Displaying Dinosaurs at The Natural History Museum,London

Dinosaur reconstructions have been exhibited in public for over a hundred years. During that time, scientific and public understanding of these extinct animals has changed considerably. Changes in perception have influenced and been influenced by the three-dimensional reconstructions mounted in museums and galleries, and these in turn have been influenced by the availability and use of mounting materials and techniques. The dinosaur exhibition in The Natural History Museum (NHM) in London contains examples of original, altered, and new dinosaur reconstructions that are described here—two, Gallimimus and Massospondylus, in detail. The final form of any reconstructed dinosaur is often influenced by factors beyond the control of the conservation, preparation, and mounting workers involved.     

Meeting the needs of children with specific speech and language difficulties

Clinical and diagnostic approaches to special educational needs do not translate easily into educational models. In some cases, these approaches can serve to limit understanding of children's wider needs. Children with specific speech and language difficulties (SSLD) are a case in point. Clear criteria exist for identification, but identification mechanisms may not relate to the child's wider educational needs. This paper addresses the ways that children with SSLD present in mainstream educational settings. The study aimed to identify all Year 3 children with SSLD in two English local education authorities. One hundred and thirty-three children (95 boys and 37 girls were identified). Sixty-five per cent of the children were in mainstream schools, 14.3 per cent in mainstream schools with designated units and the remainder in special schools. Half were at stage 5 of the Code of Practice, with most of the remaining participants at stage 3. Children experienced a wide range of difficulties, in addition to their primary speech and language problems. Patterns of difficulties varied across children, and associations existed between particular forms of language problems and learning and relationship problems. Professionals (teachers, educational psychologists and speech and language therapists) varied in their understanding of the children's needs. The data highlight the range and diversity of the needs of children with specific speech and language difficulties and the need for a multi-professional approach to these children. It is argued that ‘best practice’ for these children must consider the impact of speech and language problems on children's access to the curriculum and their social and behavioural needs. Narrow diagnostic models do not provide the appropriate information to inform educational practice and support inclusive policies.     

A lamp for Diogenes: Leadership giftedness and moral education

Science education for the gifted should be modeled upon the professional scientist's approach to solving problems.     

Implicit Knowledge of Word Stress and Derivational Morphology Guides Skilled Readers’ Decoding of Multisyllabic Words

In oral language, morphologically conditioned regularities around stress assignment can be found in two classes of derivational suffixes, one that causes lexical stress to shift to the syllable immediately preceding the suffix (ACtive – acTIVity) and one that has no effect on stress (SILLy – SILLiness). In this study, adults listening to spoken “derived” nonwords judged as preferable those wherein the stress placement was consistent with morphological regularities of English. When reading nonwords and a set of nonwords derived from them, readers reliably assigned stress to the syllable predicted by the morphology. This effect was significantly associated with scores on standardized measures of word reading after controlling for nonword reading ability, showing that the relationship was not merely an artifact of decoding skill. These findings support the importance of the interface between morphology and suprasegmental phonology as a key factor in the way English-speaking readers approach multisyllabic, morphologically complex words.     

Dynamics of undergraduate student generic problem-solving skills captured by a campus-wide study

The ability to effectively problem solve is a highly valued competency expected of university graduates, independent of their area of study. Evaluation of problem-solving skill (PSS) development is hindered by a shortage of available tools for monitoring student progress and by lack of defined instructional strategies for development of these skills. Our research is aimed at addressing these problems. We have developed an evaluation tool, which we applied to study the dynamics of undergraduate student PSS. We tested first- and upper-year students from 26 different courses (total enrollment of 2229 students). Overall improvement of PSS was detected for the first-year students over their first term of study. There were no significant differences between the PSS of first- and upper-year students, and no improvement was detected over a single term by measuring PSS in upper-year students. Only three courses were effective at facilitating PSS. Our data indicate that most of the standard lecture approaches do not develop undergraduate student PSS and that universities and individual instructors must take active steps to advance this critical skill set in university students.