Treating twins as individuals: Maternal educative practices

For twins’ parents, the process of building up each child’s individuality is more complex than for singleton’s parents. The dyadic interaction becomes a triadic situation and the mother has to face the problem of distinguishing one twin from the other without comparing them. The analysis of mother’s twin care patterns provides highly relevant information on the processes promoting twins’ individualization and maternal adjustment to the triadic situation. An empirical study illustrates this point of view. It surveys forty parents of twins on their attitudes towards twin rearing and observes parental behaviour in the home to assess consistency between statements of actual practices. Observation and correspondence analysis show that: I) Some types of child care are more conductive to implementing differentiation strategies than others (dress and choice of toys in contrast to bedtime and meals); 2) mothers of twins who are explicit about child rearing practices are generally coherent about putting them into practice; mothers with less explicit views are less inclined to try to individualize their twins; 3) SES and degree of physical resemblance between twins both affect the type of differentiation strategies.     

Assessment of mathematics and reading performance: An examination of the correspondence between direct assessment of student performance and teacher report

Teacher judgments have been identified as a primary source of information regarding student academic achievement. Research examining the accuracy of teachers' judgments in assessing students' academic abilities has shown relatively high accuracy. However, previous studies have relied primarily on norm‐referenced measures to obtain estimates of students' achievement in reading and mathematics. Recent developments in the assessment of students' academic skills, such as Curriculum‐Based Measurement (CBM), provide a direct estimate of students' skill levels in basic areas such as reading and mathematics. The purpose of the present study was to examine the extent to which teachers' perceptions of students' reading and mathematics skills corresponded to direct estimates of students' reading and mathematics skills. Two second‐grade teachers estimated the reading and mathematics skills of 33 second‐grade students. Results of this study indicated that teachers were not accurate in assessing their students' mathematics functioning. Teachers were more accurate in assessing the occurrence of Mastery mathematics levels in basic addition, but were very inaccurate in assessing the occurrence of Mastery, Instructional, or Frustrational mathematics levels in all other skills assessed. In reading, teachers' judgment accuracy varied as a function of grade‐level material and instructional level. Specifically, teachers experienced considerable difficulty accurately identifying students who were reading at a Mastery level in grade‐level or above‐grade‐level material. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Psychol Schs 43: 247–265, 2006.     

(Un)learning the city through crisis: lessons from Cape Town

ABSTRACT

Scholarly research has shown the importance of moments of crisis, in particular the direct aftermath of urban crises, as opportunities to learn about urban vulnerabilities. However, if it is widely assumed that learning is important, in particular for resilience-building, we still know very little about how such learning occurs in a moment of crisis. This paper starts addressing this gap, arguing that moments of crisis constitute a specific type of ‘learning space’. This proposition is taken forward through the analysis of a large-scale (social and humanitarian) urban crisis in the city of Cape Town. The paper maps out the emergence of multi-stakeholder knowledge networks throughout the crisis management process and explores the extent to which these were embedded into city-wide learning infrastructures after the crisis. It shows that moments of crisis represent an opportunity for ephemeral transsectorial knowledge coalitions to come about around issues that are made visible through the crisis itself. This can also be seen as an opportunity for potential learning spaces to open up.     

Strategic research prioritisation in veterinary schools: a preliminary investigation

ABSTRACT

In step with the worldwide trend for highereducational institutes to establish areas of research emphasis,the accumulation of resources in key areas has become commonpractice in veterinary faculties. Although there are perceived logicalbenefits to research prioritisation, there have been very little criticalretrospective analyses of research prioritisation in any discipline,let alone in the relatively niche field of veterinary medicine.This study aimed to bring attention to this gap in knowledge.Evidence for the use and breadth of research area prioritisationin veterinary schools in Western nations was obtained throughpublicly available content on the Internet. Preliminary evaluation ofthe effectiveness of prioritisation strategies in veterinary schools toincrease research performance was performed using bibliometriccriteria. Although limited to publicly available information, findingsfrom this preliminary study suggest a positive relationship betweenan identifiable research prioritisation strategy and researchperformance of veterinary schools.     

E-portfolios: an assessment tool for online courses

This article considers the various uses of e‐portfolios in an educational context and looks at the particular characteristics of the electronic version of portfolios. It then focuses on the application of the e‐portfolio as an assessment method. A case is made for the use of the e‐portfolio as an appropriate end of course assessment process where learning objects are the basis of the course design. Evaluation data from such a course is presented. This is a post‐graduate online course run by the Institute of Educational Technology at the Open University. Conclusions are drawn from the evaluation about the appropriateness of e‐portfolios as an end of course assessment method.     

Breakfast starts the day

Young children are usually enthusiastic about breakfast and will try most of the traditional fare—cereal, eggs, and pancakes. Capitalize on this enthusiasm with a breakfast program. This article is copied by permission of Libraries Unlimited, Inc., from Jan Irving and Robin Currie,Mudluscious, 1986.     

Longitudinal twin study of early literacy development: Preschool through Grade 1

Grade 1 literacy skills of twin children in Australia (New South Wales) and the United States (Colorado) were explored in a genetically sensitive design (N = 319 pairs). Analyses indicated strong genetic influence on word and nonword identification, reading comprehension, and spelling. Rapid naming showed more modest, though reliable, genetic influence. Phonological awareness was subject to high nonshared environment and no reliable genetic effects, and individual measures of memory and learning were also less affected by genes than nonshared environment. Multivariate analyses showed that the same genes affected word identification, reading comprehension, and spelling. Country comparisons indicated that the patterns of genetic influence on reading and spelling in Grade 1 were similar, though for the U.S. but not the Australian children new genes came on stream in the move from kindergarten to Grade 1. We suggest that this is because the more intensive kindergarten literacy curriculum in New South Wales compared with Colorado, consistent with the mean differences between the two countries, means that more of the genes are “online” sooner in Australia because of accelerated overall reading development.     

Review of Brief School-Based Positive Psychological Interventions: a Taster for Teachers and Educators

Research studies looking into the effects of positive psychology interventions (PPIs) implemented in classrooms have yielded promising results, not only in terms of student well-being but also in terms of academic outcomes, school climate, and teacher well-being. However, a number of PPIs require relatively high levels of commitment from school administrators and teachers to put into place. This may result in many teachers dismissing PPIs across the board as too complicated to implement. The goal of the present article is thus to present a review of brief PPIs (BPPIs) based on positive psychology research in order to encourage involvement in such interventions at school. The BPPIs presented here have been categorized into four sections according to established areas of research in positive psychology, mindfulness, gratitude, strengths, and positive relationships, with precise examples of practices which have been successfully implemented and have demonstrated diverse benefits on student learning and well-being. The potential limitations of such interventions are also highlighted in order to foster best practices and cross-cultural adaptations of such projects.