Creating Leaders Through the Teacher Learning and Leadership Program

Leadership is a skill that can be learned through professional development, mentoring, and leadership development programs. In Ontario, the Teacher Learning and Leadership Program (TLLP) helps educators develop their leadership skills through a Ministry of Education–funded project that addresses student learning needs in their classrooms. This article examines how the TLLP built the foundation for a teacher to lead beyond his classroom and continues to develop leadership skills in others across the province.     

Using Primary Language Support via Computer to Improve Reading Comprehension Skills of First-Grade English Language Learners

Through this exploratory study the authors investigated the effects of primary language support delivered via computer on the English reading comprehension skills of English language learners. Participants were 28 First-grade students identified as Limited English Proficient. The primary language of all participants was Spanish. Students were assigned to two groups for an 8-week intervention period. Treatment Group 1 used a computer-based literacy program with English oral language instructions. Treatment Group 2 used a computer-based literacy program with Spanish oral language instructions. Data indicated that all participants experienced significant growth in fluency, word reading, and passage comprehension. Results revealed no significant difference between the two groups in the areas of fluency or word reading. However, the students who received Spanish language support via the computer had significantly higher scores in the area of reading comprehension.     

When neighbours matter most: innovation,diffusion and state policy adoption in tertiary education

We now have ample evidence that public policies diffuse across the American states; that is, policy adoption is due at least in part to the emulation of policies enacted in nearby states. But, policy adoption is the result of a complex process, a process that often takes years and sometimes decades to complete. According to the ‘stage’ or ‘step’ approach, the lawmaking process begins with the identification of a public problem for which redress by governments is sought and ends when programmes are implemented and effects are evaluated. Using the tertiary education system in the USA as a case, this study considers at what stage(s) in the policymaking process pressures created from neighbouring states are brought to bear. Analysis of data from state policymakers reveals that the experiences of neighbours are most pronounced during the agenda‐setting and proposal formulation stages and least during adoption.     

Interpersonal attraction and religious identification: a comparative analysis of Muslims and Hindus in India

This study compared whether an individual is more likely to perceive interpersonal attraction toward a member of his/her own or a different religious group. Self-identified Hindus (N=526) and self-identified Muslims (N=301) in India participated in the study. Results indicate members of a religious group (Hindus and Muslims) are significantly more likely to perceive physical, social, and task attraction for members of their own religious group than for individuals from another religious group. These results support an ethnic group vitality and in-group/out-group dichotomy.     

Measuring ESL readers’ ability to apply reasoning in reading: a validity study of the TOEFL reading comprehension subtest

This paper reports the results of an attempt to measure English as a Second Language (ESL) students’ability to apply reasoning in reading. The elicitation instrument was an experimental test which was developed from a model of reading comprehension based upon cognitive activities which Piaget referred to as concrete operations. The experimental test delineated Piaget's concrete operations in prose text and set them against difficulty criteria. The experimental test which measured the ability to apply reasoning in reading and the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) were administered to a pool of adult ESL subjects. The results indicated that the TOEFL reading comprehension subtest does not measure the ability to apply reasoning in reading; thus, its validity as a measure of reading is in doubt. Significant effects were also shown for the paragraph types and the item types in the experimental test. The items based on the classification paragraphs were significantly more difficult than the items based on the serial paragraphs. In like manner, the items based on the multiplication paragraphs were significantly more difficult than the items based on the addition paragraphs. And finally, the intension questions which concerned the properties of a class were significantly more difficult than the extension questions which dealt with the members of classes. The results of this study indicate a need for further, increased attention to the measurement of reading to solve problems in ESL reading assessment and to the effects of the different structural organizations of ideas (e.g., addition, classification, multiplication, and series) and the interrelations of ideas on the comprehension process. The motivation for this line of research derives from the pragmatic interest of those researchers concerned with the communicative aspects of a text and the manner in which authors organize their ideas. Current research is beginning to explain the complex interaction between text structure and the reader's processing of such structure which further explicates the comprehension process.     

Exploring perceived support of postgraduate medical science research students

There is still much to learn about the support required by postgraduate research students, across academic disciplines, to facilitate successful completion of a research degree. The primary aim of this study was to explore postgraduate medical science research students’ perceptions of academic and mentoring support at different stages during their degree programme. A second aim was to explore the feasibility and acceptability of peer mentoring as a strategy to enhance student support in this population. A mixed method study design was used. Students first completed an online questionnaire, which was then supplemented with focus group discussion to explore emergent findings in greater depth. The main results indicated that the nature and quality of academic supervision support have a significant influence on research student training and development. ‘Functional’ and ‘relationship development’ concepts of supervisory styles were highlighted as important aspects to perceived support in this research population. The main facilitators to enhance academic support were effective communication, project planning and timely feedback. There was a high degree of acceptability for a peer mentoring programme as a complementary approach to enhance student support. Peer mentoring psychosocial functions such as friendship, counselling and career guidance were considered potentially beneficial to enhancing student support. Students also discussed peer coaching as central to their learning and research skill development. This work is a useful starting point to explore perceptions of research student support in the target population. Further work is required to develop strategies to enhance student support in academic practice.     

Learning in and beyond school gardens with cyber-physical systems

This design-based research study considers the learner-generated design and refinement of a school garden. We report one enactment of the Connected Gardening project in order to illuminate and understand how a fourth-grade class organizes and refines its garden plot using observations of the physical environment and evaluations of data from a networked digital probe. By examining the ways individuals, materials, and activities influence, and are influenced by, one another, our qualitative analysis characterizes interplay among an ecosystem, a garden and graphical representations of environmental indicators in real time and over time. We consider the novel affordances of such a cyber-physical systems for supporting participatory culture within yet beyond school classrooms.     

Reading Words In and Out of Connected Text: The Impact of Context on Semantic and Orthographic Processing

The majority of naturalistic reading occurs within passages. Therefore, it is important to understand how reading in context affects the division of labor between semantic and orthographic processing. However, it is difficult to compare the cognitive processes elicited by reading in context and lists because of the perceptual differences that define them. In 2 experiments, undergraduate students read 72 different words divided across three conditions (context, semantic-list, and orthographic-list). Participants then completed a memory task that was used to estimate either the semantic processing (surprise recall; Experiment 1) or orthographic processing (word stem completion; Experiment 2) elicited during reading. In both experiments, memory performance for words read in context more closely resembled words read in the semantic-list condition and differed greatly from those read in the orthographic-list condition. We interpret these results as showing that contextual reading biases the division of labor toward semantic processing and away from orthographic processing.