Itinerant Teachers of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing and Their Students in Australia: some state comparisons

To survey the work of itinerant teachers of the deaf and hard of hearing in Australia a mail survey of most of those teachers in four Australian states was conducted. The survey sought information about the professional and personal demographics and work characteristics of the teachers and their roles in working with integrated deaf and hard of hearing students. Teachers also reported on the characteristics and level of inclusion of a “sample student” randomly chosen from their caseloads. Information about the distribution of these students' characteristics and the types of services delivered in each state indicated that there were few differences among the states. It was found that Australian itinerant teachers generally reported that they were satisfied with their work and the placement of deaf and hard of hearing students in regular classes. The teachers generally used a “pull-out/ direct tutorial” mode of working rather than one of “consultation only” with regular teachers and reported that schools and teachers were generally cooperative and understanding of the needs of deaf and hard of hearing students. The students in most cases were well integrated socially and academically in their regular classes.     

Mastery versus ability appraisal: a developmental study of children's observations of peers' work

This study was designed to test the hypothesis that there is an age-related shift from mastery enhancement to relative ability assessment in the goal of social comparison. Children at ages 5, 7, and 10 made pictures with stickers under conditions of high or low concern with relative performance (competition/no competition) and high or low procedural ambiguity (free design/copying a drawing). The effects of the manipulations on frequency of glancing at the experimenter and the drawing were similar at all ages; competition enhanced glancing at peers, however, only at ages 7 and 10. The hypothesized shift in the function of social comparison was further supported by age differences in children's explanations for glancing at peers and by the pattern of intercorrelations between glances at the 3 targets and between glances and picture quality. The results indicate how mastery-based comparisons can promote mastery and performance and illustrate some costs older children may pay for their tendency to observe others primarily to assess relative ability.     

From Skepticism to Scholarship: Learning and Living Self-Study Research in a Doctoral Seminar

Teacher education doctoral seminars can provide a space for students to collaborate, reflect and support each other as they transition from teacher to teacher educator. These spaces also provide a forum for the learning of new research methodologies. This collaborative self-study chronicles how one group of doctoral students learned self-study research and fostered a scholarly identity in a doctoral seminar focused on learning about teacher education practices through self-study research. The participants shared autobiographies, journals, and critical summaries of assigned readings, and they questioned each other’s understanding and development in the context of their shared experiences. Through this process, they overcame concerns regarding self-study as they developed their understanding of the components of self-study research and accepted their new role as self-study researchers. This study provides insights into the benefits of using doctoral seminars as a space to develop a scholarly identity and for using that space as a source of investigation. Implications for similar communities are also discussed.     

Aboriginal studies and the science curriculum: Affective outcomes from a curriculum intervention

The study of Aboriginal culture in schools is supported by an increasing number of educators and government committees. However, in the absence of substantial research evidence, it has been difficult to propose justifiable curricular recommendations. The results of this exploratory study suggest that student attitudes towards Aborigines and Aboriginal culture can be improved by a science program which features an Aboriginal Studies component. Further, it is suggested that there is scope for the development of up-to-date curriculum materials and more comprehensive studies. Specializations: science education, teaching thinking. Specializations: science education, curriculum theory and design, teacher development.     

Bioengineering and Bioinformatics Summer Institutes: meeting modern challenges in undergraduate summer research

Summer undergraduate research programs in science and engineering facilitate research progress for faculty and provide a close-ended research experience for students, which can prepare them for careers in industry, medicine, and academia. However, ensuring these outcomes is a challenge when the students arrive ill-prepared for substantive research or if projects are ill-defined or impractical for a typical 10-wk summer. We describe how the new Bioengineering and Bioinformatics Summer Institutes (BBSI), developed in response to a call for proposals by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF), provide an impetus for the enhancement of traditional undergraduate research experiences with intense didactic training in particular skills and technologies. Such didactic components provide highly focused and qualified students for summer research with the goal of ensuring increased student satisfaction with research and mentor satisfaction with student productivity. As an example, we focus on our experiences with the Penn State Biomaterials and Bionanotechnology Summer Institute (PSU-BBSI), which trains undergraduates in core technologies in surface characterization, computational modeling, cell biology, and fabrication to prepare them for student-centered research projects in the role of materials in guiding cell biology.     

Understanding the impact of guiding inquiry: the relationship between directive support,student attributes,and transfer of knowledge,attitudes, and behaviours in inquiry learning

Guiding inquiry learning has been shown to increase knowledge gains. Yet, little is known about the effect of guidance on attitudes and behaviours, its interaction with student attributes, and transfer of impact once guidance is removed. We address these gaps in the context of an interactive Physics simulation on electric circuits (https://phet.colorado.edu/en/simulation/circuit-construction-kit-dc). 49 students in the Non-Directive condition received a set of goals to focus their inquiry, in addition to implicit support built into the simulation. 48 students in the Directive condition received, in addition to these, also detailed directions and prompts. Log-file analysis found that directive support led to more formal testing and less exploration. Clustering identified two groups of learners: one with higher incoming knowledge (Higher Knowledge), the other with higher incoming perceptions of competence and control (Higher PoCC). Working with the simulation improved knowledge and attitudes across cluster groups, so that prior differences all but disappeared. With regard to guidance, adding directive support improved knowledge gains for the Higher Knowledge group, yet suppressed their attitudinal growth. The same support had no effect on knowledge gains for the Higher PoCC group, yet it boosted their attitudinal growth. A transfer activity, where directive support was no longer available, found that impact on attitudes carried forward, yet impacts on behaviours and knowledge were short-lived. Overall, the study highlights the complex interaction between guidance and student attributes. For some, supporting short-term knowledge gains may inadvertenly lead to longer term negative impact on attitudes towards inquiry.     

Reading program—Remedial,integrated, and innovative

An innovative integrated remedial reading program has been developed based on recent research findings. My longitudinal studies have revealed that poor reading compounds itself over the years. The majority of children with reading disabilities currently remain in regular classrooms with varying techniques being used depending upon individual school directives and current educational theory. Despite current remedial techniques, the poorer reader tends to remain so throughout the school years. Innovative techniques must be developed in the hope of altering this pattern. This paper presents one alternative strategy which can be used to upgrade reading skills and break the cycle of reading failure. The Reading Assistance Tutorial Pack (R.A.T. Pack) is a carefully sequenced series of activities that enables the learner to experience the motivating and reinforcing properties of success through all stages of phonetic and reading skills development. It is a systematic, multidisciplinary remedial reading program based on sound behavior, psycholinguistic and cognitive theories of learning—incorporating listening, speaking, seeing, writing, thinking, and comprehension skills. The R.A.T. Pack demands a high percentage of on-task behavior and trains phonological processing strategies. Functional language use is promoted through enjoyable activities involving sentence construction, cloze passages, puzzles, games, and other creative manipulations of the surface features of languages. The program has proven successful in schools, homes, and clinics.     

Promoting scientific understanding through electronic discourse

This paper illustrates the on-going efforts of an innovative science program called “Kids as Global Scientists” to take full advantage of Internet technology for better learning and teaching. We analyzed electronic communication between students and scientists on the Message Board and the development of students’ scientific understanding through electronic communications. Our research shows that the Internet has great potential to foster the development of students’ scientific understanding, which is difficult to achieve through traditional instruction alone. Despite increasing interest in the use of the Internet in the classroom, research on the educational benefits of the Internet on learning and teaching are still limited. This study will serve in this continuing research base in order to help expand our understanding by opening a discussion around the following questions: What are the characteristics of new learning opportunities and interaction patterns that students experienced? What new classroom dynamics and challenges are introduced as a result of the use of our technological innovations?