Let's play: Teaching social skills

Alex is watching three other boys engage in a super-hero play act. The boys are playing Star Wars, protecting their fort from the Evil Warriors. For the past couple of days, Alex has walked near the same small group of boys and watched intently as the boys play out their drama. He moves close but says nothing.In another corner of the room, Emily and Jessica are playing house. Emily plays the mother and wants Jessica to assume the role of baby. Their play is interrupted by Jessica's refusal to be the baby. While Emily insists, Jessica refuses and soon, the play disintegrates.Steven, a new boy in the classroom, had been introduced to the class earlier in the morning. Now he is wandering from center to center, looking on as others became involved in their free choice of activity. The teacher is busy working with a small group in the science center, and Steven is on his own.Linda M. LeBlanc is Assistant Professor in the Department of Education at Whittier College in Whittier, California.     

Assessment and the co-regulation of learning in the classroom

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the processes of regulation of student learning that are associated with formative assessment in the classroom. It discusses the concept of co-regulation and presents a model of co-regulation developed in a situated perspective on classroom learning. This model conceptualises co-regulated learning as resulting from the joint influence of student self-regulation and of sources of regulation in the learning environment: namely, the structure of the teaching/learning situation, the teacher’s interventions and interactions with students, the interactions between students, and the tools used for instruction and for assessment. Examples of research showing how co-regulation functions are discussed, in particular students’ use of tools for self-assessment and peer assessment, and the role of teacher–student interactions that encourage active student participation in formative assessment.     

Using Internet delivered video cases,to support pre-service teachers' understanding of effective early literacy instruction: An exploratory study

This preliminary study explores the effects ofusing CTELL (Case Technologies EnhancingLiteracy Learning) cases on preserviceteachers' learning. Students participated inone of three instructional treatments:traditional, traditional plus video, andtraditional plus CTELL cases. A pre-postconcept web, describing students' understandingof effective reading instruction, served as themajor outcome measure. This was supplementedwith a unidimensional confidence measure,journal entries, and student interviews. Nosignificant differences were found for any ofthe three treatment conditions on the conceptmapping task or the confidence measure.However, the journal entries and interview datahighlight important issues, challenges andbenefits, with respect to the use of multimediacases. Implications for teacher education areexplored.     

Current conceptions of literacy – insights from work with children and older learners with sensory needs

There have been many efforts to conceptualise literacy, both in terms of its essence and component parts, but it has proved difficult to define. This paper considers work that is undertaken with children and older learners with sensory needs in order to promote the early stages of literacy. Recent government initiatives aimed at fostering literacy development have caused teachers of children with sensory needs to re-examine their practice. The paper discusses early literacy as part of children's attempts to communicate and describes children with sensory needs engaging in a range of activities that are termed 'literacy' by those working with them. By taking into account these activities, the authors endeavour to throw light on the broader questions around concepts of literacy.     

Attenuated and enhanced neophobia in the taste-aversion “delay of reinforcement” effect

Learning & Behavior - Rats were made ill immediately or 6 h after drinking either familiar tap water or a novel .1% saccharin solution. Control animals were given sham treatments immediately...     

The CTY Talent Search: International Applicability and Practice in Ireland

The Talent Search model of above level standardized testing is a core practice of the Center for Talented Youth (CTY) at The Johns Hopkins University in the USA, where it was introduced in 1971. The Hopkins Model was adapted for use at the Irish Centre for Talented Youth (CTYI) at Dublin City University in 1993, and this adaptation marks the first major international replication, incorporating both the mathematics and verbal portions of the SAT. The SAT proved to be a valuable assessment instrument for these students, whose scores resembled those of American students.     

Ancestral Voices—‘Since Time Everlasting Beyond’: Kipling and the Invention of the Time-Slip Story

In this study of Kipling's Puck books, I attempt to clarify the enduring characteristics of the time-slip story as he and E. Nesbit invented it and also to determine his own distinctive contribution to the genre. Although his formal procedures were not influential, his genius lies in showing us the mere uncounted folk of history, not the big players of E. Nesbit's stories. As a conservative democrat, he shows what treasures are hid on one's own hearth and doorstep, so to speak, so that you do not have to venture far to find magic. For Kipling, that magic resides in the common culture of England, the surviving traditional ways, which catastrophic changes over two thousand years had not greatly altered. The magic is traced to the nature of the land itself, a place deeply enchanted and manifest in the merry supernaturalism that G. K. Chesterton saw in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.