A review of social interventions for students with learning disabilities

Twenty-two studies are reviewed that report the effects of social skills training and intervention with 572 children identified as learning disabled between 5 and 19 years of age. These studies are reviewed to examine characteristics and components of intervention effectiveness. Age and sex of subjects, grade grouping, group size, intervention duration, intervention procedures, subject selection, and type of interventional model are examined to find patterns that reflect intervention success. Several intervention characteristics and components are associated with social intervention effectiveness: selecting subjects who had social skills difficulties or low peer acceptance, using cognitive-behavioral intervention procedures, providing individual or small group instruction, and applying long-term intervention and training. Discussion focuses on difficulties in comparing studies to determine intervention effectiveness through the examination of outcome measures, a call for revisions in future reporting of social interventions in the literature, and those intervention factors that relate to increases in peer acceptance.     

Real education in non-real time: The use of electronic message systems for instruction

Education in different communication media takes place with functional differences that have consequences for the course of instructional interaction. In this paper, we examine instructional interaction among people using a computer-based electronic message system, contrasting it with conventional face-to-face discussion in a college level class. Interaction via the non-real time message system contained multiple “threads of discourse,” a higher proportion of student turns to teacher turns, and other deviations from the “initiation-response-evaluation” sequences usually found in face-to-face classroom interactions. Based on the results of our contrast, we describe ways to organize instruction using electronic message systems to take advantage of new properties and to avoid shortcomings of these new instructional media.     

Investigating the Relations Among Pre-Service Teachers’ Teaching/Learning Beliefs and Educational Technology Integration Competencies: a Structural Equation Modeling Study

Journal of Science Education and Technology - With the rapid developments in technology, training of pre-service teachers in terms of technology integration has become a crucial issue for all...     

Using stakeholder feedback to improve online professional development opportunities

Abstract

Traditional professional development is often characterized as being expensive, time consuming, and lacking impact. In contrast, online professional development provides greater flexibility and is becoming increasingly popular for school personnel. In this article, we report the process and outcomes of gathering feedback to adapt traditional in-person to online training differentiated for the participants to maximize utility, efficiency, and effectiveness in meeting the needs of key stakeholders. Focus groups were conducted with teachers, administrators, and other specialists to gather feedback on content as well as how online learning modules (OLMs) could be tailored to meet specific school site and team needs. We discuss our findings in the context of continuing efforts to improve general and specific professional development opportunities.     

Social cohesion and integration: learning active citizenship

This article starts from a conceptual clarification of the notions social integration and social cohesion as a prerequisite for the reorientation of citizenship education. Turning away from uncritically reproduced assumptions represented in mainstream ‘deficiency discourse’, the article first focuses on sociological conditions for the rise of active citizenship and its role in the revitalization of the public sphere. Next a number of educational objectives are deduced from competencies needed and learning processes taking place in practices of active citizenship. Finally, the article argues for the adoption of a lifelong learning perspective, relating formal citizenship education to informal and non‐formal experiences of active citizenship.     

Mnemonic artwork-learning strategies: Helping students remember more than “Who painted what?”

In two experiments, a recently devised mnemonic strategy was examined in the context of college students recalling the theme and contents of various paintings. With the painting-artist mnemonic strategy: (a) the artist's name is first recoded as a more concrete proxy; and (b) the recoded stimulus is then related to a prominent feature of the painting. Previous research has demonstrated that such a strategy enhances students' recall of artist names when cued with the associated paintings. The present study extends those findings by demonstrating that the strategy similarly facilitates students' recall of paintings and painting information when cued with the associated artist names. Of three different mnemonic variations included, one that incorporates a verbally described mnemonic interaction into the painting proved most effective. Suggestions for future research and educational implications are included in the discussion.     

Enrollment strategies in early home visitation to prevent physical child abuse and neglect and the "universal versus targeted" debate: a meta-analysis of population-based and screening-based programs.

OBJECTIVE: Seeking to discern optimal programmatic strategies and inform the "universal versus targeted" debate in early home visitation services to prevent physical child abuse and neglect, a meta-analysis was conducted examining enrollment approaches in early home visitation studies and their reported outcomes. METHOD: Quantitative meta-analytic techniques were used to compare effect sizes from 19 controlled outcome studies across screening-based and population-based enrollment strategies. Effect sizes were calculated on protective services data and on child maltreatment related measures of parenting. RESULTS: On protective services report data, population-based studies reported a weighted mean effect size attributable to early home visitation of +3.72%, in comparison to -.07% for screening-based studies. On child maltreatment related measures of parenting, population-based studies reported a weighted mean effect size (r) attributable to early home visitation of +.092, in comparison to +.020 for screening-based studies. CONCLUSIONS: The findings indicate that population-based enrollment strategies appear favorable to screening-based ones in early home visitation programs seeking to prevent physical child abuse and neglect. It may be that psychosocial risk screens serve to enroll higher proportions of families for which early home visitation services are less likely to leverage change, and to exacerbate a mismatch between early home visitation service aims and family needs.