Service Learning and Early Childhood Education: Intersection of Developmentally Appropriate Practice and P.A.R.E.

ABSTRACT

Service learning (SL) is both a pedagogy and philosophy adopted by many early childhood teacher educators. Extant research suggests the incorporation of service-learning can be effective for facilitating preservice teacher learning of curriculum, pedagogy, approaches to diverse learners and families as well as establishing a professional identity. To guide the intentional adoption of SL and its assessment in early childhood teacher education programs, the authors present the Developmentally Appropriate Practice /P.A.R.E. model and illustrate how the model might be applied in a teacher education program. Challenges to incorporating service-learning in early childhood education programs and future areas of research are described.     

Who benefits from dyadic teacher–student interactions in whole-class settings?

To what extent can teacher–student dyadic interactions modify the hierarchy of student performances within a single class? To answer this insufficiently researched question, the authors conducted two parallel studies involving 33 Grade 5 classes in France (759 students) and 15 Grade 5 classes in Luxembourg (243 students). Interactions were observed during whole-class lessons. Posttest scores were analyzed using multilevel models controlling for five level-1 variables and two level-2 variables. The authors did not find any effect of dyadic interactions on relative student performance in mathematics or in language (French or German), in France or in Luxembourg. This result is interpreted in terms of both the public character of dyadic interactions in whole-class settings and the class management functions of these interactions.     

A reading-level match study of phonemic processes underlying reading disabilities in a transparent orthography

The current study examined the relationship in Spanish (i.e., a transparent orthography) between different levels of phonological awareness and reading disabilities. In addition, the strategies used by the children when they resolved phoneme segmentation and reversal tasks were analyzed. A sample of 133 subjects were selected and organized in three different groups: (1) A group of 45 reading-disabled children, (2) A comparison group of 44 normal readers matched in age with the reading disabled, and (3) A reading level match group of 44 younger normal readers at the same reading level as the reading disabled. Three phonological awareness tasks were used to measure levels of intrasyllabic and phonemic awareness. The reading disabled group was equivalent to the younger reading level-matched control group in the odd-word-out task. However, there were differences in the phonemic tasks (e.g., phoneme segmentation and reversal) because the reading disabled group performed more poorly than the younger children. Overall, the children matched in age with the reading disabled group were superior in all phonological awareness tasks. There were differences between the groups when the strategies used by the children were analyzed.     

What Does it Mean to Question?

The purpose of this paper is two fold: first, to tease out the meaning inherent in the correlativity of the question and answer process and second, to suggest a philosophical answer to the question “What does it mean to question?” in the context of teacher education. To that end, we want to claim that R.G. Collingwood’s “Logic of Question and Answer” is a valuable tool in filling the gap in scholarship concerning the art of questioning. While research into the activity of teaching often emphasizes the role and effectiveness of questioning, these studies have largely focussed on the strategies and results of the practice of questioning. We argue that they place too little emphasis on making sense of the process itself and that more time should be spent on the Logic of Question and Answer. To accomplish our goal, in Collingwoodian form, we will contextualize an example of how the understanding of the question and answer complex informs the practice of teacher education in the specific area of the Social Studies Methods Course.     

Does social justice count? ‘Lived democracy’ in mathematics classes in diverse Swedish upper secondary programmes

This article analyses what students attending four Swedish upper secondary school programmes with different social class profiles tried and wanted to influence in relation to mathematics teachers’ pedagogic practice and responses during the year 2008/2009. The theoretical framework is based on Bernstein’s theories regarding power and control. The analyses draw on ethnographic observations of classes taking the Natural Science and Social Science academic programmes, and the Vehicle and Child and Recreation vocational programmes, at two Swedish upper secondary schools. Students attending different programmes tried to influence the teaching. However, what the students taking the academic and vocational programmes were able to influence considerably differed. Generally, the vocational students exerted influence more successfully when they wanted to reduce the pace and difficulty of teaching, than when they wished to get more out of their education, while the opposite applied to the academic, especially Natural Science, students. Thus, the power relations reflected the programmes’ social class profiles and the students’ expected positions in society, despite policies at the time to promote democracy and reduce social reproduction in education. The findings support the importance of analysing not only students’ voices, but also their voices in relation to the pedagogic practice they encounter.     

Towards learning analytics adoption: A mixed methods study of data-related practices and policies in Latin American universities

In Latin American universities, Learning Analytics (LA) has been perceived as a promising opportunity to leverage data to meet the needs of a diverse student cohort. Although universities have been collecting educational data for years, the adoption of LA in this region is still limited due to the lack of expertise and policies for processing and using educational data. In order to get a better picture of how existing data-related practices and policies might affect the incorporation of LA in Latin American institutions, we conducted a mixed methods study in four Latin American universities (two Chilean and two Ecuadorian). In this paper, the qualitative data were based on 37 interviews with managers and 16 focus groups with 51 teaching staff and 45 students; the quantitative data were collected through two surveys answered by 1884 students and 368 teachers, respectively. The findings reveal opportunities to incorporate LA services into existing data practices in the four case studies. However, the lack of reliable information systems and policies to regulate the use of data imposes challenges that need to be overcome for future LA adoption.     

Writing with imagination: the influence of hot and cold executive functions in children with autism characteristics and typically developing peers

Reading and Writing - The current study investigated the extent cognitive and emotion regulation deficits (i.e., executive functions) associated with autism impact on the development of imagination...     

The Teaching and Learning of Values Through Television

This study is based on the hypothesis that television contents themselves constitute a source of learning through television narratives. In specific terms, we defend the idea that it is possible to teach and learn values through said narratives. Some of the research dealing with the relationship between television and values is categorized from a three-fold standpoint: the contents themselves, the medium itself and the language. As a result of this review, we maintain that reiterated attacks on television, blaming it for the majority of problems suffered by young people today, are not supported by the studies carried out by psychologists over recent decades. We believe that viewers incorporate the information provided by television from different contexts and that the enculturation is not unidirectional. There is an interrelation between development contexts and messages. We are specifically interested in analyzing the implicit and explicit values underlying television contents. Thus, based on the model developed by Schwartz and Bilsky, we have compiled a questionnaire (Val-TV 0.1) with the aim of classifying values and interpreting the behaviours visualized in television texts, and relating them to adolescents’ own values.     

“I'm not in the best educational establishment,so what?” Effects of membership in more or less prestigious educational establishments on intergroup perceptions

The present study tests the assumption that the stable vs. unstable character of the structural relationship between groups influences the type of bias to which differentiation may lead, and affects the likelihood of identification with one's ingroup. Study 1 was conducted in Canada with university students and Study 2 in two French highschools; they both measured the impact of membership in a prestigious vs. a non-prestigious group on intergroup perceptions. In the Canadian sample, the structural relationship between groups was unstable, in a way that status asymmetry due to prestige differences might in time be eased out to the advantage of the less prestigious group. In the French study, the structural relationship was stable and not likely to evolve. As predicted, data from both samples' prestigious groups demonstrate a clear ingroup bias. Students from the less prestigious Canadian university situated in an ascending movement did not judge their competencies as lower than those of the prestigious university students, and further expressed the wish to enrol their children in their own university rather than the prestigious university. As expected, data collected from French high school students in the less prestigious study programme demonstrate a clear outgroup bias. Contrary to the initial hypothesis, in Canada, the prestigious university students identify less strongly with their ingroup than the less prestigious university students. This effect may be interpreted as participants distancing themselves from their ingroup prototype and it was also observed in the students of the prestigious study programme in the French high schools.     

Parental involvement in the development of children's reading skill: a five-year longitudinal study

This article presents the findings of the final phase of a 5-year longitudinal study with 168 middle- and upper middle-class children in which the complex relations among early home literacy experiences, subsequent receptive language and emergent literacy skills, and reading achievement were examined. Results showed that children's exposure to books was related to the development of vocabulary and listening comprehension skills, and that these language skills were directly related to children's reading in grade 3. In contrast, parent involvement in teaching children about reading and writing words was related to the development of early literacy skills. Early literacy skills directly predicted word reading at the end of grade 1 and indirectly predicted reading in grade 3. Word reading at the end of grade 1 predicted reading comprehension in grade 3. Thus, the various pathways that lead to fluent reading have their roots in different aspects of children's early experiences.