Speaking of books

Disadvantaged Child, Vol. I. Jerome Hellmuth, editor. Seattle, Washington: Special Child Publications, 1967. Pp. 499. $10.00.

Federal Aid for Schools. Howard S. Rowland and Richard L. Wing. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1967. Pp. 396.

Psychology of Human Adjustment. Lester D. Crow. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1967. xv, 613 pp. $7.95.

School Children in the Urban Slum. Joan I. Roberts, editor. New York: The Free Press, 1967. xiii and 626 pp. $7.50.

Speech Handicapped School Children, Wendell Johnson and Dorothy Moeller, editors. Harper & Row, New York, 1967. Pp. 562. $7.50.

Edward Hitchcock, M.D., Founder of Physical Education in the College Curriculum. J. Edmund Welch. East Carolina College, Greenville, North Carolina, J. Edmund Welch, 1966. 315 pp. $5.00.     

LEARNING ABILITY FOR TWO SPATIAL ORIENTATION SYSTEMS IN ELDERLY NURSING HOME RESIDENTS

Disorientation and confusion have been identified as significant problems for older persons newly admitted to nursing homes and other institutions. The purpose of this study was to determine which of two orientating systems might be best for helping older people become accustomed to a strange environment. Middle‐aged and elderly residents of a nursing home were dichotomized by performance on three memory tests and then were given two paired‐associate learning tasks. In one task colors and a place in the nursing home were to be associated; in the other symbols and a place in the nursing home were to be associated. The results indicated that the symbol‐place paired‐associate task was learned more rapidly than the color‐place task by both high and low memory ability groups, and that the lower memory ability group showed slower learning of the color‐place task compared to the higher memory ability group. In addition, learning was slower on both tasks when the color‐place task was the first presented. These results indicated that symbol‐place codes may be more useful than color‐place codes as orientation markers and suggested that evaluation of learning performance should include examination of order effects.     

THE GERONTOLOGY PRACTICUM AS SERVICE-LEARNING

This article argues that the gerontology practicum placement is service - learning when guidance is provided to help students integrate the dual goals of service and learning , and when the requisite components of reflection , analysis , and application are built into the practicum experience . Exit interviews conducted with students and field supervisors supported the idea that the practicum experience offered a balance between service and learning , and it was an opportunity for interdisciplinary teamwork , reciprocal benefits , and professional development . Specific discussion focuses on the pedagogical techniques used to encourage individual and group reflection , the synthesis of experiences with academic training , and the application of new understandings in the field setting .     

Playful Postmodernism: Building with Diversity in the Postmodern Classroom

The authors surveyed program directors at all bachelor of social work and master of social work programs accredited by the Council on Social Work Education using an online tool that assessed whether and how their respective social work programs are covering content related to HIV/AIDS. Of the 650 program directors, 153 (24%) participated in the survey. Programs reported coverage of HIV/AIDS content in various foundation content areas, including human behavior in the social environment, populations at risk, and social work practice. The authors also surveyed use of various pedagogical methods, and respondents reported the most use of guest speakers, lectures, and readings in delivering HIV/AIDS content. More than 70% of bachelor and master of social work programs reported having at least 1 field placement specific to HIV/AIDS. In addition, the authors evaluated social work textbooks for specific content on social work with HIV/AIDS, and recommendations are made for inclusion of more HIV/AIDS specific content.     

Enhancing Critical Reflection and Writing Skills in the HBSE Classroom and Beyond

Human Behavior in the Social Environment (HBSE) is an ideal location in which graduate social work students can enhance their critical reflection and writing skills while integrating social work theories with practice, research, and policy. A writing-intensive, learner-centered model using specific strategies is described via a framework of critical pedagogy. In addition to its application within HBSE, this model can be adapted across the social work curriculum. The article is situated within ongoing debates concerning the relevance of social constructionism and postmodernism to social work.     

State Education Agencies’ Acquisition and Use of Research Knowledge for School Improvement

Over the last two decades, state education agencies (SEAs) have been given considerable responsibilities for improving low-performing schools and for adopting research-based practices in doing so. Yet we know little about how and where these organizations search for, select, and use research and other kinds of evidence. We examined these questions as they relate to school improvement designs and strategies in three SEAs using a combination of surveys and interviews conducted in 2010–11. We found that SEA staffs relied most heavily on their colleagues for information but that information often flowed across departments and offices, contrary to the usual image of the SEA as a segmented and siloed bureaucracy. A large number of external organizations were identified in SEA research advice networks and played a catalyzing role in the design or elaboration of research for policy. Although most sources were named by just one person, each SEA also had central internal staff who played an important role in brokering research on school improvement. Identifying and cultivating such influential actors, and connecting individuals who are now isolated or only weakly engaged in these communication networks, could create a more robust exchange of knowledge around school improvement.     

Wounded Healers: Graduate Students with Histories of Trauma in a Family Violence Course

Social work students are witness to a variety of challenges from course content through scenarios, videos, role-plays, and field practice. Students may be vulnerable to experiencing vicarious traumatization from this exposure. Some students, however, may have personal histories of trauma and may therefore experience posttraumatic stress reactions due to triggering of past trauma through course content. This case study examines feedback from three graduate students from a family violence class who self-identified that they had personal histories of trauma from family violence. Their feedback can be beneficial to instructors in managing students' reactions that might be triggered from course content.     

The construction and production of youth ‘at risk’

Following the Commonwealth Government funding cuts in 1986, a hiatus has developed in in‐service teacher education in Australia. Recent curriculum innovations and expanding stresses in the educational environment have generated in‐service education needs which are possibly greater than at any other time in the recent past. The trend in other industrialized countries has been to encourage or even require teachers in primary and secondary education to achieve postgraduate qualifications. Similar pressures are currently mounting in Australia. The combination of the stresses and new emphasis, calls for a rethinking of existing approaches and policies. The restructuring of the education system in a number of States, the difficulties which have become apparent in solution‐centred in‐service programmes and the continuing unsatisfactory ad hoc arrangements for the design and delivery of such programmes across Australia indicate that the need for different policies and provisions in teacher professional development is acute. After analysing the state of the art of in‐service training in Australia, this paper provides possible rationales for such policies and programmes and suggests the development of a multiprogramme policy package which could assist the teachers to ensure a better quality and cost‐effective educational service.     

Promoting the development of a supportive learning environment through action research from the ‘middle out’

This paper reports on a case study of a supportive learning environment initiative (SLEI) for students on health and social care undergraduate programmes in one English university. It involved the development of small scale support projects that are firmly grounded in the outcomes of prior research as well as the ongoing experience of students and staff at the institution. The paper begins by identifying common themes which point towards principles and strategies for educational change though a brief review of three concepts that are central to the initiative: ‘action research’, the ‘learning environment’ and ‘change management’. The account of the SLEI focuses on some of the processes of change management that were deployed and the subsequent discussion draws on the theoretical review to reflect critically on possible lessons for the promotion and management of localised change in higher education.     

Organizational Chunking and Postquestions in Facilitating Student Ability to Profit from Visualized Instruction

This experiment was designed to examine the instructional effectiveness and efficiency of organizational chunking and batched postquestions within the framework of an information-processing approach to learning and memory. The coding processes utilized by the content organization employed both encoding and retrieval aids to facilitate the acquisition, retention, and retrieval of the information to be learned. Major findings indicate that the chunked treatment resulted in a more efficient learning strategy than the conventional treatment; however, the chunked and conventional treatment, as different encoding strategies, did not produce significant differences in achievement on the performance task. Additionally, students receiving the intervening postquestion strategy took significantly less time in completing the performance measure than did those students who received the non-intervening postquestion treatment.