English Reading Effects of Small‐Group Intensive Intervention in Spanish for K–1 English Learners

In this article we report small, but statistically significant, effects of brief supplemental instruction on English reading by Spanish‐speaking kindergartners (N = 37) who performed poorly on a bilingual battery of phonological‐processing tasks. Intervention design was compatible with the Reading First initiative and with research on use of multitiered intervention strategies for preventing reading failure among young monolingual students (e.g., L. S. Fuchs & Vaughn, 2003). We describe a Core Intervention Model (CIM) comprised of specific instructional behaviors that teachers might easily learn and employ regardless of curriculum, and discuss implications of our findings for building multitiered preventative instruction for young English learners.     

Performance Funding and Quality Enhancement at Three Research Universities in the United States

This paper discusses the effect performancefunding has had on funding and qualityenhancement at three research universities asimplemented over the past six years. Thepresentation details the accountabilityrequirements and the relationship they have hadon funding levels. It describes thecost-benefit ratio of maintaining andresponding to the required indicators, and howcollaborative efforts among the institutionshave brought about positive reform in thestate. This discussion will cover budgetprocesses and trends across the United Statesrelative to funding for performance andquality. Suggestions for implementation andimprovement of existing systems are alsodiscussed.     

The 1919 Prison Special: Constituting white women's citizenship

During the spring of 1919, the National Woman's Party sponsored the Prison Special, a cross-country train tour of 26 white women who had been jailed as a result of their protest activity for woman suffrage. Using visual, embodied, and verbal enactments of imprisonment and civic action, the Prison Special constituted white women's citizenship through simultaneous rhetorics of inclusion and expulsion. The Prison Special's foregrounding of white women's martial capabilities, respectability, and vulnerability justified white women's inclusion in the category of citizen. The Prison Special's contrast of the imprisoned white suffragists to Black women co-prisoners participated in the expulsion of Black women from the category of citizen.     

Cognitive and linguistic features of adolescent argumentative writing: Do connectives signal more complex reasoning?

Reading and Writing - The Common Core State Standards (Common Core State Standards Initiative, 2010) feature argumentative writing across the curriculum in grades 4 through 12, yet little is known...     

Toys and Materials as Setting Events for the Social Interaction of Preschool Children with Special Needs

The present study compared the effects of social and isolate toys as setting events on the social interactions of 2 pre-school-aged children with special education needs in a setting that approximated a regular pre-school environment. A single subject alternating treatment design was used for 3 days a week over a 7 week period. Findings of this study showed there was no consistent overall difference between social and isolate toys. This was in contrast to previous studies that have found differences in interaction patterns across conditions. There were also two unanticipated findings from the study. While there was no evidence of an overall difference between social and isolate toys, there was some evidence of an interaction. Students with special education needs tended to interact more with each other when using isolate toys and tended to interact more with regular peers when using social toys. Further, it was also found that particular toys from both social and isolate classifications were consistently associated with social interaction across both subjects while other toys were not associated with social interaction. This raises questions about the validity of traditional classifications of toys and materials. The use of toys to promote social interaction is a potentially valuable technique but this study raises questions that indicate a need for further research.     

Designing computer-based learning contents: influence of digital zoom on attention

In the present study, we investigated the role of digital zoom as a tool for directing attention while looking at visual learning material. In particular, we analyzed whether minimal digital zoom functions similarly to a rhetorical device by cueing mental zooming of attention accordingly. Participants were presented either static film clips, film clips with minimal zoom-ins, or film clips with minimal zoom-outs while eye movements were recorded. We hypothesized that minimal zoom-ins should lead to more gaze coherence, to longer dwell times as an indicator of more elaborative processing, and to fewer transitions as an indicator of less mental integration. Zoom-outs, on the other hand, were expected to have opposite effects. Results showed that zoom-ins increase gaze coherence and dwell times on the center parts of the depictions while decreasing transitions of pictorial elements from the center and the context areas. In contrast, patterns of results from zoom-outs and static presentations were similar to a large degree, indicating that zoom-ins and zoom-outs do not operate in a complementary fashion. Theoretical and practical implications of the present results are discussed.     

Reflections of a ‘late-career’ early-career researcher: an account of practice

This account of practice describes the journey of an ‘accidental academic’ through the Doctoral programme in Business Administration (DBA). It reflects on her experience of action learning and lessons learned to better embed action learning in future DBA teaching and assessment. The account is told from the perspective of a mature student straddling business and academic interests. DBA students represent a mature cohort with significant business experience and responsibility. As such, they have an implicit understanding of action learning. Action learning for these individuals should be re-activated rather than re-learned for their doctoral studies. Suggestions are made for improving the utility of action learning for DBA students and their willing engagement in the action learning process.     

Representation of situations involving changes sequence: A didactic interdisciplinary intervention

Our previous research, conducted in various fields, demonstrates the obvious difficulties children encounter when they must achieve, in a collective game situation, coordinated motor actions (Garnier, 1989) or solve additive problems in mathematics involving changes sequence (Bednarz Schmidt, & Dufour-Janvier, 1989b; Poirier & Bednarz. 1991a, b). These investigations show the children’s extreme centration on the states, and a global non anticipation of the situations that lead them to act punctually and sequentially. The didactic intervention that was developed in view of these difficulties, integrating sociomotor and mathematics activity, aims to develop the cognitive processes of decentration and anticipation on the basis of the resolution of these situations. In the pedagogical approach undertaken on 30 grade three children (8–9 years old), the social actions and interactions played a major part in the development of the aimed processes and in the elaboration of the representation of underlying relations to the situations involved (games and problems). A sociomotor examination (collective game) and a written examination in mathematics, carried out before and after the experiment, show, along with the qualitative analysis achieved during the intervention, the evolution of the child jaced with the aimed processes.