Exploring the social connections in preschool settings between children labelled with special educational needs and their peers

This paper reports on a small-scale study of the social interactions between six children labelled with special educational needs and their peers in their respective early years settings. Data from play observations, photographs and staff interviews is used to examine the dynamics of the connections that they make with other children. The position of these six children as active agents in making decisions about their peer interactions is highlighted and the ways that this agency is expressed is analysed. By focusing on the personal strategies that the children use to make social connections the findings contribute to the developing understanding of children's relationships within inclusive early years settings. In particular compatible play interests and personalities are identified as significant factors that attract children to one another in this case study. It also emerged that recurrent playmates did not feature consistently in the social exchanges involving this group of children. This factor is considered in the context of it being indicative of the social connections that children labelled with special educational needs pursue. Suggestions for further investigation are proposed and key practice messages offered around developing awareness and facilitation of social connections between children.     

Neoliberalism,global poverty policy and early childhood education and care: a critique of local uptake in England

The global rise of a neoliberal ‘new politics of parenting’ discursively constructs parents in poverty as the reason for, and remedy to, child poverty. This allows for Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) to become a key policy lever by using human technologies to intervene in and regulate the lives of parents and children in poverty. The article explores the uptake of this policy locally through interviews with 30 ECEC practitioners in three locations across England. The interviews suggested that the neoliberal discursive formation of child poverty as a problem of the poor themselves had symbolic power and was a view shared by most of the interviewees. This appeared to restrict their thinking and action, shaping a limited engagement with parents in poverty. Delivering curricular requirements was seen to further delimit practitioners’ practices with children in poverty by reducing their poverty sensitivity. Although this is a small study, its findings may be of value in questioning neoliberal logics, and their implications are considered critically.     

淮南市3~6岁幼儿各项身体形态分析

为全面了解淮南市幼儿的形态指标、身体素质现状,2010年淮南师范学院与淮南市体育局共同组织了对淮南市幼儿的调查与测试,把测得数据采用《国民体质测定标准手册》中幼儿部分的评定方法与标准进行统计处理。结果表明：淮南市3~6岁幼儿身体形态发育随着年龄的增加,他们的身高与体重值均增加,呈逐年升高趋向;男性幼儿和女性幼儿的身体形态从3岁就呈现出差异,这主要是由遗传决定的,这种差异在7岁以后,伴随着年龄的增长表现更为明显。     

Promoting basic arithmetic competence in early school years–using a response to intervention model

This study investigated whether mathematics education based on a multi-tiered response to intervention (RTI) model can support students' arithmetic competence in primary schools in Sweden. The intent was to identify and support students at risk of failure. In this study, 113 students participated in the intervention, and 30 students participated in the control group. Both groups were followed from Grade 1 to the end of Grade 2 and compared. During the first semester in Grade 1, all students were taught basic addition and subtraction with explicit instructions in Tier 1. Those who did not respond to Tier 1 after one semester were provided support within Tier 2 during the second semester. The same was repeated in grade 2 and the students that did not respond to Tier 2 were supported within Tier 3. At the end of Grade 2, students in the intervention group performed significantly higher on the basic arithmetic competence in the number range 1–9 than the control group. No significant difference was found in a test measuring basic arithmetic competence in the number range 10–19. This study shows that using multi-tiered RTI might be sufficient to identify and support students at risk in early arithmetic competence.     

Chopsticks and clothes: Chinese heritage parents' perspectives on young children's technology use as a tool for language and cultural learning

This paper presents Chinese heritage parents' perspectives on young children's use of technology as a tool for language and cultural learning. Growing up with Confucian heritage culture, some Chinese parents have particular cultural beliefs about learning that value effortful learning practices and the social context of learning. However, some Chinese parents believe technology is just a tool for entertainment and keeps children away from social interaction, which leads to their preference of print-based literacy practices at home. Four parents from different families whose children were between the ages of four to five participated in this study. These parents were interviewed about their experience and history of using technology and their thoughts about technology as a tool for language and cultural learning. Four narratives were constructed to describe parents' experiences, histories, opinions, cultural values and beliefs. Parents' perspectives were influenced by a variety of intertwined factors, including their own childhood language learning experiences, their histories of using technology, their cultural values and beliefs about learning, the purpose of technological experiences, and the quality of available technological resources. Pedagogical implications for using technology with children and communicating with parents are discussed.     

建筑设计课程体系中教学实践的探索--以二年级建筑设计课程为例

本文依据广州大学建筑设计课程教学体系的改革,以二年级建筑设计课程的教学实践为例,围绕阶段培养目标的课题设置、教学过程的阶段控制、设计能力的培养及设计成果评价等几方面进行了探讨与思索,以期指导今后建筑学专业教学的改革工作。     

我国学生体质东西差异变化动态研究——以上海和甘肃为例

为了探讨东西部7~18岁汉族学生体质差异,应用文献资料法和数理统计法,将中国学生体质与健康2000年和2010年两次调研中有关上海和甘肃省7-18岁汉族学生体质数据进行统计和对比分析。结果表明:在2000—2010年的10年间,7~18岁上海城市学生身高、体重优于甘肃汉族城市学生且差异呈缩小趋势,7~18岁上海乡村学生身高、体重优于甘肃乡村学生且差异呈拉大趋势,7~18上海学生胸围与甘肃学生胸围差异呈拉大趋势,7~18上海学生肺活量反超甘肃学生并有差距拉大的趋势,7~18岁上海学生身体素质优于甘肃学生且差异呈现缩小趋势。     

浅谈如何把握幼儿早期教育的“度”

我们知道,幼儿教育跟小学教育是两个不同的领域,它需要不同的教学理念、教学方法和教学手段,但在现实中,幼儿教育的“小学化”倾向正日益严重,不少幼儿园的教学手段尤其是私人幼儿园几乎跟小学一模一样。这种倾向,对于幼儿的健康成长是福还是祸？是喜还是忧,值得家长、幼儿园乃至全社会的深思。     

泰安市地质灾害预警预报系统研究

该文主要介绍了泰安市地质灾害气象风险预警与指挥系统。系统开发的主要目的是为了更好的与泰安市地质灾害防治工作相结合,通过对气象因素及地质灾害资料的分析和研究,基于地质灾害气象预警模型,采用先进的GIS技术能实现对地质灾害易发风险性区域预警,能直观地了解到各部分区域的地质灾害易发风险性,为各级政府防灾减灾提供科学的技术支撑。     

Grade 7 Students Reading Graphic Novels: ‘You Need To Do a Lot of Thinking’

A multifaceted, classroom‐based research project explored how developing Grade 7 students’ knowledge of literary and illustrative elements affects their understanding, interpretation and analysis of picturebooks and graphic novels, and their subsequent creation of their own print texts. Analysis of two sources of data, the students’ written responses to Amulet ( Kibuishi 2008 ), one of the graphic novels read and discussed during the study, and the students’ opinions about the knowledge that is required to read and understand a graphic novel, indicated how the instruction about various graphic novel conventions had impacted the students’ awareness of and knowledge about the structural design of these multimodal texts.