Organization Still Matters: Parties' Characteristics, Posting and Followers' Reactions on Facebook

Use of social media by political parties has become a part of their communication strategies. In Catalonia, where around 20% of Internet users obtain political information through Facebook and Twitter, parties use these channels widely. This article has examined 814 posts, 5,772 comments, 52,470 likes and 25,907 shares from the official Facebook pages of Catalan parties in order to ascertain the relevance of the classical party characteristics (party size, level of institutionalization, centralization of decision-making, position at the ideological cleavages) on how parties and their followers behave on Facebook. The data sustain that the characteristics of Catalan parties have an influence on their posting behaviour on Facebook, and mould the reactions (comments, likes and shares) of their Facebook followers to these posts. The results further show that small and new parties achieve greater engagement than bigger and more institutionalized parties

Differentiated Instruction: A Programming Tool for Inclusion

Key national and state policies in Australia are driving an inclusive agenda that is challenging and changing the ways schools provide access to a high-quality education for all students. Given these circumstances, teachers need to build capacity to provide instruction to the whole class in a flexible, responsive, and effective manner. Differentiated instruction (DI) is an approach that enables teachers to be student-centred, address each student's needs and interests, and produce successful academic and social outcomes for all students in mainstream classrooms. This chapter demystifies DI and brings together the existing knowledge and associated pedagogy so that teachers can successfully apply DI strategies in their day-to-day practice. DI is defined so that readers understand that DI is not a single strategy but a programming tool with a variety of empirically-supported strategies across the areas of curriculum planning, assessment and monitoring, instruction, and classroom organisation.No Full Tex