The Development of an Instrument for the Evaluation of Some Aspects of the Taught Component of an Advanced Courses Module for Teachers in International Schools

A scheme of professional development for teachers, leading to the award of Advanced Certificate, Advanced Diploma or degree of Master of Education, has been in operation at the University of Bath School of Education for some years. Recently this modular scheme has been extended to become more accessible to teachers in international and overseas schools around the world, with modules taught in a range of locations internationally including a Summer School held annually in July at the University of Bath. The Methods of Educational Enquiry (MEE) module provides an introduction to aspects of educational research and is recommended to participants as an early module for study: between 1992 and 1993 this module has thus been taught on more occasions than any other, in a number of different locations and by a number of different tutors. This paper considers issues arising from the implementation of an instrument for the evaluation of some aspects of the taught component of the MEE module in a wide range of contexts, and describes the development of two related measures of participants' satisfaction with respect to this component. A further paper will consider a wider range of issues across a number of different modules in a range of locations.     

Predicting,Explaining, and Preventing Children's Reading Difficulties

Several decades of research have made it clear that by the time children enter school they already vary widely in their reading-related knowledge and skills. How well do these differences predict differences in reading acquisition? What can they tell us about the causes of reading disabilities? How might these research findings be used to reduce the number of children who have difficulty learning to read? Answers to such questions are fundamental for designing early interventions for children at risk. In this paper, we summarize what has been learned so far, and discuss what directions need to be taken in future research so as to provide fuller answers.     

The last step: Adding theory to practice

Colleges and universities have not adequately dealt with the education of the experienced adult student. Currently these students are forced to choose between traditional courses and independent studies and the assessment of learning. Courses and independent studies force students to spend time re-learning that which they've learned through experience. Even worse, students don't learn to integrate theoretical knowledge with practical knowledge. Assessment, on the other hand, places little emphasis on theoretical knowledge and provides little opportunity for interaction with other experts in the field. This paper outlines the problems inherent in those options and presents another alternative: educational workshops which focus on the theories in a field and the relationships between those theories and practical experience. In these workshops students gain the theoretical knowledge so often not gained through experience, and have the opportunity to interact with and learn from other experienced adults without being forced into the traditional classroom geared toward younger less experienced students.     

Shrinking selves in synthetic sites: On personhood in a Walt Disney World

In this essay we show how certain tendencies of theself are enhanced and hindered by technologicallyorganized places. We coordinate a cognitive andbehavioral technology for the control of personalidentity with the technologically totalizedenvironments that we call synthetic sites. Weproceed by describing Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi'sstrategy for intensifying experience and organizingthe self. Walt Disney World is then considered as theexample, par excellence, of a synthetic sitethat promotes ordered experience via self-shrinkage. Finally, we reflect briefly on problems andpossibilities of human life lived in a world that canbe described with increasing accuracy as anarchipelago of synthetic sites.