“I don’t think that word means what you think it means”: A proposed framework for defining learning communities

In this paper we address the obfuscation surrounding the concept of learning communities by operationalizing community according to four characteristics that serve as boundaries for defining a community: access, relationships, vision, and function. Although these community boundaries sometimes overlap, they represent distinctive features of possible community structures. In addition to defining and discussing learning community boundaries, we share insights for researching learning communities. We believe a clearer understanding of how to define learning communities can assist scholars and practitioners in cultivating and studying these communities.     

Computational Efficiency through Visual Argument: Do Graphic Organizers Communicate Relations in Text Too Effectively?

Previous research on graphic organizers has found that they facilitate memory for corresponding text. This study investigated why one type of graphic organizer (a matrix) may communicate interconcept relations more effectively than an outline or text. In three experiments, college students judged the accuracy of interconcept relations after they read a text and studied a matrix, an outline, or the text again. We also measured students′ performance when study time was reduced and testing delayed. Results indicated that even when study time was reduced, viewing a matrix helped students make more accurate judgments of interconcept relations. We conclude that a matrix is more computationally efficient than an outline or text, enabling readers to compute interconcept relations more quickly and easily (Larkin & Simon, 1987), due to a communicative process called visual argument (Waller, 1981). However, this advantage disappeared when testing was delayed, which, ironically, may have been due to computational efficiency.     

Increasing Situational Interest in the Classroom

This paper explores three ways to increase situational interest in the classroom. Situational interest is defined as temporary interest that arises spontaneously due to environmental factors such as task instructions or an engaging text. We review the history of interest research and summarize recent empirical work. We describe three ways to increase interest based on offering meaningful choices to students, selecting well-organized texts that promote interest, and providing the background knowledge needed to fully understand a topic. We conclude with six specific suggestions for increasing situational interest in the classroom.     

The Accomplishment of Divergence

The situated development of South Asian communities in the UK has led to the growth of a number of schools in which ‘ethnic minority’ pupils form a majority. Such a situation throws into higher relief issues and concerns surrounding cultural transmission and encounter, and communicative competence.

This paper recounts some of the principal findings of research in which the teaching staff of a large 9‐13 middle school were interviewed individually regarding their perceptions of their South Asian pupils. The school has an almost wholly South Asian intake and is situated near the centre of a large northern city.

The teachers’ markedly deficit view of their charges is detailed and this is followed by an explanation of their constructions in microsociological terms. A model is presented which clarifies the processes by which close intercultural interaction seem to accomplish worlds as divergent.

The author teaches children with special educational needs at the school in which the study was undertaken.     

STUDY COURSE PROVISION IN HIGHER EDUCATION: A CASE STUDY

This paper describes the origins, development and characteristics of a study course for teacher‐education and industrial‐design undergraduates. Starting from identification by a handful of staff of a range of student needs, the course developed an informal, gaming approach that encouraged pooling of and reflection on a wide range of participants' study practices. This approach was found to require, and indeed to prove inseparable from, a broader reflection on the roles and rules, processes, products and assessment of undergraduate study. Staff — staff and staff — student negotiations, stimulated by the processes of planning, delivering and reflecting upon this course, come to be seen as constituting a promising kind of staff and curriculum development.     

The influence of feedback of diagnosis and executive function skills on rates of false positive and false negative outcomes for ADHD

This study examined executive function (EF) skills and self-reported symptoms of ADHD. EF skills were measured to determine whether skills were different between groups that reported clinical levels of ADHD symptoms (clinical group) and nonclinical levels of ADHD symptoms (nonclinical group). EF skills in the nonclinical group were also investigated to determine whether differences existed for those who received false positive and negative feedback about an ADHD diagnosis. Results indicated statistically and clinically significant differences in EF skills between the clinical and nonclinical group. Participants in the nonclinical group who reported elevated scores on the ADHD screener after receiving false positive feedback had statistically significantly different EF function scores, but not clinically significant scores, compared to the participants in nonclinical group who received negative feedback.     

An Evaluation of Schoolwide Early Language and Literacy (SWELL) in Six Disadvantaged Schools

A within‐school evaluation of Schoolwide Early Language and Literacy (SWELL) was undertaken in six disadvantaged schools in NSW in 1995 and 1996 using a sample of Kindergarten students in each school before (control group) and after (experimental group) the implementation of SWELL. As many control and experimental students as could be accessed were tested on four different early literacy measures when they were mid‐way through Year 1. Assessment at the end of the Kindergarten year and mid‐way through Year 1 indicated that experimental students significantly outperformed their control counterparts on tests measuring pseudoword decoding and reading connected text at the end of Kindergarten, and on tests measuring pseudoword decoding, reading connected text, invented spelling, and a standardised reading measure mid‐way through Year 1.     

The Developmental Sequence and Relations Between Gesture and Spoken Language in Toddlers With Autism Spectrum Disorder

In typical development, gestures precede and predict language development. This study examines the developmental sequence of expressive communication and relations between specific gestural and language milestones in toddlers with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), who demonstrate marked difficulty with gesture production and language. Communication skills across five stages (gestures, word approximations, first words, gesture-word combinations, and two-word combinations) were assessed monthly by blind raters for toddlers with ASD participating in an randomized control trial of parent-mediated treatment (N = 42, 12–30 months). Findings revealed that toddlers acquired skills following a reliable (vs. idiosyncratic) sequence and the majority of toddlers combined gestures with words before combining words in speech, but in contrast to the pattern observed in typical development, a significant subset acquired pointing after first words.     

Whose memories, whose archives? Independent community archives, autonomy and the mainstream

Over the last three or four decades in the United Kingdom and elsewhere, an enormous variety of grassroots projects and initiatives have sprung up dedicated to recording and preserving the memories and histories of different communities, often under-voiced and under-represented within the mainstream heritage. The impetus for such projects arose from a range of motivations but in general all were responding to the desire to document, record and preserve the identity and history of their own locality and community. Some custodians and creators of these collections remain suspicious of the mainstream archival profession and are determined to preserve their independence and autonomous voice by retaining direct ownership and physical custodianship of their collections, at least for the foreseeable future. In this context, seeking to ensure that these valuable materials are preserved and possibly made accessible presents a number of challenges and opportunities, including an encouragement to re-examine some aspects of traditional professional practice. By examining independent community archive activity in the UK, and in particular in London, and its implications for community interaction and identity within the multicultural context of contemporary British culture and society, this article seeks to contribute a different but relevant perspective to international debates about contemporary professional archival theory and practice.