Implementing Online Counselling in Australian Secondary Schools: What Principals Think

Today’s young people have integrated the online world into their everyday reality and schools have generally accepted the importance of technology in the education process. However, there has been limited use in schools of technology to counsel young people, although early indications suggest that school counsellors may be prepared to offer synchronous online counselling if they were supported by school principals. The aim of this study was to investigate Australian secondary school principals’ views about using an online format for counselling in schools. There were 33 principals who participated and they indicated technological competency and acknowledged the benefits of using technology in the counselling process. The principals were generally supportive of the provision of online school counselling, although their major concern was the need for more counsellors and the impact on the workload of current counselling staff. A few principals, however, were unconvinced about offering online counselling and had a fundamental preference for face-to-face communication experiences for students. Strategies for facilitating the acceptance of online counselling by principals and guiding implementation in schools are proposed.     

What influences Australian secondary schools in their efforts to prevent and intervene in cyberbullying?

ABSTRACT

Background

Cyberbullying is a significant problem for young people and secondary schools are the main institutions expected to address it. School anti-bullying measures have only modestly reduced the problem to date.     

What Paves the Way to Conventional Language? The Predictive Value of Babble,Pointing, and Socioeconomic Status

A child's first words mark the emergence of a uniquely human ability. Theories of the developmental steps that pave the way for word production have proposed that either vocal or gestural precursors are key. These accounts were tested by assessing the developmental synchrony in the onset of babbling, pointing, and word production for 46 infants observed monthly between the ages of 9 and 18 months. Babbling and pointing did not develop in tight synchrony and babble onset alone predicted first words. Pointing and maternal education emerged as predictors of lexical knowledge only in relation to a measure taken at 18 months. This suggests a far more important role for early phonological development in the creation of the lexicon than previously thought.     

The University of Alabama at Birmingham Center for Community OutReach Development Summer Science Institute Program: A 3-Yr Laboratory Research Experience for Inner-City Secondary-Level Students

This article describes and assesses the effectiveness of a 3-yr, laboratory-based summer science program to improve the academic performance of inner-city high school students. The program was designed to gradually introduce such students to increasingly more rigorous laboratory experiences in an attempt to interest them in and model what “real” science is like. The students are also exposed to scientific seminars and university tours as well as English and mathematics workshops designed to help them analyze their laboratory data and prepare for their closing ceremony presentations. Qualitative and quantitative analysis of student performance in these programs indicates that participants not only learn the vocabulary, facts, and concepts of science, but also develop a better appreciation of what it is like to be a “real” scientist. In addition, the college-bound 3-yr graduates of this program appear to be better prepared to successfully academically compete with graduates of other high schools; they also report learning useful job-related life skills. Finally, the critical conceptual components of this program are discussed so that science educators interested in using this model can modify it to fit the individual resources and strengths of their particular setting.     

When Infants Look to Their Parents: I. Infants'' Social Referencing of Mothers Compared to Fathers

12-month-olds were seen with their mothers and fathers in a laboratory procedure designed to compare infants' solicitation of, emotional resonance to, and self-regulation on the basis of happy, fearful, and conflicting emotional signals from mothers versus fathers. Measures of positive and negative affect and affect lability; of look, approach, and proximity behavior; and of overall response pattern were obtained. Infants showed more positive and less negative affect and greater toy proximity with happy compared to fearful signals. Few differences emerged in infants' referencing response to mothers versus fathers. Infants looked more to mothers than fathers when no signals were given but did not differentiate between parents when only one was signaling or when both were signaling (conflict). In affective state and behavioral regulation, they were not differentially responsive to maternal versus paternal signals either when only one parent was signaling or when both were giving signals.     

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.