Reading/Writing Multilingualism: language,literature and creativity in the multilingual classroom

This article examines the relationship between the discipline of ‘English Literature’ and the contemporary multilingual classroom. It argues that, although our field has often been cast as a kind of corrective to the ‘problem’ of language diversity by helping to teach language norms, literature can – and should – be made a preeminent space for students to reflect on their own experiences of language diversity, and to translate this into self‐reflexive critical tools to think about language in literature. As an example of this kind of practice in action, the article discusses the experience and outcomes of a project in the English Literature department at Queen Mary University of London, Reading/Writing Multilingualism, which involved year 10 and 12 students from two local secondary schools who have English as an additional language.     

Behavior Breakthroughs™: Future Teachers Reflect on a Focused Game Designed to Teach ABA Techniques

This article examines the use of a focused educational game. The game, Behavior Breakthroughs™, was created to teach people that work with children with autism, appropriate behavior management techniques. A group of undergraduate, teacher education students played the game and provided feedback on their experiences.     

Transformational Leadership in the Planning of a Doctoral Program

Growing criticism of existing educational leadership preparation programs seems to focus on a lack of contextual relevancy and instructional leadership. Universities and school districts need to develop more formal, collaborative, long-term relationships focused on the nature of principal preparation, moving beyond acculturation to district norms and irrelevancy to building future leaders' capacity for continuous educational improvement. Educational administration as an applied field demands that we answer key questions regarding the development of effective practitioners.     

The Early Reading Research: The impact of instructional psychology

The Early Reading Research (ERR), is a six-year research project investigating the most effective approaches to: improving reading standards; ensuring that every child can reach age and skill appropriate targets in reading; and, preventing the occurrence of reading difficulties. This article reviews the educational and psychological research into teaching reading and relates recent findings to theories and research emerging from instructional psychology, which underpins the 'framework for teaching reading' used within the ERR. Two studies are then summarised which evaluated the impact of the ERR reading framework. Study 1 involved a two-year experimental study where the progress of children following the ERR framework during reception and Year 1, was compared to that of children taught to read through their usual classroom methods. Study 2 involved a one-year study where the progress of a sample of children within the ERR was compared to children following the National Literacy Project. The article concludes by highlighting some implications of the ERR for educational psychologists (EPs), the field of special education and the National Literacy Strategy.     

Culturally familiar tasks on reading performance and self-efficacy of culturally and linguistically diverse students

Grounded in the theoretical frameworks of constructivism and social cognitive theory, this study examined utilising culturally responsive pedagogy through a Latino themed reading task with the intention of increasing reading achievement and reading self-efficacy beliefs for culturally and linguistically diverse students. The research was conducted in an urban middle school in the south-western United States with 43 seventh grade students whose age ranged from 12 to 13 years. The majority of participants in this study reported to be Hispanic or multiracial with Hispanic origins. This study’s findings added to the existing knowledge base regarding the effectiveness of culturally responsive teaching practices. More specifically, culturally responsive pedagogy was utilised in the form of a reading task to examine its influence on students’ recall and reading comprehension performance. Furthermore, the findings of this study suggest that a culturally familiar reading task may increase reading self-efficacy beliefs. Implications for primary and secondary teachers, administrators, parents, and students pertain to the importance of utilising culturally responsive pedagogy as a teaching method to increase reading achievement and reading self-efficacy for culturally and linguistically diverse students.     

Social Networks and Archival Context: From Project to Cooperative Archival Program

This article highlights the objectives and outcomes of the multi-year Social Networks and Archival Context (SNAC) research and demonstration project and discusses related developments to establish a large-scale sustainable cooperative for maintaining information about creators of archival collections, leveraging the Encoded Archival Context—Corporate Bodies, Persons, and Families (EAC-CPF) standard. The article discusses processes developed to derive EAC-CPF records from existing EAD finding aids, MARCXML records, and original authority records, enrichment of those records from other sources, and the creation of a prototype research resource, providing integrated access to dispersed archival collections and the social-historical context of the collections.     

CrossRef's Text and Data Mining Services

CrossRef ( http://www.crossref.org/ ) is an association of scholarly publishers that develops shared infrastructure to support more effective scholarly communications. In May 2014, CrossRef launched CrossRef Text and Data Mining Services for its members. This article covers the thinking behind CrossRef launching this service, and the particular problems it aims to address around the collection of full‐text content for the purposes of text and data mining (TDM). It explains the technical aspects of the service for researchers and lets publishers know what they need to provide to CrossRef in order to participate and how to do so. It will also describe the pilot of CrossRef's TDM Services, and information on publisher uptake since the launch and how this can be measured, and the costs for joining or using the service.