CD-ROM talking books: what do they promise?

This study describes one teacher's use of multimedia, specifically CD-ROM talking books, in the classroom. The goal of the investigation was to reveal and analyse how a primary (Grade 3) teacher integrated CD-ROM books into her curriculum. Issues emerging from the study included how features of the software interact with features of classrooms, how patterns of instruction are affected by the infusion of technology, and how students interact with the software, and each other, while reading the CD- ROM books     

Videotutoring, non-verbal communication and initial teacher training

Telematics has the potential to transform Higher Education through creating a distributed community of tutors and students. Videotutoring is central to telematics, enabling personal tutoring to occur at a distance. Within the context of a post-graduate teacher training course, videotutoring was used to tutor two students during the first six weeks of their first full-time school placement. Both ends of the videosignal were recorded. Analysis of the tapes used a protocol based upon research into non-verbal communication (NVC). NVC is as important as verbal communication in the tutorial process. Findings suggest that the interaction of participants mediated through the screen was significantly different from face-to-face communication in relation to the two-dimensional image of the screen and the "viewing frame" effect of the physical boundaries of the image. The viewing frame literally served as the proscenium arch of a theatre. Two-dimensionality and the viewing frame effect emphasised both the positive and negative elements in inter-personal communication as represented in Argyle's social skills and Goffman's theatrical models. The conclusion is that videotutoring can potentially be a more effective form of tutoring than face-to-face interaction.     

Old Players—New Rules: Higher education institutions’ response to educational demand

Tertiary Education and Management - Performance indicators and performance-based funding are becoming integral components of higher education (HE) policy around the globe. We explore some of the...     

Selection for special education services: the role of gender and socio-economic status

Children from some demographic groups disproportionately receive special education (SE) services. Due to methodological shortcoming in existing work, it remains unclear whether this is due to real differences in academic needs or cultural selection/bias. Hence, in a community sample of 1250 Norwegian children, we examined the role of third grade SE services, academic test scores, behavioural problems, and teacher’s level of helplessness in mediating the effect of family socio-economic status (SES) and students’ gender on fifth-grade SE services. Results revealed no direct effects of either gender or SES on fifth-grade SE, but four mediated pathways were identified: (1) Boys had a greater likelihood of receiving fifth-grade SE services when (a) they previously received SE and (b) they experienced more ADHD symptoms, both in third grade. (2) Students from low-SES families were more likely to receive SE services in fifth grade when (a) they performed poorly in math in third grade and (b) their teacher reported greater feelings of helplessness when teaching these students. The findings are discussed with respect to the differential-needs hypothesis, mechanisms of cultural selection and the possibility of gendered selection for SE at younger ages.     

To jump the wave or not: teachers’ perceptions of research evidence in education

This article presents a microanalysis of how a group of primary school teachers deals with research evidence in their work. Based on analysis of a group of Norwegian teachers’ interactions over issues of educational research and research-based knowledge, we find that teachers’ representations of educational research particularly center on the following issues: educational research being perceived as circular, ‘polyphonic’, and a matter of accommodation to their experience-based knowledge. These metaphors also shed light upon the dilemmas that arise when research evidence meets teachers’ more contextual knowledge. We conclude that teachers’ practice-based evidence may take new forms with an increased policy focus on research-based evidence, as well as bringing forth challenges for teacher work and professionalism.     

Influence of conspecific and predatory Stressors and their associated odors on defensive burying and freezing responses

In Experiment 1, male rats were exposed to either aggressive (i.e., alpha) or nonaggressive conspecific colonies and tested 24 h later, with or without alpha odors, for freezing behavior and burying of a wall prod that had been the source of a brief electric shock. The results indicated that prior defeat experience and the presence of alpha odors alone during testing had no significant effects, but the combination of prior defeat and alpha-odor testing significantly decreased burying and increased freezing behavior. In Experiment 2, we examined the effects of noncontact exposure to a cat, as a predatory Stressor, during subsequent prod-shock tests involving the presence or absence of cat odors. Exposure to a cat failed to disrupt later prod burying and did not produce freezing. However, the presence of cat odors during testing significantly reduced the amount of defensive burying,without resulting in an increment in freezing. In Experiment 3, rats were given 1, 5, or 30 inescapable preshocks in the presence of either cat odors or a hedonically neutral citronella odor and were tested 24 h later for prod burying and freezing with or without these odors. Both the cat and the citronella odors resulted in a significant reduction in burying and an increase in freezing for rats given 5 and 30 preshocks and tested in the presence of these respective conditioned odors. For the groups that were given 5 preshocks, preshock and later testing in the presence of cat odors resulted in significantly less prod burying and more freezing than for rats that were preshocked and tested in the presence of citronella. The findings of these three ethoexperimental studies are discussed in terms of the learned-helplessness theory, the stress-coping-fear-defense (SCFD) theory, and the concept of selective CS-US associability.     

Constructivist Metaphors of Learning Science

Based on an analysis of a fundamental distinction between metaphors of finding versus making for the obtaining of new knowledge, a number of constructivist positions in education are discussed and criticised, taking account of earlier criticism particularly by Suchting and by Matthews. Constructivist claims which are denied include the claim that we have no direct access to the world, and the claim that communication is inherently meaningless. What is valuable in constructivism, namely the insistence on active learning, on respect for the pupils own thinking, and on the high priority needed for ideas taught to make sense to pupils, together with the reminder that science is a human product, is important to retain without its additional and ill-founded philosophical baggage.