The Efficacy of Written Teacher Advice (Tip Sheets) for Managing Classroom Behaviour Problems

This study evaluated the efficacy of a set of tip sheets developed to provide written advice to teachers about the management of common classroom behaviour problems. Twenty teachers were involved in the trial of the tip sheets. Teachers selected a child in their grade who demonstrated one of the behaviour problems, and after a baseline period, implemented the written advice for a period of 4 weeks. Outcome measures included teacher collected data, Goal Achievement Scale scores, Sutter-Eyberg Student Behavior Inventory, Teacher Report Form and consumer satisfaction. Measures of treatment integrity were also collected. Results indicated that 13 of the children showed substantial or moderate improvement. Of the seven who did not improve, four had high levels of general behaviour problems prior to intervention, and three had teachers who were not following the written advice completely. However, high levels of general behaviour problems did not prevent some other children still demonstrating improvements in behaviour (n = 5). The written advice in the tip sheets was found to be highly acceptable to the teachers.     

Peer Assisted Learning (PAL) — Listserver/ Electronic Journal

This paper examines quality assurance in School Based Teacher Education Partnerships (STEPs) draws on the perspectives of different participants and reveals some issues which require attention in order to achieve quality. Based on this evidence, suggestions are made as to how those involved can work towards enhancing and maintaining quality.     

THE RISE AND FALL OF AN ETHNIC ADVOCATE AND AMERICAN HUCKSTER

As president of the American Association of Foreign Language Newspapers, Louis N. Hammerling accumulated substantial power over some 800 newspapers in 33 languages. As advertising, public relations and journalism emerged as professions in the 1900s, Hammerling functioned as a translator, advertising agent, public relations man and go-between for ethnic-language newspapers when they flourished. With his trade magazine, The American Leader, he extolled the virtues and hardships of immigrants, and offered editorial proposals for legislative changes. In response to his widespread influence, federal officials called him to testify in 1918 about his First World War-era propaganda for Germany, the USA and alcoholic beverages industries. This historical, biographical case study highlights the potential corruptibility of the boundaries of news, advertising and circulation sides of the media.     

Experiences With an Open Systems Computing Laboratory

Open Systems are computing systems which are based on industry standards and nonproprietary multivendor components. As an increasing number of computing installations move away from single‐vendor proprietary architectures to more and more open architectures, academic institutions are increasingly faced with the responsibility of appropriately introducing open systems concepts into the undergraduate curricula. Using funding from the National Science Foundation, an open systems computing laboratory was recently set up at the University of Michigan‐Dearborn. The laboratory is based on the three most popular computing platforms today in the PC to Workstation range; namely IBM/PC, Macintosh, and Sun/UNIX. Supporting equipment include a postcript printer, a Novell network, a tape mass storage, and appropriate software and interfaces. A three credit‐hour course titled Open Systems Computing was offered in Summer 1995 to computer science and computer engineering majors. The course utilized the laboratory fully. This paper describes the design and implementation of the laboratory. Initial experiences with the course and laboratory are also described. Student enthusiasm about the course and laboratory was much higher than anticipated. A side benefit of the course was the ability to introduce several contemporary computing‐related topics which would have otherwise been omitted from the curriculum.     

Old books

Parliamentary Logick. To‐which are subjoined Two Speeches delivered in the House of Commons of Ireland, and other Pieces. By the Eight Honorable William Gerard Hamilton. With an Appendix containing Considerations on the Corn Laws, by‐Samuel Johnson, LL. D., never before printed. London, 1808. pp. 253.

Parliamentary Logic. By William Gerard Hamilton. With an Introduction and Notes by Courtney S. Kenny, LL. D. Re‐print Series, No. 1. Cambridge: W. Heffer and Sons, 1927. pp. xiv, 88.     

Briefly noted

Henry Ward Beecher: An American Portrait, by Paxton Hibben. New York: Doran (now Doubleday, Doran &; Company, Garden City), 1927: pp. 390.

D. L. Moody: A Worker in Souls, by Gamaliel Bradford. New York: Doran, 1927: pp. 320.

Intercollegiate Debates (Volume VIII). Edited by Egbert Ray Nichols. New York: Noble and Noble, 1927: pp. viii, 565.

Debating as an Educator. By John G. Sims, Jr. Published by the author, Box 652, Fort Worth, Texas, 1926: pp. 112.

Four Speeches by Abraham Lincoln Hitherto Unpublished or Unknown. With an introduction by Earl Wellington Wiley, The Ohio State University Press, 1927: pp. 112.

An Introduction to the Drama. Edited by J. B. Hubbell and J. O. Beatty. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1927.

Talking. By J. B. Priestley. New York: Harper &; Bros., 1926.

An Essay on Conversation. By Henry W. Taft. New York: The Macmillan Co., 1927

Conversation. By Olive Heseltine. New York: E. P. Dutton &; Co., 1927.

The Road to Xanadu. By John Livingston Lowes. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1927: pp. xviii, 639.

The Function and Forms of Thought. By Albert E. Avey. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1927: pp. xii, 395.

Demosthenes and His Influence. By Charles Darwin Adams. New York: Longmans, Green and Co., 1927: pp. 184. $1.75.

Les idées politiques d'Isocrate. By Georges Mathieu. Paris: So‐ ciété d'éditions Les Belles Lettres, 1925: pp. 228.

Integrity in Education and Other Papers. By George Norlin. New York: Macmillan, 1926: pp. vi, 231.

Spoken Thought. By Lily C. Whitaker. New York: A. S. Barnes and Company, 1927: pp. x + 596.

Training for Speaking. By Paul Berton. New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company, 1926.

Stammering and Its Treatment. By Samuel D. Bobbins. Boston: Boston Stammerers’ Institute, 1926; 12 mo, Cloth; pp. 121.

Our Times. Volume II, America Finding Herself. By Mark Sullivan. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 1927.     

Teaching Students with Moderate Intellectual Disability Who Are Emergent Readers to Comprehend Passages of Text

A modified system of least intrusive prompting was used to teach middle school students with moderate intellectual disability who were emergent readers to comprehend short passages of text. Text passages were summaries of the chapters of age-appropriate novels rewritten for a beginning reading level. Time delay was used to teach the participants to pair WH words to their definition. A modified system of least intrusive prompting was used to teach strategies for answering comprehension questions. All participants improved the number of correct responses for both rules definitions and comprehension responses from baseline to intervention. Additionally, probes collected during the session prior to the introduction of a new book indicated comprehension skills generalized to new untaught books.     

Depoliticization of educational reforms: the STEM story

Cultural Studies of Science Education - Education reforms are rarely successful or free of controversies. However, efforts to STEM-ify public education in the USA by positioning education in STEM...     

An Examination of a Small‐Group Decoding Intervention for Struggling Readers: Comparing Accuracy and Automaticity Criteria

In this study, we compared methods to improve the decoding and reading fluency of struggling readers. Second‐grade poor readers were randomly assigned to one of the two practice conditions within a repeated reading intervention. Both interventions were in small groups, were 20–28 min long, took place 2–4 days per week, and consisted of phonemic awareness training, letter sound practice, and practice in word families. Students in the accuracy condition (n= 27) practiced each page until they reached 98 percent accuracy while students in the accuracy + automaticity condition (n= 29) practiced until they reached rate (30–90 cwpm) and accuracy criteria. Hierarchical linear modeling revealed no differences between practice conditions in decoding accuracy, reading comprehension, and grade‐level text reading fluency. Significant differences favoring the accuracy + automaticity group were found in measures of decoding automaticity.