Group Size and Storybook Reading: Two-Year-Old Children's Verbal and Nonverbal Participation With Books

Storybook reading in child care classrooms typically occurs in one large group, a context that does not provide opportunities for each child to talk about the book. Two-year-old children, in particular, need individual support to facilitate their language participation, and they want to touch the book and be close to the teacher. The purpose of the present study was to determine if reducing group size would increase 2-year-old children's engagement and verbal participation during storybook reading, and to describe their nonverbal participation. Fifteen 2-yearold children and six teachers in two classrooms participated. A multiple baseline across settings time-series experimental design was used. Videotapes were transcribed and coded for children's engagement, comments and questions, and nonverbal participation. Observations of book use were conducted during freeplay. The average number of comments and questions per child approximately doubled when reading occurred in small groups. Children participated nonverbally by actions such as pointing, handling books, moving close to the teacher, interacting with peers, and pretending. The results indicate that reducing group size can be an effective method for increasing the verbal participation of 2-year-old children during storybook reading in child care classrooms. The results are discussed in terms of the importance of ecological context, and ways of including small group storybook reading in the daily schedule are suggested.     

Beliefs about the Nature of Science and the Enacted Science Curriculum

This interpretive study of the teaching and learning of chemistry in an Australian high school examines the beliefs about the nature of science of a teacher and his class in relation to the enacted curriculum. Although the teacher and students tended to see science as an evolving discipline that was uncertain and changed over time, the manner in which the curriculum was implemented was a direct contrast. In the enacted curriculum science was represented as a catalogue of facts to be memorised and as algorithmic solutions to problems. The beliefs that had greatest impact on shaping the curriculum were the teachers beliefs about the nature of student learning, his beliefs about the distribution of power between himself and the students, and the extent to which restraints were accepted by the teacher as reasons for maintaining a traditional approach to teaching and learning chemistry.     

Measuring Student Perceptions of Blackboard Using the Technology Acceptance Model

Web Enhanced Instruction (WEI) is not intended to replace the traditional classroom setting, but rather to supplement the traditional lecture with course content that can be accessed from campus or the Internet. WEI has the potential to extend the boundaries of traditional classrooms by providing new opportunities for communication and interaction between students and the instructor. While the potential benefits of augmenting the traditional class with WEI have been recognized and discussed, what has remained largely unknown are student reactions to WEI as an addition to the traditional lecture. The Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) has been widely used in the Information Systems research to gather user reactions to information systems. The TAM examines users' perceptions of Usage, Usefulness, and Ease of Use. This research applied the TAM to the academic setting to measure student reactions to Blackboard, the WEI tool used in this study. Using several multivariate methods, results suggest that students (n = 692) found that the Blackboard elements which are associated with Course Content (Course Documents, Lectures, Student Tools, Announcements, and Quizzes) are used more often and are seen as more useful than those items that provide Course Support and communication (Discussion Board, External Web Sites, Faculty Information, and E‐Mail).     

Philosophy of being and becoming: A transformative learning approach using threshold concepts

Transformation has been the fundamental basis upon which education has always stood, as without transformation in mind, education would seem purposeless and undirected. This would imply that the objective of providing information in education is not just to gain knowledge but to achieve the desired transformation in character or behaviour by applying the knowledge learnt within ourselves. Based on how information is interpreted and managed, the philosophy of information influences our states of being and becoming which have an impact on our understanding of the information world. This paper discusses the philosophical aspects of being and becoming in relation to transformation, and threshold concepts are explored as a means of achieving transformative learning.     

Use of Culturally Diverse Books in Daycare

Culturally diverse books are written for children to promote acceptance of diversity; however, there is little research that has examined their use. The purpose of this study was to examine the culturally diverse book use of preschoolers in daycare. Research Findings. Thirty-five children (ages 44-65 months) and their teachers in two daycare classrooms participated. The children represented a variety of socioeconomic levels and raciaVcultura1 groups. Observations of book use were conducted during freeplay and naptime. In a multiple baseline time series experimental design, comparisons were made between the use of culturally diverse books and books depicting no cultural diversity (Euro-American books). It was determined that one category of culturally diverse books (Culturally Conscious) was not being used as frequently as others. The Culturally Conscious books depicted characters from one of three cultural groups—Black, Asian, and Latino. A simple intervention was implemented in which the teachers introduced some of the Culturally Conscious books at group times and this led to an increase in their use. Additional book use information was gained through parent questionnaires, teacher interviews, and teachers' anecdotal notes. Implications for Practice. In daycare centers similar to the ones used in this study, it is likely that children will use culturally diverse books when available. Teacher introductions of infrequently used culturally diverse books may be an efficient and effective practice for encouraging their use.     

Assessing the psychosocial environment of science classes in Catholic secondary schools

Much Catholic school and church rhetoric suggests that Catholic schools possess distinctive learning environments. Research into this aspect of Catholic schooling has been hampered by the lack of an appropriate assessment instrument. By drawing on contemporary church literature, the perceptions of personnel involved in Catholic education and existing classroom environment questionnaires, a new instrument was developed to assess student perceptions of classroom psychosocial environment in Catholic schools. The use of this instrument in 64 classrooms in Catholic and Government schools indicated significant differences on some scales. The distinctive nature of Catholic schooling did not extend to all classroom environment dimensions deemed important to Catholic education. Specializations: Catholic education, learning environments. Specializations: conceptual change in students, science teacher professional development, scientific reasoning, learning environments. Specializations: learning environments, science education, educational evaluation, curriculum.     

Effects of peer-mediated instruction on the acquisition and generalization of written capitalization skills

This study investigated the effects of a peer teaching procedure, combined with student letter-writing activities, on the acquisition and generalization of capitalization skills. Three students, aged 9 years, obtained instruction from peer partners that included (a) an introduction and review of capitalization rules, (b) feedback on each participant's previous capitalization work, and (c) guided and independent practice on sentences that required capitalization. All three students demonstrated acquisition of the capitalization rules after participating in the teaching sessions with one or two peer partners. In addition, there were increases in capitalization accuracy in participants' letters to peers who did not serve as teaching partners, thus demonstrating a measure of across-peer (stimulus) generalization. Mixed results were obtained on a response generalization task (sentence writing). Finally, sentencing-writing activities also showed that two of the peer partners substantially improved their use of capitalization skills as a result of teaching the target students.