The problem: American education the solution: Use behavior analytic technology

In spite of numerous demonstrations that America's youth can be effectively educated with behavior analytic teaching techniques, few of the country's children are benefiting from the technology. In addition scholarly reviews of effective teaching strategies have often omitted reference to behavior analysis. One way to look at this problem is as a two-step operation. First, it is necessary to determine procedures that work; second it is necessary to devise strategies for effective dissemination. The present issue of JOBE (Vol. 1, No. 3, Sept. 1991) contains the recommendations of six outstanding behavioral educators as to how to deal with the dissemination problem. The initial article by Pumroy and McIntire describes the activities of an organization which trains school psychologists and teachers to use behavioral procedures and advocates for the techniques with a number of audiences. Next, Engelmann suggests that the public have more control over school activities and that legal action be taken against irresponsible administrative decisions. Hall advocates for less labor-intensive procedures and the sale of curricular materials based on behavioral principles. Binder proposes that dissemination of the technology become a private endeavor that responds to consumer needs. Rosenfield describes a collaborative model of consultation that increases treatment adherence. Finally, Albers and Greer describe research that isolates a key teacher behavior that results in greater academic proficiency.     

Reforming mathematics instruction: The role of curriculum materials

The crisis in mathematics education is likely to grow. One of the targets for reform is the math textbook, which largely defines the math curriculum. Several aspects of math textbooks that strongly influence student learning are explained: the organization of lessons, the use of time, the rate of introducing new concepts, the quality of instructional activities, the nature of the examples, and the provision of guided and independent practice. Excerpts from math texts illustrate these factors. Research findings on an alternative to basais, represented by the Direct Instruction math curriculum, illustrate how conceptual understanding and proficiency can be developed for a full spectrum of students.     

Skill-set,success outcome,and mania as determinants of the illusion of control

The illusion of control, the tendency for individuals to approach chance tasks with skill-appropriate strategies, was studied. Subjects premeasured on a mania scale were classified as either high (HM) or low (LM) in mania. In the first phase of the study, HM and LM subjects performed 30 trials on either a skill (verbal associates) or chance (coin-toss) task and were given either 20, 50, or 80% success feedback. After Task 1 was completed, subjects filled out an attribution questionnaire. In the final phase of the study, subjects anticipated 30 more trials either on a skill or chance task. Subjects' predicted successes were measured. It was hypothesized that predicted successes on anticipated skill and chance tasks would be affected more by outcomes on a previous skill task than by outcomes on a previous chance task. The results for the anticipated skill task directly supported the hypothesis. On the anticipated chance task, the hypothesis was confirmed for HM subjects only. The results are discussed in terms of how previous skill experiences may induce a set to control ungovernable situations for individuals with manic reactions.     

Community applications of instructional technology: teaching writers of instructional packages

A community education program, to develop a variety of performance competencies in large numbers of neighborhood residents, requires a technology for preparing learning units administerable by community members themselves. The effects of a writing manual, designed to teach nonprofessionals to prepare such instructional packages, were analyzed in two experiments. Experiment I employed a multiple-baseline design across three university student trainees. The results showed that appropriate program writing increased by 75% after completion of the manual. The results of Experiment II, with two low-income neighborhood residents serving as trainees, showed that packages produced by trained writers resulted in a greater increase in skill activities than sets of training stimuli produced by untrained writers.     

The effects of instructions, incentive, and feedback on a community problem: dormitory noise

A reinforcement system utilizing instructions, modelling, feedback, and group reinforcement was employed in an attempt to reduce disruptive noise on three university residence halls. A fourth hall received the same treatment program without the reinforcement component. Noise scores were determined by recording the number of discrete noise occurrences over a criterion decibel level. On all four residential floors, noise scores during treatment conditions were lower than initial and final baseline levels. Additionally, periods of noise reduction corresponded to the changing criterion multiple-baseline and reversal designs utilized. Pre- and posttreatment questionnaire responses from the three reinforcement floors paralleled changes in objective noise data. At posttreatment, residents reported less noise disturbance of study and sleep and more control over the noise situation and floor problems in general. These results indicated that a comprehensive behavior-modification treatment package was effective in reducing disruptive noise in university residence halls. Difficulties in data collection and anomalies in the data are discussed. Future directions for field-based behavior-modification research are outlined.     

Institutional creativity and pathologies of potential space: The modern university

Abstract

This paper proposes the applicability of object relations psychoanalytic conceptions of dialogue (Ogden, 1986 Ogden, T. 1986. The matrix of the mind, London: Karnac.  [Google Scholar], 1993 Ogden, T. 1993. “On potential space”. In In one's bones: The clinical genius of Winnicot, Edited by: Goldman, D. Northvale, NJ: Jason Aaronson.  [Google Scholar]) to thinking about relationships and relational structures and their governance in universities. It proposes that:

• the qualities of dialogic relations in creative institutions are the proper index of creative productivity; that is of, as examples, ‘thinking’ (Evans, 2004 Evans, M. 2004. Killing thinking: The death of the universities, London: Continuum.  [Google Scholar]), ‘emotional learning’ (Salzberger-Wittenburg et al., 1983 Salzberger-Wittenburg, I., Henry, G. and Osborne, E. 1983. The emotional experience of learning and teaching, London: Routledge.  [Google Scholar]) or ‘criticality’ (Barnett, 1997 Barnett, R. 1997. Higher education: A critical business, Buckingham: Open University Press.  [Google Scholar]);

• contemporary institutions' explicit preoccupation in assuring, monitoring and managing creative ‘dialogue’ can, in practice, pervert creative processes and thoughtful symbolic productivity, thus inhibiting students' development and the quality of ‘thinking space’ for teaching and research.

In this context the paper examines uncanny and perverse connections between Paulo Freire's (1972 Freire, P. 1972. Pedagogy of the oppressed, London: Penguin.  [Google Scholar]) account of educational empowerment and dialogics (from his Pedagogy of the oppressed) to the consumerist (see, for example, Clarke & Vidler, 2005 Clarke, J. and Vidler, E. 2005. Creating citizen-consumers: New labour and the remaking of public services. Public Policy and Administration, 20: 19–37.  [Google Scholar]) rhetoric of student empowerment, as mediated by some strands of managerialism in contemporary higher education. The paper grounds its critique of current models of dialogue, feedback loops, audit and other mechanisms of accountability (Power, 1997 Power, M. 1997. The Audit Society: Ritual's of verification, Oxford: Oxford University Press.  [Google Scholar]; Strathern, 2000 Strathern M. Audit cultures: Anthropological studies in accountability, ethics and the academy London Routledge 2000 [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]), in a close analysis of how creative thinking emerges.

The paper discusses the failure to maintain a dialogic space in humanities and social science areas in particular, exploring psychoanalytic conceptions from Donald Winnicott (1971 Winnicott, D. W. 1971. Playing and Reality, London: Routledge.  [Google Scholar]), Milner (1979 Milner, M. 1979. On not being able to paint, New York: International Universities Press.  [Google Scholar]), Thomas Ogden (1986 Ogden, T. 1986. The matrix of the mind, London: Karnac.  [Google Scholar]) and Csikszentmihalyi (1997 Csikszentmihalyi, M. 1997. Creativity, New York: Harper Perennial.  [Google Scholar]). Coleridge's ideas about imagination as the movement of thought between subjective and objective modes are discussed in terms of both intra- and inter-subjective relational modes of ‘dialogue’, which are seen as subject to pathology in the pathologically structured psychosocial environment. Current patterns of institutional governance, by micromanaging dialogic spaces, curtail the ‘natural’ rhythms and temporalities of imagination by giving an over-emphasis to the moment of outcome, at the expense of holding the necessary vagaries of process in the institutional ‘mind’. On the contrary, as this paper argues, creative thinking lies in sporadic emergences at the conjunction of object/(ive) outcome and through (thought) processes.     

谈谈个人对智力落后儿童早期干预的看法

本文作者根据从事智力落后儿童的早期干预教学研究的实践经验对当今在我国开展早期干预的必要性以及早期干预的目的、设置的理由、内容、方式、对象、教师的条件、效果的评价以及开展的步骤等9个问题,提出了自己的看法。     

美国高等临床药学教育体系宏观结构变迁研究（1965年～2015年）

研究了1965年~2015年美国高等临床药学教育体系的层次结构、形式结构和分布结构等宏观结构的变迁情况。从临床药学实践、药师动态短缺、产业结构基础、办学经费来源、人口地理分布等方面,对半个世纪以来美国临床药学教育体系宏观结构变迁情况进行归因分析。在总结并肯定美国高等临床药学教育体系极高的市场敏感性和较强的结构优化灵活性的同时,探讨了美国高等临床药学教育体系宏观结构变迁过程中需要注意的问题。     

以叙事医学实践促教学医院医学人文教育

叙事医学可以作为大学教学医院进行医学人文教育的重要手段。医学院可以进行细读训练,进入临床后,通过阅读和书写平行病历培养医学生的叙事能力。临床带教教师在医学人文教育中具有关键的示范作用,通过叙事性问诊、用叙事的方法与患者和家属建立关联,用叙事方法协助患者和家属做出临床决策,以及提供案例、点评升华其中的价值元素等叙事性带教方法,实现医学人文教育的言传身教, 这也是医学人文教育的重要组成部分。