Teaching and learning birth: "help all to know"

This guest editorial explores the idea that our worldview, regardless of education, influences our childbirth practices, sometimes interfering with achieving the goals of our discipline. Over time, we have lost our ability to support women through the process of childbirth so that they emerge as strong, healthy women. The high road ahead is to teach everyone, including ourselves, that we need to provide optimal, evidence-based care. Pursuing this path will take courage and commitment.     

Do pre-visit preparation and post-visit activities improve student outcomes on field trips?

Abstract

Studies of individual environmental education (EE) field trip programs have found that pre-visit preparation and post-visit follow-up activities can enhance desired student outcomes. We examined these relationships across a broad sample of single-day EE field trip programs for adolescent youth (grades 5-8) across the United States. We measured student outcomes, reflecting environmental literacy, 21^st century skills, positive youth development, and student learning, through end-of-visit retrospective student surveys and follow-up surveys with visiting teachers two weeks after the field trip. Pre-visit logistical preparation as well as both pre-visit preparation and post-visit follow-up related to the subject matter were each associated with more positive student outcomes. The study provides further evidence across a large sample of programs that pre-visit preparation and post-visit follow-up can have meaningful impacts on student outcomes for EE field trips. We discuss the implications of the findings and provide examples and guidance for future programming efforts.     

The Long-Term Follow-up of Severely Malnourished Children Who Participated in an Intervention Program

18 severely malnourished children (IM) who participated in a 3-year home-visiting program were compared with 2 other comparison groups comprising 17 severely malnourished (NIM) and 19 adequately nourished children (controls). On enrollment, all the groups were in the same hospital, and both malnourished groups had lower developmental levels than the controls. The IM group received intervention for 3 years after hospitalization, consisting of weekly or 2 weekly home visits with toy demonstrations. At 7, 8, 9, and 14 years after leaving the hospital, the 3 groups were compared on tests of school achievement and IQ. The NIM group showed no sign of reducing their deficits, and at the 14-year follow-up they had markedly lower scores on the WISC verbal and performance scales, the Wide Range Achievement Test (WRAT), and the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT), than the controls. Throughout the follow-up the IM group's scores were intermediate between the NIM and the controls in every test. At the 14-year follow-up, their scores were significantly higher than those of the NIM group in the WISC verbal scale, and the difference approached significance in the WRAT. We conclude that psychosocial intervention should be an integral part of treatment for severely malnourished children.     

KEEPING IT LIVE: STAFF DEVELOPMENT AS AN ESSENTIAL PART OF THE CHANGE PROCESS

This cross‐institutional evaluation assesses the effectiveness of promoting staff development as the central strategy for change within the EATE initiative. Increasingly, in institutions of initial teacher education as elsewhere, accountability requires output‐oriented staff who are able to attain given targets at reasonable cost. This “impact” case study is both explanatory and confirmatory, justifying the process of change specified by EATE in relation to organisational efficiency, current relevance and need.

The evaluation demonstrates how change can be effectively managed to improve teaching and learning within a short time scale and how EATE has played a critical part in opening up institutions to working with the business community, an integral element of the EATE strategy previously seldom encountered within initial teacher education.

The EATE initiative sought behavioural changes in participants through raising awareness, identifying the catalysts, better networking, the critical support of management and the business community, in order to keep it live and consequently embed thechange. Whilst staff in differing institutions perceived and defined some changes differently, the evidence suggests that strategies employed by EATE have been and are being efficient and effective contributors to the process of change.     

Whose curriculum? Critical notes on integration and entitlement

ABSTRACT

This paper considers the way in which current notions of integration and curriculum entitlement may disadvantage pupils with exceptional needs. An illustrative case of a pupil with profound and multiple learning difficulties is discussed along with general issues of entitlement arising, and the implications for that individual. Through an examination of the effects of the criteria for ‘being educated’ that result from the implementation of the National Curriculum in the UK, we question current perceptions of issues such as normalization, age appropriateness and 'integration’. We use a case study of a child with autism to question whether his educational interests are best served by current notions of integrated education. We suggest a broader notion of education that encompasses rather than contrasts with care, and suggest that curriculum entitlement should involve common curricular principles rather than common curricular content and should not deny within‐child factors. We further suggest that ‘integration’ should be reconceptualized as 'inclusion’ and we query the features that make educational needs ‘special’     

Solving Word Problems Using Schemas: A Review of the Literature

Solving word problems is a difficult task for students at‐risk for or with learning disabilities (LD). One instructional approach that has emerged as a valid method for helping students at‐risk for or with LD to become more proficient at word‐problem solving is using schemas. A schema is a framework for solving a problem. With a schema, students are taught to recognize problems as falling within word‐problem types and to apply a problem solution method that matches that problem type. This review highlights two schema approaches for second‐ and third‐grade students at‐risk for or with LD: schema‐based instruction and schema‐broadening instruction. A total of 12 schema studies were reviewed and synthesized. Both types of schema approaches enhanced the word‐problem skill of students at‐risk for or with LD. Based on the review, suggestions are provided for incorporating word‐problem instruction using schemas.