Using Writing to Structure Agency: An Examination of Engineers' Practice

A longitudinal study of four engineers shows that moving into positions of authority and responsibility allows them to claim agency within the structure of the organization. However, that structure is less stable than it first appears, and they use writing to try to establish it in a way that will allow them to achieve their goals. Agency seems to consist of the conjunction of discursively established positions in the organization and participants' taking organizational intents as their own.     

Technology, math, and the early learner: Models for learning

As today’s preschoolers become the school-age children of tomorrow, early learning educators are faced with a unique and exciting challenge of integrating technology into mathematics instruction. This article examines theory, standards, guidelines, and rationale that supports technology in the preschool environment. Examining practices at 12 diverse preschool sites, four designs emerge as the “typical” models that enable early learners to engage and experience technology within a developmentally appropriate learning environment. The designs outlined are viewed through the lens of preschool mathematics instruction and provide early learning educators as well as parents with models for replication.     

Language and culture learning in higher education via telecollaboration

This article focuses on the ways of researching the process of designing, developing, and using telecollaboration (also known as online intercultural exchange) to facilitate the learning of both linguistic and intercultural communicative competence (ICC) in higher education courses in different educational contexts in the United States, Europe, and Asia. Although telecollaboration would intuitively seem to be an ideal medium for learning another language and about another culture, extensive research has shown that this learning process takes years and faces many challenges. This paper situates the research on language and culture learning within the broader scope of language and intercultural education (see Pedagogies, 8(2), for a report of an interview with Michael Byram, one of the originators of the concept of ICC). A multinational example of the integration of telecollaborative networks in European university language classes collaborating online, the INTENT project, is described. In addition, a telling case, the Cultura model, implemented in the United States, Europe, and Asia, demonstrates a successful approach (with accompanying research) to telecollaboration for language and culture learning. However, there are also invisible factors and unanticipated challenges that teachers and learners need to understand in order to benefit from these telecollaborative environments; these are examined at the end of the article.     

A comparison between the WISC and WISC-R among educable mentally retarded students

The study compared differences and similarities between WISC and WISC-R scores for 48 ten- and thirteen-year-old EMR students, who were matched according to sex and race. The WISC-R yielded significantly lower VS, PS, and FS IQ scores than the WISC for this predominantly rural Georgia population. The FS IQ scores from the WISC-R averaged 7.5 points lower than the WISC FS IQs, with similar differences noted for VS and PS scores. There was no significant difference in FS IQs between the two age groups. Results suggest that many children classified as “Borderline” or slightly above by the WISC will be classified as “Mentally Deficient” by the WISC-R.