Ritha Smith, assistant superintendent, and Seth Hanson, principal, are faced with a difficult decision. Taylor Harper is a transgender student who identifies as male and is openly attracted to females. Taylor’s parents, Lane and Morgan Harper, are lesbians;they are fully supportive of their child’s identification and are well versed in their legal rights. Madison Booth is in Physical Educat…
A small community in southwest Michigan has been witness to a significant cultural divide within its school system. An influential church has permeated school leadership and in many cases has overstepped the proverbial “wall separating church and state.”A fairly high-profile case saw the Sixth Circuit Court enjoin the district to remove a portrait of Jesus. Community members were divided on…
Special education policies can create structures of segregation and inequality. School leaders are often tasked with dismantling these structures while meeting expectations related to accountability policies. This case study involves a new principal at an urban school in a district with a long history of segregation reassigned to work at one of the more challenging schools in the district. The…
In 2010, Principal Kirk introduced Small Group Meeting (SGM) at Hillcrest Elementary. SGMs are multiage student groupings who meet with school faculty once a month to work on community building, service-learning projects, and advising. Many teachers liked the SGMs, some felt they needed more time to prepare, and others felt it was a waste of time. The case raises the questions: How can school …
Project Clarion, a Jacob K. Javits-funded project, focused on the scale-up of primary-grade science curricula. Curriculum units, based on an Integrated Curriculum Model (ICM),were developed for high-ability learners, but tried out with all students in Title I settings to study the efficacy of the units with all learners. The units focus on the development of students’ conceptual understanding…
This study used a self-determination theory lens to investigate high ability learners’motivational experiences. Participants were 15 high ability youth involved in a summer learning camp for gifted students. Two major themes emerged from qualitative data analysis: (a) The Fun Factor of Learning and (b) The Rewards and Pressures of Good Grades. Fun learning experiences (i.e., intrinsic motiva…
During the 1990s, the UK Learning City Network was a large and influential movement with government support, the most significant national body of its kind anywhere. Yet, less than a decade later, it was in decline and now no longer exists. But while few UK towns or cities any longer use the term ‘learning city’, the notion lives on as part of an integrated approach to urban development le…
Significant structural reforms of public administration are commencing in Finland from 2017. Firstly, municipalities and cities are being combined into larger entities. Secondly, five social-welfare and healthcare regions are to be created,with that level being responsible for arranging services in this field. Thirdly, the City of Helsinki is outsourcing service provision. This study shows that…
Workforce development is a set of processes that govern the identification, recruitment,assessment and training of job seekers into employment as well as the maintenance and advancement of these persons in their careers. Given the complexity of what workforce development entails, a systems approach is illustrated to ensure that the broader goal of human capital investment is met. The paper iden…
Many European countries are currently witnessing an increased development and expansion of continuing higher education at universities. In Germany, this development has until now been rather modest in comparison to countries such as England, France, Finland and the United States. The status of continuing education still seems just as unclear as the actual management of the implementation proces…
The development of human potential occurs in a vast array of settings across the world. In the United States, in addition to the options of both public and private schools, parents homeschool their children and send them to academic summer programs, often resulting in able students developing to a point of extraordinary accomplishment. Some talents are typically developed early in life (e.g., p…
A study of the effects of schooling on the social cognition of gifted adolescents is reported. A student attitude questionnaire (SAQ) exploring the cognitive behavioral strategies utilized to manage the stigma of giftedness was developed after conducting phenomenological interviews of fifteen gifted adolescents attending the Tennessee Governor’s Schools (Coleman & Cross, 1988). The questionna…
Although a general understanding of the phenomenon of giftedness is evident in the literature, missing is a body of information on the thoughts and actions of gifted persons in those situations that we suspect influence the emergence of extraordinary accomplishment. In this article I propose a change in direction for the study of the advanced development. Grounded in the theoretically based res…
The paper argues that educators of the gifted have overlooked important evidence on the power of special environments because of our habit of considering cognitive outcomes and an outsider view of evidence as the standard for judging the benefits of special environments. The author proposes that social context be used as a construct to help rethink how to study the benefits of special environme…
The emotions experienced by teachers while teaching is a relatively unexplored avenue of research. One teacher, Alex, was studied using phenomenological interviews and participant observation to understand the emotions he experienced while teaching in a special program for gifted and talented children. Data were analyzed using inductive procedures. Alex experienced a variety of emotions genera…
Teachers have many methods available to them for instructing students. This article presents a teacher’s perspective on conducting a discussion with a group of children who were gifted and talented. I studied one teacher using participant observation and ethnographic interviewing as he taught in a special program. I used the concept of professional practical knowledge to describe the informat…
Most of our information on how teachers of the gifted and talented think while they plan and implement instruction is from the perspective of the researcher, not from the teacher’s perspective. One expert teacher was studied in great detail using ethnographic and phenomenological techniques. More specifically, a teacher was studied as he planned and taught two philosophy courses. After extens…
The paper explores the question of how gifted and talented adolescents experience being gifted in high school. Fifteen subjects were interviewed twice while attending a special summer program in order to answer this general question. The data were analyzed and interpreted using a set of research questions which postulated that the subjects would voice feelings of difference and would make state…
Secondary-level content area teachers face unique challenges in helping their students successfully read, understand, and learn content from complex texts in their discipline. In this article, a set of research-based practices designed to provide effective and feasible instruction to improve students’ reading and comprehension of text and content is provided. Specific examples of each practic…
Dan Hallahan is a native of Michigan. He was born in Detroit, Michigan, and later followed in his father’s footsteps and studied at the University of Detroit before transferring to the University of Michigan. He received his BA in psychology in 1967 and his PhD in education and psychology in 1971 from the University of Michigan. His interest in clinical research on attention, behavior, and…
Practicum experiences, a crucial component of preservice teacher preparation, help establish the foundational knowledge and skills necessary for beginning special education teachers (SETs). Preservice SETs need cooperating teachers (CTs) who support preservice SETs in proper emotional development (i.e., feeling like a teacher), who can model and support preservice teachers in the development…
Involuntary teacher transfer occurs whenever the reassignment of a teacher is initiated by a school or district rather than the teacher. These transitions are more likely to occur among special education teachers than among general education teachers. Although this type of transfer is not a new phenomenon, there has been surprisingly little scientific inquiry into this practice to determine its…
Over the past 15 years, students with disabilities have been included in the general education environment at markedly higher rates; however, their achievement is not increasing at the same pace. One reason for this lack of increased achievement may be that academic standards lay the foundation for instruction in this environment, but standards fail to address the component academic skills ne…
Despite the popularity of co-teaching and widespread professional literature describing exemplary co-teaching practices,this instructional approach has yet to realize its potential. One way to increase the effectiveness of co-teaching is for special educators to contribute meaningfully by assuming the role of strategy leader in the co-taught classroom. This article provides examples of how spec…
This article introduces the Main Idea Strategy, a strategy to improve the performance of students with disabilities and students who perform poorly on reading comprehension tasks. The rationale, research background, and detailed implementation information are presented. Keywords intervention, academic, learning strategies, adolescence, age, general and special education, collaboration, co…
This paper reports the development of a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model of a spark ignition (SI) engine and the application of the engine model into an undergraduate internal combustion (IC) course. This two-dimensional (2D) four-stroke SI engine model simulates the combustion of the fuel, heptane, in the engine cylinder based on realistic boundary conditions. The development of the mo…
An attempt has been made to ‘condense’ the thermodynamic relations of equilibrium thermodynamics by using graphics. Two simple mnemonic models named as ‘Thermodynamic Circle-1’and ‘Thermodynamic Circle-2’ are reported to represent the Maxwell relations geometrically so that these relations for both closed and open thermodynamic systems can be easily recalled. Keywords thermodynam…
This paper deals with an alternative approach to calculate the performance of a Pelton turbine. The discussion begins with an overview on the statement of Newton's second law for variable mass systems. Then the integral form of the Navier-Stokes equation is presented as a special case,which is useful to evaluate the force exerted by the water jet on the turbine buckets. Although the traditional…
This short note shows that contact stiffness under a non-Hertzian pressure distribution is 33% higher than that under a Hertzian pressure distribution. This is due to the fact that there is no physical indenter that gives a non-Hertzian pressure distribution during elastic contact, and the fundamental relation used in nanoindentation data analysis does not apply. Keywords nanoindentation; fu…
This paper discusses a course developed to give first-year mechanical students insight into a typical process found in professional modern design offices, where requirements (specifications) are evolved into a prototype model whose capabilities are then tested. The intent is to provide the participating students with a hands-on, integrative, multifaceted experience in the important field of mec…
An educational interactive cooling system (ICS) was designed, developed and constructed for instructional and demonstrative purposes. This ICS's experimental apparatus is capable of demonstrating thermodynamics and heat transfer concepts and principles. This experimental apparatus has an intuitive user interface, and it is reliable, safe for student use and portable. The interface is capable of…
This work describes the implementation of a low-cost spectrometer produced with common objects and proposed as a pedagogical students’ project. This task aims to introduce the theme of image detection and to stimulate the students to develop skills in the fi eld of optics and photonics. The performance of the developed spectrometer was tested in the characterisation of several sources such as…
This paper presents a study to evaluate students’ perception of the development and use of remote Control and Automation training kits developed and tested in two Portuguese universities. Three projects were implemented based on real-world environments. The students, supervised by teachers,designed and implemented the kits using the theoretical and practical knowledge taught in traditional cl…
A microcontroller-based system is used to illustrate experimental concepts in a Control Systems course in an Electrical Engineering Technology program. Students are able to experiment with different control strategies ranging from an open-loop to PID control. Students are asked to reason and discuss the benefi ts and drawbacks associated with each strategy. The microcontroller system has been c…
This paper deals with a simple robust nonlinear control of a liquid-level system. The controller is based on one-step-ahead continuous time minimization of the predicted tracking error. We show different steps for complete engineering design from modeling and identifi cation to real-time implementation of the control algorithm. Simulations are performed to check the tracking performance of the …
Fibre optic sensors are becoming so important in engineering that it is important to introduce this new subject in Electrical Engineering courses. This work describes the construction of a simple, low-cost fi bre Bragg grating (FBG) electronic interrogation system that uses LabVIEW as a tool for simulation, measurement interface and parameter extraction of the FBGs. Although the system is relat…
Numerical analysis is a very important and useful course for students of the undergraduate program in electrical and electronic engineering. This course has real-life applications in the fi elds of electrical and electronic engineering. Therefore, this course has to be taught effectively so that students can apply the knowledge learned from this course in solving their practical problems. Skill…
In this paper, two laboratory sessions, specially designed to instruct students on the operational methodology of different induction motors fault diagnosis techniques, are presented and explained. The sessions are taught within the context of a subject dealing with predictive maintenance of electrical installations and machines. During the laboratory sessions, the students apply the different …
One instrumental step in promoting overall children’s academic success across the trajectory of early childhood, elementary, middle, and secondary grades is purposefully establishing positive linkages for families and schools through a shared partnership. By facilitating an ongoing collaborative approach to sustain family engagement practices both in and out of the classroom, schools can help…
This article examines the use of interdisciplinary project co-design, as a mechanism for increasing the capacity of a school and promoting the growth of teachers’ professional practice in an urban high school setting. Changing teaching practices and the professional culture within a school can be extremely difficult. Simply providing resources about novel strategies can be ineffective. In …
As curricular development in Scotland espoused the importance of pupil participation, the extent to which this has been embedded across teachers’ pedagogy into assessment and reporting practices warranted investigation. This article reports a mixed-methods study with parents, pupils and teachers from three Scottish primary schools that examined pupils’ participation in parents’ evening…
In today’s educational systems, students of all levels of education experience math anxiety. Furthermore,math anxiety is frequently linked to poor achievement in mathematics. The purpose of this study is to examine the causes of math anxiety and to explore strategies which pre-service teachers have identified to overcome math anxiety. The methodology included conducting surveys with 70 pre-se…
The central and distinguishing thesis of social and cultural perspectives on outcome equity is that public school classrooms are culturally biased environments. Such environments disaffect children who arrive at school from the economic or cultural margin. The ‘formative learning environment’ (FoLE) establishes and sustains legitimate partnerships for the purpose of supporting learning and …
Primary schools are identified as being in a primary position to offer nutrition education. Moreover, primary schools can offer an environment which is conducive to the promotion of healthy eating while influencing eating behaviours of children to benefit their health, well-being and academic development and performance. School canteens are one area where a healthy ethos can be encouraged and w…
Family characteristics in terms of parental education and income are an important influence on individual’s participation in higher education. In India it could be found that categorically those who are out of the higher education system belong to marginalized groups due to their economic class, caste, gender, religion etc. despite massive expansion of higher education. With this background, …
Objective: This study investigated how young urban students conceptualize health and fitness and tried to identify their sources of information about health-related issues. The findings are intended to help make suggestions for policy makers to design and develop effective health-education strategies. Methods: Focus group discussions (FGDs) of 20 groups, each comprised of eight 10th-grade stud…
Objective: The aim of this study was to identify promoting and inhibiting correlates associated with the physical activity (PA) of children and adolescents (aged 3–18). The intention was to demonstrate the complexity of correlates of PA and to determine possible influencing factors. Design: A systematic review of reviews. Methods: Systematic database research was carried out in Medline, Coc…
Objective: This study aimed to determine women’s reported health behaviours (physical activity, diet,weight management) before and during pregnancy, and to identify sources of health information. Design: Retrospective study incorporating quantitative (a self-completed survey) and qualitative (one-onone interviews) methods. Methodology: Participants were women aged 18 or over; had no pre-exi…
Objective: To determine the prevalence of home safety practices and use of safety equipment by disadvantaged families participating in a national home safety equipment scheme in England. Design: Cross-sectional postal survey sent to a random sample of 1,000 families. Setting: England, United Kingdom. Results: Half the families (51%) returned a completed questionnaire. The majority of familie…
Objectives: Discourses of complexity have entered health professional education. This paper explores the meaning of complexity by asking how health professionals are educated and some of the consequences of that education. Design: A qualitative study was carried out drawing on reflexivity, discourse analysis and grounded methodology. Setting: Two rural healthcare settings in Western Australi…