The benefit of assessment-based language and reading instruction: perspectives from a case study

We present a case study of the language and literacy development of a deaf child, Marcy, from preschool through sixth grade. The purpose of the project was to examine the connection between language and reading and to provide insight into the relationships between them. To compile the case study, we analyzed data from nine years of follow-up, including listening, speech articulation, semantic, syntactic, reading, and writing information drawn from a number of informal and formal assessments. Annual evaluation of language and literacy skills was used to select educational placements, as well as instructional methods, strategies, and materials. Given that Marcy began school at 4 years of age, mute and without expressive language of any form (oral or sign), it may at first appear remarkable that she read narrative and expository text as did her hearing peers by sixth grade, because a substantial body of research shows that most deaf students read at the fourth-grade level by high school graduation (review by Paul, 1998). However, those responsible for Marcy's education prevented reading failure by carefully planning, instituting, and monitoring elements of language and literacy instruction. We present Marcy's progress and instruction by grade level and discuss it within the framework of phases/stages of reading development. We hope that the resulting case study may serve as an example of the language-reading connection, an awareness important not only for the literacy instruction of deaf and language-challenged children but for hearing students as well.     

Gezählte Kompetenz

Der Beitrag diskutiert die Bedeutung von Zitationsanalysen als Instrumente zur Bewertung und Qualit?tssicherung von Forschungshandeln. Bisher ist der Aussagewert empirisch gestützter Zitationsindizes sehr begrenzt, weil Zitationen lediglich als Belege von Sichtbarkeit, Akzeptanz und Einfluss wissenschaftlicher Leistungen angesehen werden. Stattdessen wird hier nun vorgeschlagen, intertextuelle Relationen als Dokumente epistemischer Aktivit?t selbst zu begreifen. Nach dieser Deutung sind Zitate dann nicht l?nger nur pellets of recognition, sondern verzeichnen zugleich immer auch Inszenierungsversuche und F?lle erfolgreicher Performanz der Leistung eines Forschers. In diesem Sinne sind sie als pellets of understanding zu verstehen, die der Forschungsinnovation dienen k?nnen. Ausgehend von dieser überlegung diskutiert der Beitrag Rahmenbedingungen einer Theorie des wissenschaftlichen Zitats und problematisiert den m?glichen Ertrag eines solchen Ansatzes für die Erziehungswissenschaft, weshalb abschlie?end vorgeschlagen wird, Zitationsdichte als Indiz für den Ausdifferenzierungsgrad spezifischer Forschungszusammenh?nge zu begreifen, zitationelle Einzelfallanalysen anzustrengen, um die Qualit?t und Güte spezifischer Forschungsbeitr?ge dieser Disziplin zu prüfen und so die empirischen Befunde traditioneller Zitationsindizes zu erg?nzen.     

Assessing a Promotional Strategy for Marketing Electronic Resources in the Library Environment

In the fall of 2015, two librarians at San Diego State University initiated a project to enhance the visibility of some of the library’s numerous electronic resources. Promotional materials were created to highlight some of the main features and functionality of seven specific databases to which the library subscribes. Although there are many factors of this project that warrant further research, the authors can definitively state that usage for six of the seven electronic resources featured in their promotional project did increase when they were advertised to a wider campus population via the library’s website.     

Teacher in a problem-based learning environment – Jack of all trades?

Problem-based learning (PBL) is one among several approaches to active learning. Being a teacher in a PBL environment can, however, be a challenge because of the need to support students’ learning within a broad ‘landscape of learning’. In this article we will analyse the landscape of learning by use of the study activity model (SAM) developed by the Danish University Colleges, with the aim of investigating to which extent this may lead to explication and clarification concerning the challenges faced by teachers in a PBL environment. In the case study, the SAM is applied to the first semester of an engineering programme at Aalborg University, a university setting where the PBL approach to teaching and learning is dominant. The results of the analysis are presented and discussed, and the conclusion is that the model, in spite of some shortcomings, is useful in clarifying the role of the teacher in a PBL environment.     

Social and Dimensional Comparisons in the Formation of German Students’ Language Self-Concepts

Abstract

This study extended the internal/external reference model to multiple languages including students’ language of instruction, first foreign language, and second foreign language. We examined whether social and dimensional comparisons play similar roles in the formation of students’ self-concept related to different languages and whether dimensional comparisons result in contrast or assimilation effects. All students had German as the language of instruction and English as the first foreign language. Students were divided into a subsample (N?=?487) learning French as a second foreign language and a subsample (N?=?481) learning Latin. Invariance tests demonstrated that the achievement–self-concept relations were similar across the subsamples, but interesting group differences became apparent when analyzing the French and Latin subsamples separately.     

Children's Moral Motive Strength and Temperamental Inhibition Reduce Their Immoral Behavior in Real Moral Conflicts

This study is concerned with the prediction of interindividual differences in children's immoral behavior in real moral conflicts by moral motive strength (appropriate attribution of moral emotions to story characters), temperamental inhibition, and ego control. Children were tempted to cheat at age 6 when they felt unobserved, or to contend for a scarce resource in peer triads at age 7. Moral motive strength and inhibition, but not ego control, predicted low cheating and low nonverbal rivalry to a similar extent. Extreme group analyses of children low or high in both traits showed that cheating/noncheating could be predicted with a hit rate above 90%. Nonverbal rivalry in a group increased exponentially with the number of low-moral uninhibited children in the group, a finding replicated within the same sample. Discussion focuses on the influence of moral motive strength, temperamental inhibition, ego control, and their interaction on the reduction of immoral behavior.     

Model-based testing with UML applied to a roaming algorithm for Bluetooth devices

In late 2001,the Object Management Group issued a Request for Proposal to develop a testing profile for UML2.0. In June 2003,the work on the UML 2.0 Testing Profile was finally adopted by the OMG. Since March 2004,it has become an official standard of the OMG. The UML 2.0 Testing Profile provides support for UML based model-driven testing. This paper introduces a methodology on how to use the testing profile in order to modify and extend an existing UML design model for test issues. The application of the methodology will be explained by applying it to an existing UML Model for a Bluetooth device.     

Project Work in the Paperless School: A Case Study in a Swedish Upper Secondary Class

This paper reports of how ICT and a computer rich environment is used in a an upper secondary Swedish school to change traditional teacher and pupil work. A teacher and his classes were followed during one week. Observations, field notes, spontaneous conversations and formal interviews with the teacher and some pupils were made. Teachers' and pupils' work is affected in many ways. Some of the traditional teacher's work is here left to the pupils. In spite of the pedagogical intention to promote cooperation, the technology seems to strengthen individual work. ICT also seems to lead to the dissolution of boundaries between home and work place, working time and leisure time. The pupils' task to search for information on the Internet and transform it into personal knowledge is not an easy one. Discussion or evaluation of sources and origin of texts found on the Internet seems to be negligent.     

Predictors of early versus later spelling development in Danish

The present study examined phoneme awareness, phonological short term memory, letter knowledge, rapid automatized naming (RAN), and visual–verbal paired associate learning (PAL) as longitudinal predictors of spelling skills in an early phase (Grade 2) and a later phase (Grade 5) of development in a sample of 140 children learning to spell in the opaque Danish orthography. Important features of the study were the inclusion of PAL measures and the fact that the children were followed up to Grade 5. Findings from other orthographies were replicated, in that phonological processing (awareness and memory) and RAN accounted for unique variance in early spelling skills. For later spelling skills, Grade 2 spelling was by far the most powerful predictor. PAL-nonwords was the only measure to explain additional unique variance. It is suggested that PAL-nonwords taps the ability to establish representations of new phonological forms and that this ability is important for the acquisition of orthographic spelling knowledge.