Targeting the Transition Goals of Teens Through Executive Function Support

Executive functions, which begin developing in early childhood, are necessary for the tasks of daily life, such as decision making and planning. Despite their early development, often without teaching, many teens with disabilities need explicit instruction to acquire and apply executive functions each day. Gaps in executive functions directly impact a teens ability to achieve post-secondary success, as executive functions support planning, goal setting, and organization. This article provides instruction on how to support teens with disabilities on three executive functions: (a) building habits that form routines, (b) utilizing sensory reminders to manage time, and (c) applying a planning tool. This article also instructs teachers on embedding executive function instruction within transition planning for individualized education programs.

Social Media and Student With Disabilities

In the past decade, social media has become an increasingly prevalent, being the daily form of communication and entertainment for a majority of individuals. Social media and networking sites are not designed to appeal to a specific type of personality and are designed to benefit many. The students of Generation Z respond positively to teaching styles that incorporate technology-based learning, and frequent communication or feedback. Gen Z students with disabilities are entitled to the same opportunities and experiences as their peers without disabilities. This includes being exposed to various forms of social media to discover alternative ways to communicate, interact with the community, find information and access entertainment. While other members of Generation Z possess the capability to pick up a smart phone or computer, create a social media account and figure out the functions independently, students with disabilities may require explicit instruction, strategies and practice with social media usage.

I Do, We Do, You Do Home Economics: Explicit Instruction Connecting Content with Ideology

Explicit instruction is a teaching model that demonstrates to students what to do and how to do it. One purpose of ideology is to focus the who, what, when, where, and why of a disciplinary field. Trained home economists make a sustained commitment to the core ideology of home economics. Mechanisms for identifying locally relevant challenges faced by individuals, families, and communities are embedded in the home economics knowledge base. To identify challenges and locate solutions (who, what, when, where, and how), home economics education programmes must actively teach or provide explicit instruction about the ideology that underpins the home economics disciplinary field. Neglecting ideology results in teaching unrelated subjects or compartmentalised content that may dilute connection to the core aims of the home economics’ ‘big picture’. This paper outlines how explicit instruction and embedded home economics ideology have positively impacted perceptions of the discipline amongst professionals who are new to the field. In teaching and learning environments, making home economics ideology visible and reinforced continuously across all content specialisation areas, the author observed that students acquired the words and concepts to explain the importance of home economics to others. Professionals who are new to the field became more confident and passionate advocates for home economics, because they had learnt and appreciated, through explicit instruction techniques, the what, the how to, and the why of home economics. Equipped with the discipline’s core ideology, professionals who make visible the home economics ‘big picture’ (i.e., the why) to others are better equipped to enact real-world applications of home economics that can adapt continuously to meet ever-changing and complex societal needs.

The Roles of Intensive and Extensive Reading Activities in Chinese EFL University Students’ Reading Comprehension Skills

This paper focuses on the appropriate methods for Chinese EFL university students to improve reading comprehension skills. The combination of intensive reading and extensive reading in the teaching environment is suggested in this study. Specifically, in-class reading should be composed of two parts: 1) intensive reading activities involving the explicit instruction of reading comprehension skills; 2) extensive reading activities to increase Chinese EFL university students’ background and vocabulary knowledge, which paves way for the comprehension of the text. After-class extensive reading should be composed of the reading of materials containing the repetition of new vocabulary appear in class, which could consolidate EFL learners’ reading comprehension skills they have already learnt in class.

Effects of repeating after stimuli sounds during computer assisted HVPT on Japanese learners’ perception and production of English fricatives

This study investigated the effects of using an online High Variability Phonetic Training (HVPT) program for university students whose first language is Japanese and who studied English as a foreign language. The target sounds were English fricatives, which many of the participants felt were challenging to distinguish and articulate. The training was conducted for five weeks; each week consisted of three HVPT sessions. The training process consisted of an initial explanation of how to articulate the sounds followed by a video that showed the physical articulative movements. The participants listened to stimuli sounds, produced the sounds after each stimulus, and completed an identification task. Based on pre and posttests, the perception performance of the participants improved significantly through the HVPT training. Regarding production, a positive effect was found for one phoneme, while no difference was found for the other. Questionnaire results were generally positive but indicated the need for explicit instruction for some of the fricatives that exhibited relatively lower successful production and perception rates.

Virtual Scaffolded Instruction for Students with Disabilities

The challenges teachers face with virtual learning existed previously but were heightened by the quick move from in-person to virtual learning caused by the pandemic. Researchers have investigated virtual learning for students with disabilities and have made recommendations including supplemental online resources for individualization and incorporating what we know works for students with disabilities, such as explicit instruction and assistive technology. Another recommendation for virtual learning, and the focus of this article, is the use of scaffolding. Since we know scaffolding is a high-leverage practice for students with disabilities, we can take what we know about scaffolding in face-to-face instruction and transform it to work in virtual settings. This article offers vignettes of a science classroom as two teachers plan for scaffolded instruction to support reading, which is critical in science learning.

MENGEMBANGKAN AKTIVITAS BELAJAR, KREATIVITAS DAN ASPEK MOTORIK HALUS ANAK MENGGUNAKAN MODEL EXPLICIT INSTRUCTION, PERMAINAN PUZZLE DAN KEGIATAN MELIPAT PADA KELOMPOK A TK AISYIYAH BUSTANUL ATHFAL 43 BANJARMASIN

AbstrakPenelitian ini dilatarbelakangi pada rendahnya aktivitas belajar, kreativitas dan kemampuan motorik halus anak meniru bentuk. Hal ini disebabkan karena pembelajaran hanya satu arah, pembelajaran kurang menarik, kurangnya kegiatan dalam menstimulasi keterampilan motorik halus.Tujuan penelitian ini untuk mengetahui aktivitas guru, aktivitas anak, kreativitas anak, serta perkembangan motorik halus anak meniru bentuk menggunakan model Explicit Instruction, Permainan Puzzle dan Kegiatan Melipat. Penelitian ini dilakukan dengan pendekatan penelitian kualitatif dan jenis Penelitian Tindakan Kelas yang dilaksanakan dalam 2 siklus. Subjek penelitian ini adalah anak kelompok A TK Aisyiyah Bustanul Athfal 43 Banjarmasin yang berjumlah 8 orang anak. Teknik pengumpulan data yang digunakan adalah observasi. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa menggunakan model Explicit Instruction, Permainan Puzzle dan Kegiatan Melipat pada aktivitas guru, aktivitas anak, kreativitas, dan perkembangan motorik anak mengalami peningkatan pada setiap siklus. Hal ini dibuktikan dengan hasil pada siklus II pertemuan 1 aktivitas guru mendapatkan kriteria “Sangat Baik”, aktivitas anak mencapai kriteria “Seluruhnya Aktif”, kreativitas anak mencapai kriteria “Seluruhnya Kreatif”, begitu pula pada hasil perkembangan motorik halus anak mencapai kriteria “Seluruhnya Berkembang”.Kata Kunci : Aktivitas Belajar, Kreativitas, Motorik Halus, Explicit Instruction, Permainan Puzzle, Kegiatan Melipat.

MENGEMBANGKAN KOGNITIF MENGENAL KONSEP BILANGAN MELALUI MEDIA BOWLING, MODEL EXPLICIT INSTRUCTION, METODE BERMAIN DAN PEMBERIAN TUGAS DI TK

AbstrakPenelitian ini menggunakan pendekatan kualitatif dan jenis Penelitian Tindakan Kelas (PTK). Jenis data menggunakan analisis aktivitas guru, aktivitas anak, dan hasil perkembangan. Penelitian ini dilakukan dalam 3 pertemuan. Penelitian ini dilakukan pada anak kelompok B TK Mawar dengan jumlah anak sebanyak 23 anak yang terdiri dari 10 anak perempuan dan 13 anak laki-laki. Melalui indikator keberhasilan aktivitas guru memperoleh skor ≥27 dengan kriteria sangat baik, aktivitas anak secara klasikal memperoleh ≥81% sangat aktif. Hasil (1) aktivitas guru saat mengembangkan kemampuan kognitif anak menggunakan Media Bowling kombinasi model Explicit Instructin, metode Bermain dan Pemberian Tugas yaitu mendapatkan kriteria Sangat Baik dengan skor 30, (2) Aktivitas anak mendapat kriteria Sangat Aktif dengan presentase 82,61%, (3) Hasil pencapaian perkembangan kemampuan kognitif anak disetiap pertemuannya terjadi peningkatan maka mendapatkan kriteria berkembang sangat baik (BSH) dengan presentase 82,61%.Kata kunci: Kognitif, Media Bowling, Explicit Instruction, Metode bermain dan Pemberian Tugas

Optimal categorisation

The debate as to whether language influences cognition has been long standing but has yielded conflicting findings across domains such as colour and kinship categories. Fewer studies have investigated systems such as nominal classification (gender, classifiers) across different languages to examine the effects of linguistic categorisation on cognition. Effective categorisation needs to be informative to maximise communicative efficiency but also simple to minimise cognitive load. It therefore seems plausible to suggest that different systems of nominal classification have implications for the way speakers conceptualise relevant entities. A suite of seven experiments was designed to test this; here we focus on our card sorting experiment, which contains two sub-tasks — a free sort and a structured sort. Participants were 119 adults across six Oceanic languages from Vanuatu and New Caledonia, with classifier inventories ranging from two to 23. The results of the card sorting experiment reveal that classifiers appear to provide structure for cognition in tasks where they are explicit and salient. The free sort task did not incite categorisation through classifiers, arguably as it required subjective judgement, rather than explicit instruction. This was evident from our quantitative and qualitative analyses. Furthermore, the languages employing more extreme categorisation systems displayed smaller variation in comparison to more moderate systems. Thus, systems that are more informative or more rigid appear to be more efficient. The study implies that the influence of language on cognition may vary across languages, and that not all nominal classification systems employ this optimal trade-off between simplicity and informativeness. These novel data provide a new perspective on the origin and nature of nominal classification.