Enriching students’ language skills and confidence through a university mentoring scheme

University can be a challenging learning environment for students entering with a lower level of English. This report focusses on a mentoring scheme which aims to enhance undergraduate students’ English language skills so that they gain the most from their studies. Around 200 students participate in this mentoring scheme each academic year and the programme involves around ten university English teachers who act as mentors. In this report, we describe the programme and reflect on our experience as mentors.     

Exploring ICT Integration as a Tool to Engage Young People at a Flexible Learning Centre

The Edmund Rice Education Australia (EREA) Flexible Learning Centres aim to provide a supportive learning environment for young people who find themselves outside of the mainstream secondary schooling system. Drawing on twenty first Century learning principles, the Centres aim to deliver a personalised learning experience with an emphasis on flexibility and individual choice. Provision of a comprehensive curriculum enables young people to make positive future life choices and successfully transition into employment and further training. The aim of this research project has been to work with teaching staff at a Flexible Learning Centre in North Queensland, Australia, to explore the value of integrating ICT in the form of Web 2.0 technologies to enhance young people??s engagement with the subject of science. The findings of this case study suggest that ICT integration is effective in revitalising science education interest for disengaged young people. This may have wider implications in relation to general concerns of declining student interest and participation in science in the secondary years of schooling.     

Citizen science in digital worlds: the seduction of a temporary escape or a lifelong pursuit?

There is a vast terrain of emerging research that explores recent innovations in digital games, particularly as they relate to questions of teaching and learning science. One such game, Citizen Science, was developed to teach players about the practice of citizen science as well as lake ecology. Citizen science is a pedagogy that has a long history within the scientific community, engaging the public in ongoing community and environmental surveys to collect data for existing small-scale studies. More recently, citizen science has gained traction as an educational context for teaching and learning science in ways that connect to students?? lives and interests. By placing citizen science within the realm of digital worlds, Matthew Gaydos and Kurt Squire invite new possibilities for knowledge to become more kinetic, moving in multiple directions. In this article we discuss some of the tensions we experienced as we explored the digital game, Citizen Science. We highlight questions about narrative and complexity, emergent game play and transfer to encourage thinking about the development and implementation of games such as Citizen Science.     

The lack of representation of educational psychology and school psychology in introductory psychology textbooks

The first goal of this study was to look at the representation of educational and school psychology in introductory psychology textbooks. Research into the representation of other sub‐fields of psychology has been conducted but no research has looked specifically at educational or school psychology. The second goal was to compare the representation of educational and school psychology in introductory psychology textbooks to see if one or the other is receiving more coverage. Third, the textbooks with the most coverage were listed in order to aid educational and school psychologists teaching introductory psychology courses in selecting textbooks that adequately cover material from their sub‐fields. A total of 57 introductory psychology textbooks were content analyzed: 65% of the introductory psychology textbooks had educational psychology material and 65% had school psychology material. However, in the textbooks containing this material the educational and school psychology material made up only .29% and .19% of the textbooks’ total content.     

Assessing emergent literacy in preschool classrooms

Recent research on the literacy development of children during the preschool years has emphasized the notion of “emergent literacy,” according to authors Kontos (1986) and Teale and Sulzby (1986). According to this view, preschool children learn about reading and writing as they participate in a literate culture. Early social interactions involving print are crucial to children's reading and writing development, according to the Early Childhood and Literacy Development Committee (1986).     

The home literacy environment of school‐aged children with autism spectrum disorders

For typically developing (TD) children, the home literacy environment (HLE) impacts reading competence, yet few studies have explored the HLE of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). We collected information about the HLE of children aged 7–13 with ASD and their TD peers via a parental questionnaire and examined whether there were any differences in home literacy practices. Subtle group differences emerged. Children with ASD and concomitant language disorder (autism language disorder [ALD]) were engaged in shared reading and reading discussion more frequently than were TD children and children with ASD and age‐appropriate language skills (autism language normal [ALN]). However, both ALN and ALD children engaged in shared reading for a shorter duration than their TD peers. Across groups, frequency and duration of independent reading were positively associated with reading ability and attitude. Thus, home literacy practices appear to reflect child characteristics, and parents are well placed to facilitate their children's literacy development through encouragement and scaffolding.

Highlights

What is already known about this topic

• The home literacy environment (HLE) impacts the reading development of typically developing children.
• Many children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) have reading difficulties, but little is known about the HLE of children with ASD.

What this paper adds

• We examined the relationship between the HLE and reading for children with ASD.
• Poorer readers with ASD were engaged in shared reading practices more frequently than proficient readers.
• Children with ASD engaged in shared reading practices for a shorter duration than their typically developing peers.

Implications for practice

• Home literacy practices appear to reflect child characteristics.
• Parents are well placed to facilitate their children's literacy development through encouragement and scaffolding.

     

Rethinking Initial Teacher Education for Further Education Teachers: From a standards‐led to a knowledge‐based approach

This paper is a critique of the initial teacher education (ITE) of further and adult education teachers in the UK. It argues that the employer‐led, national standards model in the UK is not the basis for ITE and professional development because it takes no account of learning in the workplace, disregards the multi‐specialist and professional dimensions of professional practice and marginalizes the importance of knowledge. In the critique of the “standards‐led model” the paper draws upon research and ideas on work‐based learning, seeing the learning of teachers in the workplace as a complex relationship with many “experts” in multiple, often conflicting learning contexts. The paper stresses the importance of seeing work‐based learning as more than just “learning by doing” to one that sees it as an intentional structuring of participatory activity. In other words, a “pedagogy of the workplace”. Finally the paper suggests that learning is not just a process of “participation”, but a learning zone where different types of knowledge and pedagogy are learnt and transformed. In highlighting the importance of knowledge the paper draws upon theories of professional knowledge that suggests that certain types of knowledge cannot be gained in the workplace alone, therefore focusing on the issues of the different types of knowledge, their acquisition and their transformation or recontextualisation.