Interaction between the teacher and the congenitally deafblind child

Empirical data on the development of interaction, communication, and language in deafblind children is very rare. To fill this gap, a case study was conducted in which the interaction between a teacher and a deafblind boy age 3 years 4 months was analyzed. Sequential analysis of their interaction confirmed some general clinical impressions about interaction with deafblind children, and provided the basis for suggestions on how the interaction pattern might be changed.     

Weak and strong novice readers of english as a foreign language: Effects of first language and socioeconomic status

This study examined individual differences among beginning readers of English as a foreign language (EFL). The study concentrated on the effects of underlying first language (L1) knowledge as well as EFL letter and vocabulary knowledge. Phonological and morphological awareness, spelling, vocabulary knowledge, and word reading in Hebrew L1, in addition to knowledge of EFL letters and EFL vocabulary, were measured. The study also investigated the effect of socioeconomic background (SES) on beginning EFL readers. Participants included 145 fourth graders from three schools representing two socioeconomic backgrounds in the north of Israel. The results indicate that knowledge of English letters played a more prominent role than knowledge of Hebrew L1 components in differentiating between strong and weak EFL readers. The Linguistic Coding Differences Hypothesis was supported by L1 phonological awareness, word reading, and vocabulary knowledge appearing as part of discriminating functions. The presence of English vocabulary knowledge as part of the discriminant functions provides support for English word reading being more than just a decoding task for EFL beginner readers. Socioeconomic status differentiated the groups for EFL word recognition but not for EFL reading comprehension.     

Meeting the highly qualified teachers challenge

The moulding of the future of a nation depends on the teachers and the education they provide in schools. Research evidence from the US. National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) confirms this to be the case. Quantitative analysis of data indicates that measures associated with pre-service teacher preparation are by far the strongest correlates of student achievement (Darling-Hammond 2000). The research report of Wilson, Floden, and Ferrini-Mundy (2001) also suggests a strong relationship between teacher preparation and teacher effectiveness. Other research studies similarly indicate that differences in teacher quality are the most crucial for student achievement when compared with variables such as class size, streaming, or the amount of homework (Anderson & Helms 2001; Mendro 1998; Powell & Anderson 2002; Rivkin, Hanushek & Kain 2001; Saunders & Horn 1994; Strong & Tucker 2000) as possible contributory factors. In the pursuit of improved student achievement, we therefore need to examine seriously the role of teacher variables, ranging from teacher qualifications and their subject matter knowledge, to what motivates them to take up teaching as a career and as a consequence, how they teach in classrooms.     

A ramble through the cell: how can we clear such a complicated trail?

The arrangement of course information in a logical sequence for molecular life science (MLS) courses remains a matter of some controversy, even within a single subdiscipline such as biochemistry. This is due to the explosion of knowledge, the latest bioinformatic revelations, and the observation that new discoveries sometimes reveal specific connections between previously disparate topics. However, the general outlines of biomedical information are in place, at least the knowledge that should be conveyed to undergraduates taking cell and molecular biology and biochemistry. Despite the increasing amount and complexity of the information to be presented, integration and unification are possible because the molecular reactions and interactions that underlie all life processes are coming into view: they are common to all cellular structural rearrangements, nucleic acid functions, and biochemical reactions, whether of plant or animal origin. Also, it is no longer possible to draw clear boundaries between cell biology, biochemistry, and molecular biology that would not violate the fundamental unity of our understanding. Therefore, an arrangement of content is proposed for a two-semester course that aims to present a unified portrait of upper-division undergraduate MLS.     

Sunshine Dialogue II

Abstract

The ideal of bildung as a goal for higher education and research (HER) in European Union member states is losing ground to more pragmatic goals such as innovation and growth. This shift in the policy perspective about the role of science in society has given rise to a system of multi layered governance which in turn is progressively giving rise to the emergence of a new normative regime for the HER sector. This normative regime involves the blurring of boundaries between the public and the private and the introduction of social accountability as a criterion for evaluating scientific knowledge. The paper concludes that the elision of the boundary between private and public disguises real problems about defining who owns what particularly in the light of the increasing commercialisation of public funded science. Further, the limitation of social accountability to select groups of actors who can afford to pay for influencing research raises questions about the ability of the new governance regime for HER to achieve the democratic aims that it purports to pursue.     

Individual and group performance of computerized educational tasks

This study examines the conditions under which task performance is accomplished more efficiently by a single individual or a group. 116 participants, ranging in age from high school level through holders of Master’s degrees, 58 women and the same number of men, were presented with a computer game based on educational software, arranged in five levels of difficulty. A comparison was made of the speed in which objectives were attained when performed individually and when divided among groups of two to four partners, controlling for the type of coordination required. Cases of expedient and inexpedient division of labor were identified, as were factors affecting feasibility, among them the number of simultaneous tasks to be performed, complexity level, number of participants and the intensity of coordination required among them. Basic principles, pertaining to the functional division of roles in learning activities and in educational administration, are discussed.     

The Relationship Between Organization and Management in Schools

Vice-principals’ role and their relationship with principals are of paramount importance in shaping the effectiveness of school management, particularly after the implementation of school-based management (SBM) worldwide. This paper reports primarily on prior studies on the vice-principalship and suggests a framework to help explain the different working relationships between principals and vice-principals. The framework is a matrix based on three dimensions, namely status, roles and management tasks. The framework was then examined through an illustrative case study. What emerged was that the framework provides a powerful means to explain the different combinations of relationship between principals and vice-principals.     

Activity theory and knowledge production

Abstract

The article is based on a paper delivered to the AWCEBD KEYWORDS Conference at Cirencester in 1999, where the focus was upon staff emotional support. The article proposes that some of the causes of teacher and intelligence; worker stress are organizational factors and perceptual bias, and that staff support; stress is an inevitable consequence of working in an environment supervision where human relationships are critical for the successful management of young people with social, emotional and behavioural difficulties.The author suggests that one way of alleviating this stress is through the introduction of supervision to the educational field. Supervision in other helping professions has been successful in providing support, changing perceptions, managing emotions and coping with stressful situations, and in so doing has improved relationships with others and work performance.     

Synergy Between Teacher Practices and Curricular Scaffolds to Support Students in Using Domain-Specific and Domain-General Knowledge in Writing Arguments to Explain Phenomena

We investigated how 2 different curricular scaffolds (context-specific vs. generic), teacher instructional practices, and the interaction between these 2 types of support influenced students' learning of science content and their ability to write scientific arguments to explain phenomena. The context-specific scaffolds provided students with hints about the task and what content knowledge to use in or incorporate into their writing. The generic scaffolds supported students in understanding a general framework (i.e., claim, evidence, and reasoning) regardless of the content area or task. This study focused on an 8-week middle school chemistry curriculum that was enacted by 6 teachers with 578 students during the 2004–2005 school year. Analyses of identical pre- and posttests as well as videotapes of teacher enactments revealed that the curricular scaffolds and teacher instructional practices were synergistic in that the effect of the written curricular scaffolds depended on the teacher's enactment of the curriculum. The context-specific curricular scaffolds were more successful in supporting students in writing scientific arguments to explain phenomena, but only when teachers' enactments provided explicit domain-general support for the claim, evidence, and reasoning framework, suggesting the importance of both types of support in successful learning environments.