“Simultaneous immersion”: How online postgraduate study contributes to the development of reflective practice among public service practitioners

This paper examines how the process of engaging simultaneously in study and work – through online distance-based study – affects students’ capacity to apply their learning in and for the workplace. The paper takes as its starting point the importance of extending notions of “educational effectiveness” beyond course-based attainment to encompass the impact of learning within the workplace. It explores the interface between study and work, focusing on the case of online postgraduate programmes in public management at the University of York. It finds that simultaneous immersion in study and work can create the conditions for “public reflection” that underpin work-based learning and that a key factor is the student-practitioner's ability to mobilise “episodic power.” The paper suggests ways in which existing approaches to online postgraduate learning might be enhanced in order to capitalise on these conditions of simultaneous immersion.     

Teaching students with Down syndrome in regular classrooms in Ghana: views of secondary school mathematics teachers

ABSTRACT

The recent development of making secondary school education free in Ghana has raised concerns about the level of preparedness of teachers to teach students with diverse needs in one classroom. Significantly, mathematics is one of the core areas that the Ghanaian government has prioritised, and it has institutionalised mechanisms to encourage participation by many students. Accordingly, this qualitative study aimed to document the level of preparedness of mathematics teachers to support the teaching of students with Down syndrome in secondary school classrooms. Twenty-seven mathematics teachers from 14 schools, made up of 18 males and nine females, took part in the study. We found that participants were in favour of implementation of inclusive education. However, regarding the prospect of teaching students with Down syndrome, most of the participants thought that the regular secondary school classroom is not a suitable environment for these students to access education, especially due to a number of challenges. The need for the government to support schools with appropriate teaching materials and facilities is discussed extensively.     

Exploring the Associations Between Delayed School Entry and Achievement in Primary and Secondary School

This research investigated whether delayed school entry was associated with higher achievement in national tests of reading and numeracy in Grades 3, 5, 7, and 9 (n = 2,823). Delayed entry was related to advantages in reading (0.14 SD) and numeracy (0.08 SD) at Grade 3, although little variance was explained (1%–2%). This slight advantage persisted for both domains in Grades 5 and 7, albeit with smaller effects. In Grade 9 there was no association between delayed entry and either reading or numeracy. Exploratory analyses with subsamples in each grade (n = 424–667) revealed no associations between delayed entry and achievement after controlling for inattention and hyperactivity, and negative associations between inattention and achievement in all grades in both domains (−0.33, −0.49 SD).     

Investigating Classroom Discourse Surrounding Partner Reading

This study examined the functions that student talk served during partner reading events in a second grade classroom. Five major themes of talk emerged from the data including organizational, disputational, word strategy, meaning making and personal talk. All of these types of talk functioned to support partner reading except for personal talk, which occurred infrequently. The classroom teacher also provided support for these same discourses through her mini-lessons and read alouds.     

Children’s orthographic representations in English and Greek

Two experiments were conducted to compare the development of orthographic representations in children learning to read English and Greek. Nonsense words that either shared both orthography and phonology at the level of the rhyme with real words (comic-bomic), phonology only (comic-bommick), or neither (dilotaff) were created for each orthography. Experiment 1 compared children’s reading of bisyllabic and trisyllabic nonsense words likebomic vs.bommick, taffodil vs.tafoddyl, and found a significant facilitatory effect of orthographic rhyme familiarity for English only. Experiment 2 compared children’s reading of trisyllabic nonsense words that either shared rhyme phonology with real words (tafoddyl) or did not (dilotaff). Significant facilitation in reading accuracy was found for shared rhyme phonology in English, with a significant speed advantage in Greek. These results are interpreted in terms of the level of phonology that is represented in the orthographic recognition units being developed by children who are learning to read more and less transparent orthographies.     

Why biosecurity matters: students’ knowledge of biosecurity and implications for future engagement with biosecurity initiatives

Background: Research on biosecurity is important as New Zealand’s agricultural export-driven economy is susceptible to biosecurity threats. Because New Zealand is reliant on the primary industries to drive its economy, bovine diseases such as foot and mouth could have a devastating effect on the economy.

Purpose: Making sure that the general public are aware of the importance of maintaining biosecurity is crucial in order to protect New Zealand’s economy, human health, the environment, and social and cultural values. New Zealand Year 9 students’ knowledge of biosecurity was gauged as these students represented the next generation of individuals tasked to maintain biosecurity in New Zealand.

Design: A qualitative approach using the interpretive mode of inquiry was used to investigate the knowledge about biosecurity with New Zealand Year 9 students. Questionnaires and interviews were the data collection tools.

Sample: One hundred and seventy-one students completed a questionnaire that consisted of Likert-type questions and open-ended questions. Nine students were interviewed about their knowledge.

Results: The findings showed that New Zealand Year 9 students lacked specific knowledge about unwanted plants, animals and microorganisms. These students saw illicit drug plants as unwanted plants and mainly saw possums as unwanted animals in New Zealand. Their knowledge about unwanted microorganisms in New Zealand was dominated by human-disease-causing microbes. A lack of knowledge of biosecurity issues in New Zealand was seen as the major factor in these students limited understanding of biosecurity.

Conclusions: Based on these findings, it can be said that knowledge of an issue is critical in enabling individuals to develop an understanding about biosecurity. Explicit teaching of biosecurity-related curriculum topics could provide New Zealand Year 9 students with an opportunity to develop knowledge about biosecurity in New Zealand.     

Educating homeless young children

Desiree, a four-year-old homeless child, spent the night in a subway station and has been in three different emergency shelters during the last nine months. Despite her transient life, she has missed only 10 days of her Head Start program during the school year.Sally Koblinsky is Professor, Family and Community Development, University of Maryland. Martha Taylor is Associate Professor, Food, Nutrition and Food Service Management, University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Stacey Relkin is Staff Assistant, House of Representatives Democratic Caucus.     

政治干预性研究

科学面临道德压力，美国国会议员用政治干预科学家对性的研究。     

Longitudinal twin study of early literacy development: Preschool through Grade 1

Grade 1 literacy skills of twin children in Australia (New South Wales) and the United States (Colorado) were explored in a genetically sensitive design (N = 319 pairs). Analyses indicated strong genetic influence on word and nonword identification, reading comprehension, and spelling. Rapid naming showed more modest, though reliable, genetic influence. Phonological awareness was subject to high nonshared environment and no reliable genetic effects, and individual measures of memory and learning were also less affected by genes than nonshared environment. Multivariate analyses showed that the same genes affected word identification, reading comprehension, and spelling. Country comparisons indicated that the patterns of genetic influence on reading and spelling in Grade 1 were similar, though for the U.S. but not the Australian children new genes came on stream in the move from kindergarten to Grade 1. We suggest that this is because the more intensive kindergarten literacy curriculum in New South Wales compared with Colorado, consistent with the mean differences between the two countries, means that more of the genes are “online” sooner in Australia because of accelerated overall reading development.