Peer‐mediated interventions with elementary and secondary school students with emotional and behavioural disorders: a literature review

Peer‐mediated interventions (PMIs) have been shown to be effective for increasing adaptive social and academic behaviours of children and youth. Although PMI efficacy is generally well supported, there have been relatively few published intervention studies that focus on elementary, middle and high school students with emotional and behavioural disorders (EBD). The present review examines selected empirical literature in order to identify characteristics and relative efficacy of PMI. Findings of 12 peer‐reviewed journal papers including research designs and outcomes were examined. Results provide support for the efficacy of PMI for improving behavioural and social skills of students with EBD. Recommendations include further research on PMI for high school students and longitudinal research of PMI.     

Hormone receptors

It is characteristic of hormones that they can elicit full response in their target cells at exceedingly low concentrations. Further, although they are individually very specific in their action they co-ordinate the activity of the body as a whole. Recent research has begun to reveal a mechanism of action of hormones, at the molecular level, that satisfactorily explains their characterisitics.     

Sophistic ethics in the technical writing classroom: Teaching nomos,deliberation, and action

Drawing on arguments by Carolyn Miller, Steven Katz, and others, this essay claims that teaching ethics is particularly important to technical writing. Next, the essay outlines a classical, sophistic approach to ethics based on the theories and pedagogies of Protagoras, Gorgias, and Isocrates. This sophistic approach emphasizes the Greek concept of nomos, internal and external deliberation, and responsible action or articulation. The final section of the essay discusses possible problems and pedagogical applications of sophistic ethics in the contemporary technical writing classroom.     

The Practice of Usability: Teaching User Engagement Through Service-Learning

Pedagogical and scholarly discussions of the process of usability tend to focus more on methods than on practices, or specific, tactical performances of and adjustments to these methods. Yet such practices shape students' learning and determine the success of their usability efforts. A teacher research study tracking students' understanding and enactment of usability and user-centered design over the course of a service-learning project illustrates the importance of practice-level struggles—and the thoughtful preparation for and facilitation of these struggles—to the development of students' flexible intelligence (metis) and rhetorical translation skills.     

Student Conceptions of Ionic Bonding: Patterns of thinking across three European contexts

Previous research has reported that students commonly develop alternative conceptions in the core topic of chemical bonding. Research in England has reported that students there commonly demonstrate an alternative ‘molecular’ conceptual framework for thinking about ionic bonding: in terms of the formation of molecule-like ions pairs through electron transfer, which are internally bonded, but not bonded to other ions. The present study reports the use of translated versions of a diagnostic instrument to elicit the conceptions of bonding in NaCl (commonly used as the teaching example of an ionic compound) from two samples of students setting out on university courses in Greece and Turkey. The study reports that students in these two contexts displayed high levels of support for statements based upon the alternative conceptual framework identified in the English context. Students commonly develop similar alternative conceptions of ionic bonding in these three different educational contexts. The study also found some quite large differences in the specific response patterns across these three contexts, some of which could reflect specific features of the different curriculum contexts. The study reinforces the cross-national nature of the challenge of effectively teaching the abstract models of chemistry at the submicroscopic level. It also provides intriguing suggestions that a close study of the interactions between specific curriculum contexts and specific patterns in students' thinking offers much potential for identifying particular aspects of subject pedagogy that either support or impede the learning of accepted scientific models.     

Beyond Postmodernism: An Introduction

News coverage of “doomsday” asteroids and comets offers a telling insight into tensions surrounding the reportage of many modern risks. This study of press coverage in the U.S. and Britain discusses differing concepts of uncertainty held by journalists and scientists, and explores the defensive maneuvers that failure of prediction prompts in both communities—strategies that have a significant effect on the news of global threats consumed on both sides of the Atlantic.     

Media-Related Works

Reed H. Blake and Edwin O. Haroldsen's A Taxonomy of Concepts in Communication (New York: Hastings House, 1975—$6.95/4.95)

Allen H. Center's Public Relations Practices: Case Studies (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1975—$11.95/7.95)

Bjorn Berndtson and Donald J. Bogue's Mass Mailing Manual for Family Planning: Manual of Procedures (Community and Family Study Center, University of Chicago, 1411 East 60th St., Chicago, Ill. 60637—$1.50, paper)

Louis Savary, Mary Paolini, and George Lane's Intrerpersonal Communications: A Worktext for Self-Understanding and Growth in Personal Relations (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1975–,$4.00, $3.00 to schools, paper, with teacher's guide for $1.00)

Gerhard J. Hanneman and William J. McEwen's Communication and Behavior (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1975—price not known, paper)