Emerging development of semantic and phonological routes to character decoding in Chinese as a foreign language learners

This study examines the effects of semantic and phonetic radicals on Chinese character decoding by high-intermediate level Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) learners. The results of the study suggest that the CFL learners tested have a well-developed semantic pathway to recognition; however, their phonological pathway is not yet a reliable means of character identification. Semantic radicals that correctly pertain to character meaning facilitated reaction time in semantic categorization tasks, while radicals that had no immediately interpretable relation to character meaning had a strong inhibitory effect. The relative accuracy of phonetic radicals (for predicting the whole-character’s pronunciation) did not measurably improve homonym recognition. In a lexical decision task (Experiment 3), the subjects were significantly slower in identifying pseudo-characters when the phonological component was blurred, indicating that, despite having unreliable phonological pathways to character recognition, the subjects were still using phonological radical analysis as their default recognition strategy; however, the author argues that the radical is likely being used for orthographic disambiguation more than for phonological properties.     

Intercultural Education: A Code of Practice for the twenty-first century

In this paper we will argue for the adoption of a set of principles that will inform the construction of a Code of Practice for Intercultural Education in institutions of teacher education throughout Europe. These principles need to be based on a clear understanding of how inequalities operate and lead to oppression in society. Furthermore, we consider a Code of Practice to be essential in developing future teachers for a changing world that is increasingly global and international. The need for a Code of Practice arises from our conviction that teacher education must be located within higher education and, as such, should show a commitment to the pursuit of truth without losing sight of the need to be concerned with issues of social justice, equality and the empowerment of all groups involved in education. Dans cet article nous débattrons de la nécessitéd'adopter un ensemble de principes conduisant à l'élaboration d'un code déontologique pour l'éducation interculturelle dans les instituts formation des enseignants à travers l'Europe. Ces principes doivent être fondés sur une nette compréhension des effets des inégalités sociales et de l'oppression qui en résulte. Nous considérons par ailleurs que ce code déontologique est essentiel dans la formation des enseignants de demain dans une sociétéde plus en plus mondialisée et internationale. Le besoin d'un code déontologique provient de notre conviction que la formation d'enseignant doit faire partie de l'enseignement supérieur et qu' à ce titre elle doit s'impliquer dans la recherche de la véritésans perdre de vue les problèmes de justice sociale, d'égalitéet d'attribution du pouvoir d'agir à tous les groupes présents. En este documento, abogaremos por la adopción de una serie de principios a favor de la elaboración de un Código de Conducta para la Educación Intercultural en instituciones de formación del profesorado en toda Europa. Estos principios han de estar basados en un entendimiento claro de cómo operan las desigualdades y como llevan a la opresión en la sociedad. Asimismo, consideramos que tener un Código de Conducta es algo indispensable para la formación de profesores en un mundo que estácambiando y convirtiéndose cada vez més en un ambiente global e internacional. La necesidad de crear un Código de Conducta viene dada porque creemos que la formación de profesores se debe llevar a cabo a nivel universitario y como tal debe de estar prevalecida por una búsqueda de la verdad sin perder de vista la necesidad de considerar problemas como la justicia social, la igualdad y la participación activa de todos los grupos implicados en la educación. In unserem Vortrag plädieren wir für die Annahme einer Reihe von Prinzipien als Grundlage für die Entwicklung eines Verhaltenskodex für Interkulturelle Erziehung in Institutionen der Lehrerausbildung in ganz Europa. Diese Prinzipien sollten auf einem klaren Verständnis der Wirkung von Ungleichheiten und der daraus resultierenden gesellschaftlichen Unterdrückung führen. Darüber hinaus halten wir einen solchen Verhaltenskodex in der Ausbildung von LehrerInnen in einer sich wandelnden und zunehmend global und international geprägten Welt für unabdingbar. Diese Notwendigkeit eines Verhaltenskodex entspringt unserer Überzeugung, dass die Lehrerausbildung Hochschulangelegenheit und als solche den Prinzipien objektiver Erkenntnisgewinnung verpflichtet sein sollte, ohne dabei Fragen der sozialen Gerechtigkeit, Gleichheit und Emanzipation aller am Ausbildungsprozess beteiligten Gruppen aus den Augen zu verlieren.     

Plain journalism: The maintenance of a “vocabulary of kinship” in an Amish newspaper

Media may serve as avenues for the expression of common ideals and values that help individuals place themselves in a community of like-minded people. Using Benedict Anderson’s notion of a mediated “vocabulary of kinship” that binds individuals together, this study illustrates the ways the very structure of media content can encourage feelings of commonality. The vehicle for this inquiry is The Budget, a weekly newspaper produced by and for a North American audience of Amish and Mennonite readers. The research suggests that structural aspects of dispatches in The Budget, such as conversational and intentionally informal writing styles, the encouragement of dialog, and use of particular dialects and phrases, reinforce values of familiarity and intimacy that are central to Amish and Mennonite culture.     

Guest Editor's Introduction: Technical Communication in the Age of Distributed Work

In this introduction, I review the topic of the special issue, distributed work: coordinative, polycontextual, cross-disciplinary work that splices together divergent work activities (separated by time, space, organizations, and objectives) and that enables the transformations of information and texts that characterize such work. After reviewing the literature on distributed work, I introduce the articles in this special issue.     

Remarks on the dedication of the John P. Ryan speech center

Dedication ceremonies for the new John P. Ryan Speech Center were held on the campus of Grinnell College Saturday afternoon, June 6, 1964. Special guests were Mrs. John P. Ryan and her two daughters‐, Elsie and Jean. Others present were Grinnell alumni and their families and friends, and members of the Grinnell College faculty.     

The Cluster Grouping Handbook: How to Challenge Gifted Students and Improve Achievement for All. Winebrenner,S., & Brulles,D. (2008)

After over two decades of discussions regarding the identification of giftedness among non‐traditional populations in the United States, the issues remain the same. Many students continue to be under represented in programs for the gifted because of traditional assessment instruments used to identify gifted students. Moreover, the sociocultural influences on giftedness still have not been integrated into the identifying process. This article presents the efforts of a project responding to the need for culturally relevant alternatives to present assessment practices in the identification of giftedness among the rural Mexican American population in the southwest United States.     

Graduate Students on Campus: Needs and Implications for College Counselors

Graduate students compose an important segment of university and college populations. However, institutions of higher education often have not addressed adequately their status as adult students with different developmental and life issues and concerns. This article defines and describes the needs of graduate students, discusses implications, and makes recommendations for college counselors to more effectively address their range of needs.     

ONLINE ASYNCHRONOUS COLLABORATION IN MATHEMATICS TEACHER EDUCATION AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF MATHEMATICAL KNOWLEDGE FOR TEACHING

In this article the authors describe their efforts to support teachers' development of deep, connected understandings of school mathematics and to find ways to make use of the teachers' learning as a context for subsequent mathematical and pedagogical development. The authors detail the evolution of their model for Online Asynchronous Collaboration (OAC), which is grounded in current research in mathematics teacher education and that takes advantage of the collaborative nature of the Internet and the permanent nature of the online interactions. They believe that OAC is a promising practice in teacher education and will discuss both the rationale for their design decisions and provide examples of teachers' activity within OAC.     

Standardized test outcomes for students engaged in inquiry‐based science curricula in the context of urban reform

Considerable effort has been made over the past decade to address the needs of learners in large urban districts through scaleable reform initiatives. We examine the effects of a multifaceted scaling reform that focuses on supporting standards based science teaching in urban middle schools. The effort was one component of a systemic reform effort in the Detroit Public Schools, and was centered on highly specified and developed project‐based inquiry science units supported by aligned professional development and learning technologies. Two cohorts of 7th and 8th graders that participated in the project units are compared with the remainder of the district population, using results from the high‐stakes state standardized test in science. Both the initial and scaled up cohorts show increases in science content understanding and process skills over their peers, and significantly higher pass rates on the statewide test. The relative gains occur up to a year and a half after participation in the curriculum, and show little attenuation with in the second cohort when scaling occurred and the number of teachers involved increased. The effect of participation in units at different grade levels is independent and cumulative, with higher levels of participation associated with similarly higher achievement scores. Examination of results by gender reveals that the curriculum effort succeeds in reducing the gender gap in achievement experienced by urban African‐American boys. These findings demonstrate that standards‐based, inquiry science curriculum can lead to standardized achievement test gains in historically underserved urban students, when the curriculum is highly specified, developed, and aligned with professional development and administrative support. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 45: 922–939, 2008