Teacher‐Pupil Discourse in Classrooms for Hearing‐Impaired Children

Early studies of teacher‐pupil discourse in classrooms for the hearing‐impaired showed that it is systematic, teacher‐controlled and interlaced with language content. Discourse analysis, based on qualitative methods of study, augments and qualifies these views by providing a technique for examining multiple levels of interaction. Discourse material excerpted from a language lesson conducted by an experienced primary teacher with five hearing‐impaired pupils suggests that teacher‐pupil interaction is organized on several levels of structure. A hierarchy of lesson interaction is demonstrated through the illustrative discourse samples; hierarchical levels of roles, tasks, phrases, topics, sequences, turns, and utterances are identified and discussed. Educational implications about the learning structure of the classroom for the hearing‐impaired are offered.     

Adaptive Teaching in STEM: Characteristics for Effectiveness

This article defines the process of adaptive teaching in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). We assert that teachers who possess a well-developed STEM pedagogical content knowledge, a constructivist paradigm of teaching and learning, and an ability to draw on a vision while reflecting on and during teaching to help negotiate challenges are well positioned to engage in the process of adaptive teaching. This article acknowledges the valuable knowledge, skills, and dispositions that novice teachers bring with them as they enter the workforce. To illustrate the process of adaptive teaching in STEM, we use an in-depth case study of a novice teacher. Our conclusion offers a discussion of how teacher educators and those who provide professional development services during induction can best support teachers in their development of becoming adaptive, and therefore, effective.     

How Pendulum Studies Can Promote Knowledge of the Nature of Science

This paper mentions the extent to which contemporary science curricula include knowledge of the nature of science as a goal of science instruction; it outlines the crucial role played by the pendulum in the achievements of the scientific revolution and documents how little these achievements are included in standard textbooks; it describes a number of classroom pendular experiments and activities that reproduce some of the main 17th centuary experiments and indicates how students can relive the original scientific, procedural and methodological debates; finally the paper suggests ways in which the pendulum can be used in cross-disciplinary teaching thus giving students a more authentic understanding of the way that science has developed in conjunction with mathematics, music, religion and commerce.     

Promoting Social Inclusion in Educational Settings: Challenges and Opportunities

The goal of this article is to provide a critical analysis of barriers to social inclusion and integration in schools and propose inclusive educational practices that help connect and unite diverse students. Diversity is defined broadly to refer to a range of differences (i.e., overall heterogeneity) across students. We review theoretical frameworks that help explain group dynamics and contextual conditions that contribute to exclusion (i.e., peer victimization, rejection, friendlessness) of students based on ethnicity, sexual orientation, body weight, and so on. We argue that to be able to facilitate inclusion (acceptance by peers, cross-group friendships), educators and school administrators need to be aware of group and interpersonal dynamics. They must also comprehend how some common school practices highlight differences and segregate students in ways that further promote divisions and reinforce negative stereotypes. We propose proactive school-based practices as “built-in” preventions to increase social inclusion. Also, relevant intervention approaches are reviewed. To conclude, we discuss teacher education and professional development and make recommendations for future research.     

Conceptions of students as partners

Engaging students as partners (SaP) in teaching and learning is an emerging yet contested topic in higher education. This study interviewed 16 students and staff working in partnership across 11 Australian universities to understand how they conceptualised SaP and the opportunities they believed SaP afforded their universities. Thematic analysis revealed three overlapping conceptions of partnership: SaP as counter-narrative, SaP as values-based practice, and SaP as cultural change. The findings are first interpreted through the lens of liminality and an ethic of care. This is followed by a discussion of inclusivity of involvement, resistance, and reinforcement of neoliberal agendas despite good intentions. Finally, implications for cautious enactment of both practice and research are offered.     

On-line professionals

Psychotherapy and counselling services are now available on-line, and expanding rapidly. Yet there appears almost no ethical analysis of this on-line mode of delivery of such professional services. In this paper I present such an analysis by considering the limitations on-line contact imposes on the nature of the professional–client relationship. The analysis proceeds via the contrast between the face-to-face case and the on-line case. At the core of the problem must be the recognition that on-line interaction imposes a physical barrier largely permitting only those disclosures of self we choose to make available, and greatly restricting the range of involuntary features and behaviours. I show why this is problematic, first, for the development of a close professional–client relationship, with particular emphasis on such failures as diagnosis and monitoring of the patient. Second I describe the importance of the development of professional character, and of how the on-line environment fails to provide a context for such character traits to emerge and develop.     

Best Practices of Library Mobile Website Design: A Literature Review

This article is intended to serve as a guide for librarians developing mobile Websites to be linked to their current library Website. Kroski (2008a) defines the mobile Web as “the World Wide Web accessed through a mobile device, ranging from a cellular phone to an iPod Touch. It includes the entirety of the Web and is not limited to Websites that are specifically designed for mobile viewing” (5). This literature review focuses on the mobile Web, mobile device usage, and best practices for designing mobile Websites for libraries.     

Implementing curriculum evaluation: case study of a generic undergraduate degree in health sciences

This case study presents a longitudinal, evidence‐based approach to health science curriculum reform and evaluation. Curriculum in higher education must meet the needs of diverse stakeholders and must respond to dynamic local, national and international contexts, and this creates challenges for evaluation. The long lead time prior to the introduction of new or revised university curriculum (at least two years), the length of degree programmes (three to five years) and the lag time in the availability of objective indicators of degree outcomes (at least one year post‐graduation) mean that findings may be obsolete before an evaluation can be completed. Few would argue that evaluation is important and methods and approaches for conducting curriculum evaluation are proposed in the literature, although few published reports of the outcomes of comprehensive evaluations are evident. This paper discusses potential for evaluation to establish responsive communication between students, teaching staff and programme administrators, ensuring a match between the intended, implemented and attained curriculum.     

Children’s metabolic expenditure during object projection skill performance: New insight for activity intensity relativity

Objective: To examine children’s energy expenditure (EE) during object projection skill performance at three intensity intervals. Methods: Children’s (42, Mage = 8.1) average metabolic equivalents of task (METs) were calculated using a COSMED K4b2 while they repeatedly performed blocks of kicking, throwing (overhand), and striking (two-handed) during 6, 12, and 30-s interval conditions. A repeated-measures analysis of covariance examined differences in METs while controlling for skill level. Results: Data indicated a main effect for interval condition (df = 2, 123, F = 94.36, p <.001, η2 = .605). Post hoc t-tests demonstrated decreasing performance interval times yielded progressively higher METs (p <.001) across the three conditions (30s = 4.5±0.8 METs, 12s = 6.3±1.3, 6s = 8.3±1.6). There also was a main effect for sex (df = 1,120, F = 52.28, p <.001 η2 = .305). Boys demonstrated higher METs at each performance interval (p <.001). Conclusion: Skill practice with a maximum of one trial every 30s resulted in the equivalent of at least moderate physical activity (>4.0 METs) and intervals of 6s demonstrated vigorous physical activity (>7.0 METs). Practicing/performing object projection skills, even at intervals that allow for adequate instruction and feedback (i.e., 1 trial/30s), promotes MVPA in children.     

Building the urban commons in Singapore: the cemetery,red-light district and public housing estates as sites of contestation

ABSTRACT

This paper investigates the state of informal social activism initiated by Singaporean youth via the creation of ground-up initiatives. Having witnessed state-civil society relations, where calibrated liberalisation, co-option and coercive measures are used as strategies of state control, these informal collectives seek new modalities and methodologies in their efforts to build the urban commons. By following three of such collectives, this paper seeks to explore the overlapping cultural and social realms they operate in, as well as the new modalities and methodologies they bring, such as participatory art and design. They negotiate constraints from both the state and market through (1) strategic positioning of legal statuses and (2) the formation of a network society, building social capital and a new vocabulary for future efforts in self-organisation.