Sustainable development education in Scottish schools: the Sleeping Beauty syndrome

This paper reviews and discusses the development of Sustainable Development Education (SDE) policy within the context of the Scottish formal school system. The focus is on the progress, and lack thereof, of implementation of SDE in schools in the light of some of the key curriculum documents and associated political decisions and advisory reports. The period of the review dates from 1993, which saw the publication of a report that was regarded as the seminal document for the development of environmental education in Scotland, to 2007 and the Scottish Executive's proposals for SDE in the light of curriculum reform for schools for the 21st century. The paper employs, loosely, the metaphor of the Sleeping Beauty to tell the story of SDE in Scotland in three parts: the story's three phases of emergence, obscurity and re‐emergence might serve as a useful metaphor, here.     

同一个世界 同一个印刷业

最近,我浏览drupa2008的网站,其市场宣传口号“同一个世界,同一个drupa”深深地吸引了我,这个口号在印刷业也引起了共鸣。     

Graphic organizers and their effects on the reading comprehension of students with LD: a synthesis of research

Previous research studies examining the effects of graphic organizers on reading comprehension for students with learning disabilities (LD) are reviewed. An extensive search of the professional literature between 1963 and June 2001 yielded a total of 21 group design intervention studies that met the criteria for inclusion in the synthesis. Using graphic organizers (i.e., semantic organizers, framed outlines, cognitive maps with and without a mnemonic) was associated with improved reading comprehension overall for students with LD. Compared to standardized reading measures, researcher-developed comprehension measures were associated with higher effect sizes. Initial gains demonstrated when using graphic organizers were not revealed during later comprehension tasks or on new comprehension tasks.     

Dropping Out in a Working Class High School: adolescent voices on the decision to leave

Although many high school drop‐outs share a history of academic failure and truancy behaviour, their underlying reasons for leaving school are far more complex, and involve a web of both personal and school‐related problems. Interviews with drop‐outs from a working class high school in the USA revealed how the school's response, or lack of response, to their problems compounds their difficulties and creates a tension over the source of blame for their failure. On the one hand, these adolescents criticised the school for its failings, but on the other hand, they attributed much of their failure to themselves. In resolving this issue of blame, these suburban white drop‐outs, in contrast to inner‐city minority youth, indicated that, ultimately, they themselves must be at fault for failing to conform to the expectations and demands of school. An explanation for this difference is offered by contrasting their lack of collective identity with the racial consciousness of African American drop‐outs.     

Raising levels of school student engagement and retention in rural,regional and disadvantaged areas: is it a lost cause?

This paper reports on the views of key members of the educational community about student engagement and retention in rural, regional and disadvantaged areas of the Australian state of Tasmania. It provides insights into the attributed reasons for the longstanding low levels of student retention in Tasmania, and the possible ways to militate against the widely censured problem of students leaving school too soon. The paper draws from principles of Bronfenbrenner’s model of ecology to situate the 25 participants who formed the sample of the study in the exosystem of the environment of the young people whose educational attainment and retention in schools is the focus of this work. Data analysis generated three major themes: families and the socio-cultural environment; teachers and teaching; and the school system. The study’s findings play an important role in prompting us to question when, and if, the dire situation of student dropout in the state and in similar contexts worldwide will begin to be reversed. Implications of the work include the need to develop and sustain a strong policy environment in which high-quality education and schooling success are contextualised as key features to which members across the systems and sections of society can contribute.     

Team‐Based Learning for Students with High‐Incidence Disabilities in High School Social Studies Classrooms

We examined the effectiveness of implementing team‐based learning (TBL) practices on content acquisition for 11th grade students with high‐incidence disabilities enrolled in general education social studies courses. TBL components focus on collaborative discourse within heterogeneous teams. TBL, which requires critical thinking and the application of content knowledge for problem‐solving, was implemented for three units of instruction. Results indicated no statistically significant differences between groups on a measure of content knowledge, although a moderate effect size was noted (ES = 0.50). Significant and large effects (ES = 1.01) favoring the TBL treatment were noted for items related to content‐area vocabulary. There were no significant differences on items measuring comprehension of historical events, facts, and issues (ES = 0.38). Practical implications for content‐area instruction are discussed.