Preparing Doctoral-Level Consultants for Systems Change: Implementing and Supervising Multitiered Practices in Early Childhood Education

Implementing changes that support a preventative approach in early childhood education (ECE) requires the collaboration of skilled professionals. The present case study describes a change effort to implement multitiered systems of support (MTSS) in early childhood settings that included collaboration of agency personnel, school psychology program faculty and trainees, and ECE faculty. It describes a competency-based training initiative that provides applied experiences in consultation, supervision, and change facilitation for systems change efforts. The implementation of a systems-level approach for promoting positive behavior at three ECE agencies is described, with resulting teacher and child outcomes. Implications for future consultation research, training, and practice are discussed in relation to a consultation training model that provides competency-based field experiences to support change in ECE.     

Football boundary-layer separation via dust experiments

A method of examining the separation of the boundary layer of air from a sports ball, specifically a football, is presented. Using a ball launcher, a non-spinning football is fired into a dust cloud. A high-speed camera records the ball passing through the dust cloud. Unlike wind-tunnel methods, the dust method described here allows for the examination of the boundary-layer separation without a ball-supporting arrangement. Boundary-layer separation for speeds surrounding the drag crisis is studied. Though the general trend is for the boundary layer to separate farther back on the ball as the ball’s centre-of-mass speed increases, anomalous behaviour is seen just past the drag crisis, namely a rise in the separation angle, followed by an expected decrease.     

The Special Needs Code of Practice: antecedents and outcomes

The aims are, firstly, to explore the origins of the Code of Practice for special educational needs (SEN) and the establishment of the appeals Tribunal and, secondly, to assess the likely impact of each. The concept of quasi‐market is introduced as the general background to developments in education. The origins of the Code are posited ultimately in the Warnock Report's recommendations and subsequently in the recorded trends in SEN following the Education Act, 1981. The origins of the Tribunal are also located in these latter and in particular the difficulties surrounding the increased volume of litigation and appeals. There concludes a prediction of little change for SEN from the introduction of the Code but an increased activity for the Tribunal.