Using Portfolios of Student Work in Instruction and Assessment

The tern portfolio has become a popular buzz word. Unfortunately, it is not always clear exactly what is meant or implied by the term, especially when used in the context of portfolio assessment. This training module is intended to clarify the notion of portfolio assessment and help users design such assessments in a thoughtful manner. We begin with a discussion of the rationale for assessment alternatives and then discuss portfolio definitions, characteristics, pitfalls, and design considerations.     

Sonya Hartnett's Thursday's Child: Readings

Sonya Hartnett's Thursday's Child was published in Australia by Penguin Books in 2000. Editions are available in the UK (Walker Books, 2002), the USA (Candlewick, 2002), as well as in Canada, Germany, Italy, Norway, and Denmark. In 2002, the book was awarded the Guardian's Children's Fiction Prize in the UK. Like Harper, the narrator of the novel, Sonya Hartnett began to write early—her first book, Trouble All the Way, was written when she was 13 and published 2 years later. It seems that adults read Thursday's Child and talk about it without any reference to young readers; we see it as one of those books you read and immediately look for someone to discuss it with. And then go back to the book to reread. It's one of those novels that, like many poems, offers multiple readings and the reader may be content to accept several of them. The UK editors of this journal wanted to bring this intriguing novel to the notice of readers who may not yet have discovered it, and, we felt sure, those who already knew the book would welcome two close readings to set alongside their own. We invited Judith Armstrong to begin the discussion. Then David Rudd, with the benefit of Judith's insights, adds his exploration of the novel. Between the two essays, we have included some comments, extracted from a taped conversation, of two 14-year-old readers. This article comprises two sustained responses to Sonya Hartnett's award-winning novel, Thursday's Child. Both essays explore multiple readings of a complex and intriguing text. Set in the Great Depression in Australia, the novel is seen as at once realistic, mythic, and even fantastic. Judith Armstrong considers Tin, the subject of the title, as a feral child and examines his influence on the other members of his family. As he tunnels through the earth, so does the narrator Harper (Tin's older sister) “dig” with her pen. Their excavations leave both children forever marked by the bleak and sometimes violent events recorded in the book. David Rudd continues the discussion, finding Freud's exploration of “the uncanny” and J. M. Barrie's character, Peter Pan, illuminating in his reading of the novel. He also asks how far Harper can be trusted as narrator: can we even be certain that her brother survived a mudslide that occurred early in the story?     

Using computer-delivered natural speech to assist in the teaching of reading

The findings of a pilot study designed to evaluate a computer system developed to assist in the teaching of reading to beginners are presented. The system uses digitised speech and the content is based upon a reading scheme already in use in the schools. Twenty children, ten in the intervention group and ten in the control group, in two schools were involved over a four-week period. Subjects were tested on a standardised reading test, a list of the 30 most frequently occurring words in written English, and on words from the published scheme. The experimental group improved their scores significantly more than the control group only on the standardised reading test. The results suggest the system can be helpful and that its effect goes beyond the words being practised.     

Social Interactions in Preschool Classrooms and the Development of Young Children's Conceptions of the Personal

Two studies examined preschool teacher and child interactions regarding personal, moral, and social-conventional issues in the classroom and the development of personal concepts in young children. In Study 1, 20 preschool classrooms, 10 with 3-year-olds and 10 with 4-year-olds, were observed to assess children's and teachers' interactions regarding personal, moral, social-conventional, and mixed events. Teachers used more direct messages regarding moral and social-conventional events than personal and mixed events. Teachers offered children choices, but they rarely negotiated personal events with children. Children responded with personal choice assertions when adults offered them choices, but adults did not differ in the frequency that they negated or affirmed children's assertions of personal choice. In Study 2, 120 preschool children, nearly evenly divided between males and females at 3, 4, and 5 years of age, were interviewed regarding their conceptions of personal events in the classroom and home. With age, children judged that they should retain control over personal decisions in both contexts. In both judgments and social interactions, teachers and children identified a personal domain in which children can and should make choices about how to structure their activities and assert their independence in the classroom.     

Working in groups: social and cognitive effects in a special class

Judith Watson, Reader in Education at the University of Edinburgh, considers the potential of social-constructivist ideas of teaching and learning for pupils with learning difficulties and reports on the introduction of social learning experiences within a special unit for pupils with moderate learning difficulties.     

Zur symbiotischen Handlungsstruktur informellen Sportengagements

Informal sports can be described by looking at its symbiotic structure: the three roles doing sports, facilitating sports and organizing sports, coincide. This paper discusses what this means for the sports activities of adolescents. The areas in which informal sports activities for adolescents take place as well as the social structure are shaped by this symbiotic structure: informal sport is about using and defining space to create new sports facilities. On the basis of ethnographic research this paper will analyze how one gets “into the game” in those special areas. Due to missing external organizations, individuals are confronted with entry barriers because of established outsider relations. The established members differ from outsiders in that they can realize their own idea of sport. Gender differences are an important aspect in this context which will exemplarily be reconstructed and analyzed at the end.