Extended Test Time and postsecondary Students with Learning Disabilities: A Model for Decision Making

The most frequently requested accommodation among students with learning disabilities (LD) in postsecondary settings is extended test time. The frequency with which this accommodation is requested and granted compels disability service providers to become knowledgeable about the factors that influence the need for, and appropriateness of, the accommodation. Moreover, the synthesis of these factors becomes the basis for determining if the accommodation is reasonable under federal law. The purpose of this article is to present a step‐by‐step model to be used as a decision‐making process when considering the accommodation of extended test time for postsecondary students with LD. The model is designed to assist disability service providers in the analysis and synthesis of information collected from (1) the student's diagnostic evaluation, (2) the course or classroom test to be accommodated, and (3) student interviews. A list of diagnostic tests from the four most frequently administered test batteries used with adults is provided, along with a concise explanation of how characteristics of LD impact reading, writing, and math, and relate to the need for extended time. This information can be used to determine if extended test time is a reasonable accommodation and to estimate how much additional time to provide.     

All I really needed to know I learned during gastrulation

Note from the Editor     

Measuring Cultural Dimensions of Classroom Interactions

We trace the development and analyze the generalizability of the Classroom Assessment of Sociocultural Interactions (CASI), an observation system designed to measure cultural dimensions of classroom interactions. We establish CASI measurement properties by analyzing panoramic videos of 4th and 5th grade classrooms from the Measures of Effective Teaching project, and argue for its significance in terms of achievement opportunity for minoritized students and needed evidence regarding equitable teaching. We frame ten dimensions of sociocultural interactions within three domains: Life Applications (i.e., connections with what students know and do outside of school); Self in Group (i.e., interdependence to motivate learning and foster social identities); and Agency (i.e., how freedom and choice are managed).

We demonstrate how measurement error is associated with raters, lessons, and lesson segments, and discuss implications for CASI refinement, as well as appropriate instrument uses to enrich learning opportunities for minoritized students across a variety of classroom settings.     

Spaces of emergent memory: Detroit’s 8 Mile wall and public memories of civil rights injustice

This article introduces emergent memory, a conceptual extension to rhetorics of public memory, to describe memory’s genesis in sites built without commemorative commitments. Examining Detroit’s “8 Mile Wall,” a site built to reinforce segregated housing, this project argues the rhetorical tenets of emergent memory present in this space. As a relic of segregated history, the wall symbolically recalls the city’s controversial past, but has recently been the subject of a local mural project to redefine the wall’s purpose. Some consider this a step toward reclamation, as it visually repositions the disturbing remnant. For others, the murals simply cannot overwrite troubling memories of the city’s discriminatory history. This essay uses emergent memory to describe how the wall’s complicated mnemonic legacy simultaneously harkens to a difficult history and how the mural additions use that same legacy to convey an optimistic future for Detroit and those marked by this urban space.     

Part 1. If We Frame It,They Will Respond: Undergraduate Student Responses to the Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education

There remains significant confusion surrounding the purpose, audience, and proposed application of the Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education. This exploratory study addresses the question of whether undergraduate students can understand the language and concepts in this document. By presenting student responses to pretest questions recorded at the beginning of a semester-long research methods course, this article shows that students can, even on first impression, begin to make sense of the complexity and richness found in the Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education.