. The focus is on Research capability and Group interaction.Helpful guidelines emerge from student performance — how to avoid common pitfalls in research, such as unclear objectives, wide scope, vague approach, excessive data, superfluous technicalities and digressions. Advantages of early focusing are illustrated. Factor analysis is applied in order to find out how concepts are integrated by students.Sharing of experiences and team-working routines in class is used to bring down psychological barriers to learning. Individual and team levels of learning are examined through successive exposures and cycles.     

梦之阴翳

不少年轻人跟我说他想当作家。我总是鼓励这样的人。但我同时指出“当作家”与写作之间有很大区别。这些人中,大多数都是在梦想着     

Students' perceptions toward the use of the digital library in weekly web-based distance learning assignments portion of a hybrid programme

This study attempted to investigate students’ perceptions toward the use of the digital library in weekly web‐based distance learning assignments portion of a hybrid instructional programme. Attention was given to three variables—age, gender, and prior experience with the Internet. A Likert‐type instrument consisting of 10 items was designed to collect information about students’ perceptions toward the use of digital library. The subjects of this study were 154 students enrolled in an undergraduate hybrid programme in management at a medium‐sized university in the Midwest, USA. Collected data were analysed using ANOVA. The overall results suggest that students had positive perceptions toward the use of the digital library. Age was found to be an insignificant factor. However, gender and prior experience with the Internet were found to be significant factors. Males had significantly higher positive perceptions toward using the digital library. Students who had more prior experience with the Internet had significantly higher positive perceptions toward using the digital library. Implications for practice are discussed and recommendations are made for future research.     

Free primary education policy and pupil school mobility in urban Kenya

This paper examines pupil school mobility in urban Kenya using African Population and Health Research Centre (APHRC) household survey data which contain information on pupil transfers between schools. The aim is to identify which school characteristics attract the greatest demand for incoming transfers. The analysis reveals that there are frequent transfers in the slums than in the non-slum settlements; that transfer are in favour of private schools; and that quality is the main motivation for the transfers. Quality schools are perceived to have good discipline and better teacher performance. Given these results, should the Kenya government recognise the ‘low cost’ schools found in the slums which serve nearly half of the pupils and devise mechanisms of funding them?     

The Move Towards Managerialism: Perceptions of staff in “traditional” and “new” UK universities

Tertiary Education and Management - The raison d’être of higher education institutions is to educate individuals, undertake research, and disseminate knowledge into the public domain....     

Researching adult transformation as autobiography

Literature on adult learning research generally underplays imagination in its explanations of how meaning perspectives and life‐worlds are transformed. The use of autobiographical accounts, telling the story of stability and change, is proposed here as a promising source for research into adult learning. As literary texts, they make the investigation of imaginative forms such as metaphor, image and symbol both possible and warranted. This article raises the question about appropriate methods for this autobiographical approach to the study of adult transformation. An interpretive approach to the texts of research conversations in a co‐operative inquiry is appropriate for researching both their content as literature and the processes by which the narrators construct meaningful accounts of their adult transformation. Some proposals about research into autobiographical learning are presented on the basis of this writer's work in progress.     

‘Cruel optimism’: teacher attachment to professionalism in an era of performativity

Abstract

This study provides a critical exploration of the way teachers’ attachment to notions of professionalism may facilitate a process whereby teachers find themselves obliged to enact centralised and local education policies that they do not believe in but are required to implement. The study argues that professionalism involves an entanglement of (past) occupational and (present) organisational discourses and that the remainders of the former facilitate the enactment of the latter. The study draws on Berlant’s notion of cruel optimism to help understand this process, whereby teachers’ attachment to professionalism may assist them in undermining the very values they believe it embodies.