In 2007, the Seamless Alignment and Integrated Learning Support (SAILS) program was implemented on a small scale at both Chattanooga State Community College (ChSCC) and Cleveland State Community College (CSCC) with the primary focus of implementing college remediation methods with area high school students during their senior year (ChSCC, n.d.). In cooperation with Governor Bill Haslam’s “Drive to 55” initiative within the State of Tennessee, the SAILS program expanded in 2013 to include 13 community colleges across Tennessee and has been touted as a possible solution to reducing the number of incoming college freshman who are required to participate in college remediation (Drive to 55 Alliance, 2016). The purpose of this study was to examine the student enrollments, withdrawals, final grades, and course completions as well as the gender and ethnicity of the SAILS versus Non-SAILS students who enrolled in the Math 1530, Probability and Statistics, course at one of six rural or urban community college campus locations at one community college in East Tennessee. The intent of the study was to provide additional insight regarding whether the SAILS program produces comparable student outcomes when compared to the Non-SAILS program students and whether the SAILS program adequately prepares the high student academically for a college level math course. This study included 833 students (349 SAILS and 484 Non-SAILS) at both rural and urban campus locations enrolled in Math 1530, Probability and Statistics. In general, the SAILS students performed comparably to the Non-SAILS students academically, although the proportion of Non-SAILS students overall tended to be higher in most comparisons. Gender was found not to vary significantly within the SAILS and Non-SAILS students, however race and ethnicity was highly skewed with 95% of students being White-Non-Hispanic. This study provides information regarding the effectiveness of the SAILS program and offers insight into how high school students may perform in a college-level math course upon completion of the SAILS program.

Support teachers learning difficulties (STLD) have made a significant contribution to the provision of support for students experiencing learning difficulties and learning disabilities in Queensland state primary schools over almost forty years. During the 1990s with the implementation of an inclusive curriculum in schools, and in recent years, with changing systemic expectations of how academic performance might be improved, these teachers have increasingly participated in collaborative models with their classroom colleagues to provide for students experiencing various barriers to learning. This study focuses on the nature of exemplary practice as perceived through the eyes and voices of six exemplary STLD teachers. In keeping with this intent, a process of selecting the participants for in-depth study was instigated in a professional community of state primary STLD teachers located in a Brisbane education district to determine at the grass-roots what an exemplary STLD teacher might “look like”, and which six teachers in that community might contribute to the community‟s understanding of exemplary STLD teaching practice. These contributions are represented in six case studies, referred to as “portraits” and were co-constructed, that is through a dialogic process between the participant and me. Each portrait communicates an aspect of teaching practice and the experiential knowledge that underpins it. The term “exemplary” has been adopted consciously to denote “that serves as an example” (Harper, 2001) in contrast to the term “expert”, which frequently carries a technical connotation. A mixed methodology was adopted (Lincoln & Guba, 2003) in this qualitative study in anticipation of the need to draw upon various methods that in combination might assist in viewing, conceptualizing and harnessing the dynamic complexity expected to be evident in grassroots practice. First, various expressions of constructivism contributed, with the major influence being social constructivism to denote a “house” or a community of professionals in ongoing dialogue. 6 This provides the framework within which the study has been undertaken. Second, phenomenology, most particularly the work of Moustakas (1994) and van Manen (1990, 1994, 1995, 2007), is the primary source for the inspiration (van Manen) and the methods and tools (Moustakas) to explore the nature of their practice. Phenomenological approaches were adopted with the expectation they could assist in highlighting the essence of each individual‟s practice while allowing for the eliciting of experiential themes that are of importance to the professional community of STLD teachers. Finally, studies of practical teacher knowledge (Elbaz, 1983) in association with narrative inquiry (Connolly & Clandinin, 1988) have provided further insights into how the collective expression of these teachers might be displayed. The primary preoccupation of the portraits is the teachers‟ provision of support for individual students, and the nature and quality of the relationships enlisted in the service of making this provision. The teachers‟ transactions on behalf of these students are indicative of a raft of values, ideals, collaborative and communication skills which might be subsumed by the term relatedness, and the ability to see astutely the elements in various situations that need attentiveness. Their practice in action appears to be best encapsulated by Van Manen‟s (1995) term “pedagogical tact”, a term borrowed to capture the nature of the pedagogical relationships infused into their personal and professional selves. Three views of practice are provided to display and illuminate the nature of the six exemplary teachers‟ collective practice – View 1: “From the inside” which reveals the metaphors that inhabit their practice and the significance they have for their practice; View 2: “From the outside” which, through the vehicle of a narrative highlights a STLD teacher and a classroom teacher undertaking a collaborative process of providing for Dayne a student experiencing significant difficulties; View 3: “Thinking together” which provides an edited script elicited from a conversation of the participating exemplary STLD teachers. Collectively, the three views reveal what is at the heart of learning support for the six teachers. In addition, aspects of practical knowledge that are particularly pertinent to learning support practice are discussed. 7 Finally, the effectiveness of the methods adopted for the study is explored. First, the screening process successfully enabled the selection of participants who had developed their craft to a sophisticated degree enhanced by their own “personal signature” (Eisner, 1991). Second, the adoption of a combination of a social constructivist framework and phenomenological approaches provided appropriate vehicles to enable the construction of six portraits of practices that exemplified significant aspects of practice. Third, the difficulties of authenticating the portraits using a cohort of critical friends from the STLD community and forging links with the community are discussed. Finally, I raise the possibility of embedding the portraits in professional development contexts where early career STLD teachers may wish to reflect on their practice.

Support teachers learning difficulties (STLD) have made a significant contribution to the provision of support for students experiencing learning difficulties and learning disabilities in Queensland state primary schools over almost forty years. During the 1990s with the implementation of an inclusive curriculum in schools, and in recent years, with changing systemic expectations of how academic performance might be improved, these teachers have increasingly participated in collaborative models with their classroom colleagues to provide for students experiencing various barriers to learning. This study focuses on the nature of exemplary practice as perceived through the eyes and voices of six exemplary STLD teachers. In keeping with this intent, a process of selecting the participants for in-depth study was instigated in a professional community of state primary STLD teachers located in a Brisbane education district to determine at the grass-roots what an exemplary STLD teacher might “look like”, and which six teachers in that community might contribute to the community‟s understanding of exemplary STLD teaching practice. These contributions are represented in six case studies, referred to as “portraits” and were co-constructed, that is through a dialogic process between the participant and me. Each portrait communicates an aspect of teaching practice and the experiential knowledge that underpins it. The term “exemplary” has been adopted consciously to denote “that serves as an example” (Harper, 2001) in contrast to the term “expert”, which frequently carries a technical connotation. A mixed methodology was adopted (Lincoln & Guba, 2003) in this qualitative study in anticipation of the need to draw upon various methods that in combination might assist in viewing, conceptualizing and harnessing the dynamic complexity expected to be evident in grassroots practice. First, various expressions of constructivism contributed, with the major influence being social constructivism to denote a “house” or a community of professionals in ongoing dialogue. 6 This provides the framework within which the study has been undertaken. Second, phenomenology, most particularly the work of Moustakas (1994) and van Manen (1990, 1994, 1995, 2007), is the primary source for the inspiration (van Manen) and the methods and tools (Moustakas) to explore the nature of their practice. Phenomenological approaches were adopted with the expectation they could assist in highlighting the essence of each individual‟s practice while allowing for the eliciting of experiential themes that are of importance to the professional community of STLD teachers. Finally, studies of practical teacher knowledge (Elbaz, 1983) in association with narrative inquiry (Connolly & Clandinin, 1988) have provided further insights into how the collective expression of these teachers might be displayed. The primary preoccupation of the portraits is the teachers‟ provision of support for individual students, and the nature and quality of the relationships enlisted in the service of making this provision. The teachers‟ transactions on behalf of these students are indicative of a raft of values, ideals, collaborative and communication skills which might be subsumed by the term relatedness, and the ability to see astutely the elements in various situations that need attentiveness. Their practice in action appears to be best encapsulated by Van Manen‟s (1995) term “pedagogical tact”, a term borrowed to capture the nature of the pedagogical relationships infused into their personal and professional selves. Three views of practice are provided to display and illuminate the nature of the six exemplary teachers‟ collective practice – View 1: “From the inside” which reveals the metaphors that inhabit their practice and the significance they have for their practice; View 2: “From the outside” which, through the vehicle of a narrative highlights a STLD teacher and a classroom teacher undertaking a collaborative process of providing for Dayne a student experiencing significant difficulties; View 3: “Thinking together” which provides an edited script elicited from a conversation of the participating exemplary STLD teachers. Collectively, the three views reveal what is at the heart of learning support for the six teachers. In addition, aspects of practical knowledge that are particularly pertinent to learning support practice are discussed. 7 Finally, the effectiveness of the methods adopted for the study is explored. First, the screening process successfully enabled the selection of participants who had developed their craft to a sophisticated degree enhanced by their own “personal signature” (Eisner, 1991). Second, the adoption of a combination of a social constructivist framework and phenomenological approaches provided appropriate vehicles to enable the construction of six portraits of practices that exemplified significant aspects of practice. Third, the difficulties of authenticating the portraits using a cohort of critical friends from the STLD community and forging links with the community are discussed. Finally, I raise the possibility of embedding the portraits in professional development contexts where early career STLD teachers may wish to reflect on their practice.

Thesis (Ph.D)--Electrical and Computer Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2010. / Committee Chair: Hu, Xiaoping; Committee Co-Chair: Vachtsevanos, George; Committee Member: Butera, Robert; Committee Member: Gurbaxani, Brian; Committee Member: Mayberg, Helen; Committee Member: Yezzi, Anthony. Part of the SMARTech Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Collection.

Over the past years early detection and intervention in schizophrenia have become a major objective in psychiatry. Early intervention strategies are intended to identify and treat psychosis prior to fulfilling diagnostic criteria for the disorder. To this aim, reliable early diagnostic biomarkers are needed in order to identify a high-risk state for psychosis and also predict transition to frank psychosis in those high-risk individuals destined to develop the disorder. Recently, machine learning methods have been successfully applied in the diagnostic classification of schizophrenia and in predicting transition to psychosis at an individual level based on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data and also neurocognitive variables. This work investigates the application of machine learning methods for the early identification of schizophrenia in subjects at high risk for developing the disorder. The dataset used in this work involves data from the Edinburgh High Risk Study (EHRS), which examined individuals at a heightened risk for developing schizophrenia for familial reasons, and the FePsy (Fruherkennung von Psychosen) study that was conducted in Basel and involves subjects at a clinical high-risk state for psychosis. The overriding aim of this thesis was to use machine learning, and specifically Support Vector Machine (SVM), in order to identify predictors of transition to psychosis in high-risk individuals, using baseline structural MRI data. There are three aims pertaining to this main one. (i) Firstly, our aim was to examine the feasibility of distinguishing at baseline those individuals who later developed schizophrenia from those who did not, yet had psychotic symptoms using SVM and baseline data from the EHRS study. (ii) Secondly, we intended to examine if our classification approach could generalize to clinical high-risk cohorts, using neuroanatomical data from the FePsy study. (iii) In a more exploratory context, we have also examined the diagnostic performance of our classifier by pooling the two datasets together. With regards to the first aim, our findings suggest that the early prediction of schizophrenia is feasible using a MRI-based linear SVM classifier operating at the single-subject level. Additionally, we have shown that the combination of baseline neuroanatomical data with measures of neurocognitive functioning and schizotypal cognition can improve predictive performance. The application of our pattern classification approach to baseline structural MRI data from the FePsy study highly replicated our previous findings. Our classification method identified spatially distributed networks that discriminate at baseline between subjects that later developed schizophrenia and other related psychoses and those that did not. Finally, a preliminary classification analysis using pooled datasets from the EHRS and the FePsy study supports the existence of a neuroanatomical pattern that differentiates between groups of high-risk subjects that develop psychosis against those who do not across research sites and despite any between-sites differences. Taken together, our findings suggest that machine learning is capable of distinguishing between cohorts of high risk subjects that later convert to psychosis and those that do not based on patterns of structural abnormalities that are present before disease onset. Our findings have some clinical implications in that machine learning-based approaches could advise or complement clinical decision-making in early intervention strategies in schizophrenia and related psychoses. Future work will be, however, required to tackle issues of reproducibility of early diagnostic biomarkers across research sites, where different assessment criteria and imaging equipment and protocols are used. In addition, future projects may also examine the diagnostic and prognostic value of multimodal neuroimaging data, possibly combined with other clinical, neurocognitive, genetic information.

This study contributes to existing research on the perspectives of teachers’ with regards to the use of the iPad for learners with dyslexia. The purpose of this case study was to explore and describe teachers' perspectives on iPad usage for learners with dyslexia in the Intermediate Phase. The primary research question that guided this study was: “What are teachers’ perspectives on iPad usage for learners with dyslexia?” A qualitative research design was used to collect rich data using Intermediate Phase teachers. Eleven teachers from three schools in Johannesburg participated in the study. The data collection tools that were used included focus group discussions, semi-structured interviews and observations. By exploring how these teachers perceived iPad usage, specifically for learners with dyslexia, this study contributed to an existing body of knowledge providing insight into the use of iPads in the classroom and as a learning support tool. The themes that emerged from this study answer the question of what teachers’ perspectives on iPad usage for learners with dyslexia are. Findings indicate that teachers’ perceive the iPad as a useful support tool but that it comes with many challenges that need to be addressed. The findings indicate that the iPad creates interactive learning and increases the confidence of learners with dyslexia. It is recommended that research be conducted with a larger sample size and also for challenges to be addressed so that the iPad can be utilised to its full potential. / Dissertation (MEd)--University of Pretoria, 2017. / Educational Psychology / MEd / Unrestricted

Schools globally are characterised by an increasingly diverse learner population in terms of age, gender, language, socio-economic background, cultural practices and learning abilities. The diverse needs of learners in schools have implications for teacher training, as it demands a shift from the traditional “one-size-fits-all” approach to a more inclusive approach. Because teachers play a significant role in addressing diversity among all learners, several teacher-training programmes have been implemented worldwide since the inception of inclusive education. The main purpose of these programmes is to ensure that teachers acquire the relevant knowledge and skills to meet the learning needs of all learners in schools. One of these skills pertains to curriculum differentiation for making the curriculum accessible to all learners irrespective of their abilities. This research investigation was rooted in Bronfenbrenner’s ecological model. Situated in the interpretative paradigm, the study adopted a qualitative approach. A multiple case study research design was employed to investigate nine Foundation Phase teachers from rural, township, and former Model C full-service schools. All of them had completed the BEd (Hons) in Learning Support programme at one of South Africa’s major universities. Semi-structured face-to-face individual interviews were conducted, and a document analysis was used to explore participants’ understanding and implementation of curriculum differentiation. The analysis of the study revealed that teachers who had completed the BEd (Hons) in Learning Support programme had the necessary theoretical knowledge of the concept of curriculum differentiation. However, most of them faced difficulties regarding the understanding and implementation of curriculum differentiation. The study also showed that teachers did not make use of official documents that guide and explain the differentiation of school curriculum to meet the diverse needs of learners in full-service schools. In the light of these findings, five sets of recommendations were made in ensuring the effective implementation of curriculum differentiation in schools in order to make the curriculum accessible to all learners. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2017. / Early Childhood Education / PhD / Unrestricted

Reading comprehension is one of the basic learning skills that need to be learned in an early school years. The English language is generally introduced as early as Grade 2 level in township primary schools. Township learners are at most exposed to English as the language of learning and teaching (LoLt) for three years (Grade 5-7) before entering secondary school. Most township primary school learners enter secondary school with poor English language development and poor language proficiency. Reading comprehension is one of the problems experienced by most township secondary school learners. Lack of reading comprehension skills negatively affect their ability to constuct meaning from what they are reading. Reading support techniques or strategies need to be sought and developed to address the reading comprehension problems experienced by learners especially from the disadvantaged enviroment. ind it difficult to understand or interpret what they are reading. This research focused on the use of the imaging technique on a learning suport in developing reading comprehension skills of township secondary school learners. The emphasis was mainly on how this technique can be adapted in order to enhance its mastery in developing reading comprehension skills. This imaging technique is seen as a feasible technique in a holistic approach to develop reading comprehension skills. The imaging technique makes use of the formation of multisensory pictures during the reading process which are valuable in the independent construction of meaning. The use of imaging for reading enhances active learning and memory. The research was conducted with learners in Grade 9 in a secondary school in a Pretoria township. The participants in the research group experienced reading comprehension problems, lack of English language development and difficulty in the use of English as the (LoLT). Some of the learners in the research group appeared to be experiencing intellectual learning disability. The practical implementation of the imaging technique was done in twenty sessions. A control group attended twenty reading support sessions using a dictionary method, for the same texts. Qualitative and quantitative analyses of the results are performed and discussed. / Thesis (MEd (Educational Psychology))--University of Pretoria, 2004. / Educational Psychology / unrestricted

This research gave voice to teaching assistants, exploring their experiences and perceptions, in terms of their backgrounds, roles and responsibilities, experiences whilst studying on an NVQ programme, support from their schools, their aspirations and the progression routes available to them. A small-scale phenomenological study approach was adopted, aimed to interpret and explain human actions and thought through descriptions, capturing first person accounts. Qualitative data was collected from focus group interviews. The research found that the main entry route into the role of teaching assistant was that of parent-helper at the school their child(ren) attended. Previous employment was varied, however, previous skills and experience was not drawn upon or utilised by the schools. Differences in job titles were not reflected by the roles performed by the participants. Support from their schools for undertaking qualifications was limited and participants had little knowledge of progression routes available to them. The research concluded that there is a need for a transparent career structure, which indicates levels of responsibility. Linked to this should be nationally recognised qualifications, which every member of support staff would have to gain, at the appropriate level for the role they fulfil. Wages should reflect the roles and associated qualifications, bringing about a clearer picture of the job of ‘teaching assistant’.

The 1980s saw an increase in learning support assistants (LSAs’) in colleges for further education to support post-sixteen learners with learning difficulties and disabilities (LDD). LSAs’ were appointed on an ad hoc basis with little or no experience, or relevant qualifications to deliver support in ‘inclusive’ vocational classrooms. The Workforce Development Plan in 2004 acknowledged this phenomenon and advocated that occupational standards be developed. Two years later, in October 2006, the first National Occupational Standards (NOS) for college LSAs was launched but it did not include an official training framework for their professional learning and although there are some training structures in place, this still remains the case today. Learners with LDD are, therefore, still supported by untrained LSAs’ who are not professionally equipped to deal with the particular challenges they present. Educators like myself who work alongside LSAs’ in colleges, must seek to naturalistically explore professional learning opportunities to enhance their knowledge and skills. Such professional learning opportunities should reflect the creative and dynamic contribution college LSAs’ bring to inclusive classrooms and, thereby, not only improve the quality of the support LSAs’ give but the overall integrative, ethical and non-discriminative ethos of a college. With this knowledge, I developed and implemented an Enhanced Learning Support Assistant Programme (ELSAP) for the professional learning of volunteer LSA participants with the aim of improving their knowledge and skills to deliver a more meaningful education for postsixteen learners with LDD. For the acquisition of new knowledge and skills, professional learning for LSAs’ needs to occur systemically over time and be integrated within the multilayered context of a college to allow dynamic and reciprocal influences to make transformative connections. Critically, my action research study strengthens the connection between socio-political theory and practice within the sociology of disability education on moral, ethical and human rights grounds.