Your voice counts : Listening to the voice of high school students with autism spectrum disorder

Supporting students with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) in inclusive settings presents both opportunities and significant challenges to school communities. This study, which explored the lived-experience of nine students with ASD in an inclusive high school in Australia, is based on the belief that by listening to the voices of students, school communities will be in a better position to collaboratively create supportive learning and social environments. The findings of this small-scale study deepen our knowledge from the student perspective of the inclusive educational practices that facilitate and constrain the learning and participation of students with ASD. The students’ perspectives were examined in relation to the characteristics of successful inclusive schools identified by Kluth. Implications for inclusive educational practice that meets the needs of students with ASD are presented.

Data modelling in the beginning school years

This paper argues for a renewed focus on statistical reasoning in the beginning school years, with opportunities for children to engage in data modelling. Some of the core components of data modelling are addressed. A selection of results from the first data modelling activity implemented during the second year (2010; second grade) of a current longitudinal study are reported. Data modelling involves investigations of meaningful phenomena, deciding what is worthy of attention (identifying complex attributes), and then progressing to organising, structuring, visualising, and representing data. Reported here are children's abilities to identify diverse and complex attributes, sort and classify data in different ways, and create and interpret models to represent their data.

Saving bitrate vs. pleasing users : where is the break-even point in mobile video quality?

This paper presents a comprehensive study to find the most efficient bitrate requirement to deliver mobile video that optimizes bandwidth, while at the same time maintains good user viewing experience. In the study, forty participants were asked to choose the lowest quality video that would still provide for a comfortable and long-term viewing experience, knowing that higher video quality is more expensive and bandwidth intensive. This paper proposes the lowest pleasing bitrates and corresponding encoding parameters for five different content types: cartoon, movie, music, news and sports. It also explores how the lowest pleasing quality is influenced by content type, image resolution, bitrate, and user gender, prior viewing experience, and preference. In addition, it analyzes the trajectory of users’ progression while selecting the lowest pleasing quality. The findings reveal that the lowest bitrate requirement for a pleasing viewing experience is much higher than that of the lowest acceptable quality. Users’ criteria for the lowest pleasing video quality are related to the video’s content features, as well as its usage purpose and the user’s personal preferences. These findings can provide video providers guidance on what quality they should offer to please mobile users.

Converting theory to practice : university-school collaboration on devising strategies for mentoring pedagogical knowledge

There appears no shortage of theorists for preservice teacher education; however many ideas are abandoned without practical applications. Indeed, it can take years for theories to materialise into practice, if they materialise at all. The quality of preservice teacher education is central for enhancing an education system, and mentors’ roles can assist to shape preservice teachers’ development within the school context. Yet mentoring can be haphazard without being underpinned by a theoretical framework. A mentoring model (personal attributes, system requirements, pedagogical knowledge, modelling, and feedback) has emerged from research and the literature to guide mentors’ practices. This qualitative study investigates mentors’ pedagogical knowledge as one factor crucial to the mentoring process. More specifically, this study involves a questionnaire and audio-recorded focus group meetings with experienced mentors (n=14) who deliberated on devising practical applications for mentoring pedagogical knowledge. Findings revealed that these experienced mentors pinpointed practical applications around a mentor’s role for providing pedagogical knowledge to the mentee. These strategies were varied and demonstrated that any one mentoring practice may be approached from a number of different angles. Nevertheless, there were core mentoring practices in pedagogical knowledge such as showing the mentee how to plan for teaching, articulating classroom management approaches, and talking about how to connect learning to assessment. Mentors may require education on current mentoring practices with practical strategies that are linked to theoretical underpinnings.

Educational change and youth voice: Informing school action on cyberbullying

Change is a regular part of school life. Educational innovations are constantly being implements in order to benefit students, improve outcomes and meet the obligations and accountability demands of governments. Rapid social and technological change has occurred within and around schools during the past 15 or more years, impacting upon curricula and pedagogies. Simultaneously, there has been a trend towards incorporating youth voice, where young people share in the decisions that will impact on their school experiences (Mitra, 2008a, 2004). Most recently, with the advent of the first National Australian Curriculum (McGaw, 2010), there is an imposed curriculum change, which reflects the growing global trend towards centralised control over what students learn in school (Zhao, 2011) and highlights that schools have to respond to change from all levels. Spears (in press) also notes that parents are raising children in an increasingly wireless world which is far removed from the one in which they were raised. Educators are teaching in schools that are vastly different technologically from those they knew as children and adolescents, or even those in which they were teaching a decade ago. Children born in 1995, the year when the Internet was first commercialised, are 16 years old in 2011 and, whilst parents may have embraced technological advances in their own adult working or social lives, they are yet to fathom fully what it means for their children and their relationships: to be educated and to socialise in the midst of mobile social media. Young people have greater access to more information than at any time past and move seamlessly between online and offline environments, often referring to them as ‘the same life’ (Spears, Kofoed, Bartolo, Palermiti and Castabile, in press). Along with these changes has come the transformation of traditional forms of bullying to cyberbullying, amid the public perception that bullying generally is becoming worse in schools.

Philosophy, behaviour disorders, and the school

The recent exponential rise in the number of behaviour disorders has been the focus of a wide range of commentaries, ranging from the pedagogic and the administrative, to the sociological, and even the legal. This book will be the first to apply, in a systematic and thorough manner, the ideas of the foundational discipline of philosophy. A number of philosophical tools are applied here, tools arising through the medium of the traditional philosophical debates, such as those concerning governance, truth, logic, ethics, free-will, law and language. Each forms a separate chapter, but together they constitute a comprehensive, rigorous and original insight into what is now an important set of concerns for all those interested in the governance of children. The intention is threefold: first, to demonstrate the utility, accessibility and effectiveness of philosophical ideas within this important academic area. Philosophy does not have to be regarded an arcane and esoteric discipline, with only limited contemporary application, far from it. Second, the book offers a new set of approaches and ideas for both researchers and practitioners within education, a field is in danger of continually using the same ideas, to endlessly repeat the same conclusions. Third, the book offers a viable alternative to the dominant psychological model which increasingly employs pathology as its central rationale for conduct. The book would not only be of interest to mainstream educators, and to those students and academics interested in philosophy, and more specifically, the application of philosophical ideas to educational issues, it would also be an appropriate text for courses on education and difference, and due to the breadth of the philosophical issues addressed, courses on applied philosophy.

Data modeling in elementary and middle school classes : a shared experience

This paper argues for a renewed focus on statistical reasoning in the elementary school years, with opportunities for children to engage in data modeling. Data modeling involves investigations of meaningful phenomena, deciding what is worthy of attention, and then progressing to organizing, structuring, visualizing, and representing data. Reported here are some findings from a two-part activity (Baxter Brown’s Picnic and Planning a Picnic) implemented at the end of the second year of a current three-year longitudinal study (grade levels 1-3). Planning a Picnic was also implemented in a grade 7 class to provide an opportunity for the different age groups to share their products. Addressed here are the grade 2 children’s predictions for missing data in Baxter Brown’s Picnic, the questions posed and representations created by both grade levels in Planning a Picnic, and the metarepresentational competence displayed in the grade levels’ sharing of their products for Planning a Picnic.

An evaluation of the pattern and structure mathematics awareness program in the early school years

This paper reports a 2-year longitudinal study on the effectiveness of the Pattern and Structure Mathematical Awareness Program (PASMAP) on students’ mathematical development. The study involved 316 Kindergarten students in 17 classes from four schools in Sydney and Brisbane. The development of the PASA assessment interview and scale are presented. The intervention program provided explicit instruction in mathematical pattern and structure that enhanced the development of students’ spatial structuring, multiplicative reasoning, and emergent generalisations. This paper presents the initial findings of the impact of the PASMAP and illustrates students’ structural development.

Perceived gender differences in STEM learning in the middle school

Women are underrepresented in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) university coursework, reflecting long-standing gender issues that have existed in core middle-school STEM subject areas. Using data from a survey and written responses, we report on findings following the introduction of engineering education in middle school classes across three schools (grade level 7, n=122). The engineering experiences fused science, technology and mathematics concepts. The survey revealed higher percentages for girls than boys in 13 of the 24 items; however there were six items with a 20% difference in their perceptions about learning in STEM. For instance, despite girls recording that they have been provided equal or more opportunities than boys in STEM, they believed they do not do as well as boys (80% boys, 48% girls) or want to seek a career in STEM (39% boys, 17% girls). The written responses revealed gender differences across a number of themes in the students’ responses, including resources, group work, the nature and type of learning experiences, content knowledge, and teachers’ instructional style. Exposing students to STEM education facilitates an awareness of their learning and may assist girls to consider studying STEM subjects or STEM careers.

Complex modelling in the primary/middle school years

The world’s increasing complexity, competitiveness, interconnectivity, and dependence on technology generate new challenges for nations and individuals that cannot be met by continuing education as usual (Katehi, Pearson, & Feder, 2009). With the proliferation of complex systems have come new technologies for communication, collaboration, and conceptualisation. These technologies have led to significant changes in the forms of mathematical and scientific thinking that are required beyond the classroom. Modelling, in its various forms, can develop and broaden children’s mathematical and scientific thinking beyond the standard curriculum. This paper first considers future competencies in the mathematical sciences within an increasingly complex world. Next, consideration is given to interdisciplinary problem solving and models and modelling. Examples of complex, interdisciplinary modelling activities across grades are presented, with data modelling in 1st grade, model-eliciting in 4th grade, and engineering-based modelling in 7th-9th grades.

Representational change and strategy use in children's number line estimation during the first years of primary school

Background: The objective of this study was to scrutinize number line estimation behaviors displayed by children in mathematics classrooms during the first three years of schooling. We extend existing research by not only mapping potential logarithmic-linear shifts but also provide a new perspective by studying in detail the estimation strategies of individual target digits within a number range familiar to children. Methods: Typically developing children (n = 67) from Years 1 – 3 completed a number-to-position numerical estimation task (0-20 number line). Estimation behaviors were first analyzed via logarithmic and linear regression modeling. Subsequently, using an analysis of variance we compared the estimation accuracy of each digit, thus identifying target digits that were estimated with the assistance of arithmetic strategy. Results: Our results further confirm a developmental logarithmic-linear shift when utilizing regression modeling; however, uniquely we have identified that children employ variable strategies when completing numerical estimation, with levels of strategy advancing with development. Conclusion: In terms of the existing cognitive research, this strategy factor highlights the limitations of any regression modeling approach, or alternatively, it could underpin the developmental time course of the logarithmic-linear shift. Future studies need to systematically investigate this relationship and also consider the implications for educational practice.

Event-related brain potentials dissociate the developmental time-course of automatic numerical magnitude analysis and cognitive control functions during the first three years of primary school

In this study we set out to dissociate the developmental time course of automatic symbolic number processing and cognitive control functions in grade 1-3 British primary school children. Event-related potential (ERP) and behavioral data were collected in a physical size discrimination numerical Stroop task. Task-irrelevant numerical information was processed automatically already in grade 1. Weakening interference and strengthening facilitation indicated the parallel development of general cognitive control and automatic number processing. Relationships among ERP and behavioral effects suggest that control functions play a larger role in younger children and that automaticity of number processing increases from grade 1 to 3.

Labouring for leisure? Achieving work-life balance through compressed working weeks

Flexible work practices spreading work times across the entire week have reduced the time to engage in leisure activities and for some have compounded the problem of a lack of defined break between work weeks. This study examines time spent outside of the workplace through a multiple case study of working time and leisure in the construction industry. A framework of synchronous leisure is used to examine the interplay of work and non-work arrangements. The effects of changing work arrangements to deliver a longer break between working weeks and the consequent impact on leisure activities are analysed. Interviews and focus groups across four construction sites revealed that while leisure is important to relieve fatigue and overwork, a work schedule allowing a long break between working weeks, specifically on a weekend, enables workers to achieve synchronous time, particularly with family, and improves work-life balance satisfaction. It was found that a well-defined break across a weekend also offers the opportunity to synchronize schedules with others to spend time away on short breaks.

Engaging parents in STEM: Coteaching and cogenerative dialoguing in a Queensland high school

Diminished student interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) is recognised by educators, researchers and public policy makers as a concerning global trend. Inviting stakeholders like scientists and industry specialists to discuss their work is one means schools use to facilitate student engagement in the sciences. However, these visits generally comprise one-off sessions with minimal relevance to students’ particular and ongoing learning needs. This case study investigated coteaching and cogenerative dialoguing with parents in teaching a Year-8 multidisciplinary unit with science and technology foci. Two parents cotaught alongside the resident teacher and researcher over eight months. This paper concentrates on one parent, a medical scientist by profession. Data sources included video and audio recordings of cogenerative dialogues and classroom interactions, student work samples and journal entries. Data were interrogated using the sociological constructs of fields and capitals and the dialectic of structure|agency. The findings reveal how (a) the parent’s science and technology knowledge was tailored to the students’ needs initially and continually and (b) student-generated data indicated enhanced engagement in science and technology. The research speaks to schools and governments about enhancing STEM education by furthering collaborative relationships with relevant stakeholders.