Effects of the TutorBright tutoring programme on the reading and mathematics skills of children in foster care: a randomised controlled trial

ABSTRACT

We evaluated the effects of TutorBright tutoring on the reading and mathematics skills of children in family foster care, examined several potential moderators of the impact of tutoring, and explored possible ‘spill-over’ effects on the children’s executive functioning and behavioural difficulties and on their caregivers’ level of involvement in schoolwork in the home. The sample consisted of 70 children in care in Ontario, Canada. At the pre-test, the children were aged 5–16 years (M = 10.41, SD = 2.94) and enrolled in school grades 1–11 (M = 5.53, SD = 2.90). Thirty-four children were randomly assigned to tutoring and 36 to a waiting list control condition. Seven subtests from the Woodcock-Johnson III (WJ-III) achievement test served as outcome measures. The tutored children made statistically greater gains than those in the control group on the WJ-III subtests of Reading Fluency, Reading Comprehension, and Mathematics Calculation, but not on Word Reading, Spelling, Math Fluency, or Applied Math Problems. Age, executive functioning, caregiver controlling involvement in schoolwork, and self-reported post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms were found to moderate the effectiveness of tutoring. There were no spill-over effects of tutoring. The implications of the results for improving foster children’s reading and mathematics skills were discussed.     

Emergent Feminist Technical Communication

The feminist approaches to technical communication that have emerged recently are largely liberal feminist or radical feminist in orientation. Liberal feminism arises out of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment and emphasizes equality and rights. It sees that women's opportunities to develop their intellects and talents and participate freely in the world of men have been thwarted by discriminatory practices. Radical feminism, in contrast, emphasizes differences between women and men, the limitations of patriarchal culture, and the characteristics of women's ways of communicating and knowing. The essays included in this issue, while multidimensional, primarily exhibit characteristics of both liberal and radical feminism.     

The Concept of Intelligence in Psychology as a Fallacy of Misplaced Concreteness

During the 20th century, mainstream psychologists exhibited a dogmatic belief in the reality of the abstraction of human intelligence as a cluster of functional behaviours. In confusing this abstraction for the concrete totality of the human intellectual experience, psychologists have committed what Alfred North Whitehead calls a "fallacy of misplaced concreteness" (1925/1967, p. 58). That is, they have mistaken a narrowly abstract conception of intelligence for concrete reality. This mistake has contributed to a dogmatic and naive ignorance of other possible explanations for intelligent human experience. If psychology truly desires to be a legitimate science in endeavouring to understand human intelligence, it must take into account concrete aesthetic experiences that are fundamental to the growth of creative consciousness and human knowledge.     

Cross-modality transfer effects in conditioning-enhanced neophobia in chicks (Gallus domesticus): Evidence for the separability of novelty from specific stimulus characteristics

In this study, we investigated the separability of novelty from specific stimulus characteristics (e.g., color or taste quality) in the transfer of aversion effects. Ninety-six chicks (Gallus domesticus) received a novel visual (red water) or taste (3.0% vinegar) CS paired with an injection of lithium chloride or saline. The chicks were then tested for aversion to the CS or for conditioning-enhanced neophobia in response to a different novel visual cue (green water) or taste cue (1.0% saline). Aversions to the CSs were reliable and similar to each other. Reliable evidence of conditioning-enhanced neophobia occurred with respect to each test stimulus, irrespective of the type of CS, but conditioning with the vinegar CS produced reliably greater enhancement of neophobia than did conditioning with red water. For each CS, postconditioning neophobia was more persistent in testing with saline than with green water. The results for postconditioning neophobia suggested that novelty is a general stimulus property that is separable from specific stimulus characteristics.     

HPE teachers’ negotiation of environmental health spaces: discursive positions,embodiment and materialism

A National Curriculum in Health and Physical Education (HPE) has recently been developed in Australia. This new curriculum reflects, among other educational priorities, both environmental sensitivities and a commitment to the enhancement of young people’s health and wellbeing. HPE is one of the key sites in the curriculum where a focused consideration of the relationship between the environment and health is possible. However, to date no research has considered the ways that HPE teachers might recognise and negotiate these spaces. The research described in this paper addresses this gap through an analysis of semi-structured interviews with generalist primary and specialist secondary HPE teachers, drawing on a ‘narrative ethnography’ approach derived from cultural geography. This analysis highlights the consequences of the absence of a knowledge tradition that explicitly links the fields of the environment and health in HPE. Participants who were able to conceptualise environmental health almost exclusively drew on dominant neoliberal and risk discourses. At the same time, teachers’ embodied histories and affective encounters with non-human nature helped them to rupture or challenge dominant assumptions about environmental health. We argue that corporeal knowledge developed through embodied experiences has the potential to assist teachers in formulating environmental health in ways that highlight how interactions with the environment might enhance health and wellbeing.     

都柏林的童年

When I was nine years old there was nothing I loved more than being chased by grown ups. Nothing equaled the excitement of it. During the long summer holidays from school I went out the front door of our semi-detached two storey house, hoping to see some of my mates on the road outside. What did I see only our next door neighbour Mr Hickey high up on his ladder painting the frame of his bedroom window. Here, I thought,was a good chance of a chase because Mr Higgins's hot temper was known everywhere in the neighbourhood. Over the garden wall I climbed and stood at the foot of the ladder and started shaking it.     

Applying Performance Measures and Process Improvements in the Classroom: The Loch Dots Company Simulation

The article describes a multi‐phase, in‐class simulation that employs problem‐based learning to teach operations and process‐improvement concepts as part of an undergraduate or graduate business course. The simulation is derived from a corporate Lean Six Sigma training activity and has been modified to introduce, demonstrate, and apply a wide range of business concepts relevant to operations and supply chain management, including the use of operational and financial performance measures in decision making. The activity is scalable for small‐ to medium‐size classes with multiple student groups and may be deployed as a stand‐alone, in‐class exercise spread over several class meetings or incorporated into a larger, semester‐long process‐improvement project for multiple student groups. The simulation emphasizes problem‐solving, teamwork, and intra‐firm cooperation in addition to 20–30 other business concepts, tools, and measures that may be incorporated.     

Elementary teachers’ use of content knowledge to evaluate students’ thinking in the life sciences

Science learning environments should provide opportunities for students to make sense of and enhance their understanding of disciplinary concepts. Teachers can support students’ sense-making by engaging and responding to their ideas through high-leverage instructional practices such as formative assessment (FA). However, past research has shown that teachers may not understand FA, how to implement it, or have sufficient content knowledge to use it effectively. Few studies have investigated how teachers gather information to evaluate students’ ideas or how content knowledge factors into those decisions, particularly within the life science discipline. We designed a study embedded in a multi-year professional development program that supported elementary teachers’ development of disciplinary knowledge and FA practices within science instruction. Study findings illustrate how elementary teachers’ life science content knowledge influences their evaluation of students’ ideas. Teachers with higher levels of life science content knowledge more effectively evaluated students’ ideas than teachers with lower levels of content knowledge. Teachers with higher content exam scores discussed both content and student understanding to a greater extent, and their analyses of students’ ideas were more scientifically accurate compared to teachers with lower scores. These findings contribute to theory and practice around science teacher education, professional development, and curriculum development.