The Function of Executive Function: Everyday Manifestations of Regulated Thinking in Preschool Settings

Executive function (EF) encompasses higher-order mental processes necessary for the conscious control of thought and action in the service of goals. Once thought not to apply to children at all, EF is now at the center of a burgeoning body of research on young children over the last 10–15 years indicating that it is a critical foundation of school readiness and performance. Despite the widely agreed relevance of EF to the transition to formal learning, findings have not yet been applied to preschool classrooms in any widespread way. Part of the reason for this is that despite general agreement on the broad definition of EF, the subdomains EF comprises—especially in early life while it is emerging—are still a matter of debate. It is therefore a challenge to bring the relevant concepts down to an even further level of granularity, i.e., specific behaviors ecologically grounded in everyday preschool interactions. We took the initial steps of this challenge by curating EF-related behaviors from the extant literature, expert and master teacher interviews, and observations in high-quality preschool classrooms into a new protocol called Preschool-Setting Executive Function. This observational system includes child behaviors as well as teacher support behaviors that encourage children’s organized, higher-order thinking. We then employed the final protocol in an additional set of classrooms to provide an initial assessment of its usefulness in identifying “EF in context.” Results indicate (1) EF and EF-support behaviors are low-frequency occurring, (2) children are more engaged in organized thinking than teachers are in the support of it, (3) teachers’ presence, especially if they are expanding play, promotes children’s real-time EF-behaviors. Results are discussed in terms of how this system may be used as a basis for future professional development to enhance teacher practice around the promotion of EF.     

Contemporaneous and Longitudinal Prediction of Children's Social Functioning from Regulation and Emotionality

Relations of regulation and emotionality to social functioning were examined for 77 children followed from early to middle school age. Parents and teachers reported on children's social behavior, emotionality, and regulation, and children engaged in analogue peer conflict situations (i.e., with puppets). High-quality social functioning was predicted by high regulation and low levels of nonconstructive coping, nevatige emotionality, and general emotional intensity. Prediction often was obtained across reporters and time, although prediction was strongest within context (home versus school). Moreover, measures of regulation and emotionality frequently contributed unque variance to the prediction of social functioning. Contemporaneous correlations at age 8–10 were similar to those obtained at age 6–8, and prediction of later social functioning from emotionality and regulation at age 4–6 was similar at ages 6–8 and 8–10.     

Development of temporal-reconstructive abilities

In a study of the ability to reconstruct the times of past events, 86 children from 4 to 13 years recalled the times of 2 in-class demonstrations that had occurred 3 months earlier and judged the times of hypothetical events. Many of the abilities needed to reconstruct the times of events were present by 6 years, including the capacity to interpret many temporally relevant cues, but there were substantial changes well into middle childhood in the availability of temporally useful episodic information. Children were poor at remembering the events' proximity or order with respect to a major holiday, but the order of the 2 target events was well recalled by 6 years.     

Japanese and United States Preschool Children's Responses to Conflict and Distress

Japanese and U.S. preschool children's responses to hypothetical interpersonal dilemmas were examined as a function of culture, gender, and maternal child-rearing values. U.S. children showed more anger, more aggressive behavior and language, and underregulation of emotion than Japanese children, across different contexts of assessment. Children from the 2 cultures appeared more similar on prosocial and avoidant patterns, though in some contexts U.S. children also showed more prosocial themes. Girls from both cultures expressed more prosocial themes and sometimes more anger than boys. Maternal encouragement of children's emotional expressivity was correlated with anger and aggression in children. It was more characteristic of U.S. than Japanese mothers, while emphasis on psychological discipline (reasoning; guilt and anxiety induction) was more characteristic of Japanese than U.S. mothers. The relevance of a conceptual framework that focuses on differences in Eastern and Western cultures in self-construals regarding independence and interdependence is considered.     

A Case Study in the Integration of Assessment and General Education: Lessons learned from a complex process

This paper tracks an ongoing, 15-year initiative to reform and assess a general education programme at a regional comprehensive university in the US. The paper identifies four key phases in the process, chronicling emergent challenges, describing key setbacks and highlighting noteworthy successes. The authors identify five key lessons that may prove useful to other institutions planning or currently attempting to integrate assessment into their general education programme, and conclude that designing and implementing general education assessment is more challenging than assessing other programmes in post-secondary settings because it is influenced by more internal and external constituencies than any other assessment process.     

Machine‐mediated instruction for work‐force training and education

Abstract

This paper reviews developments in the work force as they bear on training needs from entry level skills through professional continuing education. It summarizes the state of the art in various categories of information technology as they apply to education and training, including interactive videodisc, satellite communications systems, videotex, and artificial intelligence methods. These technologies and their potential are illustrated through case study examples. Policy recommendations are presented for governmental, industrial, and higher educational institution initiatives.     

Non-abandonment as a foundation for inclusive school practice

The authors of this article describe an essential feature of inclusive educational practice: non-abandonment. When students’ needs and difficult behavior are overwhelming, teachers may abandon them emotionally as a defensive reaction to their own experience of emotional distress and helplessness. Non-abandonment represents a constructive strategy for dealing with these students based on the psychodynamic concepts of containing and holding. The authors provide a theoretical grounding for the processes of abandonment and non-abandonment, and then illustrate how these two processes play themselves out in school practice, drawing on action research conducted with educators in Israeli schools. They then describe eight elements in an active strategy of non-abandonment. These are: (1) make a conscious choice to assume professional responsibility for these students; (2) “stand by” students whose behaviour leads others to abandon them; (3) reframe self-defeating ways of thinking to open new avenues for action; (4) attempt to understand students’ real needs, including emotional ones; (5) adapt teaching practice to meet these needs, even going beyond traditional pedagogy; (6) create school frameworks in which teachers can systematically reflect on and improve practice; (7) address teachers’ emotional needs by making their own negative feelings openly discussable; and (8) promote teamwork and supportive relations among school faculty based on honest feedback and mutual non-abandonment.     

Measuring the promise of Big Data syllabi

Growing interest in Big Data is leading industries, academics and governments to accelerate Big Data research. However, how teachers should teach Big Data has not been fully examined. This article suggests criteria for redesigning Big Data syllabi in public and private degree-awarding higher education establishments. The author conducted a survey of 35 Big Data syllabi across different academic institutions in the USA using Palmer, Bach, and Streifer’s rubric criteria. The role of syllabi in higher education has an established tradition in summarising topics covered in a single course and textbook, and in referencing the instructor’s resources. Yet, despite the central role of course resources, the present study did not find a common textbook. The majority of resources referenced were academic articles and blog postings used by the instructors and other professionals in the field. Based on Palmer et al.’s score rubric, this study found that many of the syllabi broke down the main ideas of Big Data into smaller content items using interpretations of the instructor’s subject knowledge. The study recommends that Big Data instructors need to provide a better breakdown of each component of the syllabus to reflect a clear understanding of grades and resources available on the subject. Future studies also need to examine students’ expectations of those classes.     

Our Language: (Re)Imagining Communities in Ukrainian Language Classrooms

Drawing upon video recordings from two fifth-grade Ukrainian classrooms and interviews with children four years later, this paper examines these classrooms as sites for socializing learners into an imagined community of Ukrainian speakers, the extent to which children took up identities as members of this community, and the potential effect of this identification on willingness to learn and use Ukrainian. Microanalysis of classroom interaction illustrates how teachers drew upon prevailing discourses of language and nation in ways that both presupposed and sought to create children’s membership in an imagined national community whose core practices included affiliation with Ukrainian as “our language.” However, interview data reveal that while children readily aligned with this imagined community and voiced its language ideologies, they positioned themselves as peripheral members or alternatively reimagined an alternative, multilingual Ukrainian community.