The integration of digital tools and multimodal representations in the English classroom has the greatest potential when we define literacy as multiple socially constructed practices. If digital literacies are defined as autonomous tools and isolated symbolic systems, reduced to a set of skills and forms for students to reproduce, then school…

Jane Roland Martin's later work, especially as represented in "The Schoolhome: Rethinking Schools for Changing Families," has been attacked as vague, essentialistic, and a formula for the (re)feminization of education. This paper does not attempt to defend Martin against these criticisms because such a defense seems impossible for…

How do students react to being told that they have failed a test required for high school graduation? In 2000, 7,989 students were wrongly informed that they had failed the Minnesota Basic Standards Test in mathematics. The authors conducted a survey of 911 of these students to assess the psychosocial impact of this event. More than 80% of…

Background: Maturation of prefrontal circuits during adolescence contributes to the development of cognitive processes such as decision-making. Recent theories suggest that these neural changes also play a role in the shift from generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) to depression that often occurs during this developmental period. Cognitive models of…

Translation and cultural adaptation of rating scales are two critical components in testing culturally and/or linguistically heterogeneous populations. Despite the proper use of these scales, challenges typically arise from respondents' language, culture, ratiocination, and characteristics of measurement processes. This study investigated factors…

This paper explores the emotional resources generated by working class mothers to support their children at school. Analysis of material from qualitative interview research with a range working class mothers will focus on specific accounts of children's school lives to reveal how situated meanings can clash with institutional expectations. By…

Traditionally campus-based courses rely on student evaluations to provide instructors with feedback about their teaching effectiveness. However, current student evaluations of teaching instruments do not adequately assess many of the essential constructivist-based teaching practices recommended for quality online learning experiences. One of the…

The present study evaluates the relative effectiveness of two types of input-based instruction, structured input instruction (a structured input task only) and structured input instruction with feedback (the structured input task + reactive explicit feedback) for teaching English polite requestive forms, involving 45 Japanese learners of English.…

Faced with the need to teach English to a large number of students, the "Universidad de Concepcion," Chile, has created an innovative Communicative English Program using ICT, which is made up of four modules covered in four academic terms. The English program aims to develop integrated linguistic skills with a focus on learning for…

Responsive Teaching is an early intervention curriculum designed to address the cognitive, language, and social emotional needs of young children with developmental problems. This innovative intervention model was derived from research conducted primarily with children with Down syndrome and their mothers. Results from these studies indicated that…

Objective: This study tested a multilevel biobehavioral family model proposing that negative family emotional climate contributes to child depressive symptoms, which in turn contribute to asthma disease severity. Parent-child relational insecurity is proposed as a mediator. Method: Children with asthma (N = 112; ages 7-18; 55% male) reported…

Western investigators assume that caregiver sensitivity takes similar forms and has similar outcomes in all cultures. However, cultural research suggests that sensitivity in the West has more to do with responsiveness to children's explicit expression of need, and that sensitivity in non-Western communities has more to do with anticipation of…

This document is designed to provide assessment materials for specific Grade 4 outcomes in the Ukrainian Language and Culture Nine-year Program, Grades 4-5-6. The assessment materials are designed for the beginner level in the context of teaching for communicative competence. Grade 4 learning outcomes from the Ukrainian Language and Culture…

Presented at the Annual National Council on Measurement in Education (NCME) in New York in March 2008. This presentation explores how different item weighting can affect the effective weights, validity coefficents and test reliability of composite scores among test takers.

This study explores the concept of finding pleasure in social and ecological caring from the a/r/tographic stance of the author as artist, researcher, and teacher. I combine place-based and visual culture art education with multicultural children's picture books to promote more connection and pleasure in the teaching and learning process. The…