Questioning techniques to promote thinking

Research has shown that children as young as three and four can think on many different levels if they are encouraged to do so (Pepler & Ross, 1981; Turner & Durrett, 1975). Educators can promote young children's thinking by asking appropriate questions and by providing learning activities that require children to think beyond the recall or memorization level (What Works, 1986). Asking good questions is an art — an art that can be learned and refined with practice and with conscious effort.Jean M. Shaw and Mary Jo Puckett Cliatt are associate professors in the School of Education at the University of Mississippi in University, MS.     

SPECIAL-EDUCATION DELIVERY MODELS IN A GENERAL-EDUCATION TEACHINGPROGRAM: A COMMUNITY COLLEGE/UNIVERSITY INITIATIVE

ABSTRACT

This article describes the process of integrating special-education content into 2 delivery models used in 2 different general-education teacher-preparation programs for elementary-education majors at the University of Wyoming and Casper (Community) College. One program was the traditional 4- year undergraduate elementary-teacher preparation program; the other was a creative and resourceful way of offering the same program at one of the state's community colleges. The models were based on theoretical and practical applications of current teaching practices. These included the integration of special-education students into the general-education classroom. Students' reactions to what they were learning and implications for practice are included.     

Adults'' Responses to Infants Varying in Appearance of Age and Attractiveness

The relations among age appearance, facial attractiveness, and adult expectations of the developmental maturity of infants were examined in 3 studies. In Study 1, a relation was demonstrated between ratings of the attractiveness (77 judges) and age appearance (53 judges) of 6-month-olds: less attractive infants were judged to be older than their attractive age-mates. In Study 2, 75 parents judged the specific developmental abilities of 6-month-old infants and estimated the age of the babies. Parents overestimated both the age and the developmental abilities of the unattractive infants. Furthermore, ability estimates for the unattractive infants were significantly higher than judgments of the typical abilities of 6-month-olds made by another group of 35 parents. Finally, the results of Study 2 were replicated in Study 3 conducted with 348 mothers. It was also demonstrated in Study 3 that, although mothers expected unattractive infants to be capable of more specific developmental skills, they nevertheless rated the general competence of the unattractive infants to be lower than that of attractive infants. Specious contradictions in the attractiveness and age appearance literatures are resolved by these results: age appearance seems to function as an informational cue with respect to specific age-appropriate abilities, whereas attractiveness elicits evaluative attributions of general competence. Both types of information conveyed in faces may have important implications for adult evaluations of infants and older children.     

Making More of Faculty Culture: An Experiment in Building Intellectual Community

With the increase in academic specialty,scholars and leaders have sought new ways tostrengthen intellectual community. Their strategiesinclude experimenting with organisational structuresto bring about desired change. This qualitative casestudy examines the influences of such a structure. The Luce Seminars was a programme designed to supportsustained faculty conversation across disciplines atEmory University, a research university located in theUnited States. The analysis found that key functional and symbolic aspects of the program contributed to intenseparticipant involvement, resulting in broadened anddeepened intellectual discourse, enhanced disciplinaryorientation, and expanded possibilities for teachingand research. The authors conclude that structuredfaculty conversation across disciplines strengtheneddimensions of faculty culture related to interactionand scholarship at the university and suggest somebroad areas for future research.     

Nonverbal learning disabilities and remedial interventions

Adolescents with nonverbal learning disabilities who enroll in private, special secondary schools consistently present a pattern of behaviors which prevents achievement of their potentials in academic areas and impedes their abilities to interact effectively with others. With weaknesses in the fine graphomotor skills for writing and poor organization at all levels, they produce limited written output and often fail to complete academic assignments. Their response to pressure to produce is to become less productive. These students perceive social situations inaccurately; they are not successful in their interactions, especially with peers. They have learned to resolve difficult situations by employing their relatively strong verbal skills to enlist parents and other adults in intervening for them. They have not developed the skills to intervene for themselves. Effective remedial interventions include training the students in skills for planning and organizing, for studying, for written expression, and in social cognition and interpersonal communication. Students gain positive feelings of personal effectiveness through a process—at first verbally mediated, ultimately verbally self-directed—in which they are encouraged to plan, risk, and act on their own behalfs to resolve matters of personal concern.     

Emotional risk to children caught in violent marital conflict—The Basildon treatment project

This paper outlines the work of the Basildon Marital/Family Violence Project set up as a result of two studies undertaken by the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (N.S.P.C.C.) School of Social Work, which looked at the effect of marital violence upon the children involved. These effects were classified under the following headings: (1) the children were scapegoated; (2) used as pawns in the marital battles; (3) turned agression against themselves; (4) had relationship problems at school; (5) were physically assaulted by the parents in 25% of the cases. The project, which is now in its 4th year, has offered social work services, consultation, training courses and research. Work with the families, and particularly with the children, has further emphasised the severe emotional damage that marital violence can have upon the children. The paper optimistically reports that after intensive work using a five-point treatment programme, and direct work with the children, there has been considerable diminution of violence in many of the cases and in some cases no repetition of such violence at all. The worker's approach, it is suggested, should be characterised by optimism combined with indestructible calm, genuine empathy combined with 24-hour access, persistence in the face of lack of progress, enhancement of parents' low self-esteem, regular contact and an ability to contain destructiveness.     

Summation of undetected excitation following extinction of the CER

The effects of compounding two conditioned stimuli (CSs), each of which had been extinguished to varying degrees in different groups of rats given identical acquisition training, was examined within the conditioned emotional response paradigm. Greater suppression to the compound than to the individual CSs was observed following 6, 12, 48, 72, and 96 stimulus extinction trials, although after only 12 extinction trials suppression to the individual stimuli was no longer observed. The amount of compound suppression decreased progressively as the number of extinction trials increased until, after 120 extinction trials on each stimulus, the compound no longer elicited observable suppression. Control group data indicated that the observed summation effect could not be attributed to disinhibition. The possible role of the summation of undetected excitation in studies examining configurai conditioning, avoidance conditioning and reinstatement is discussed briefly.