Developmental change in the ERP responses to familiar faces in toddlers with autism spectrum disorders versus typical development

Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) show differences in face processing abilities from early in development. To examine whether these differences reflect an atypical versus delayed developmental trajectory, neural responses to familiar and unfamiliar faces in twenty-four 18- to 47-month-old children with ASD were compared with responses of thirty-two 12- to 30-month-old typically developing children. Results of 2 experiments revealed that neural responses to faces in children with ASD resembled those observed in younger typically developing children, suggesting delayed development. Electrophysiological responses to faces were also related to parent report of adaptive social behaviors for both children with ASD and typical development. Slower development of the face processing system in ASD may be related to reduced self-directed "expected" experience with faces in early development.     

CSRP's Impact on low-income preschoolers' preacademic skills: self-regulation as a mediating mechanism

Based on theoretically driven models, the Chicago School Readiness Project (CSRP) targeted low-income children's school readiness through the mediating mechanism of self-regulation. The CSRP is a multicomponent, cluster-randomized efficacy trial implemented in 35 Head Start-funded classrooms (N = 602 children). The analyses confirm that the CSRP improved low-income children's self-regulation skills (as indexed by attention/impulse control and executive function) from fall to spring of the Head Start year. Analyses also suggest significant benefits of CSRP for children's preacademic skills, as measured by vocabulary, letter-naming, and math skills. Partial support was found for improvement in children's self-regulation as a hypothesized mediator for children's gains in academic readiness. Implications for programs and policies that support young children's behavioral health and academic success are discussed.     

Ethnicity and gender gaps in early childhood

Gender differences in academic performance and achievement have been of policy concern for decades—both interest in lower performance by girls in the areas of mathematics and science and, more recently, in boys' underperformance in most other academic areas. Much previous research has focused on gender gaps, while overlooking other factors that may play a role, such as ethnicity. This study looks at the gender differences in cognitive assessments at age five across ethnic groups in a sample of English children from the Millennium Cohort Study. While girls generally perform better than boys, general trends mask some differences across ethnic groups. Results show gender gaps at the mean are largest for black and Pakistani and Bangladeshi children and smallest for white children, they are also larger for the teacher‐rated assessments than for the survey‐administered tests.     

Professional Development for School Library Media Professionals: Elements for Success

The American Association for School Librarians suggests an important mission for school librarians is to ensure personal growth through ongoing exposure to conferences, journal articles, webinars, presentations, and membership in professional organizations. As professional educators, School Librarians should exemplify the vision for being life-long learners. Methods and means to grow in the profession should be evaluated and examined for elements that lead to success in growth and maturity as professionals in school library media. This article investigates the attributes of successful professional development experiences which include learning environment, characteristics of learners, methodologies, and instructional design of staff development workshops.     

Surgeons as medical school educators: an untapped resource

Despite extensive experience teaching residents, surgeons are an untapped resource for educating medical students. We hypothesized that by involving surgeons as teachers earlier in the medical school curriculum, medical students' interest in surgery will increase and their opinions of surgeons will improve. Five programs designed to involve surgeons as educators in the medical school curriculum were implemented. The first program, started in 2008, introduced surgical faculty into the first-year medical student anatomy dissection laboratories. Other programs initiated in 2008 included: Surgical Clinical Correlates in Anatomy, which involved faculty teaching through cadaver surgery; Clinical Pathologic Conferences in Anatomy, a surgeon-led conference based on clinical cases; and a women's faculty-student mentorship program. Table Rounds, a surgeon-led anatomy review that used clinical scenarios to quiz students was begun in 2009. All five programs were successfully integrated into the medical school curriculum. While student opinion of surgeons as educators improved, there were no significant changes in student interest in surgery as a career nor change in performance on written examinations over the Anatomy content covered by the surgeons. Surgical faculty and trainees can be integrated into the medical school curriculum. Involving surgeons as educators earlier in the medical school curriculum may have longer term effects than could be observed in this study. At a minimum, the experience improved student opinion of surgeons as educators.     

Learning in the practicum: engaging pre-service teachers in reflective practice in the online space

It is argued that online discussion is a useful tool for creating opportunities for learning in teacher education. In a project designed to improve the practicum in rural areas, researchers placed pre-service teachers (PSTs) in two different moderated online discussion forums: an unstructured personal blog space and a structured threaded discussion forum where discussion topics guided them to reflect on their practicum experiences in relation to theoretical components of their studies. Findings indicated a marked difference in the contributions made to each form of online discussion with significantly greater participation in the unstructured blog format. Using Kreber and Cranton’s hierarchy of reflection, analyses of both forums found that PSTs rarely engaged in high-level reflection. Examination of lecturer involvement in the forums suggests that their contributions did not sufficiently encourage PSTs towards optimum critical reflection. These results leave the researchers considering ways in which the practicum experience can better promote reflective practice in this crucial, component of teacher education.     

Distributed leadership with the aim of ‘reculturing’: a departmental case study

This article considers a secondary science department that has, since 2000, developed distributed leadership as a form of human capacity building. Using a longitudinal ethnographic case study allowed us to consider how distributed leadership can be nurtured and developed in a department. Our analysis centres on two key issues: the nature and pattern of distributed leadership practices and the continuity that provides coherence to those practices. From our analysis, there appear to be two major conclusions. The first of these is the need for administrators to be purposeful in the appointments that they make to formal leadership positions. To enact distributed leadership practices requires leaders who can exercise both formal power and influence. The second conclusion relates to the time required for continuity of leadership practices to give rise to changes that lead to teachers managing the teaching and learning programme.     

Future Sex Educator Perceptions of Rural Versus Urban Instruction: A Case for Community-Centered Sexual Health Education

Instructors of sexual health courses in rural areas face unique challenges as they are often forced to use school-based prevention curricula field-tested in urban areas. Research has yet to consider what future sex educators’ regional expectations are for their profession and how those expectations might have an impact on the classroom. Drawing from interviews with 26 sex-educators-in-training, we find that future educators tended to expect that rural communities would be less diverse, more conservative, and less informed about sexual health matters, even though research demonstrates that today's rural communities inconsistently align with those perceptions.     

Use and Perceptions of E-books by Academic Staff in Further Education

This article reports on a study of the awareness, perceptions and use of e-books by academic staff in Further Education (FE) colleges throughout Northern Ireland (NI). It is the first comprehensive study of e-book use by FE faculty in NI and fills a significant gap in the research literature on e-books in education, which has tended to focus on Higher Education and the university setting. Data was collected through an online survey which was distributed to FE faculty across NI. The findings show that although FE academic staff are receptive to e-books and welcome them as a resource, poor reading experience and lack of awareness of relevant titles have had an impact. In particular, the research found that 40% of academic staff, in post less than five years, had not used e-books. Greater availability of titles, promotion, and better integration within teaching and learning emerge as key requisites for effective service delivery and enhancement of e-books within FE, as does the need for better targeted instruction and training aimed at academic staff. Understanding patrons' views, awareness, needs, habits and expectations in relation to e-books is crucial to help direct collection content while budgets remain tight and physical space limited.