Documenting support needs and adjustment gaps for students with disabilities: teacher practices in Australian classrooms and on national tests

Accommodations or adjustments for students with disabilities (SWDs) who need them are required in Australian education law and policy for classroom instruction and assessment, and external educational accountability tests. Drawing upon the structure of the Assessment Accommodations Checklist and more than a decade of accessibility research, the Checklist of Learning and Assessment Adjustments for Students (CLAAS) was developed to help teachers select and document adjustments that support SWDs and students with additional needs in classroom instruction and assessment, and external tests. The CLAAS was trialled with 21 primary school teachers documenting adjustments for 89 students with diverse needs. Teachers indicated that the CLAAS provided a comprehensive list of adjustments, was useful for recording adjustments across classroom instruction and assessment, and external tests, and provided guidance about potential adjustments for SWDs or with additional learning needs. The documented adjustments also indicated some considerable gaps between supports provided in classrooms compared with the Australian educational accountability tests. Findings also provided initial evidence for the reliability and validity of use of the CLAAS for its intended purposes. The CLAAS is a promising tool for helping both researchers and teachers systematically document and provide equitable and inclusive adjustments for SWDs and additional learning needs given their needs for classroom learning, assessment and external testing and examination requirements.     

Tips for the effective implementation of public law 99-457

Stephen B. Graves and Richard M. Gargiulo are with the School of Education, University of Alabama at Birming-ham.     

Nurture corners in preschool settings: involving and nurturing children and parents

This article draws on the findings from a small qualitative study which focused on gathering perspectives and accounts of experiences from nursery practitioners, health and third sector professionals and parents. It explored the ways in which parents/carers and practitioners experienced the nurture approach developed in preschool settings in Glasgow, Scotland and their perspectives on the impact that this provision has had on the development and well-being of young children and family engagement in learning. The findings provided some insights into the specific ways in which settings involved parents and worked towards developing a nurturing ethos towards parents themselves, underpinned by the following three elements: a welcoming setting, sensitive and empathic staff and creative practice. The particular characteristics of these three elements seemed to support some parents in developing the parenting skills which were required to consolidate the benefits experienced by their children. These benefits included parents being supported to replicate some of the practices at home and becoming more involved in their children’s learning. The study identified challenges for some nurseries in achieving this, such as the limited scope for nurture corner practitioners in some of the settings to fully utilise their skills with parents due to accommodation constraints.     

Developing theories of mathematics education research: the ESM story

In this paper we present ananalysis of the articles in EducationalStudies in Mathematics since 1990. It ispart of a larger project looking at theproduction and use of theories of teachingand learning mathematics. We outline thetheoretical framework of our tool ofanalysis and discuss briefly some of themethodological difficulties we face. Wethen present our findings from the analysisof the journal and we also give one exampleof how we `read' an article, illustratingthe rules whereby criteria are applied. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Approaching Camphill: from the Boundary

The Camphil communities for children and adults in need of special care are widely known of, but little known about; often lauded, sometimes condemned but rarely understood. Stephen Baron, lecturer in sociolgy and social policy, Stirling University, and Dr Douglas Haldane, psychotherapist and consultant in St Andrews, seek to remedy this in a modest way by giving an evaluative, but non-statistical, account of the work of the communities over the past 50 years. They also consider Camphill's future role in community care and also in special educational provision, in the context of the 1988 Education Reform Act.     

Racial attitudes of Japanese university students

Three forms of the Situational Attitude Scale (SAS) were administered to 371 Japanese college students in order to measure their attitudes toward blacks, Koreans, and neutral persons without racial reference in ten social and personal situations. Data were analyzed by analysis of variance and Scheffé post hoc comparisons. The students were found to respond negatively to both blacks and Koreans, but more so toward blacks. Females responded more negatively than males to blacks and Koreans in situations involving potential physical harm. The overall pattern of responses of Japanese subjects on the SAS was similar to that of American or Danish students.     

Project friends: A multi-age learning community

Project Friends is a learning community based on our confidence in the multi-age classroom as a valuable and viable vehicle for teaching young children. Our three multi-age classrooms of kinder-garten, first- and second-grade children were the served as the setting for Project Friends. In this article, we share our beginnings, significant features and outcomes of the learning community, and our reflections on a year ended in Project Friends. Our experiences and the experiences of the children in the multi-age classrooms continue to provide rich contexts for teaching and learning in the elementary school. Supported by school/university collaboration.     

The Application of Historical Narrative in Science Learning: The Atlantic Cable Story

The use of historically based stories to teach science has both theoretical and practical support. This paper outlines how the historically based story may be utilized effectively in the classroom and, as an illustration of this, presents the story of Lord Kelvin’s role in the laying of the first trans-Atlantic communications cable during the period from 1857 to 1866. Expected and observed classroom benefits that accrue from this approach are summarized. The paper concludes with an outline of a program of research which incorporates the development of historically based stories.