What a Girl! Fighting Gentleness in the Picture Book World: An Analysis of the Norwegian Picture Book <Emphasis Type="Italic">What a Girl</Emphasis>! by Gro Dahle and Svein Nyhus

The Norwegian picture book What a Girl! (original title Snill) by Gro Dahle and Svein Nyhus was published 2011 and immediately gained a large audience. The book tells the story about a girl who always behaves in the ways expected of her: she never confronts her parents, her teacher or her classmates. This behaviour makes her invisible; she disappears into a wall, causing those around her to take notice. After a while, she fights herself out of the wall, emerging a completely different girl, a strong girl with a will of her own. However, she does not come alone: she has taken with her all the silent females, who had disappeared into the wall before her. The picture book story has fascinated both young and adult readers, and many student teachers have discussed it as part of their curriculum at university. The experienced reader will find intertextual relationships to other texts, where women disappear into the wall such as Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper (1899) and Patrice Kindl’s The Woman in the Wall (1997). The less-experienced reader will encounter a fascinating story of a girl fighting for her freedom and self-esteem. This article will present a multimodal analysis of the cover page and some significant spreads building on social semiotic theory and tools for analysing multimodal texts. The analysis will give a basis for discussing the development of the main character as a liberation project.     

Metacognitive development and moving away

It is now largely accepted that social and cultural factors have a significant impact on cognitive development in children. Piaget acknowledged the impact of social factors and peer interaction on cognitive development. However, there has been relatively little work on the impact of social and cultural factors on the development of metacognition in first‐year university students. Using the Learning and study strategies inventory (LASSI) as a measure of metacognition, this study samples first‐year undergraduates in Hong Kong (N = 1815) and identifies significant differences in metacognitive abilities between students living in their home environment and those who have moved away from their family and, in some cases, culture, to pursue undergraduate education.     

Networking frameworks: a method for analyzing the complexities of classroom cultures focusing on justifying

In this paper, we network five frameworks (cognitive demand, lesson cohesion, cognitive engagement, collective argumentation, and student contribution) for an analytic approach that allows us to present a more holistic picture of classrooms which engage students in justifying. We network these frameworks around the edges of the instructional triangle as a means to coordinate them to illustrate the observable relationships among teacher, students(s), and content. We illustrate the potential of integrating these frameworks via analysis of two lessons that, while sharing surface level similarities, are profoundly different when considering the complexities of a classroom focused on justifying. We found that this integrated comparison across all dimensions (rather than focusing on just one or two) was a useful way to compare lessons with respect to a classroom culture that is characterized by students engaging in justifying.

     

Functioning and participation problems of students with ADHD in higher education: which reasonable accommodations are effective?

Abstract

Students with ADHD struggle in higher education as a result of various functioning and participation problems. However, there are remaining gaps in the literature. First, it remains unclear how often and during which teaching and evaluation methods problems arise. Second, we do not yet know which reasonable accommodations are most effective to deal with the functioning. And third, we do not know which accommodations are most effective to address participation problems of students with ADHD in higher education. This study addresses these three gaps in literature. In total, 86 students with ADHD, 42 student counsellors and 86 students without a disability participated in a survey-based study. The results show that students with ADHD most frequently experience problems with sustaining and focusing attention and it is demonstrated that most problems arise during classical teaching or evaluation methods. Finally, the perception of the effectiveness of reasonable accommodations is strongly dependent on which problems students experience in higher education. These findings suggest that it is important to consider both personal and environmental characteristics when selecting and implementing reasonable accommodations.     

'Horrors of Holland': Explaining Attitude Change Towards Euthanasia and Homosexuals in The Netherlands, 1970 1998

In this article, we investigate changes in public opinion inthe Netherlands toward two controversial issues: homosexualsand euthanasia. We find that a rapid decrease in oppositionto both issues in the seventies and early eighties was followedby a period of a stable minority opposition. We identify relevantperiod and cohort indicators to test which characteristics areassociated with the changes in the attitudes. We collected periodand cohort characteristics that are applicable to both of theattitudes, but specific attitude-related circumstantial conditionsas well. For both attitudes, it turns out that the changingcomposition of Dutch society with regard to religiousness accountsfor the largest changes in public opinion. Furthermore, we findthat the influence of religion on both the attitude towardseuthanasia and the attitude towards homosexuals became strongerover time, whereas the influence of educational attainment weakenedover time. Received for publication April 13, 2006. Accepted for publication April 23, 2007.     

The influence of flow on learning outcomes: An empirical study on the use of clickers

Flow is a state of total absorption and concentration in an activity that is desirable for students, as it enhances the learning experience. Due to the importance of flow for learning, this research investigates the influence of three flow preconditions—namely balance of skill and challenge, feedback and goal clarity—on students' flow, operationalized as heightened concentration, sense of control and autotelic experience, while using clickers—a type of polling device. The study also explores the impact of concentration, sense of control and autotelic experience on students' perceived learning and satisfaction. Based on a survey of 204 undergraduate students who use clickers in the classroom, the findings show that balance of skill and challenge has a positive influence on students' concentration, sense of control and autotelic experience. Both feedback provided by clickers and goal clarity have a positive influence on concentration and sense of control, but do not influence the autotelic experience. Findings also corroborate the positive impact of concentration and sense of control experienced by students on perceived learning. Finally, autotelic experience predicts both perceived learning and satisfaction.     

How epistemic reflexivity enables teacher educators’ teaching for diversity: Exploring a pedagogical framework for critical thinking

Recent research points to the importance of teacher educators teaching for diversity in initial teacher education programmes. Teaching for diversity is an approach to teacher education in which an understanding of specialist literature and a focus on critical thinking supports a social justice agenda as opposed to merely using different tips and tricks to prepare future teachers for teaching diverse learners in the classroom. In this study, we explored how Australian and New Zealand teacher educators negotiated a social justice agenda in teacher education programmes, using a new transdisciplinary framework of epistemic reflexivity. The Epistemic Reflexivity for Teacher Education (ER-TED) framework draws on epistemic cognition (Clark Chinn’s Aims, Ideals, Reliable epistemic processes – AIR – framework) and Margaret Archer’s reflexivity to explore knowledge claims in teacher educators’ pedagogical decision-making. The findings identified how teacher educators in our study discerned and deliberated with respect to epistemic aims for justification, which involve transformative critical thinking and critical thinking for self. They reported good knowledge (ideals) as being scholarly in nature, and reliable epistemic processes based on higher-order thinking (analysis and evaluating competing ideas) or engaging with multiple perspectives. The teacher educators in our study are clear examples of how strong overall evaluative epistemic stances enable teaching for social justice. We argue that the ER-TED framework can help us as a profession to address teaching for diversity in teacher education programmes based on the belief that the pursuit of social justice requires an evaluativist epistemic stance.     

Direct and indirect effects of textual and individual factors on source-content integration when reading about a socio-scientific issue

Reading and Writing - The purpose of this study was to test a hypothesized model that specified direct and indirect effects of textual and individual factors on readers’ ability to integrate...