Designing Classrooms for Diversity: Fostering Social Inclusion

Responding to the growing diversity of students within North American schools today, educators have recognized the value of social inclusion as an important goal, supporting both social-emotional and academic success for all students. This special issue explores how teachers play a significant role in promoting inclusive classes by understanding the social dynamics that operate in educational contexts. Addressing a number of different forms that diversity can take (gender, ethnicity, physical and/or mental exceptionalities), these articles rightfully focus attention on group processes that promote inclusion versus exclusion and their impact, and underscore the need for teacher training in such efforts. Supporting and extending this discussion, we present an overview of recent efforts to promote “universal design for learning” in education, which focuses on academic as well as social inclusion, in hopes that educators consider even broader approaches to celebrating diversity and teaching students to relate to others with acceptance and respect.     

Introduction to the Special Issue on Teaching Inquiry (Part II): Implementing Inquiry

Abstract

We provide an introduction to the special issue on Teaching Inquiry, through its motivation and themes, focusing here on Part II: Implementing Inquiry.     

Navigating cross-boundary connections in educational research

Drawing on insights from reflective research accounts in the social sciences, this paper attends to the complexities of conducting cross-boundary educational research. Cross-boundary research is defined as any type of inquiry that is conducted across cultural and/or structural boundaries, including but not limited to race, class, gender, language, religion, age, sexual identity, and national origin. The authors present dilemmas they have faced in conducting educational research and offer three intersecting recommendations for those who wish to conduct research across boundaries.     

The Gender Stereotyping of Computer Use Among Female Undergraduate Students in Israel and the Relationship with Computer‐related Attitudes

The Computer Attitude Scale was completed by 298 female undergraduate students in Israel, together with an index of the gender stereotyping of computer use. The data demonstrate that female undergraduate students in Israel are much more likely to regard men as better at using computers than women than was found to be the case in a comparable study in the UK. Nevertheless there is little evidence from these data to support the suggestion that the gender stereotyping of computer use as masculine is itself detrimental to female students' attitudes toward computer use.     

Developmental outcome of preterm infants with intraventricular hemorrhage at one and two years of age

Around 1980, many perinatal centers began prospective cranial screening of preterm infants using portable ultrasonography at the bedside. This study examined developmental outcome at 1 and 2 years in relation to the presence and severity of neonatal intraventricular hemorrhage (IVH). It varies from earlier reports in the size of the sample, restriction to infants without periventricular leukomalacia (PVL), and an attempt to formulate a predictive model by examining development longitudinally. Parametric and nonparametric analyses demonstrated that IVH related to Bayley mental and motor scores and neurologic ratings at 1 year but not at 2 years. Developmental delay and/or neurologic abnormality were more prevalent in infants with severe IVH but were far from universal. Regression analyses on prediction from neonatal and 1-year performance to 2-year scores revealed significant associations between the 1- and 2-year measures but not the neonatal and outcome measures. A direct insult to the CNS such as IVH thus constitutes only a limited model of risk status.     

Effects of Response Format on Difficulty of SAT-Mathematics Items: It's Not the Strategy

Problem-solving strategy is frequently cited as mediating the effects of response format (multiple-choice, constructed response) on item difficulty, yet there are few direct investigations of examinee solution procedures. Fifty-five high school students solved parallel constructed response and multiple-choice items that differed only in the presence of response options. Student performance was videotaped to assess solution strategies. Strategies were categorized as "traditional"–those associated with constructed response problem solving (e.g., writing and solving algebraic equations)–or "nontraditional"–those associated with multiple-choice problem solving (e.g., estimating a potential solution). Surprisingly, participants sometimes adopted nontraditional strategies to solve constructed response items. Furthermore, differences in difficulty between response formats did not correspond to differences in strategy choice: some items showed a format effect on strategy but no effect on difficulty; other items showed the reverse. We interpret these results in light of the relative comprehension challenges posed by the two groups of items.     

Using collaboration to foster academic integrity

Abstract

For students new to higher education, the task of developing their academic writing skills, and particularly the principles and practices of source-referencing, can be daunting. Although institutions and teachers can and do provide positive guidance on this score, all too often students veer into inadvertent plagiarism through lack of confidence and confusion. This case study identifies opportunities through collaborative work to help students approach referencing with greater clarity and confidence. A project with first-year Arts students engaged in collaborative writing encouraged them to attend to their recording and writing-up of source references using individual ‘reading and referencing’ logs and then passing on completed references to their group’s designated bibliographer. Checks on later, solo, assignments by these students indicated that they were less likely to stray into inadvertent plagiarism, whilst feedback from the students themselves pointed towards improved confidence in their academic writing skills and development of study habits conducive to effective self-monitoring.     

Computer assisted counseling — model for the elementary school

Computers are now part and parcel of the instructional process in many elementary schools. In addition to Computer Assisted Instruction, it is possible to utilize the school computer for other educational purposes such as data storage and information retrieval which can conceivably increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the counseling process. The model described in this paper was built so as to provide the school counselor with an instrument which, although based on traditional counseling methods, is immeasurably more accurate in the provision of updated information for diagnostic and other counseling activities and thus contributes to greater counseling efficiency.     

A Developmental Approach to the Education of Young Children

A developmental approach to the curriculum for young children takes into account the principle that what children should learn, and how they can best learn, changes with their age and the experience that comes with age. Several principles of practice emerge from this basic developmental principle. For example, as children grow older, what they learn changes from horizontal to greater vertical relevance. Similarly, the younger the learner, the more is learned through interactive and active processes rather than through passive and receptive processes. In addition, the younger the learner, the greater the urgency of helping them acquire basic social competence, which is very difficult to acquire later on. These developmental principles of practice imply that a curriculum for young children should include the opportunity to work in small groups on extended investigations of real phenomena in the children's own environments.