Fred outdoors: An initial report into the experiences of outdoor activities for an adult who is congenitally deafblind

Abstract

Outdoor Education has long been used with groups that could be described as having “special needs”. Research in this particular area has in the past concentrated on adaptations to equipment and activities, allowing access for people with physical disabilities, and expanding the learning and development opportunities available to those with learning difficulties. This article documents the initial observations made of the experiences of a man, who is congenitally deafblind, when given the opportunity to experience outdoor activities. The article highlights a number of areas, which appear particularly relevant to this specific target group, and may be worthy of further investigation. The use of video technology is also demonstrated to be a valuable research tool when working with people who have multisensory impairments.     

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.     

Reviews

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Hypermedia and Literary Studies. Ed. Paul Delany and George P. Landow. Cambridge: MIT P, 1991. 352 pp.

Writing Space: The Computer, Hypertext, and the History of Writing. Jay David Bolter. Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1991. 258 pp. Also from Erlbaum, Writing Space: A Hypertext for Macintosh.

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Guidelines for Preparing Proposals: A Manual on How to Organize Winning Proposals. Roy Meador. Chelsea: Lewis, 1985. 116 pp.     

THE QUALITATIVE ASPECTS OF EDUCATIONAL PLANNING

Vocational educational has long struggled with a reputation as a lower track and dead end for socially disadvantaged populations. Since the alarm call in the 1980s about the “forgotten half,” significant efforts have been expended to develop reform programs that provide disadvantaged populations viable options that would enhance their academic and economic prospects. However, considering the fact that such reform programs consist of a disproportionate numbers of Latinos and African Americans, how do we know that such reforms are not reproducing structures of racial domination? This article, an ethnographic study of a promising vocational education reform, examines race-making in the institutional organization, the representational practices, and the perspectives of students and teachers inside and outside this reform program. I argue that although the academy was a success story to some extent, it encountered negative stereotypes from its host school, while indirectly producing conditions that racially stigmatized its population. This poses questions about racial equity and the role of the institutional culture of the host school in implementing vocational reform programs.     

BLACK POWER AND BLACK STUDENTS IN KANSAS CITY

In this research I examined the enactment of liberatory pedagogy, a teaching practice that promotes equity for all learners, from the uniquely informative perspective of young women majoring in mathematics and elementary education. It is grounded theory that seeks to understand the role of personal identity and social location in learning and teaching. I collected data over a two-year period, following two young women from the final semester of their teacher education program to their first teaching positions. Three distinct influences inform the conceptual framework of this study: (a) the underrepresentation of women in mathematics; (b) the devaluing of elementary teachers' content and pedagogical knowledge; and (c) the marginalization of the education major and pedagogical knowledge. I ask research questions regarding the type of preservice education these women experience and how it informs their enactment of liberatory pedagogy. Themes among the findings include coping with being a stranger in both lands, the desire to know oneself as a learner, and enacting liberatory pedagogy as beginning inservice teachers.     

ALUMNI SURVEY OF ENTRY GOALS,SATISFACTION, AND JOB BENEFITS ASSOCIATED WITH THE ASSOCIATE DEGREE

Organizations can be classified as being either responsive or unresponsive to their constituents’ needs and attitudes. The present study was undertaken at the Community and Technical College at the University of Akron, Akron, Ohio in an attempt to implement a responsive orientation toward its constituents (students). Data were obtained from 401 alumni, from six majors who graduated between the years of 1969 through 1982. Each alumnus completed an Alumni Questionnaire which gathered information concerning enrollment goals, achievement of goals, job‐related benefits derived through the associate degree, and satisfaction with faculty and the curriculum. Results indicated that most alumni had career‐oriented goals at the time of enrollment and nearly 82% reported that these goals had been achieved through the educational experience. Most alumni reported important job‐related benefits which may have been the result of the attainment of an associate degree. Alumni reported high levels of satisfaction with faculty instruction and the curriculum; however, they were only marginally satisfied with faculty guidance. Those alumni who pursued course‐work beyond the associate degree indicated that their prior education was helpful in preparing them for the additional coursework     

A High Impact Practice that Works: Connecting Mentors From the Professional Community to Teacher Education Students

A high impact mentoring program at a community college connected professionals from the special education and early intervention fields with small groups of teacher education students. Two federal grants from U.S. Department of Education funded tuition scholarships and mentoring for 76 Special Education students and 78 Early Childhood Education/Early Intervention students in associate degree programs. The mentor programs consisted of individual monitoring by project staff, consistent contact with a mentor from the professional community and with other students in mentor groups, and structured monthly dinner meetings. Students who participated in the mentoring programs showed increased persistence and higher grade point average when compared with the general population of similar majors. Within each grant-funded population, students who showed low participation in the mentor programming presented lower retention rates and lower GPA than grant-funded students who took full advantage of the mentoring program.