Why isn't group work inspiring your students?

When we put students into groups, we sometimes find that the tasks work well, while at other times they fail to live up to their full potential. Does the problem lie within the design of the task, does it depend on the physical environment of the classroom, is it a result of the individuals in the particular group or is it something about the formation of the group itself? This presentation examined the elements included in a good group task, the theoretical background behind the stages in the formation of groups and what lessons we can learn from the literature in terms of why groups may not function effectively in classroom tasks. The literature will then be compared to responses gathered from action research conducted on what learners feel about participating in cooperative group tasks and why they think such tasks are effective or not

Psychological assessment in vocational rehabilitation: A qualitative exploration of acculturation assessment and clinician testing practices

The vocational rehabilitation (VR) system, which provides services to people with disabilities to gain employment, often requires psychological testing to determine client access to services and vocational planning. Cultural bias inherent in standardized tests and inappropriate administration of tests can lead to invalid test results. Assessment of acculturation and test adaptations have been suggested as methods of cultural bias remediation. This study examined the testing practices of 25 psychologists who test VR clients via telephone interview. The study explored psychologists (a) clinicians’ definitions/conceptualizations of acculturation, (b) clinicians’ perceptions of the role of acculturation in the testing process for clients, (c) the influence of client acculturation of clinician testing practices, (d) the method in which acculturation is assessed, (e) clinicians’ perceptions of the challenges of testing clients who are culturally different from themselves, and (f) clinicians’ perceptions of the role of their cultural background on the testing process. Some of the results indicated that most clinicians conceptualized acculturation within an assimilation paradigm, assessed acculturation via the clinical interview, altered their test practices due to client level of acculturation, and often questioned the validity of test results from culturally different clients. The themes from the six research questions are discussed and the study\u27s implications for theory, research, and practices are detailed

Treat him as a normal baby: paediatrician's framing of parental responsibility as advice in the management of a genetic condition

Oral Presentation - Parallel Session 2: 2E Risk and Uncertainty/Ethics: no. 2E.4Parental responsibility in the management of genetic conditions has been the focus of both family-oriented interview-based research (e.g. Arribas-Ayllon et al. 2008; 2011) as well as real-life face-to-face genetic counselling research (Sarangi fc; Thomassen and Sarangi 2012). The current paper is an attempt to contribute to the latter tradition involving paediatricians and parents where parental responsibility is constitutive of professional advice. The genetic condition in question is G6PD deficiency (commonly known as favism), a mild hereditary disorder prevalent in Asia (Zayts and Sarangi 2013). We draw on 18 consultations in a maternal unit in Hong Kong (recruitment ongoing) where paediatricians communicate with mothers of newborns diagnosed with G6PD. We employ theme-oriented discourse analysis – comprising activity analysis and accounts analysis (Sarangi 2010) – to examine how the paediatricians frame their advice-giving trajectories – on to which elements of parental responsibility (in terms of future actions and moral selves) can be mapped. We show how 'causal responsibility' (Sarangi, fc) that concerns potential consequences of the mothers' actions in managing the condition emerges as a dominant thread in our data corpus. 'Causal [parental] responsibility' is embedded in the paediatrician's advice-giving trajectories which include, among other things, how to 'treat' these children, ranging from safeguards against certain medications and food to prevention of negative physiological scenarios (such as an acute hemolytic reaction). We examine closely the attendant discourse devices through which parental responsibility is framed, e.g., modalisation, contrast, character/event work. We conclude that, in terms of temporality, 'causal [parental] responsibility' is 'forward-looking' as the mothers' responsible actions can normalise the child’s immediate and future wellbeing.postprin

1890-1969—Early History of the Advanced Placement Program: an Argument for Reform of the AP Language & Composition Exam

This dissertation identifies the need for change concerning standardized assessment and Advanced Placement testing. Although society continues to advance technologically, the area of homogeneous assessments – specifically Advanced Placement tests – has become stagnant, with the AP English exam remaining nearly the same as it was over fifty years ago. Although the last sixty years of scholarship suggests that our present systems of standardized assessment do not reflect real-world application, the populace becomes more dependent on test scores each year. This work also examines the pivotal nature of education during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the shift in a national demand for increased literacy, World War II and the mounting competition between the United States and other leading nations for dominance, and the nature of standardized testing regarding the validity of Advanced Placement Language argument prompts. This dissertation examines several key points in history, including the Committee of Ten, Harvard’s influence on educational practices, and the relationship to our recent, ever-changing national standards. Throughout the dissertation, I compare the needs of contemporary American students to students a hundred years ago, and I draw parallels from existing educational issues to those from a century past. I then posit reasons why we developed into such a standardized society and became dependent on the Advanced Placement testing system. I use archival research from the Educational Testing Service headquarters to analyze the AP Language prompts from 1980 to the present, and I evaluate them for purpose, context, and appropriateness of complexity considering the time limit. My results demonstrate that several of the prompts are culturally and socio-economically biased, are too complex to be answered in 40 minutes, and do not provide students with an authentic context. These findings lead to my conclusion, that AP tests should not carry the weight that they currently do