Parental beliefs about child development and parental inferences about actions during child-rearing episodes

The way parents’ beliefs on child development support the elaboration of practical inferences during everyday child-rearing episodes was examined. We contrasted two models based respectively on the classical and the connectionist view of schema approaches. According to the classical view, parents activate preformed packages of beliefs in order to produce inferences whereas under the connectionist view, they activate the network of interconnected episodic traces that better fits the information provided by the situation. In the former case, the quality of the inferences depends on the activation of the proper schema whereas in the latter case it depends on the structure of the information given. Two experiments were designed in which parents holding a particular global belief about child development (either constructivism or environmentalism), were presented with a target couple with similar or different views with respect to them. In Experiment 1, constructivist parents bearing in mind the couple’s belief had to judge a set of words describing the couple’s image as parents, their educational goals as well as a number of sentences describing the couple’s child-rearing practices during hypothetical episodes. In Experiment 2, environmentalist parents had to judge the couple’s practices and the amount of information presented about the couple’s ideas as well as its plausibility were manipulated. The results indicate that the accuracy and speed in the production of inferences depends on the information presented in the task. When the information is embedded in episodes and a full, plausible and distinctive account of the couple’s belief are provided, then the production of inferences is performed faster and with more accuracy. The results are discussed in terms of the classical and connectionist views of schema approaches.     

Teacher training colleges in the rural areas of Angola

The Aid for the Development of the People by the People (ADPP), a non-governmental organization (NGO), in collaboration with Angola’s Ministry of Education, has set up a network of secondary schools to train teachers to work in primary schools in the rural areas of Angola. These schools, called Training Colleges for the Teachers of the Future (CTFs), are involved in training a new type of teacher. This article discusses this educational practice, the main aim of which is to train primary teachers to work in the rural areas where too few trained teachers are willing to be posted. The authors describe the measures taken to better meet the needs of the rural areas in terms of teachers who have been properly trained and are motivated to work in such an environment, and then go on to analyse the reasons underlying the success of the CTF programme, specifically the fundamental differences from the state-run teacher training colleges, the way this new practice forms part of the overall reform of the education system and its role in the Education for All (EFA) initiative, and the fight against poverty.

AIDA: An integrated authoring environment for educational software

This paper describes an integrated authoring environment, AIDA (Ambiente Integrado de Desenvolvimento de Aplicações educacionais). It is an open tool, giving the author a high degree of freedom both in package characteristics and design methodologies used. This environment integrates several modules. The core of the design module is a prototyping tool, allowing the creation of evolutionary prototypes. These prototypes can include several types of multimedia components and can be used as part of the final package. The AIDA environment also includes other options that support evaluation, learning materials re-use, communication between authoring team members and translation and cultural adaptation of packages to work in different environments. An experimental version of this authoring environment was implemented and the results of its evaluation are encouraging. In this paper we also present an example of a package created with the AIDA authoring environment.     

The Neolithic or Wood Age

Although perishable under many conditions, wooden artifacts from the Neolithic period have been remarkably well preserved in peat bogs and lakes. Indeed, in view of the large number and quality of the finds, the Neolithic Age might equally well be termed the Wood Age. The objects produced were technically highly sophisticated: the properties of different kinds of wood were well known and used to full advantage, and the skill with which they were made suggests that there may have been craftsmen specializing in woodwork.     

A neurodevelopmental profile of the rural hearing‐impaired child in the QwaQwa region,South Africa

Being hearing impaired does not only affect a child's academic performance, but can also influence a child's overall development and ability to succeed academically. Children with hearing impairment often experience delays in other areas of their development and an understanding of the inter‐relatedness of these delays are important in order to address all these aspects, and thus minimise the impact on a child's overall development. The paper provides a neurodevelopmental profile of 4‐year‐old to 8‐year‐old rural hearing‐impaired children based on the result of a psychometric assessment. Eighteen children were selected from a special needs school in the rural QwaQwa Free State area of South Africa and underwent a psychometric assessment using two test batteries (Griffiths mental developmental scales – extended revised and a neurodevelopmental evaluation scale). The neurodevelopmental profile will contribute to knowledge of the nature of the challenges faced by the hearing‐impaired child in rural education and the neurodevelopmental origin of these challenges.     

English language teaching in public primary schools in Mexico: the practices and challenges of implementing a national language education program

Over the past 15?years, many state governments in Mexico have initiated local programs to introduce English at the primary school level. In 2009, the Mexican Ministry of Education formalized the Programa Nacional de Inglés en Educación Básica (PNIEB) as part of the national curriculum, based on the argument that increasing the number of English speakers in Mexico is necessary for the country to be globally competitive and to follow the trend in other developing economies of augmenting English instruction in public education. This paper focuses on the implementation of PNIEB and the state programs that preceded it. The authors document the practices and challenges associated with the program based on data collected from interviews with the main stakeholders involved (students and parents, teachers, school principals, and program coordinators) and from classroom observations. The total data-set consisted of over 200 interviews and classroom observations spread over several years from 2008 to 2012. Several challenges are described, including the development of materials, the role of English in relation to other subject areas, and the training of teachers who often speak English but have uneven formal preparation. The status of the teachers, both as second-class citizens within the schools and the instability and irregularities with their contracts, was identified as the most significant challenge to the successful implementation of the programs.     

An assessment of the effectiveness of a classroom activity designed to teach the value of lifelong learning

Many agree that educational systems should instill in students the value of lifelong learning (LLL), but few have suggested how to accomplish that or how to measure the effectiveness of those curricular initiatives. We developed a technique intended to strengthen students' beliefs about the value of LLL and piloted use of a recently developed scale to assess changes in commitment to LLL. Using a quasi-experimental procedure, we presented students with faculty members’ career biographies describing their personal career paths, including how they learned from their experiences and how they had to adapt and adjust to changing circumstances. To assess beliefs about LLL, students completed Bath and Smith's Propensity for Lifelong Learning (PLLL) scale. We found that students who listened to career biographies had significantly stronger beliefs regarding the value of LLL than the students who were not exposed to the career biographies. We concluded that listening to career biographies strengthened commitment to LLL and that the PLLL scale is a useful outcome measure of this commitment. We discussed limitations and future directions of our method and measurement instrument.     

Political Ideology and Perceptions of Social Justice Advocacy Among Members of the American Counseling Association

This study explored perceptions of social justice advocacy among liberal, moderate, and conservative members (N?=?214) of the American Counseling Association (ACA). Results showed that conservative participants had somewhat less favorable perceptions of social justice advocacy, but generally did not differ statistically from liberal and moderate participants. Statistically significant differences, however, were found among extremely liberal participants. All participants generally supported the use of ACA resources for social activism. Implications and limitations are discussed.