One‐teacher schools in America

Abstract

At the turn of the century some 200,000 one‐teacher schools were in existence in the United States. This number now stands at approximately 380. A study of these schools found them to be staffed with qualified teachers with extensive experience. The teachers are typically female and live near where they teach.

Teachers work an average of nine hours a day teaching all subjects including physical education and music. Other activities include custodial duties, driving the school bus, performing secretarial functions, ordering supplies, and lunch supervision.

Student enrollment has a present average level of 9.4, a level that helps teachers meet the needs of each student. Low enrollment may also create concern about school closures in the future. Teachers indicate that they use individualized instruction, peer tutoring, and cooperative learning. They have few discipline problems and no violence or drug issues.     

i-MMOLE: Instructional Framework for Creating Virtual World Lessons

Today virtual world instruction faces many of the same educational challenges faced by Web-based instruction during its infancy. There is a lot of jargon and visions of the future being bandied about, but as Hirumi et al. note in the May/June and July/August 2010 issues of TechTrends there little understanding of how to apply pedagogical practices in video game settings. i-MMOLE is a research-based instructional design framework created specifically for designing instruction that incorporates virtual world environments. To date, i-MMOLE has been utilized by university students in the creation of more than 300 lesson plans across multiple disciplines and age groups. This article describes the underlying foundation of this framework and how to utilize i-MMOLE in the creation of one’s own virtual world based instruction.     

Ethics Review of Research Projects Involving Human Subjects

Maltreatment of subjects has led to the introduction of an ethics review process for research involving humans. There is a feeling that the bureaucratization of the process is too restrictive and that it may be hampering research. The function, duties, and effectiveness of ethics committees are examined, and it is contended that there are problems with the way that committees operate. The remit of committees needs to be clarified, and the paper presents guidelines for making decisions on ethical matters, with deontological considerations taking precedence over consequentialist ones. It is concluded that the functions and processes of ethics committees need to be modified.     

The effect of communication anxiety upon signing effectiveness among the profoundly hearing‐impaired

Anxiety influences and interferes with the production of messages, yet findings linking trait anxiety with communication gestures and movement have been inconsistent and weak. This may be because most studies observe the communicative movements which complement the message rather than movements which constitute the primary message. This study examined the influence of predisposi‐tional anxiety on gestures when they are the central channel of communication— the signing behavior of deaf students.

Anxiety was significantly related to signing in that more predispositionally anxious students' signs were less dear, slower, smaller, less intense, were more incomplete, and generally less effective compared to less anxious students. However compared to the general population, deaf students were not found to be more fearful of communication overall.