Augmented Reality for Teaching Science Vocabulary to Postsecondary Education Students With Intellectual Disabilities and Autism

The purpose of this study was to examine the use of an emerging technology called augmented reality to teach science vocabulary words to college students with intellectual disability and autism spectrum disorders. One student with autism and three students with an intellectual disability participated in a multiple probe across behaviors (i.e., acquisition of science vocabulary words) design. Data were collected on each student's ability to define and label three sets of science vocabulary words (i.e., bones, organs, and plant cells). The results indicate that all students acquired definition and labeling knowledge for the new science vocabulary terms. Results are discussed in the context of applying universal design principles with emerging technologies to create authentic opportunities for students with intellectual disabilities and autism spectrum disorders to learn science vocabulary. (Keywords: augmented reality, autism, intellectual disability, science vocabulary, universal design for learning)     

Schooling for Faith,Citizenship and Social Mobility: Catholic Secondary Education in New Zealand, 1924–1944

The increased demand for secondary schooling, which took place in New Zealand in the years after 1924, had important consequences for the Catholic educational mission. No longer was it sufficient to provide a comprehensive elementary system of education that transmitted a ‘simple faith to a simple people’, and a secondary schooling for the educational advancement and social mobility of the select few. Justified on the basis of the need to protect the faith of the growing number of pupils going on to secondary school, the expanded educational mission was also grounded in a new Catholic identity as ‘moral’ patriotic citizens committed to Catholic family values and successful participation in New Zealand society. Catholic secondary schools offered a utilitarian secondary education, which focussed on success in state‐mandated examinations, to the children of parents ambitious for their social and economic success in the world. Nevertheless, there were tensions in a Catholic educational mission that worked for the social and educational advancement of Catholic pupils while aiming for their ultimate salvation and the protection Catholic religious and cultural values.     

Learning on Campus and Learning at a Distance: A Randomized Instructional Experiment

To address a major methodological problem in the body of evidence on distance learning in postsecondary education, we conducted a randomized, true-experiment paired with a quasi-experiment. Community college students randomly assigned to receive instruction at a distance via a two-way interactive telecourse demonstrated learning equivalent to that of students assigned to on-campus, face-to-face instruction. However, students choosing to take the course via telecourse at remote sites had significantly higher course learning than either randomly assigned group. Such evidence suggests that the body of evidence on distance learning could be seriously confounded by learner self-selection.     

Strong language: the purpose of dialogue in the development of writing

In order to discuss the nature and nurture of authorship in schooled literacy, the author explores what Bakhtin calls ‘responsive understanding’ to text and textual relations (1986). The activity of dialogue is crucial to the condition and form of responsive understanding. This paper considers a renewed interest in dialogical method as a way of strengthening teachers' purposes, particularly in relation to the development of learners' writing.     

Professional judgement and decision-making in adventure sports coaching: the role of interaction

This qualitative study presents the view that coaching practice places demands on the coach’s adaptability and flexibility. These requirements for being adaptive and flexible are met through a careful process of professional judgement and decision-making based on context-appropriate bodies of knowledge. Adventure sports coaches were selected for study on the basis that adventure sports create a hyper-dynamic environment in which these features can be examined. Thematic analysis revealed that coaches were generally well informed and practised with respect to the technical aspects of their sporting disciplines. Less positively, however, they often relied on ad hoc contextualisation of generalised theories of coaching practice to respond to the hyper-dynamic environments encountered in adventure sports. We propose that coaching practice reflects the demands of the environment, individual learning needs of the students and the task at hand. Together, these factors outwardly resemble a constraints-led approach but, we suggest, actually reflect manipulation of these parameters from a cognitive rather than an ecological perspective. This process is facilitated by a refined judgement and decision-making process, sophisticated epistemology and an explicit interaction of coaching components.     

Start hard,finish better: further evidence for the reversal of the RAE advantage

The relative age effect (RAE) has been highlighted extensively within literature as influencing selection and identification within sports. However, this initial bias appears to not be systemic in some talent development systems. Accordingly, we report an investigation into the initial identification, selection and conversion of academy players from professional Rugby Union and Cricket at national level. Reflecting previous studies, data again demonstrated a reversal of RAE advantage whereby relatively young players from both sports were less likely to be selected into their respective national academy systems but were more likely to transition into senior national squads. On the basis of our observations, we further propose a psychological explanation for the mechanism of such a reversal, based on the influence of additional challenge experienced throughout the development journey. As such, we also highlight the need for further qualitative investigation to explore this phenomenon in greater depth.