Playing With Ideas: Evaluating the Impact of the Ultimate Block Party,a Collective Experiential Intervention to Enrich Perceptions of Play

Parental attitudes shape play opportunities afforded to children in home, community, and school settings. This study presents evaluation of an intervention designed to enrich parent's conception of play and its relationship with socially valued skills and capacities. On the basis of data from 291 racially and ethnically diverse parents/caregivers of young children (median age between 3 and 6) attending an event in NYC, we find the intervention helped parents conceptualize play in complex ways and altered perceptions of its impact on children's current—but not future—lives. Multivariate analyses reveal the causal pathway for these changes as exposure to multiple play sites, rather than time at the event—a finding with direct implications for exposing parents to developmental science in community settings.     

From microscope to mirror: doctoral students’ evolving positionalities through engagement with culturally sensitive research

This study examines the experiences of doctoral students in a qualitative research course that centers culture throughout the research process. Data sources include one-on-one interviews, written documentation of course assignments, research team meetings, and doctoral students’ conference proposals and publications examining civic learning and action and notions of citizenship of second- and 1.5-generation African immigrants in New York City. Using Tillman’s framework for culturally sensitive research (CSR), we draw attention to the ways doctoral students as emerging scholars come to understand and enact their positionalities in research, especially in relation to data analysis, interpretation, and representation. This study expands notions of CSR to include a focus on research with African immigrants and strengthens possibilities for doctoral preparation in education that focuses on culture, race, and immigrant populations.     

Description and interactions of informative text structure knowledge and skills of French-speaking Grade 6 students

This study was conducted in the province of Québec, Canada, among French-speaking Grade 6 students (n?=?175) in the context of a school curriculum that does not clearly address text structure and main idea instruction. It aims to understand whether these students can identify informative text structures and main ideas in isolated paragraphs, comprehend main ideas and text structure in an informative text, and write a short structured informative text. It also describes relationships between these knowledge and skills coming from different reading and writing tasks. Three assessments relative to informative text structures were administered: a multiple-choice test on text structure knowledge and identification of main ideas, a reading comprehension test, and a short writing task. Results revealed that students performed better in the multiple-choice assessment compared to other assessments. Correlations between variables stemming from the three assessments were significant but their effect sizes were low to moderate. A hypothesized model was investigated via a path analysis suggesting that structure knowledge and main idea identification influence reading comprehension, which then influence writing.     

Challenges Faced by Canadian Social Work Field Instructors in Baccalaureate Field Supervision

ABSTRACT

This article examines the challenges faced by social work field instructors in two Canadian provinces. The results are based on the responses from 239 field instructors to a questionnaire survey. Findings highlight student difficulties, administrative issues with the social work schools, and practicum setting challenges. These demands hinder the optimal implementation of social work field education, reveal the concerning gatekeeping role of schools of social work, and discourage some social workers from taking on (or continuing) as field instructors. Implications for social work student placements, supervision of students, academic programs, and directions for future research are presented.     

Unpacking the data: an analysis of the use of Danielson’s (2007) <Emphasis Type="Italic">Framework for Professional Practice</Emphasis> in a teaching residency program

This mixed methods study examines one teacher preparation program’s use of Danielson’s 2007 Framework for Professional Practice, with an emphasis on how different stakeholders in the traditional student teaching triad rated student teachers, called residents, and justified their ratings. Data sources include biannual self-assessments of each resident as well as assessments by the residents’ cooperating teachers and university supervisors based on the Framework, including both a numerical score for each of the 22 indicators and a written justification for the highest and lowest scores in each of the four domains. Findings show significant differences in terms of how stakeholders are rating residents’ teaching practice. The variation in scores and rationales raises questions about the reliability and validity of the results of the Framework for use as a tool to evaluate student teachers. Implications for practice include the need to consider multiple and potentially conflicting roles, such as that of providing feedback while also evaluating student teachers. In addition, we consider the costs and benefits of more extensive training around the Framework within teacher preparation, if a lack of expertise with the rubric was the cause for the variation. Finally, we consider implications for student teachers around the different messages they may be receiving about what it means to learn to teach.     

The NSEAD Survey Report 2015–16: Political Reflections from Two Art and Design Educators

In 2015 the (UK) National Society for Education in Art and Design (NSEAD) conducted their biggest and most comprehensive survey to date with art and design educators. Some 1,191 teachers and lecturers employed in early years to further education settings across England and Wales responded to the survey, which aimed to capture how government policy since 2010 has affected art and design education. Four key areas were examined: curriculum provision; value given to the subject within the school community; professional development opportunities; and well‐being and workload. The results are troubling, indicating a systemic marginalisation of art and design across all sectors, evident in a reduction in choice, provision and curriculum time, and evidence of falling standards in student attainment at primary to secondary transfer. We supported the NSEAD with constructing the survey and writing the report and in this article we utilise the Survey Report to fuel a broader discussion about our concerns regarding the demise of art and design education. Value is identified as an essential theme and we posit that our subject, largely due to neoliberalist policy, is currently perceived as a ‘bimbo’: attractive, but unintelligent and frivolous. In this article we pay particular attention to the value of art and design education from a political perspective, challenging narrow government agendas.     

AN INVESTIGATION OF THE ACCEPTABILITY OF VIDEOCONFERENCING WITHIN A SCHOOL‐BASED BEHAVIORAL CONSULTATION FRAMEWORK

School‐based behavioral consultation with classroom teachers is one of the primary ways school psychologists deliver intervention services to students. The present study aimed to evaluate the acceptability of videoconferencing (VC) with teachers as an alternative medium of consultative communication. Specifically, problem identification interviews (PIIs) were conducted with 60 classroom teachers to simulate a typical consultation interaction. Each teacher completed two PIIs with the researcher consultants, one in a traditional face‐to‐face (FtF) format and one in a videoconference (VC) format Teachers completed two brief pre‐post measures, the Fast Form of the Technology Acceptability Model (FF‐TAM) and the Distance Communication Comfort Scale (DCCS) to evaluate the acceptability of VC. Demographic moderators of the acceptability of VC were evaluated using a multiple regression analysis. The results suggest that although teachers rated VC as an acceptable communication medium prior to participating in the VC interview, teacher acceptability ratings increased to “highly acceptable” after participating in the study. Finally, no variables were identified that significantly moderated the relationship between teachers' acceptability rating of VC and their demographic variables. Implications for practice and future research are discussed.     

Developing Online Graduate Coursework in Adapted Physical Education Utilizing Andragogy Theory

Graduate adapted physical education (APE) courses have typically been taught using face-to-face formats where the instructor and learners physically meet in a classroom and engage in discussions and experiential exercises. However, because in-service physical educators have time demands associated with teaching, coaching, and family commitments, face-to-face meetings may not be feasible. Therefore, online learning may provide a more efficient and effective method for training in-service physical educators to become APE specialists. The purpose of this article is to disseminate guidelines for developing and implementing online coursework in APE within the theoretical framework of andragogy (adult learning). In this article, the authors describe characteristics and implementation of an online APE graduate course for in-service physical educators based on andragogy theory. Andragogy theory addresses the particular needs of adult learners and is based on the idea that there are significant differences in learning characteristics between children and adults (Knowles, 1989). This article first describes four components fundamental to andragogical instruction: experiential learning, self-directed learning, engagement, and transformative learning. The narratives provide information and characteristics about online APE course development for PE teachers’ professional development and how andragogy approach is a useful and beneficial approach to enhance learning.     

Hearing, deaf, and hard-of-hearing Israeli adolescents' evaluations of deaf men and deaf women's occupational competence

This study examined 74 deaf and hard-of-hearing (D/HH) and 91 hearing high school students regarding their own occupational aspirations and their evaluations of occupational competence (EOCs) for deaf adults. In the EOC, participants rated the suitability of 25 occupations (varying according to prestige and required level of communication) for deaf men and women. The results showed that occupations requiring intensive communication levels, regardless of their prestige, were evaluated as much less suitable for deaf individuals than were those requiring less communication. D/HH adolescents did not find highly prestigious occupations as suitable for deaf adults even when communication barriers were irrelevant. Both D/HH and hearing participants expressed biased evaluations of deaf women's competence, but no further evidence emerged for stereotypic attitudes. Higher educational aspirations among hearing adolescents, especially hearing males, correlated with a higher EOC of deaf adults. No such associations emerged for D/HH participants. No gender effects emerged. Implications of these outcomes for career development, especially for females, were discussed.     

When diglossia meets dyslexia: The effect of diglossia on voweled and unvoweled word reading among native Arabic-speaking dyslexic children

Native Arabic speakers read in a language variety that is different from the one they use for everyday speech. The aim of the present study was: (1) to examine Spoken Arabic (SpA) and Standard Arabic (StA) voweled and unvoweled word reading among native-speaking sixth graders with developmental dyslexia; and (2) to determine whether SpA reading ability among children with dyslexia predicts StA reading fluency in the two orthographies: voweled and unvoweled. A comparison was made to three age groups of typically developing children: a group matched by chronological age, a group of children who are two years younger, and a group of children who are 4 years younger. Findings show that diglossia has a strong impact on reading ability in dyslexic children. Moreover, vowelization plays a pivotal role in the reading ability of Arabic-speaking children with dyslexia in both SpA and StA. This role is evident in the different performance patterns of dyslexic participants as compared with controls on word-reading accuracy and fluency for SpA versus StA. Finally, StA word-reading fluency appears to depend on and to be reliably and powerfully predicted by SpA word-level reading ability. These results underscore the role of diglossia and vowelization in the manifestation of dyslexia in Arabic-speaking children.