Oxfam 'Developing Rights': Towards a Maximalist Conception of Citizenship

The concept of citizenship is open to a wide range of interpretations and, although it has a long history at the margins of education in the UK, it has never had an established tradition. Arguably, citizenship should occupy a central position in the curriculum since a broad interpretation of it underpins many of the skills, values and attitudes which we would want to promote. As part of Oxfam's promotion of global citizenship, a pack of teaching materials was commissioned and developed by teachers, with the aim of promoting basic rights from local, national and global perspectives. This paper describes this pack and the rationale for it.     

Changing legislation and its effects on inclusive and special education: Scotland

This article, by Sheila Riddell and Elisabet Weedon of the Centre for Research in Education Inclusion and Diversity, University of Edinburgh, analyses recent policy developments and outcomes in the field of additional support needs in Scotland in the context of devolution and austerity, drawing on a critical analysis of policy and administrative data. While there is a growing tendency in Scottish policy discourse to ‘decentre’ England as a main point of comparison, in the field of special and additional support needs policy there appear to be strong correspondences between the two jurisdictions. England appears to be following Scotland's lead in producing new types of statutory support plans and placing greater emphasis on children's rights. At the same time, these policy changes are being implemented in different policy contexts, with homogenous governance arrangements characterising the Scottish school system, compared with increasing complexity within the English system. In terms of the growth of the category of social, emotional and behavioural difficulties (SEBD in Scotland, BESD in England) there are strong cross‐border parallels. Children in these categories tend to live in deprived areas and are unlikely to have statutory support plans. Overall, this indicates the importance of analysing not just policy discourse, but also policy outcomes.     

Blended university teaching using virtual learning environments: conceptions and approaches

This paper reports findings from a phenomenographic investigation into blended university teaching using virtual learning environments (VLEs). Interviews with 25 Computer Science teachers in Greek universities illuminated a spectrum of teachers’ conceptions and approaches from ‘teacher-focused and content-oriented’, through ‘student-focused and content-oriented’, to ‘student-focused and process-oriented’. Using VLEs was described as a means of supporting: A—information transfer; B—application and clarification of concepts; C—exchange and development of ideas, and resource exploration and sharing; D—collaborative knowledge-creation, and development of process awareness and skills. The study suggests that pedagogical beliefs and circumstances underpinning face-to-face teaching are more influential in shaping approaches to blended VLE use than VLE system features. The authors propose that the findings could be used to inform educational enhancement initiatives and that there is a need for further discipline-focused research on blended teaching.     

Library Links on Medical School Home Pages

The purpose of this study was to assess the websites of American Association of Medical Colleges (AAMC)-member medical schools for the presence of library links. Sixty-one percent (n = 92) of home pages of the 150 member schools of the AAMC contain library links. For the 58 home pages not offering such links, 50 provided a pathway of two or three clicks to a library link. The absence of library links on 39% of AAMC medical school home pages indicates that the designers of those pages did not consider the library to be a primary destination for their visitors.     

Pace: An Alternative Measure of Student Question Response Time

In some professions, speed and accuracy are as important as acquired requisite knowledge and skills. The availability of computer-based testing now facilitates examination of these two important aspects of student performance. We found that student response times in a conventional non-speeded multiple-choice test, at both the global and individual question levels, closely approximated lognormal distributions. We propose a new measure, pace, which is derived from the survival function of these distributions for analysis of individual person response times. These pace estimates could be used both to rank and compare students; pace also performed maximally compared to other parameterizations in generalizability and dependability studies. While pace was very weakly related to person ability, there was no detectable relationship to question parameters of shift, natural logarithmic mean, or natural logarithmic standard deviation. That is, pace was a person-dependent, question-independent measure. Pace measurements were also successfully used as covariates in models for estimation of person response time to specified questions and person accuracy in response to specified questions. Thus, the analysis of pace can contribute significantly to comprehensive evaluation of student performance in both the speed and ability domains and is a requisite to best practice in testing and assessment.     

Learning to Facilitate Advance Care Planning: The Novice Social Worker’s Experience

Professional leaders have identified clear roles for social workers involved in advance care planning (ACP), a facilitated process whereby individuals identify their preferences for future medical care; yet information about effective teaching practices in this area is scant. This study reports on the experiences of 14 social workers who participated in a nationally recognized, evidence-based ACP facilitator certification program. Researchers first analyzed data consisting of participants’ in-depth reflective writings using an inductive thematic analysis process. Identified themes were subsequently grouped into three categories to characterize the “novice” experience of participants: theoretical knowledge, skill development, and self-reflection. Findings underscore the importance of ACP training in social work education and the need for teachers to help learners better understand the process of professional skill development.     

Comparison of the effectiveness and efficiency of oral and written retellings and passage review as strategies for comprehending text

The purpose of this study was to compare the instructional effectiveness and efficiency of oral retelling, written retelling, and passage review comprehension strategies on third‐grade students' accuracy and rate of answering reading comprehension questions. A modified alternating treatment design was used to compare the effects of oral retelling, written retelling, and passage review strategies. Each strategy occurred within the context of repeated readings with phrase drill error correction. This study extended previous research findings by examining the effects of oral and written retelling as strategies for improving both literal and inferential comprehension and by investigating the efficiency of retelling procedures. Findings revealed that students' accuracy in answering reading comprehension performance was better under both retelling conditions than the passage review condition. The oral retelling coupled with repeated readings and phrase drill error correction was the most efficient instructional method for answering comprehension questions correctly. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.