AN ANALYSIS OF A GROUP TEACHING PROCEDURE FOR PERSONS WITH DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITIES

This study evaluated whether a concurrent group teaching procedure, in which all students respond simultaneously, could be used for persons with moderate or severe mental retardation. The teaching procedure used was the Task Demonstration Model, a program based on stimulus-control research and the fading techniques of behavioral psychology. Three teachers and three groups of students participated. Results showed that the teachers increased their rates of questions and instructions, positive feedback, and use of functional materials, but they reduced their rate of prompts to almost zero. Students increased their percentage and rate of correct responding as well as their engaged time. In addition, maladaptive responding, for which there were never any direct consequences, decreased from 45% to 10% for 8 of the 14 students. Results are discussed primarily in two areas: (a) changing stimulus control from teacher prompts to critical elements of the items being taught, and (b) reasons for the reduction of maladaptive behavior for 8 of the subjects.     

The Nctm Standards and the Philosophy of Mathematics

It is argued that the philosophical and epistemological beliefs about the nature of mathematics have a significant influence on the way mathematics is taught at school. In this paper, the philosophy of mathematics of the NCTM's Standards is investigated by examining is explicit assumptions regarding the teaching and learning of school mathematics. The main conceptual tool used for this purpose is the model of two dichotomous philosophies of mathematics-absolutist versus- fallibilist and their relation to mathematics pedagogy. The main conclusion is that a fallibilist view of mathematics is assumed in the Standards and that most of its pedagogical assumptions and approaches are based on this philosophy.     

Towards a new image of science: Science teaching and non-analytical philosophy of science

This paper describes an attempt to develop a pedagogy for teaching philosophy in science rather than a philosophy of science to be taught in the Bulgarian educational system.     

CONTINGENT OBSERVATION: AN EFFECTIVE AND ACCEPTABLE PROCEDURE FOR REDUCING DISRUPTIVE BEHAVIOR OF YOUNG CHILDREN IN A GROUP SETTING1

Since a major task of childhood is learning to get along in a group without disrupting other children's activities, caregivers need explicit guidelines for gentle but effective procedures for dealing with disruptive behaviors in child-care settings. In a day-care center for normal 1- and 2-yr-old children, an effort was made to develop a procedure that appeared sufficiently humane and educational to be acceptable to parents and daycare workers, and yet effective in reducing disruptive play behaviors. Caregivers used the occasion of disruptive behavior to instruct the child in appropriate alternatives, then had the child sit on the periphery and observe the appropriate social behavior of the other children, “sit and watch”, for a brief period before inviting him or her to rejoin the play activities. The effectiveness of this procedure was compared with a method commonly recommended for use with young children: instructing the child, then distracting or redirecting the child to an alternative toy or activity. Contingent observation, combining instruction with a brief timeout (from being a participant in an activity to becoming an observer of the activity), proved considerably more effective in maintaining low levels of disruptions and was considered by caregivers and parents to be an appropriate and socially acceptable method of dealing with young children's disruptive behaviors. Therefore, contingent observation can be recommended for general use in day-care programs for young children.     

AN EVALUATION OF GENTLE TEACHING AND VISUAL SCREENING IN THE REDUCTION OF STEREOTYPY

Gentle teaching and visual screening techniques have been used to control severe behavior problems in persons with mental retardation. An alternating treatments design was used to compare gentle teaching, visual screening, and a task-training condition in the reduction of the high-level stereotypy of 3 persons with mental retardation. Following a baseline phase, a task-training condition using standard behavioral techniques was implemented to establish the effects of training the subjects on the tasks. Results showed a modest decrease in stereotypy. This phase was followed by an alternating treatments phase in which visual screening, gentle teaching, and baseline conditions were compared. Both procedures were superior to the control condition in reducing stereotypic behavior, with visual screening being more effective than gentle teaching. When compared with data from the prior phase, gentle teaching was found to be more effective than task training for 2 subjects but less effective for the 3rd, whose stereotypy increased during gentle teaching. Two succeeding phases in which visual screening was implemented across two and then all three daily conditions reduced stereotypy further to near-zero levels. An additional phase with 1 subject demonstrated that the treatment effects of visual screening were easily replicated across therapists. Mixed and idiosyncratic changes in collateral behaviors occurred. For example, “bonding,” the goal of gentle teaching, occurred at the same low levels under both treatments, contrary to the predictions of gentle teaching's proponents. The results indicate that gentle teaching may not be the universal treatment of choice for stereotypy its proponents suggest, and that it requires further empirical evaluation.     

THE FACILITATIVE EFFECTS OF INCIDENTAL TEACHING ON PREPOSITION USE BY AUTISTIC CHILDREN

In a comparison of incidental teaching and traditional training procedures, three language-delayed autistic children were taught expressive use of prepositions to describe the location of preferred edibles and toys. Traditional highly structured training and incidental teaching procedures were used in a classroom setting, and generalization was assessed during free-play sessions. Results clearly indicate that incidental teaching promoted greater generalization and more spontaneous use of prepositions. These findings have important implications for language programming and teacher training, suggesting that incidental teaching should be included as a standard component of language development curricula for autistic and other developmentally delayed children.     

Effectiveness of a need supportive teaching training program on the developmental change process of graduate teaching assistants' created motivational climate

ObjectivesThere is a common trend to train physical education teachers and coaches in need supportive teaching behaviors, however, little research has been done with graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) in college and university physical activity programs. The purpose of this study was to test the effects of a need supportive teaching training program on GTAs' ability to promote need support in college and university physical activity courses.DesignLongitudinal and correlational.MethodParticipants were twelve GTAs from a midsized southeastern university in the United States, trained to deliver instruction in a positive motivational climate via in-person meetings, self-study materials, and tri-weekly meetings with researchers.ResultsMulti-level modeling revealed that the learning environment created by the GTAs improved across the duration of the study, with most of the growth between baseline and the first four intervention data points. Partial correlations seemed to indicate that these changes were influential among students, as evidenced through measurement of perceived autonomy support and motivational regulations.ConclusionsResults revealed that the behavioral change process was carried out quickly (from the beginning of the training), suddenly (rather than gradually), and then leveled off until the end of the semester. These results provide some promise in being able to effectively train GTAs to be need supportive in a relatively short amount of time.     

学生对教学调节策略的公平知觉

以141名中小学生为被试,采用访谈法和问卷法研究学生对教学调节策略的公平知觉及其公平观念。结果表明：(1)学生对教学调节策略的公平知觉存在差异．同伴辅导是学生认为最公平的教学调节策略,其次是丰富。高中生与初中生和小学生对加速和等待两种教学调节策略的公平知觉存在差异。(2)学生的公平观念存在年级差异,公平知觉与公平观念有关。