Evaluating Assistive Technology in Early Childhood Education: The Use of a Concurrent Time Series Probe Approach

As assistive technology applications are increasingly implemented in early childhood settings for children who are at risk or who have disabilities, it is critical that teachers utilize observational approaches to determine whether targeted assistive technology-supported interventions make a difference in children’s learning. One structured strategy that employs observations and which has powerful child progress monitoring implications is the concurrent time series probe approach. Requiring multiple performance measures of a child engaged in a targeted task over time—both with and without a specific assistive technology device—the concurrent time series probe approach can be used to evaluate the effectiveness of assistive technology tools in supporting skill acquisition in the classroom. This approach is described in the context of a case study, with accompanying explanations of how to interpret data and make decisions regarding the effectiveness of the technology.     

Designing for 21st century learning online: a heuristic method to enable educator learning support roles

With the growing emphasis on developing 21st century skills among today’s youth, there is continued optimism about the possibilities granted by increasing access to networked technologies, particularly for encouraging youth to pursue their interests and take ownership of their learning. Yet, research demonstrates the importance of adult support in realizing the promise of achieving these outcomes. Designers of such systems are thus faced with the need to create youth-centered spaces that also provide adult facilitation of learning. This paper presents an adaptation of the traditional heuristic evaluation method which provides designers of online learning systems with a holistic view of how adult learning support is enabled across the system. We describe how the heuristic evaluation method was adapted, and through a case example analyzing one online social learning system used in a middle school context, we demonstrate how it can be used to help identify areas for improvement and promising areas for further research. We also present a framework of heuristics which reflect specific educator learning support roles that have been found to be important for youth learning, particularly for supporting 21st century skills. This work contributes a novel heuristic evaluation method that can help designers of online learning platforms attend not only the experiences of learners, but also to how educators are enabled to support their learning.     

Prominent Messages in Television Drama Switched at Birth Promote Attitude Change Toward Deafness

The study at hand employed a pre- versus posttest experimental design to test the effects of television drama Switched at Birth on viewers’ attitudes toward deafness. This program tells the story of two teenage girls (one of whom is deaf) and their struggles to relate to their peers and families after discovering they were switched as newborns. Two hundred eleven female adults completed pre- and postexposure measures utilizing Cooper, Rose, and Mason's (2004 Cooper , A. , Rose , J. , &; Mason , O. ( 2004 ). Measuring the attitudes of human service professionals toward deafness . American Annals of the Deaf , 148 , 385 – 389 .[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) Attitudes to Deafness measure, the items of which were categorized according to thematic dimensions. After exposure to one of three episodes, viewers’ attitudes toward deafness significantly improved overall, although significant differences in attitude changes varied by episodes and dimensions. The three thematic dimensions that were most strongly represented in the program (social interaction, deafness as a handicap, and language issues) appeared to show the strongest attitude change. Positive attitude changes were observed on social interaction and deafness as handicap dimensions, which was consistent with program content depicting positive deaf-hearing friendships and capable deaf characters. However, attitudes on the language issues dimension showed a negative shift, possibly due to the way that deaf characters communicated with hearing characters onscreen.     

Ethically challenging situations reported by school psychologists: Implications for training

Practitioner‐members of the National Association of School Psychologists (N = 208) completed questionnaires regarding their ethics training, preparedness, the types of ethical transgressions and dilemmas encountered in the previous year, and the strategies used to solve problems. Respondents who received multilevel training in ethics (ethics coursework, ethics instruction in multiple classes, ethics addressed in practicum/internship) perceived themselves to be better prepared to tackle difficult challenges and were more likely to use a systematic problem‐solving strategy when faced with an ethical dilemma than respondents who did not receive multilevel training. Assessment‐related ethical transgressions and failure to follow up on interventions were the two most commonly witnessed types of ethics code violations; troublesome dilemmas included whether to suspect child abuse, whether to tell parents about their child's risky behavior, and how to handle administrative pressure to engage in unethical actions. Implications for ethics training are discussed. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Researchers Apply Lesson Study: A Cycle of Lesson Planning,Implementation, and Revision

Scripted lesson plans and/or professional development alone may not be sufficient to encourage teachers to reflect on the quality of their teaching and improve their teaching. One learning tool that teachers may use to improve their teaching is Lesson Study (LS). LS is a collaborative process involving educators, based on concepts of iteration and revision, to improve instruction. The initial use of an adapted version of LS referred to as a microteaching lesson study (MLS) is described in this article. Our purpose is to illustrate the process of MLS used by a group of researchers when developing lesson plans for teaching students with learning disabilities. We describe MLS, and then (1) share an application of MLS used by a research team in developing a writing intervention, and (2) discuss how the MLS format was mirrored with K‐12 teachers during professional development training.     

Digital Youth Divas: Exploring Narrative-Driven Curriculum to Spark Middle School Girls’ Interest in Computational Activities

Women use technology to mediate numerous aspects of their professional and personal lives. Yet, few design and create these technologies given that women, especially women of color, are grossly underrepresented in computer science and engineering courses. Decisions about participation in STEM are frequently made prior to high school, and these decisions are impacted by prior experience, interest, and sense of fit with community. Digital Youth Divas is an out-of-school program that uses narrative stories to launch the creation of digital artifacts and support non-dominant middle school girls’ STEM interests and identities through virtual and real-world community. In this article, we discuss the framework of the Digital Youth Divas environment, including our approach to blending narratives into project-based design challenges through on- and offline mechanisms. Results from our pilot year, including the co-design process with the middle school participants, suggest that our narrative-centered, blended learning program design sparks non-dominant girls’ interests in STEM activities and disciplinary identification, and has the potential to mediate girls’ sense of STEM agency, identities, and interests.     

Talking back: teaching and learning through autobiographies in multicultural education

This research essay is intended to situate the curriculum in my multicultural education courses – of talking back through autobiographical inquiry – within real schools, a site where curriculum theorists rarely situate their work. The literature by curriculum theorists that precedes my study generally has focused on how pre-service teachers in multicultural education courses are changed (or not) as a result of course readings, discussions, and critical autobiographical reflection, all of which happen within the confines of the university classroom. My research essay extends the work of curriculum theorists on autobiography in education by focusing on the ways in which pre-service teachers use autobiographical inquiry to reflect on the impact of the context of real public schools and K-12 students on their constructions of themselves as teachers. In my extension of this work, I draw on bell hooks’ notion of “talking back” as an overarching framework in analyzing the autobiographical reflections of pre-service teachers.     

Keys to Reading Among Middle School Children

A recent decline in reading has become a major issue, as Americans are not reading out of necessity or as a leisure activity. In addition, a connection has been found between children's leisure reading habits and their level of academic achievement, causing even more concern.