Educators' Perceptions of NRT Misuse

What has been the impact of high stakes achievement testing on curriculum and testing practice? How serious is the problem of cheating on Standardized achievement tests? What steps can we take to improve the validity of test-based information for a variety of educational purposes?     

Current Developments in Patterns of Graduate Study

During recent years considerable attention has been given to an analysis of the changing patterns of graduate study in engineering. Reviews by the American Society for Engineering Education, the University of Chicago under a Carnegie Grant, and the Ford Foundation have been directed to the problem. A primary observation has indicated a trend towards greater diversity in patterns and a closer correlation with current requirements of research and development in industry and government. These patterns, including evening and various forms of off-campus training, are described and their effect on the nature of the graduate program is examined. The effect of direct and indirect industry support is analyzed, and the changing role of the faculty in cases where close coordination with industry exists is examined. Current trends are evidently enriching and strengthening the value of the graduate program, particularly through immediate contact by both student and faculty with research and development applications. There exist, however, a consequent overemphasis on immediate needs, and an ambiguity of long-range academic objectives. The critical financial needs of students, faculty, and engineering educational institutions are emphasized by the demands of new patterns and current high standards of academic endeavor.     

The faculty and the future

The history of higher education belies the common assumption that educational institutions are static and that faculty oppose change. Many faculty do, however, resist innovation, a resistance based not in reactionism but in a basic concern that innovators are losing sight of the centrality of the faculty role in education. That concern, although understandable, has no basis in fact, as a review of current alternative models makes clear. Indeed, one can postulate that no alternative model that avoids or minimizes the impress of the faculty can expect to meet the requirements for effective learning. Developments of the 1970s should be seen as attempts to restore earlier values of teaching and learning while responding in a new social context to a highly diverse, mass student body. The implications of this assumption bode extremely well for the future.This paper is adapted from a speech presented before the assembly of the Cooperative Assessment of Experiential Learning (CAEL), Denver, May 9, 1976.     

Inclusion through Distinction

The focus of this presentation will be on issues arising from a three year action research project, exploring young people's creative uses of digital technology, outside of formal education. The project, based at the University of Central England in Birmingham, and Jubilee Arts in Sandwell, has sought to both engage young people in a creative process, and provide access to digital technology. The research was formulated as a means of exploring the ways in which young people might utilise digital technology creatively, given access, outside of formal education.     

Clinical appraisal of spelling ability and its relationship to phonemic awareness (blending,segmenting, elision,and reversal), phonological memory,and reading in reading disabled,ADHD, and normal children

Seventy-eight 8-to-12-year-old children (34 ReadingDisabled; 31 Attention-Deficit-Hyperactivity-Disordered; and 13diagnosed normal controls) were given a battery oftests including cognitive, linguistic, academic,phonemic awareness, and memory tests. As part of theacademic battery an 8-point spelling rating scale wasdeveloped (Rating Scale) that resulted in threedifferent scores which reliably discriminated amongthe three groups. Relationships between phonemicawareness, phonological memory, reading and spellingwere explored. Zero-order and second-ordercorrelations were completed with indications thatphonemic awareness tasks (elision, blending, reversal,and segmenting) and phonological memory (WISC-IIIDigit Span) are significantly correlated with readingdecoding and spelling measures with slightly highercorrelations with the Rating Scale. Regressionanalyses resulted in a large proportion of thevariance on reading and spelling tasks accounted forby phonemic awareness (particularly elision andreversal) and phonological memory. The ReadingDisabled group was found to produce more errors thatwere phonetically inaccurate than the other twogroups. The demand of spelling ten ``error' wordsbeyond the RD students' achievement level appeared toelicit greater weaknesses in their phonologicalrecoding abilities than in those of the ADHD ornormally achieving students.     

PUBLISHING ABOUT AUTISM SPECTRUM DISORDER IN SIX SCHOOL PSYCHOLOGY JOURNALS: 2002–2012

Recent years have seen a rise in the number of students identified with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), with increasing estimates of prevalence still emerging from cohorts monitored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. However, dissemination to a school psychology audience about these students’ needs has been disparate, with publications being idiosyncratic in the extent to which certain areas have received focused and sustained attention and other areas receiving much less attention. A structured review of the literature examined the extent to which research on children and adolescents with ASD was published within school psychology journals from 2002 through 2012. Results indicate that published studies relating to ASD can be grouped in seven categories, with some being deeply investigated, whereas other topics have been minimally discussed within the field. The most surprising of these findings is the relative lack of publication on the development and psychometric properties of assessment tools used to evaluate students with ASD.     

Making sense in the city: Dolly Parton,early reading and educational policy‐making

In this paper, we present a case study of a philanthropic literacy initiative, Dolly Parton's Imagination Library, a book‐gifting scheme for under 5s, and consider the impact of the scheme on literacy policy in the English city where it was introduced. We bring four lenses to bear on the case study. First, we analyse the operation of the scheme in the community it was intended to serve; second, we consider the case study as an early literacy intervention aimed at promoting reading development; then we consider it from the perspective of theories about marketing and branding; and finally, we analyse it from the perspective of new philanthropy theory. We use these lenses to help us make sense of the current pressures on educational policy‐making in English cities, as city officials struggle to manage competing political agendas, to initiate reforms in situations where they have significant responsibilities but reduced power, and to maintain the distinctiveness of the places they represent. We argue for the need to reassess our understandings of the ways that literacy policies are made at the local level within this rapidly changing context.     

Changing Concepts in Activity: Descriptive and Design Studies of Consequential Learning in Conceptual Practices

Concepts and conceptual change have been studied extensively as phenomena of individual thinking and action, but changing circumstances of social or cultural groups using concepts are treated as external conditions. We describe research on consequential learning in conceptual practices, where concepts include representational infrastructure that coordinates meaning and activity across time, setting, and social participation. Consequential learning changes one's relation to conceptual practice, creating access to and valued possibilities for participation in practices at a broader scale. We illustrate our approach to conceptual change with case studies and design research in workplaces, schools, and urban communities. We compare our approach to previous efforts to bridge theoretical perspectives published in this journal, focusing in particular on Greeno and van de Sande (2007 Greeno, J. G., & van de Sande, C. (2007). Perspectival understanding of conceptions and conceptual growth in interaction. Educational Psychologist, 42, 9–23.[Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). Our efforts provide new constructs and studies that may yet create a span between cognitive and sociocultural theories of learning and conceptual change.     

Hunting and gathering: new imperatives in mapping and collecting student learning data to assure quality outcomes

Assurance of learning (AOL) is a quality enhancement and quality assurance process used in higher education. It involves a process of determining programme learning outcomes and standards, and systematically gathering evidence to measure students' performance on these. The systematic assessment of whole-of-programme outcomes provides a basis for curriculum development and management, continuous improvement, and accreditation. To better understand how AOL processes operate, a national study of university practices across one discipline area, business and management, was undertaken. To solicit data on AOL practice, interviews were undertaken with a sample of business school representatives (n?=?25). Two key processes emerged: (1) mapping of graduate attributes and (2) collection of assurance data. External drivers such as professional accreditation and government legislation were the primary reasons for undertaking AOL outcomes but intrinsic motivators in relation to continuous improvement were also evident. The facilitation of academic commitment was achieved through an embedded approach to AOL by the majority of universities in the study. A sustainable and inclusive process of AOL was seen to support wider stakeholder engagement in the development of higher education learning outcomes.