The failure of a virtual social space (VSS) designed to create a learning community: lessons learned

The disappearance of physical social spaces from today's society is seen by some to be a modern phenomenon, resulting in isolation and lack of socialisation. In fact, this is always the case in distance education, due to geographical dispersion and disparate time schedules of learners. Very often, peer‐to‐peer socialisation in distance education only occurs as part of formal learning activities, or is just left to the student's own initiative. This situation is compounded by the modularity of Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs), forcing students to jump from one module space to another as they progress through a course. All discussion threads, conversations or record of previous dialogues are then lost. This paper reports on the design, development and extensive evaluation of a Virtual Social Space (VSS) conceived to address these problems and to support the creation of a learning community for a Continuing Professional Distance Education (CPDE) Masters in IT Management. An action research approach was adopted to establish student needs, design and develop the site and to explore it with students. Initially received with enthusiasm and perceived as a good idea by the students, the VSS was not entirely successful. This paper discusses how characteristics of this cohort had an impact on students’ perception and usage of this social space to create a learning community.     

Gender,student perceptions,institutional commitments and academic dishonesty: who reports in academic dishonesty cases?

The academic dishonesty literature generally focuses on the causes of academic dishonesty, and outlines deterrence strategies, as well as the punishment methods used in formal sanction. Student self-monitoring techniques are becoming a more visible alternative that places greater emphasis on proactive prevention methods as opposed to reactive punishment policies. Increasing the formal level of student responsibility in deterring academic dishonesty assumes that students will actively monitor the behavior of their classmates. Our findings indicate that student perceptions of campus climate and gender differences are important factors when explaining student reporting of suspected academic dishonesty and may illustrate important prerequisite conditions that must exist prior to the establish of a successful student self-monitoring programme.     

Word recognition: The interface of educational policies and scientific research

As a result of a tremendous amount of research in educational, cognitive and developmental psychology on the nature and acquisition of reading skills, practitioners have a goldmine of evidence upon which to design effective educational programs for beginning and problem readers. This evidence is highly consistent in terms of delineating different stages of reading that young children pass through, the types of skills that they are to acquire, and the sorts of difficulties that they are likely to encounter. The purpose of this paper is to broadly outline current knowledge of the beginning stages of reading acquisition for both normal and problem readers and to relate this knowledge to current language arts curricular practices in North America.     

Carnival in the Curriculum

This article focuses on a carnival in the curriculum project designed to revitalise the arts in the experience of students in Higher Education preparing to become primary school teachers. It argues the relevance of a combined arts or trans‐disciplinary artform in the remit of a visual arts education journal and explores carnival as a complex, inclusive, multifaceted and multidimensional cultural practice with deep historical and social roots. It locates carnival within theory and the debate about the arts in schools in the UK from the early 1980s. Drawing on the analysis of interviews with students and teachers in carnival project schools, issues and themes such as student involvement, creativity, artists in schools, and cross‐curricular learning are explored, concluding that carnival in the curriculum provides an opportunity for agency within the regulated official curriculum.     

PRACTICING ASSESSMENT IN THE CLASSROOM: THE LOUISIANA STATE UNIVERSITY ASSESSMENT PROJECT

Abstract

Drawing from an array of theoretical and experiential sources ranging from policy studies to ethnographies, this essay frames a number of public policy issues related to children, families, and early childhood education. These issues provide a brief genealogy of multiple contexts in which early childhood teacher education operates in the United States. Issues addressed include: welfare reform, “No Child Left Behind” legislation, the crimi‐nalization of children, language policies, and recently proposed changes in Head Start. The author draws from her teaching, research, and community organizing experiences to recommend ways to strengthen public policy awareness and advocacy engagement in the field of early childhood teacher education.