Towards a pedagogy for information technology

ABSTRACT

The authors of this paper have conducted research into the implementation of National Curriculum assessment at Key Stage 1 by local education authorities in one particular region of the United Kingdom, East Anglia. They found that policy documents were being interpreted in a number of different ways, thus allowing a variety of practices to develop. This has allowed policy implementation to be shaped to meet local needs, in particular with regard to audit or moderation at this key stage.     

Spatial awareness in seven to 11‐year‐old physically handicapped children in mainstream schools

ABSTRACT

Ten mainstream‐educated children with physical handicaps that restrict their independent mobility, aged between 7 and 11 years, were compared with matched classmates on measures of spatial awareness and cognitive mapping skills. Compared with their classmates, the handicapped children were significantly worse at drawing plan maps of their classrooms, placing missing objects on accurate classroom maps, and pointing in the direction of distant landmarks on the school campus. All motorically impaired children were deficient on one or more measures (whether brain damaged or not). Awareness of spatial relations is likely to be important for the development of several intellectual skills, and since physically handicapped children may be disadvantaged in this area, it is worthy of special attention from teachers and support staff.     

Thoughts on a theory of constructive failure

Failure is defined and distinguished from concepts such as learned helplessness, low normative feedback and low absolute feedback. The anti‐failure trend characterizing educational practices and programs of recent decades is examined in light of empirical evidence — some of which offers support for this trend and some of which poses a serious challenge to this trend. Finally, a set of factors predicted to be determinants of the facilitative and debilitating effects of failure is presented.     

Book Reviews

Steve Adams, Derbyshire LEA/University of Nottingham, Perspectives on Pastoral Care, Woocester, A. and Hall, E. 1986, University of Nottingham School of Education, (No. 5 in Human Relations in Education Series)

Eileen Callely, University of Cardiff, Educational Systems for Disruptive Adolescents, Topping, Keith 1983, Croom Helm Ltd., Beckenham, Kent, U.K. (also St. Martin's Press Inc, New York) £7.95

Susan Heyes, Essex Institute of Higher Education, All in a day's work, Walker, D. 1985, Edward Arnold; Them and Us, Parkes, R. 1985, Edward Arnold

Peter Ribbins, University of Birmingham, GO 87: Graduate Opportunities, Pierce, Liz, (Ed), 1986, Newpoint Publishing, £15.00 pp. 920

Barbara Sharples, Worden High School, Lanes, Child Psychology in Action , John Harris, 1986, Croom Helm

Colin J. Smith, University of Birmingham, Special Need in Ordinary Classrooms, G. Hanko, Publisher: Basil Blackwell     

Character Motivations in the Representation of Mental Health Professionals in Popular Film

A narrative approach to studying media that focuses on character motivations represented in film is presented. A content analysis identified the motivations of 58 mental health professional characters represented in popular films (1990–1999). These characters were most commonly motivated by money, power, or a concern for others. Characters motivated by love/lust or self-healing were less common. Young female characters were more strongly motivated by love than other characters. Those characters motivated by a concern for others also tended to be motivated by a need for self-healing but not by a need for power. The distortions and insights of cinematic depictions of mental health professionals' motivations are considered. The implications of a narrative approach for future audience response media research are also discussed.     

Teaching Multiplication with Regrouping to Students with Learning Disabilities

The Common Core Standards require demonstration of conceptual knowledge of numbers, operations, and relations between mathematical concepts. Supplemental instruction should explicitly guide students with specific learning disabilities (SLD) in these skills. In this article, we illustrate implementation of the concrete‐representational‐abstract (CRA) sequence and the Strategic Instruction Model (SIM) for teaching multiplication with regrouping to students with SLD. CRA combined with SIM has been shown to be effective in teaching computation for students with SLD, specifically for developing conceptual understanding. Four elementary students with SLD participated in this study. The researchers used a multiple‐probe design to show a functional relation. Students demonstrated increases in computational fluency; skills were maintained and generalized.