The Tutoring Network: A unique nonprofit educational/civic/professional organization

The Tutoring Network is a nonprofit organization that emphasizes rigorous screening of educational therapists and careful matching of their expertise with the needs of learning-disabled students. It operates a clearinghouse for information pertinent to learning disabilities and strives to facilitate better communication among professionals concerned with the learning-disabled. This paper chronicles the birth and growth of The Tutoring Network and explores possibilities for replication.     

Artful Language: Academic Writing for the Art Student

The task of writing about the process of making and contextualising art can be overwhelming for some graduate students. While the challenge may be due in part to limited time and attention to the practice of writing, in a practice‐based arts thesis there is a deeper issue: how the visual and written components are attended to in a manner that neither is subjugated and both are fully realised. Helping students to revision art and writing as similar creative processes that can be structured around a framework designed to address both processes can override the conception that writing and art are polarising forces. This article describes one such framework that was found to be effective from both the perspective of the professor and the student in fleshing out the heart of both artistic processes and finding an integrating structure that moves a thesis to fruition.     

Mini managers: Children strategically divide cognitive labor among collaborators,but with a self-serving bias

Strategic collaboration according to the law of comparative advantage involves dividing tasks based on the relative capabilities of group members. Three experiments (N = 405, primarily White and Asian, 45% female, collected 2016–2019 in Canada) examined how this strategy develops in children when dividing cognitive labor. Children divided questions about numbers between two partners. By 7 years, children allocated difficult questions to the skilled partner (Experiment 1, d = 1.42; Experiment 2, d = 0.87). However, younger children demonstrated a self-serving bias, choosing the easiest questions for themselves. Only when engaging in a third-party collaborative task did 5-year-olds assign harder questions to the more skilled individual (Experiment 3, d = 0.55). These findings demonstrate early understanding of strategic collaboration subject to a self-serving bias.     

‘I'm always up against a brick wall with them’: parents' experiences of accessing support for their child with a newly recognised developmental disorder

Three of the most prevalent developmental disorders (DDs) are autism spectrum disorder (ASD), attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD). As part of a study screening for DDs in Greater Manchester, UK, a unique opportunity was taken to explore parents' experiences of receiving reports about their child's previously unrecognised DD. Six parents out of a possible 16 took part in interviews, which were analysed thematically. Findings drawn from parental responses revealed a number of barriers to accessing support for their child's additional needs, including perceived resistance from schools, particularly for quiet, well-behaved girls, and difficulty in accessing assessment or referrals. There needs to be greater awareness of additional needs in children without externalising behaviours, the presence of gender-specific differences in the presentation of DDs, and FASD as a commonly occurring DD. Ultimately, better support for children with DDs would reduce the burden of unmet needs for the children and their families, and for wider services.     

Personality Type and Participation in Networked Learning Environments

For networked learning environments, it is necessary to consider different aspects of this environment, such as the collaborative environment, the nature of activities and resources, the technological environment and the learner's characteristics, if quality learning is to take place online. This paper focuses on one aspect of the learner's characteristics; that of personality type as determined using the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (Myers, 1984). It investigates the relationship between personality type and a student's participation (both passive and active) within a networked learning environment using asynchronous threaded discussion for a university course run both online and face-to-face. Qualitative results show patterns in student attitudes to participation related to personality type, particularly on the dimensions of introversion/extroversion, sensing/intuition and thinking/feeling. The paper also discusses implications of the findings in relation to the development of the networked learning environment, to ensure better online participation from all students. L’importance des types de personnalité dans la participation dans des environnements d’apprentissage en réseau. Pour les environnements d’apprentissage en réseau Net, il faut considérer différents aspects de cet environnement coopératif, la nature des activités et des sources, l’environnement technologique et les caractéristiques de l’apprenant si l’on veut en ligne obtenir un apprentissage de qualité. Cet article se concentre sur un aspect des caractéristiques de l’apprenant, celui du type de personnalité défini dans le Myer Briggs Type Indicator (Myers, 1984). Il étudie la relation entre le type de personnalité et la participation d’un étudiant (passive et active) dans un environnement d’apprentissage basé sur le Net utilisant une discussion filetée asynchrone our un cours d’université mené face À face et en ligne. Les résultats qualitatifs montrent des modéles dans

l’attitude des étudiant quant À la participation liée au type de personnalité, particulièrement sur les dimensions de l’introversion/extroversion, de la sensation/intuition et de la pensée/sentiments. L’article discute aussi des implications des

résultats en relation avec le développement de l’environnement de l’apprentissage en réseau, pur assurer une meilleure

participation en ligne de la part de tous les étudiants. Persönlichkeitstyp und Partizipation in vernetzten Lernumgebungen. Bei vernetzten Lernumgebungen müssen unterschiedliche Aspekte dieser Umgebung bedacht werden, so z.B. der

gemeinschaftliche Bereich, die Art von Aktivitäten und Ressourcen, die technischen Gegebenheiten und die Charakteristika der Lernenden, wenn erstklassiges Lernen auch online möglich werden soll. Dieser Beitrag beschränkt sich auf einen charakteristischen Aspekt des Lerners: seinen Persönlichkeitstyp unter Benutzung des Myers Briggs Type Indicator (Myers, 1984). Es untersucht die Beziehung zwischen dem Persönlichkeitstyp und der Teilhabe (aktiv und passiv) eines Studenten

innerhalb einer vernetzten Lernumgebung bei asynchron angelegter Diskussion – sowohl online als auch direkt – über einen Universitätskurs. Qualifizierte Ergebnisse zeigen, dass bestimmte Verhaltensmuster der Studenten zur Partizipation vom Persönlichkeitstyp abhängen, insbesondere vom Grad der Introversion/Extroversion, Empfindsamkeit/Einfühlungsvermögen und Denken/Fühlen. Der Beitrag stellt auch Folgerungen aus den Befunden in Bezug auf die Entwicklung vernetzter Lernumgebungen zur Diskussion, um bessere online-Partizipation aller Studenten sicherzustellen.