Students as co-producers in a multidisciplinary software engineering project: addressing cultural distance and cross-cohort handover

This article reports an undergraduate software engineering project in which, over a period of 2 years, four student teams from different cohorts developed a note-taking app for four academic clients at the students’ own university. We investigated how projects involving internal clients can give students the benefits of engaging in real software development while also giving them experience of a student-staff collaboration that has its own benefits for students, academics, and the university more broadly. As the university involved is a Sino-Foreign university located in China, where most students are Chinese and most teaching staff are not, this ‘student as co-producer’ approach interacts with another feature of the project: cultural distance. Based on analysis of notes, reports, interviews, and focus groups, we recommend that students should be provided with communicative strategies for dealing with academics as clients; universities should develop policies on ownership of student-staff collaborations; and projects should include a formalised handover process. This article can serve as guidance for educators considering a ‘students as co-producers’ approach for software development projects.     

Intensifying the burden: the implications of individual responsibility messages in HIV public service announcements aimed at Black women

In the USA, HIV transmission rates among Black women are four times higher than white women, even in the face of low-risk behaviours, a discrepancy often overlooked because of historical stereotypes. In this study, we deconstruct a specific government-sponsored HIV prevention campaign targeted at Black women. Critical discourse analysis reveals a heavy focus on individual responsibility, self-sacrifice, family and deference to men. The presence of historically relevant racial and gender-related constructs suggests intersectional implications for the campaign. We provide suggestions for avoiding linkage to destructive racial constructs in HIV prevention messages and allied forms of sexual health communication aimed at Black women.     

Age of Bilingual Exposure Is Related to the Contribution of Phonological and Semantic Knowledge to Successful Reading Development

Bilingual children's reading as a function of age of first bilingual language exposure (AoE) was examined. Bilingual (varied AoE) and monolingual children (N = 421) were compared in their English language and reading abilities (6–10 years) using phonological awareness, semantic knowledge, and reading tasks. Structural equation modeling was applied to determine how bilingual AoE predicts reading outcomes. Early exposed bilinguals outperformed monolinguals on phonological awareness and word reading. Phonology and semantic (vocabulary) knowledge differentially predicted reading depending on the bilingual experience and AoE. Understanding how bilingual experiences impact phonological awareness and semantic knowledge, and in turn, impact reading outcomes is relevant for our understanding of what language and reading skills are best to focus on, and when, to promote optimal reading success.     

May the odds be ever in your favour

Probability and chance are essential concepts, not just in statistics but in real life. We present an adaptable activity which investigates what we mean by bias, how we can identify bias, and how we can use it to our advantage!     

Organizational change: Motivation,communication, and leadership effectiveness

Research indicates that numerous variables have an impact on a leader's effectiveness. This study explores the behaviors associated with leadership effectiveness in driving change. The findings confirm previous research that identifies change effectiveness skills, while isolating the specific leader behaviors deemed most valuable to implementing change: motivation and communication.     

A Sense of Story: Interactive Journal Writing in Kindergarten

Journal writing is a way to encourage process writing which promotes a sense of story. Written interactions or dialogues between the child and the teacher can support the story as children are involved in the writing process. The article describes one way to support the development of a story through journal writing. Children begin the story on their first page of the journal. The teacher responds in writing and the child subsequently converses with the teacher to produce stories and personal narratives. The written conversation helps children produce a story with a sense of meaning. Suggestions for kindergarten teachers and teacher education students include how to create the journal, what the writing center looks like, the necessity for a long-term commitment to writing, the importance of verbal and written interactions, and directions for beginning the interactive journal writing experience.     

The influence of supplementary subtests on WISC IQ scores for high achieving students

The validity of Wechsler's (1949) comments concerning the addition of the supplementary WISC subtests was investigated for a sample of 20 fifth-grade students. The study was designed like that of Engin (1974) which investigated whether or not the addition of one or both of the supplementary WISC sub-tests, Digit Span and Mazes, materially affected the obtained IQs of high achieving fifth-grade subjects. All 12 subtests of the WISC were individually administered to the students, and IQs were then calculated in such a manner that specific comparisons could be made. These comparisons were between verbal, Performance and Full Scale IQs composed of the maximum number of subtests, and verbal, Performance, and Full Scale IQs exclusive of Digit Span, Mazes, or both subtests. T-tests for correlated means were employed and revealed highly significant differences. The addition of Digit Span and Mazes in the WISC battery served to depress the verbal, Performance and Full Scale IQs of the high achieving students. The study serves to validate the previous investigation by Engin (1974).     

Visual tests for the school psychologist

The cover test and the near point of convergence test are quick, easy tests to help the school psychologist determine if a child should be referred for professional vision care. Negative results from these tests do not mean that the child does not have a visual problem. There is no single test which gives that information. Positive results from these tests, however, are evidence that the child may have a visual problem. This information, along with the results of other performance tests given by the school psychologist, should be reported to the vision care professional to facilitate the accurate determination of the child's visual status.     

Is It Time for a Sixth Dimension of Multicultural Education?: Resistance and Praxis in Challenging Times

The impact of the election of a new U.S. president and his far right ideology and agenda has reverberated across the entire world. This new reality calls for all critical equity-seeking educators; multicultural, social justice, culturally responsive, and others to be reflective and engage in deep thinking on ways to respond. Within a framework of advocacy and resistance, drawing on lessons of the past, my own experiences and research, this article offers some practical suggestions that others hopefully can build on. It seeks to connect a critical multicultural education framework to identifiable practices in schools and communities that challenges neoliberal approaches to education; xenophobia, racism, and other forms of structural oppression; argues that the actions and practices of multicultural educators must be explicit and generative in ways that make theory usable.