Teacher Talk During Whole‐Class Lessons: Engagement Strategies to Support the Verbal Participation of Students with Learning Disabilities

The analysis identified discursive strategies used by general education teachers in inclusion classrooms to orchestrate and scaffold the verbal participation of all students, including students with learning disabilities (LD). The context was writing instruction. A whole‐class lesson involving teacher–student collaboration to write a text was analyzed for each of two teachers in two urban elementary inclusion classrooms totaling 67 students; 23 students had LD. Analysis of teacher talk focused on procedural strategies (help the lesson run smoothly and make it easier to follow) and involvement strategies (elicit students' attention to and participation in the lesson). Results indicated that both teachers used a variety of similar strategies to provide spaces for student contributions and, at the same time, move the lessons along. However, they also used contrasting strategies unique to their contrasting pedagogical frames of reference (structural vs. interactional).     

Video-based training to improve perceptual-cognitive decision-making performance of Australian football umpires

Decision-making is a central component of the in-game performance of Australian football umpires; however, current umpire training focuses largely on physiological development with decision-making skills development conducted via explicit lecture-style meetings with limited practice devoted to making actual decisions. Therefore, this study investigated the efficacy of a video-based training programme, aimed to provide a greater amount of contextualised visual experiences without explicit instruction, to improve decision-making skills of umpires. Australian football umpires (n = 52) were recruited from metropolitan and regional Division 1 competitions. Participants were randomly assigned to an intervention or control group and classified according to previous umpire game experience (i.e., experienced; less experienced). The intervention group completed a 12-week video-based decision-making training programme, with decision-making performance assessed at pre-training, and 1-week retention and 3-week retention periods. The control group did not complete any video-based training. Results indicated a significant Group (intervention; Control) × Test interaction (F(1, 100) = 3.98; P = 0.02, partial ?² = 0.074), with follow-up pairwise comparisons indicating significant within-group differences over time for the intervention group. In addition, decision-making performance of the less experienced umpires in the intervention group significantly improved (F(2, 40) = 5.03, P = 0.01, partial ?² = 0.201). Thus, video-based training programmes may be a viable adjunct to current training programmes to hasten decision-making development, especially for less experienced umpires.     

Faculty as Learners: Developing Thinking Communities

The shifting demographics of faculty ranks, expansion of faculty work, and the expectations of accountability and revenue production place new demands on today’s faculty. Collaborating with other faculty members is one option for easing workload demands and reinvigorating faculty members in the conduct of their teaching and research. In this article we discuss the importance of collaboration among faculty members in deriving new strategies for the classroom and approaches to research, and we provide suggestions for moving beyond short term collaborations and toward the creation of thinking communities that have the potential to re-energize faculty members and bring passion back to their work.