On-line Learning at Universities in Developing Countries: From Leap-frogging to Antelope-jumping—Specific Needs and Solutions

Virtual universities, or at least the on-line delivery of tertiary-level courses, offer tremendous possibilities to the developing countries of the South to raise their educational levels. Countries that lack a sound higher education infrastructure can thereby tap the resources of the more developed countries. They can also use the resources of the information and communication technologies to transmit educational offerings to isolated areas and/or areas in which local higher education possibilities are not available. But there are problems. The telecommunications networks, which are almost always owned and headquartered in the developed countries of the North, charge exorbitant rates for their services. Courses and courseware designed in developed countries are frequently not suitable, from a cultural point of view, for use in the developing countries in the South. These should be designed locally, and local teachers need to be retrained to work in a virtual teaching environment. Despite problems, virtual learning offers a chance for the developing world to surge ahead.     

An Evaluation of the Delacato Method For The Facilitation of Reading Behaviour∗

This study examines the effectiveness of the Delacato program on reading behaviour by the utilization of three treatment groups. Sixty reading disabled twelve and a half year‐old boys from the one technical school were randomly assigned to three treatment groups. One group was a conventional Delacato group, one a gymnastics group, and the third a phonics treatment group. The results indicated that there was no significant difference between any of the three groups in respect to reading ability after one school year of treatment. Because the motor program groups did less reading per week than the others, it was concluded that motor programs are of value in that these appear to stimulate reading responses. However, since there was no difference between the two motor program groups, it was also concluded that there was no justification in believing in any special efficacy of the Delacato program.

     

Deaf and hard of hearing Americans' instant messaging and e-mail use: a national survey

An online survey of 884 deaf and hard of hearing adults asked about their current and past use of communication technologies, notably TTY, telecommunications relay services, e-mail, and instant messaging (IM). Results showed that respondents were using e-mail and IM far more than TTY and relay services. The study participants virtually all had e-mail and IM at home. In fact, about one quarter had a high-speed ("broadband") connection at home. While the vast majority also had and used e-mail at work, just 1 in 3 had IM at his or her place of employment. The findings have several implications. Most important for educators is that strong reading and writing skills are essential if adults who are deaf or hard of hearing are to take advantage of today's communications technologies. Another conclusion is that some workers who are deaf or hard of hearing appear to face discrimination in employment because office policies forbid the use of a highly effective reasonable accommodation, instant messaging.     

Integrating assessment tasks in a problem‐based learning environment

The purpose of this study was to get more insight in the effects of written assessment tasks integrated in a problem‐based learning environment. Both the influence on students' performances and students' perceptions were investigated. Students' final exam results were used to find out whether students who make the assessment tasks do better than students who do not. Answers from questionnaires and semi‐structured interviews were used to discover the most important concerns in students' and teachers' perceptions of the assessment tasks. The results indicate that making the assessment tasks had positive influence on the students' overall performance. From the questionnaires and interviews it appears that both the students and the teachers see the benefits of the assessment tasks. It is concluded that small steps in the change of the assessment system can result in relatively big changes in students' learning and results.     

Who is the engaged citizen? Correlates of secondary school students’ concepts of good citizenship

The opinions about what characterises a good citizen are diverse, yet survey research usually employs variable-centred analytical strategies to examine people’s concepts of good citizenship. The present study builds on a person-centred approach towards good citizenship and validates previously identified types of good citizenship among Australian secondary school students. Following an in-depth characterisation of these types by sociodemographic variables and civic attitudes, this study incorporates multinomial regression analysis to take a closer look at very extreme but practically important patterns. These analyses suggest that students need to believe in the value of civic action to become political enthusiasts and not politically alienated. Civic knowledge may prevent political alienation; however, it is not the ultimate solution as it is negatively correlated with political enthusiasm when controlling for multiple predictors. The results are discussed with respect to their significance for civics and citizenship teaching and learning.     

The role of teacher trust in segregated elementary schools: a multilevel repeated measures examination

This study aims to investigate how teachers’ trust in their students relates to reading comprehension achievement in socially and ethnically segregated elementary schools in Flanders (Belgium) by taking into account class composition characteristics. It is examined how student variables, ethnic diversity and the proportion of non-native students in the class, and teachers’ trust in their students relate to reading comprehension achievement and learning growth. A 3-level multivariate repeated measures analysis was conducted. At 2 measurement occasions, reading tests and questionnaires were administered to a sample (n = 417) of 7- and 8-year-old students in 32 classes. Teachers’ trust in their students was found to be a key factor relating to learning growth in reading comprehension, and mediated the relationship between the level of ethnic diversity in the class and learning growth. Teachers with a higher level of trust in their students seem to foster more learning growth in reading comprehension.     

Teachers’ monitoring of students’ text comprehension: can students’ keywords and summaries improve teachers’ judgment accuracy?

We investigated intra-individual monitoring and regulation in learning from text in sixth-grade students and their teachers. In Experiment 1, students provided judgments of learning (JOLs) for six texts in one of three cue-prompt conditions (after writing delayed keywords or summaries or without a cue prompt) and then selected texts for restudy. Teachers also judged their students’ learning for each text, while seeing - if present - the keywords or summaries each student had written for each text, and also selected texts for restudy. Overall, monitoring accuracy was low (.10 for students, ?.02 for teachers) and did not differ between cue-prompt conditions. Regulation, indexed by the correlation between JOLs and restudy selections, was significant (?.38 for students, ?.60 for teachers), but was also not affected by cue-prompt condition. In Experiment 2, teachers judged students’ comprehension of six texts without knowing the students’ names, so that only the keywords and summaries, not prior impressions, could inform judgments. Again, monitoring accuracy was generally low (.06), but higher for keywords (.23) than for summaries (?.10). These results suggest that monitoring intra-individual differences in students’ learning is challenging for teachers. Analyses of the diagnosticity and utilization of keywords suggest that these may contain insufficient cues for improving teacher judgments at this level of specificity.     

The Task of Professional Development

Policies of inclusive education are emerging from many ministries and departments of education in countries around the world. McLesky and Waldron (2002) have argued that when teachers and administrators in schools begin to have discussions about inclusion the discussions often lead to two conclusions about how schools must change: (a) the change must address the needs of all students, not just those with disabilities, and (b) “school improvement” replaces references to inclusion. That is, teachers and administrators begin to rethink and restructure their programs in special and general education to improve the education of all students. In having to reform their practices general education teachers, in particular, must develop new understandings related to inclusion and reconceptualise how students with disabilities and learning difficulties might best be taught. As a consequence these teachers are recognising that they must change their practices in curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment. However, in order to make the changes and to develop new classroom practices general education teachers often reveal a need for inservice training. Thus there is a call from general education teachers for professional development in various areas. Several authors have described a range of initiatives in professional development in the context of school improvement. For example, there are alliances between teachers and researchers through teacher-researcher professional development groups (e.g., Vaughn, Hughes, Schumm, & Klinger, 1998) and collaborative communities (e.g., Englert & Zhao, 2001); professional development schools (PDS) where special educators are viewed as “catalysts” who further the knowledge of both inservice and preservice teachers (Voltz, 2001); “critical friend(s) groups” which are teacher support groups (Bambino, 2002); “Friday Forums” where teachers within a school use internal school expertise to inservice each other (Hudson, 2002); and professional learning communities or networks of various types, sometimes developed by professional organisations and itinerant specialists who are assigned to school districts to work on school reform with schools and teachers.