When parents are deaf versus hard of hearing: patterns of sign use and school placement of deaf and hard-of-hearing children

This paper investigates the importance of knowing whether or not deaf and hard-of-hearing students have one or more deaf or hard-of-hearing parents. As noted by Mitchell and Karchmer (2004), deaf and hard-of-hearing school-age children and youth in the United States with at least one parent identified as "hearing impaired" are nearly evenly split between having at least one deaf parent and having at least one hard-of-hearing parent. However, there is no literature on the importance, if any, of this distinction. Findings from the investigation reported herein suggest that the distinction between having a deaf versus a hard-of-hearing parent is quite substantial, particularly as it pertains to the use of signing in the home. Further, signing in the home, which is reliably predicted by parental hearing status, is a significant predictor of the school setting in which the student is currently placed and the instructional use of signing in the classroom. Limitations related to the available measure of parental hearing status are discussed.     

The role of law in protecting the child: A critique of the English system

We have undertaken a critical appraisal of the current English system of law regulating: (1) Provision of services designed to prevent children coming into care of local authorities, which are the authorised agencies for dealing with children who are abused or neglected. (2) Ways of receiving children into care and also ways of terminating care orders. We question whether, and under what circumstances, care orders are really necessary. (3) Periodic reviews of children in care. We are critical of the English system and look to models in the USA as guides towards the possible reform of English law. We take the same perspective when considering termination of parental rights. In our opinion good laws do not of themselves provide the care and love which a child requires, but they make the caring possible by loved and loving adults. We argue that the law must provide the best possible framework to allow adequate caring by members of the non-legal professions, such as social workers and foster parents. At the same time the law must ensure that the rights of parents and children are protected.     

Creativity Is About Being Free ...

I began this journey with the notion that creativity is somehow linked to having the freedom to explore and discover and dissemble and reassemble in whatever form we choose. This notion is compared with the ideas of researchers in the field of creativity. As an engineer who believes in a holistic approach, I am most comfortable with the idea of creativity as a multifarious beast, influenced by both personality and the cultural, social and professional environment in which engineers, in this case, find themselves. This being the case, engineering educators therefore have some opportunity to influence these factors, and hence the development of creative thinking in our students. I then examine a case study of a design project in second‐year chemical and environmental engineering in an attempt to ground these ideas about creativity in engineering education practice, and present the lessons learned from this experience.     

Associations between blocking,monitoring, and filtering software on the home computer and youth-reported unwanted exposure to sexual material online

ObjectiveTo examine the relationship between the use of preventive software on the home computer and unwanted exposure to sexual material online.MethodsThe Youth Internet Safety Survey-2 was a national, RDD telephone survey conducted in March–June 2005. Eight hundred households (one caregiver and one child between the ages of 10 and 17 years) with home Internet access answered questions pertaining to Internet prevention activities in the household and adolescent behaviors and exposures online.ResultsUnwanted exposure to sexual material occurred in 32% of youth in homes with pop-up/spam blockers and 25% of youth in homes with filtering, blocking, or monitoring software on the home computer, compared to 43% of households without preventive software installed on the home computer. Among otherwise similar youth, pop-up/spam blockers installed on the home computer were significantly associated with 59% lower odds of reporting unwanted exposure to sexual material on the home computer; and filtering, blocking, or monitoring software was significantly associated with 65% lower odds. When data were stratified by youth sex, associations between preventive software and unwanted exposure were similar for boys and girls. When stratified by age, preventive software was associated with significantly reduced risk of unwanted exposure for 10–12-year olds and 13–15-year olds, but not for 16–17-year olds.ConclusionAlthough these correlational analyses are far from providing conclusive evidence that preventive software protects children from unwanted exposure to sexual material online, findings suggest that caregivers of boys and girls 15 years of age and younger who want to reduce the likelihood of unwanted exposure to sexual material on the home computer should consider including preventive software—especially filtering, blocking, or monitoring software—in their Internet safety plan.Practice implicationsPractitioners should partner with caregivers in developing an Internet safety plan, including proactive caregiver-youth discussions about expected Internet behavior appropriate for their household.     

The relationships and impact of teachers’ metacognitive knowledge and pedagogical understandings of metacognition

We know that metacognitive students are successful in school (Sternberg Instructional Science 26:127–140, 1998). However, despite the recognition of the role of metacognition in student success, limited research has been done to explore teachers’ explicit awareness of their metacognition and their ability to think about, talk about, and write about their thinking (Zohar Teaching and Teacher Education 15:413-429, 1999). Therefore, the current study investigates teachers’ understanding of metacognition and their pedagogical understanding of metacognition, and the nature of what it means to teach students to be metacognitive. One hundred-five graduate students in education participated in this study. The data analysis results, using mixed research method, suggest that the participant’s metacognitive knowledge had a significant impact on his/her pedagogical understanding of metacognition. The results revealed that teachers who have a rich understanding of metacognition report that teaching students to be metacognitive requires a complex understanding of both the concept of metacognition and metacognitive thinking strategies.     

The Relationship Between Teacher Behaviours and Student Talk in Promoting Quality Learning in Science Classrooms

This paper distils 24 years of classroom research into promoting quality learning in science classrooms to develop an overall framework for better understanding and describing both the learning and the teaching approaches that stimulate and support it. For me, quality learning is characterised by adjectives such as informed, purposeful, reflective, intellectually active, metacognitive and independent. Central to quality learning is the role of talk, and central to promoting talk which promotes quality learning are certain teacher behaviours. I first focus on the ways that teachers behave in the classroom in order to promote, react to and use student talk. These behaviours are summed up in a list of twelve principles for quality teaching. Each of these principles requires, as well as appropriate teacher behaviours, the use of effective teaching procedures. I then focus on four kinds of student talk that exemplify informed, purposeful, reflective and intellectually active thinking. These variously involve students’ existing ideas and explanations; increasing student ownership of practical activities; constructive challenges to the teacher (or text’s) idea, and lateral, reflective ‘thinking’ questions.     

Effects of timing of signal indicating jump directions on knee biomechanics in jump-landing-jump tasks

A variety of the available time to react (ATR) has been utilised to study knee biomechanics during reactive jump-landing tasks. The purpose was to quantify knee kinematics and kinetics during a jump-land-jump task of three possible directions as the ATR was reduced. Thirty-four recreational athletes performed 45 trials of a jump-land-jump task, during which the direction of the second jump (lateral, medial or vertical) was indicated before they initiated the first jump, the instant they initiated the first jump, 300 ms before landing, 150 ms before landing or at the instant of landing. Knee joint angles and moments close to the instant of landing were significantly different when the ATR was equal to or more than 300 ms before landing, but became similar when the ATR was 150 ms or 0 ms before landing. As the ATR was decreased, knee moments decreased for the medial jump direction, but increased for the lateral jump direction. When the ATR is shorter than an individual’s reaction time, the movement pattern cannot be pre-planned before landing. Knee biomechanics are dependent on the timing of the signal and the subsequent jump direction. Precise control of timing and screening athletes with low ATR are suggested.     

The effect of switching to mandatory online course assessments on response rates and course ratings

Increasingly, student assessments of courses are being conducted online as opposed to administered in class. A growing body of research compares response rates and course ratings of courses evaluated online versus on paper. The present study extends this research by comparing student course assessments before and after the University of South Florida made online evaluations mandatory for all courses. This change only directly affected courses taught on-campus, as online courses were already being assessed online. However, we examine the effect of this change on courses taught on-campus and online, because we expect this change in policy to have differential effects. We hypothesise that by making online assessments mandatory for all courses, online assessments went from a novel method of evaluation to the norm; and, therefore, increased response rates for online courses, but had the opposite effect for on-campus courses. We find mixed support for our hypothesis.