Understanding Deaf bilingual education from the inside: a SWOT analysis

This article reports on a Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) analysis using a nominal group process undertaken to identify and tackle significant factors, both internal and external, affecting those current Deaf bilingual practices in Spain which promote or prevent the processes through which more inclusive (barrier-free) education for Deaf children can be successfully implemented. Seventeen school representatives (eight Deaf, nine hearing) from nine school sites with leading Deaf bilingual initiatives for Deaf children from different parts of the country participated in the study. Ways to improve accessibility to the whole SWOT process were explored to ensure that genuine and significant participation of All school representatives was actually possible. The main strengths pointed out the importance of participation and involvement of staff and others in the educational community. The primary weakness was found in the lack of a learning environment fully accessible to Deaf children. Notable opportunities included a growing acceptance of the bilingual and inclusive school concept by regional educational administrations and societal and parental changes towards bilingualism and sign language. The lack of official recognition of sign language was reported as a major threat. Understanding these four internal and external interrelated factors can: (1) help insiders reflect on their practices and use the findings to improve their practice; (2) guide policy decisions on matching resources and capabilities to the environment in which schools catering for Deaf children operate; and (3) provide the starting point upon which policy-making and further research could be built.     

Inverse function: Pre-service teachers’ techniques and meanings

Researchers have argued teachers and students are not developing connected meanings for function inverse, thus calling for a closer examination of teachers’ and students’ inverse function meanings. Responding to this call, we characterize 25 pre-service teachers’ inverse function meanings as inferred from our analysis of clinical interviews. After summarizing relevant research, we describe the methodology and theoretical framework we used to interpret the pre-service teachers’ activities. We then present data highlighting the techniques the pre-service teachers used when responding to tasks that involved analytical and graphical representations of functions and inverse functions in both decontextualized and contextualized situations and discuss our inferences of their meanings based on their activities. We conclude with implications for the teaching and learning of inverse function and areas for future research.     

How inclusive education is understood by principals of independent schools

Inclusive education has become a practice that has been adopted by many schools across the globe and most usually in first-world countries. As a whole-school system, it occurs less frequently in developing countries including South Africa which unlike many developing countries has a sound infrastructure and many excellent schools in both the state and the independent sectors. Education White Paper 6: Special education: Building an inclusive education and training system was published in 2001 with the express intention of developing an inclusive education system in South Africa. Some South African independent schools have successfully implemented valuable forms of inclusion in their schools and this is the phenomenon that was studied. This study reveals various aspects of the inclusive process including the pivotal role that principals play in the transformation process of which inclusive education is the harbinger. It also analyses why principals choose to embrace a paradigm that on the surface is uncomfortable and not an easy option. We used narrative research as methodology for this qualitative research. The basic tenet was that inclusion leads to belonging and excellence in education. The major findings were that inclusion to most principals was about taking action, humanity and emotion. The principals also described inclusion as personal and pragmatic. The implications for action are of interest not only to principals, but to anyone who is seriously interested in innovative and more humane forms of anti-oppressive education.     

Continuous professional development and ECEC quality: Findings from a European systematic literature review

This article presents the findings of an analysis of the effects of CPD initiatives on the quality of the pedagogical practices of ECEC practitioners. It is part of a larger study commissioned by Eurofound and jointly conducted by VBJK, IOE and PPMI (Eurofound, 2015). In order to draw policy-relevant information that might support decision makers in designing effective ECEC policies in their countries, the study reviewed existing research evidence published on this topic not only in English, but also in all the languages currently in use in EU Member States. Therefore, it involved country experts from EU-28 Member States. The research question was framed by the political priorities identified by the Council Conclusions on Early Childhood Education and Care (EU Council, 2011). The systematic literature review methodology elaborated by the EPPI-Centre for informing evidence-based policies in the field of education and social sciences was adopted to review the evidence drawn from primary research studies cross-nationally. The study revealed that long-term CPD interventions integrated into practice, such as pedagogical guidance and coaching in reflection groups, proved to be effective not only in countries with a well-established system of ECEC provision and a high level of qualification requirements for the practitioners, but also in countries with poorly subsidised ECEC systems and low qualification requirements. CPD initiatives based on the active engagement of practitioners and on peer exchanges within a shared scientific framework, proved to be the most effective.     

Optimal control in unobservable integral Volterra systems

This paper presents solution of the optimal linear-quadratic controller problem for unobservable integral Volterra systems with continuous/discontinuous states under deterministic uncertainties, over continuous/discontinuous observations. Due to the separation principle for integral systems, the initial continuous problem is split into the optimal minmax filtering problem for integral Volterra systems with deterministic uncertainties over continuous/discontinuous observations and the optimal linear-quadratic control (regulator) problem for observable deterministic integral Volterra systems with continuous/discontinuous states. As a result, the system of the optimal controller equations are obtained, including the linear equation for the optimally controlled minmax estimate and two Riccati equations for its ellipsoid matrix (optimal gain matrix of the filter) and the optimal regulator gain matrix. Then, in the discontinuous problems, the equation for the optimal controller and the equations for the optimal filter and regulator gain matrices are obtained using the filtering procedure for deriving the filtering equations over discontinuous observations proceeding from the known filtering equations over continuous ones and the dual results in the optimal control problem for integral systems. The technical example illustrating application of the obtained results is finally given.     

Advancing nursing students' transition to scholarship: embedding a librarian into the Advanced Nursing Research course

Background:Nursing students often prioritize learning clinical skills rather than research skills, possibly inhibiting their growth as scholars. Supporting nursing students'' learning of information literacy skills has been shown to impact nurses'' involvement with research after graduation. This suggests a need for developing innovative information literacy teaching strategies that can enable nursing students to better understand the process of research and how to apply research to practice.Case Presentation:This article describes the implementation of the embedded librarian project at the course level at the University of Memphis. A librarian was integrated into the Advanced Nursing Research course, a semester-long course for graduate nursing students, for the fall 2020 semester. This case shares the embedded librarian project''s implementation and evaluation strategies.Conclusions:The embedded librarian project aided students'' acquisition of information literacy skills at the University of Memphis. Students reported that the embedded librarian project helped them complete assignments for their research course. Using an embedded librarian service within the graduate nursing curricula model may enhance scholarship among future nurses.     

Gender-inclusive game-based learning in secondary education

Boys show a stronger preference for digital entertainment games than girls. For this reason, it may be that game-based learning is more acceptable to boys than to girls. Yet game-based learning might improve the performance of both boys and girls, depending upon the instructional design. In a quasi-experimental study with a secret-trail game, effects were examined on students' subject-matter knowledge. Analysis of covariance revealed that both boys and girls of the game intervention group showed a higher test performance, compared to students of the control group. However, different game activities mediated this effect of the secret-trail game on performance: girls seemed to profit more from searching the Internet to complete assignments and boys from competing with others. The performance of both boys and girls was negatively influenced by technical problems. The results are discussed within the framework of gender-inclusive game design.     

The illegal body: `Eurodac' and the politics of biometric identification

Biometrics is often described as `the next big thingin information technology'. Rather than IT renderingthe body irrelevant to identity – a mistaken idea tobegin with – the coupling of biometrics with ITunequivocally puts the body center stage. The questions to be raised about biometrics is howbodies will become related to identity, and what thenormative and political ramifications of this couplingwill be. Unlike the body rendered knowable in thebiomedical sciences, biometrics generates a readable body: it transforms the body's surfaces andcharacteristics into digital codes and ciphers to be`read' by a machine. ``Your iris is read, in the sameway that your voice can be printed, and yourfingerprint can be read', by computers that, in turn,have become ``touch-sensitive', and endowed with seeingand hearing capacities. Thus transformed into readable``text', the meaning and significance of the biometricbody will be contingent upon ``context', and therelations established with other ``texts'. Thesemetaphors open up ways to investigate the differentmeanings that will become attached to the biometricbody and the ways in which it will be tied toidentity. This paper reports on an analysis of plans andpractices surrounding the `Eurodac' project, aEuropean Union initiative to use biometrics (specif.fingerprinting) in controlling illegal immigration andborder crossings by asylum seekers.