The Importance of Making the Well-Being of Children in Poverty a Priority

Hurricane Katrina exposed to the world the side of America that is often ignored or forgotten—the side of America where people live in poverty and struggle to meet their most basic needs. This article focuses primarily on children in Mississippi and highlights the effect that poverty has on children’s well-being at an early age and future academic success. It also provides evidence for the importance of funding high-quality pre-k programs and parental training to ensure they begin the process of preparing their children for success, not only in Mississippi but in the other states that are leaving their children behind. Finally, with the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind in 2007, recommendations are made for refocusing the premise of the law from accountability and high stakes testing to meeting the needs of all children so they can truly be successful in school.     

The Experience of Columbian Child Soldiers from a Resilience Perspective

There are child soldiers fighting with government forces and opposition groups in more than 30 countries worldwide. Although studies have been conducted on the impact of war-related trauma on children, very few have focused on those children who do not exhibit trauma-related symptoms after experiencing armed combat. The purpose of this study was to identify and understand some of the mechanisms and resources that resilient children draw upon to overcome the trauma of child soldiering. Six Colombian child soldiers were recruited through purposive sampling techniques to participate in a narrative study focusing on their lived experiences and their personal understanding of how they were able to overcome the effects of war trauma. Six narrative themes were identified and discussed in terms of the literature on trauma and childhood resilience and also related to counselling needs and services.     

Designing a growth-producing environment

The purpose of this article is to describe how one university counseling center went about the process of changing its management style and subsequent service delivery. In a relatively short period of time the center went from the traditional director-staff relationship to a collective governance process. This shared governance process is based on the assumptions that the product of collective planning, shared responsibilities, and group decision making enhance morale, creativity, and productivity. As a result of the arduous tasks involved in the shift of administrative styles, the center has established group accountability, collective decision making, open communication, and total group program development. For this center's staff the transition to nonauthoritarian governance has been both stimulating and exciting. However, the process of change involves high risks, continual cooperation, and a climate of support. Without these ingredients the potential for creative management will be sharply reduced.     

Beginning literacy: links among teacher knowledge, teacher practice, and student learning

Although the importance of phonological awareness has been discussed widely in the research literature, the concept is not well understood by many classroom teachers. In the study described here, we worked with groups of kindergarten and first-grade teachers (the experimental group) during a 2-week summer institute and throughout the school year. We shared with them research about learning disabilities and effective instruction, stressing the importance of explicit instruction in phonological and orthographic awareness. We followed the experimental group and a control group into their classrooms for a year, assessing teachers' classroom practices and their students' (n = 779) learning. The study yielded three major findings: We can deepen teachers' own knowledge of the role of phonological and orthographic information in literacy instruction; teachers can use that knowledge to change classroom practice; and changes in teacher knowledge and classroom practice can improve student learning.     

Entering and exiting a teacher preparation program: What happens in between?

In determining whether graduates of the Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) Program at Southern Oregon University were developing the necessary knowledge, skills, and dispositions to teach, faculty members found themselves examining their own practice. This is just what Goodlad (1988) suggested we do: clarify our own beliefs in order to better understand our teacher preparation program. We discovered that the development of the MAT program is primarily shaped by the people who teach within the program. Who we are as people, influences who we are as teachers and, who we are as teachers influences the nature of the teacher preparation program. This discovery underscored the importance of our efforts to steward the development of our students’ personhood as well as their knowledge and skills.     

What’s in a word? Practices associated with ‘feedforward’ in higher education

Abstract

The term ‘feedforward’ is increasingly employed in higher education, and this paper focuses on the way in which it fits into contemporary debates about feedback and its impact on practitioners. Semi-structured interviews were used to investigate the practices academics associate with feedforward and the ways in which their intentions and understandings varied. The term resulted in practices being framed as a process and prompted academics to consider the points in the future when students were expected to deploy information and improve. Three future horizons were identified: the ‘within-module’ future horizon dominated, while the challenges of ‘beyond-module’ and ‘beyond-programme’ horizons became apparent. Written comments, guidance, formative assessment and design practices were associated with feedforward, comprising both transmission and student-focused approaches. It is concluded that the modular system restricts longer-term future horizons and sustainable practices, and more must be done to address the divide between theoretical and practitioners’ perspectives.     

The synergy of minority student persistence and faculty renewal

In response to increased student assessment and accountability concerns, colleges and universities have been called on to increase their efforts to improve the retention rates of an increasingly diverse student body. This article outlines a synergistic strategy for promoting minority student persistence through faculty renewal efforts that encourage faculty to question their cultural beliefs and academic values concerning the teaching and learning enterprise.Dr. Kay F. Norman is currently with Delaware State University where she is Director of the Center for Excellence in Teaching. She also teaches graduate courses in Educational Assessment and Special Education Administration and Supervision. She holds an Ed.D. in Higher Education Administration with emphasis in Student Services from Texas Southern University. Her research interests are in student retention, assessment, and effective teaching. James Norman, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Education at Delaware State University's School of Education. He is a graduate of Ohio State University. Dr. Norman's research interest include special education monitoring and compliance issues, and behavioral management systems.     

Administrative and structural changes in student evaluations of teaching and their effects on overall instructor scores

Using nine years of student evaluation of teaching (SET) data from a large US research university, we examine whether changes to the SET instrument have a substantial impact on overall instructor scores. Our study exploits four distinct natural experiments that arose when the SET instrument was changed. To maximise power, we compare the same course/instructor before and after each of the four changes occurred. We find that switching from in-class, paper course evaluations to online evaluations generates an average change of ?0.14 points on a five-point scale, or 0.25 standard deviations (SDs) in the overall instructor ratings. Changing labelling of the scale and the wording of the overall instructor question generates another decrease in the average rating: ?0.15 of a point (0.27 SDs). In contrast, extending the evaluation period to include the final examination and offering an incentive (early grade release) for completing the evaluations do not have a statistically significant effect on the overall instructor rating. The cumulative impact of these individual changes is ?0.29 points (0.52 SDs). This large decrease shows that SET scores are not comparable over time when instruments change. Therefore, administrators should measure and account for such changes when using historical benchmarks for evaluative purposes (e.g. appointments and compensation).     

日常家庭生活中父母——儿童互动对儿童数学发展的影响

本研究观察并分析了两组4岁儿童在家庭日常生活中与父母的互动及所涉及的数的学习。组1儿童为书面数符号表征高分者，组2儿童为低分者。57对儿童-父母对子参加了研究。结果表明，本研究所观察到的儿童日常活动内容丰富多样；大概有三分之一的被试对子所从事的活动涉及到不同类型的阅读和数学学习活动，但这些活动大多由父母发起；儿童早期数学发展水平可能与家庭教育的如下因素有关：家庭日常生活中父母-儿童共同活动的内容与频次，高分组儿童的父母在家中可能更加注意发起或者更加成功地发起了阅读与数学学习活动；高分组父母在与儿童互动的某些策略的运用上可能更有利于儿童的数学学习；高分组的父亲在家中可能与孩子一起参与共同活动的时间更长；高分组父母之所以更加成功地发起了与阅读和数学学习有关的活动可能与儿童本身的因素有关。