Interpersonal and relational orientation among pre-service educators: differential effects on attitudes toward inclusion of students with disabilities

The purpose of this investigation was to determine the extent to which pre-service educators’ interpersonal characteristics affected their attitudes toward teaching students with disabilities (inclusion), as measured by the FIRO-B and ATIES pre- and post-course. The FIRO-B was administered to assess expressed and wanted aspects of three interpersonal needs: personal inclusion, affection and control. The ATIES was administered to measure attitudes toward classroom inclusion of students with physical, academic, behavioral and social disabilities. Repeated measures ANOVAs revealed a main effect for wanted inclusion and an interaction effect for expressed inclusion and expressed affection on attitudes toward classroom inclusion. Ultimately, these findings reveal how unique relational characteristics may influence preparation initiatives and may encourage consideration of how individual factors may mediate teacher training and preparation.     

Teacher Evaluation, Leadership and Learning Organizations

This article presents the argument that meaningful teacher evaluation in schools can be an important catalyst for organizational learning and school improvement when it is linked to broader conceptions of leadership in schools. A state-of-the-art teacher evaluation, assessment and professional growth system is described and the manner in which this system is linked to leadership density, organizational learning, and school improvement is detailed. Findings from two contrasting case studies of schools implementing this new system are presented and implications of the findings for linking teacher evaluation systems, newer conceptions of school leadership, and school improvement are described.     

Element‐and‐Principles Instruction,Perceptual Drawing and Paul Klee's Pedagogical Sketchbook

This study examines the key concepts of elements‐and‐principles art instruction, as defined in the publications by Vorkurs (preliminary course) instructors at the Bauhaus. Elements‐and‐principles instruction was for decades central to formalist art training, and continues to play a role, albeit limited, today. Preceding accounts of the elements‐and‐principles have not considered contextual matters worthy of attention, specifically, two other instructional frameworks. One is perceptual drawing that dominated in Western art culture before the inception of the elements‐and‐principles approach. The second is the instructional model Paul Klee proposed in his well‐known but under‐examined instructional publication of 1925, Pedagogical Sketchbook. With regard to the latter, scholars have failed to undertake detailed analysis that would explain Klee's instructional model and, in particular, its central (and idiosyncratic) concept of ‘trichotomy’. Trichotomy is a structure rather than a formal element, providing visual equivalents for extra‐visual events. The peculiarity of trichotomy and related concepts in Pedagogical Sketchbook has kept the publication a faint presence in elements‐and‐principles instruction and in related scholarly inquiry. With a more precise presentation of Klee's pedagogical focus, this study distinguishes heretofore overlooked dissimilarities between the Pedagogical Sketchbook model and elements‐and‐principles approach, and enables recognition of affinities between Klee's model and current conversations about embodiment pedagogies in visual arts education.     

Examining the Etiology of Reading Disability as Conceptualized by the Hybrid Model

A fairly recent definition of reading disability (RD) is that in the form of a hybrid model. The model views RD as a latent construct that is manifested through various observable unexpected impairments in reading-related skills and through inadequate response to intervention. The current report evaluated this new conceptualization of RD from an etiological perspective. The sample consisted of 2,737 twin pairs in 1st through 4th grade (M_age = 8.52) from the Florida Twin Project on Reading. Using twin analyses, results showed that a substantial proportion of genetic variance, a small proportion of shared environmental, and a small proportion of nonshared environmental variance was attributed to the RD factor. Findings suggest that the etiological architecture of RD closely mirrors the structure of the hybrid model of RD.