The Magic of the Brush and the Power of Color: Integrating Theory into Practice of Painting in Early Childhood Settings

Painting in early childhood classrooms should have its own values and purposes enriching young children's aesthetic intelligence rather than being considered as mere supplements to other art activities. The three approaches to painting in early childhood settings – Bank Street, Reggio, and Waldorf – consider painting as the core of integrated curriculum and present a coherent relationship between theory and practice. Materials and instructional methods for painting within each approach appear to be unique and provide insights for early childhood teachers.     

What might readers want? Unexpected responses from Malaysian Literature in English students and suggestions of potentiality in text selection

This article is based on the premise that mandated reading in literature classrooms may be perceived as an imposition and disliked by students. Attempts to address that scenario have suggested that text selection should be given more consideration to promote reading engagement, particularly by choosing texts which are familiar to the lifeworlds of students. Aside from ideas of familiarity and student preferences in reading, this article argues that text selection could also take into account text potentialities, as proposed by Louise Rosenblatt, from which three aspects are discernible; potentiality for participation, potentiality for a sustained reading experience, and potentiality for an enjoyable reading experience. These aspects of potentiality are illustrated and discussed through the literature classroom experiences of two Malaysian pre‐university English literature students. This article contends that ideas of text potentiality help us interpret students' responses to mandated texts and informs discussion among curriculum constructors and teachers about text selection in the literature classroom.     

Foresight via Hindsight: Prospects and Lessons for Inclusion in Singapore

This article presents a critical appraisal of the prospects for inclusion of students with disabilities within the mainstream school system in Singapore. Features of the dual system of mainstream and special education are discussed with specific reference to the gaps found between and within both systems that militate against inclusion becoming part of the mainstream educational landscape. The lessons learned through reviewing the other articles included in this special issue on several Asia-Pacific countries that have embraced inclusive education in their educational policies and initiatives inform possible future efforts and directions in promoting inclusion in Singapore.     

The changing role of school/media resource libraries in secondary schools in Singapore and the need to implement mandatory standards, 1946–2010: Issues,challenges and opportunities

The aim of this paper is to study the development and evolution of secondary school libraries into Media Resource Libraries (MRLs) in Singapore after the Second World War and the rationale to have mandatory school library standards. It is an historical survey analysing published data about the linkages of libraries and librarianship, school library standards, education and school reforms in Singapore. It analyses historical and current documents on the roles played by stakeholders like the Library Association of Singapore (LAS) and the Ministry of Education (MOE) in the introduction and development of school library standards. The need for school libraries standards was first discussed when the Malayan Library Group (MLG) organised the first course on librarianship for school teachers in 1955, but, with no follow through. The need for school libraries standards was also mentioned by the LAS in 1962 in a memorandum to the Commission of Enquiry into Education to train teacher librarians and adopt school library standards. However, this was left out in the final report of the Commission published in 1964. The need for school library standards was discussed in a school library seminar for 150 teacher librarians in 1970. The first Recommended Minimum Standards for Secondary School Libraries was published two years later by the Standing Committee on Libraries set up by the MOE, but it was not mandatory for schools to adopt the standards. In 1997 the MOE launched its “Thinking School Learning Nation” vision to teach thinking skills. Students were expected to do multidisciplinary project work and be independent users of information. The MOE began to convert school libraries into Media Resource Libraries (MRLs) with print and non-print materials. However, a survey conducted in 2001 on the roles and competencies of 112 Library Coordinators (LCs) or teacher librarians revealed that they lack the skills and knowledge to manage MRLs effectively. This is because subsequent school library standards published in 1983 and 2002 did not require trained and full-time teacher librarians to manage the MRLs. Furthermore, it is essential for the standards to be periodically updated with regards to professional staff, collection development, facilities, Information and Communications Technology (ICT) infrastructure and school library programs. Otherwise, MRLs risk being “hollow shells still considered on the periphery of core educational requirements, and are run by teachers not professionally prepared to do the work” (Hart, 2001, p. 25). The national standards published in the United States from 1918 to 2008 are well researched and provide substantive guidelines to develop school libraries. Therefore, it is essential for the MOE to formulate MRL standards by doing comparative studies of school library standards in other countries. These standards have to be mandatory and fully adopted by the schools. It provides opportunities for stakeholders like the LAS, National Library Board (NLB), the National Institute of Education (NIE), and the Singapore Teachers’ Union, to collaborate in the formulation of these standards and take collective ownership to implement them.     

Archival appraisal practice in U.S. state archives and records management programs

The quantity of government records has grown dramatically since the rapid development of information technology starting in the mid-twentieth century. This ever-expanding body of records has challenged the limited resources of government archives. Though U.S. government archivists constantly try to identify valuable government records among the geometrically increasing total, in order to justify spending public money on their preservation, little is known about how U.S. state archives and records management programs go about the process. The study discussed in this paper is the first to empirically investigate nationwide archival appraisal practice in U.S. state archives and records management programs. The study answered two research questions: How do U.S. state archivists and records managers conceptually define archival appraisal? How do U.S. state archivists and records managers practice archival appraisal of state government records? The study used an online survey and interviews for data collection and SPSS software and NVivo8 software for data analysis. This paper discusses the research topic and concludes with recommendations for practitioners and further studies.     

A variational energy approach for electromechanical analysis of thick piezoelectric beam

INTRODUCTION Piezoelectricity is an electromechanical phe- nomenon which couples elasticity and electricity through the existence of pressure induced electrical field or electric induced stress field. The piezoelectric materials are usually surface bonded in patches or fully embedded in the host structure, so that the structure becomes a laminated piezoelectric beam. Tzou and Gadre (1989), Lee (1990), Crawly and Lazarus (1991) developed laminated plate models incorporating the piezoelect…     

Assessment of the phase synchronization effect in modal testing during operation

The impact-synchronous modal analysis (ISMA), which uses impact-synchronous time averaging (ISTA), allows modal testing to be performed during operation. ISTA is effective in filtering out the non-synchronous cyclic load component, its harmonics, and noises. However, it was found that at operating speeds that coincide with the natural modes, ISMA would require a high number of impacts to determine the dynamic characteristics of the system. This finding has subsequently reduced the effectiveness and practicality of ISMA. Preservation of signatures during ISTA depends on the consistency of their phase angles on every time block but not necessarily on their frequencies. Thus, the effect of phase angles with respect to impact is seen to be a very important parameter when performing ISMA on structures with dominant periodic responses due to cyclic load and ambient excitation. The responses from unaccounted forces that contain even the same frequency as that contained in the response due to impact are diminished with the least number of impacts when the phase of the periodic responses is not consistent with the impact signature for every impact applied. The assessment showed that a small number of averages are sufficient to eliminate the non-synchronous components with 98.48% improvement on simulation and 95.22% improvement on experimental modal testing when the phase angles with respect to impact are not consistent for every impact applied.     

Development of instructional design strategies for integrating an online support system for creative problem solving into a University course

Asia Pacific Education Review - This study examined three cases in which an online support system was utilized to enhance creative problem solving (CPS) in a higher education setting. This study...