SCHOOL AND ENVIRONMENTAL ROLE TOWARD DEVELOPING TALENTED CHILDREN

Potential characteristic of a gifted and talented personality is influenced by social supports, environment, mentoring methods and educational structure. Children with exceptional talents need platforms and conducive vicinities to grow and develop these gifts. Proper education and professional counselling services could help talented children contribute to their respective communities. The absence of proper educational programs and professional counselling services may lead to loss of academic development, creative potential, appreciable performance, enthusiastic learning success, and substantial social contributions. The variety of services needed to meet the needs of talented children form an important basis of the current study. While there are numerous studies on talented children, no study combines the help of regular classrooms and community toward developing extraordinary talented children. The arguments that many talented children are assisted by school and community are reasonable but defeasible. The study attempts to weigh the contribution of both school and environment towards the development of talented children since a certain number of successful children use their skills, work ethics, and home training to perform excellently in various fields.

Could probability be out of proportion? Self-explanation and example-based practice help students with lower proportional reasoning skills learn probability

Proportional reasoning failures seem to constitute most errors in probabilistic reasoning, yet there is little empirical evidence about its role for attaining probabilistic knowledge and how to effectively intervene with students who have less proportional reasoning skills. We examined the contributions of students' proportional reasoning skill and example-based practice when learning about probabilities from a reformed seventh grade curriculum. Teachers in their regular classrooms were randomly assigned to instruct with a reformed textbook (control) or a version revised to incorporate correct and incorrect example problems with prompts to explain (treatment). Students' prior knowledge in proportional reasoning skill separately predicted probabilistic knowledge at posttest, regardless of their prior knowledge in probability or minority status. Overall, students in the treatment condition improved more in their probabilistic knowledge, if they started with less proportional reasoning skills. Our findings suggest that example-based practice is beneficial for students with less prior knowledge of proportions, likely a key concept for developing probabilistic knowledge.

Pluricentrity, Multilingualism and Heterogeneity of the Learners’ Groups

Multilingualism, superdiversity, and the abundance of language contacts place new demands on language teachers, who must consider each student’s linguistic biography, family language policies, and cultural practices in order to keep up with their growth in a specific school vs. university subject. Many more languages are becoming pluricentric as they continue to be used in migrating populations. So, they decline or flourish in diaspora and introduce heritage language learners as people with special needs into regular classrooms. Using Russian as an example, the paper suggests methods for organizing language instruction of varied speakers and learners in a heterogeneous integrated university classroom.

PROCESSO DE INCLUSÃO DE ESTUDANTES AUTISTAS NO ENSINO REGULAR

Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is characterized by compromising the communication and social interaction of individuals. Topic widely discussed in the process of educational inclusion, with regard to access and permanence of students. This review articleaimed to understand and discuss how the inclusion process of childrenwith Autistic Spectrum Disorder (TEA)occursin schools, considering the need for inclusion and the integral development of the autistic student inserted in regular classes. Thus, I present here a broad view of the concept of autism in order to understand how the teacher who works in regular education develops pedagogical practices in the work of inclusion of these students. The research methodology was carried out with a view to a qualitative approach, through bibliographic research and as a data collection instrument, non-participant observation of regular classrooms with autistic students was used. In general, some teachers have a pedagogical practice aimed at inclusion, promoting methodological strategies that contribute to the development and learning of autistic children. However, other teachers feel unprepared to deal with their autistic students

Designing digital educational resources to facilitate learning for second language students

The number of students who struggle to execute reading comprehension tasks raises in Europe, questioning the relevance and effectiveness of the teaching methods implemented in regular classrooms. In Switzerland, students of French as a second language appear to be particularly at risk of encountering such difficulties. This motivates studies to investigate the specific difficulties in manipulating the language of schooling they may face. This study presents a discussion about teaching tools based on research findings in didactics, psycholinguistics and applied linguistics. This interdisciplinary approach leads us to propose a theoretical framework for 1) considering the specific needs of second language students and 2) developing digital tools to promote the literacy of these students in an inclusive teaching environment which may be in fact suitable for all students. We aim to develop a didactic ontology that will allow us to create customisable and automatically adaptable teaching-learning pathways.

Inclusion of students with autism spectrum disorder in the Jordanian regular classrooms: Teachers' perspectives

Introduction. This study focuses on the relevance of inclusion for students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in the regular classroom. This issue has achieved international recognition with recommendations in most countries that students should be given the same opportunities as those without disabilities. The case of Jordanian teachers in Amman is selected in this study. Objectives. It specifically aims at investigating the teachers' perspectives on inclusion of students with ASD in Jordanian regular classrooms. Methods. The issue is evaluated using a qualitative study design where nine teachers were interviewed virtually. Results. The findings indicated the need for better training and skills development in specific aspects and needs of students with ASD. Providing teachers with training as well as materials and financial support is necessary for supporting inclusive learning. The teachers also report significant limitations in how inclusion of ASD students is supported in Jordan. The perspectives towards inclusion of ASD students in Jordan show that they have low confidence and self-esteem in dealing with these students and organizing inclusive classrooms due to inadequate training and experience. Conclusion. The findings of this study indicate the need for policymakers in Jordan to consider providing specific training to their general education teachers.

COVID-19 and online behaviors in higher education: A comparative study of an Iranian, Omani and Malaysian Universities

The outbreak of the COVID-19 in early 2020 caused most of higher learning institutions to close the campuses and forced them to initiate online teaching and learning. Since, regular classrooms are temporarily empty, this paper focuses on the online education experiences of three Asian universities during the COID-19 pandemic. For the purpose of the current study from each case, Up to Six (6) specific instructional strategies are presented in each case. The strategies summarized current online teaching experiences which can be used by other faculty members in similar circumstances.

Teachers’ Demographic Factors Influencing Their Attitudes Towards Education of Students with Learning Disabilities in Regular Classrooms in Ibadan, Nigeria

The study investigated the level of attitudes towards the education of students with learning disabilities among teachers in regular education classrooms. It also examined the influence of four teachers’ demographic factors on their attitudes towards education of students with learning disabilities in regular classrooms Ibadan, Nigeria. The descriptive research design was adopted for the study whilst the multi-stage sampling procedure was adopted to select the study sample. A total of 125 teachers participated in the study, 64 (51.2%) were males whilst 61 (48.8%) were females. A self-designed questionnaire tagged “Teachers’ Attitude towards Education of Students with Learning Disabilities in Regular Education Classrooms” (TAESLDRECQ) with a reliability of 0. 81 was utilized to collect data. One research question and four hypotheses were generated and tested. Percentage, mean, standard deviation, t-test and Analysis of variance (ANOVA) statistics were employed to analyze the data generated from the participants at 0.05 level of significance. Whilst the result of the research question reveals a grand mean of 2.59 which is slightly higher than the criterion mean of 2.50, the result from the test of norm showed that 9.6% (n=12) teachers had negative attitude, whilst 90.4% (n=113) teachers had positive attitude. Therefore, it was concluded that there is a positive attitude towards education of students with learning disabilities in regular education classrooms. The results shows that teachers’ attitudes towards education of students with learning disabilities in regular education classrooms based on: gender (Crit-t = 1.96, Cal.t = 1.440, DF = 123; educational qualification (F = 1.630, p(.171)>.05); years of experience (F = 2.329, p(.102)>.05); and category of students taught which could be either junior secondary or senior secondary class (Crit-t = 1.96, Cal.t = .035, DF = 123, p(0.973) towards education of students with learning disabilities in regular education classrooms. Hence, it was concluded that teachers’ attitude towards education of students with learning disabilities is the same irrespective of their gender, educational qualification, years of experience and category of student taught (either junior secondary or senior secondary class). On the basis of these findings, it was recommended that there should be more trainings and in-service professional development programmes such as orientation, workshops, seminars, conferences to allow teachers in regular education classrooms to acquire knowledge, skills and values required for the adequate education of students with learning disabilities in their classrooms.

Evidence-Based Practices for Teaching Learners who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing in Regular Classrooms

The question of how best to teach learners who are deaf or hard of hearing (DHH) is perhaps the oldest topic in any area of education for children with diverse learning needs. Developments in a number of fields have accounted for more DHH learners achieving educational outcomes commensurate with their hearing-age peers than at any point in that long history. Efforts to further develop and implement effective educational practices with these learners continue, with an abundance of interventions proposed in the literature and in practice. Despite this, evidence for their efficacy remains limited. Such evidence as there is tends to be drawn from observations of professional practice and not always from the outcomes of high-quality research. This is not to say that a lack of research evidence for a particular educational practice means that it is necessarily ineffective or should not be used. Rather, it is to acknowledge the preeminence of quality research outcomes as the cornerstone of an evidence-base for educational practice with DHH learners while recognizing that contributions can come from two other sources: the expertise and experiences of professionals involved in the education of DHH learners in educational settings, and the views and preferences of DHH learners and their families about how the best educational outcomes can be achieved. The vast majority of DHH learners are educated in regular classrooms alongside their hearing peers, including a significant minority whose primary or preferred language is a signed language. Questions of how best to facilitate access to regular classrooms for those DHH learners are inextricably linked to issues in three areas: (a) communication, language, and literacy; (b) classroom access; and (c) pedagogical practices and other educational supports. The first area covers the unique set of challenges that relate to DHH learners acquiring a language (i.e., whether that be spoken or signed) and how best to support their ongoing development and use of their communication, language, and literacy skills in the classroom. The other two sets of issues, relate to the difficulties that are typically encountered by DHH learners in gaining access to the regular classroom curriculum through their preferred language and mode of communication (i.e., how best to access the auditory and visual environment of the classroom on an equitable basis with their hearing peers), and how best to support that access through instructional techniques and/or specialist support services. In all three areas there remains the challenge of assembling an evidence base for practice from quality research evidence.