Inclusion of learners with learning disabilities in the Vaal Triangle mainstream classrooms.

Background: South Africa adopted a policy on inclusive education in 2001 to ensure that all learners are accommodated and accepted in the classrooms despite their differences. Objectives: This study was aimed at exploring the inclusion of learners with learning disabilities in mainstream primary schools for teaching and learning. Method: This study followed a qualitative approach embedded in a descriptive phenomenological design. Data were generated through in-depth interviews with individual participants and were analysed thematically for content. Six teachers from six different mainstream primary school classrooms were purposefully selected for the study. Results: Findings revealed that overcrowding, time constraints and lack of parental involvement impede the inclusion of learners with learning disabilities in mainstream classrooms. However, teachers use: (1) multi-level teaching, (2) concrete teaching and/or learning aids, (3) differentiated instruction and (4) code-switching in accommodating learners with learning disabilities. Conclusion: This study argues that for learners with learning disabilities to be more included in mainstream classrooms, the learner population should be reduced to a maximum of 30 learners per class, and collaboration with parents should be enhanced. Also, the arrangement of learners for teaching and learning could be limited to small groups consisting of four to five learners. Multi-level teaching and differentiated instruction should be applied in settings that do not require learners to be separated from their peers without learning disabilities. Contribution: This study will help improve teachers' inclusive classroom pedagogical practices for all learners including those with learning disabilities.

A Multi-level Remedial Teaching Design Based on Cognitive Diagnostic Assessment: Taking the Electromagnetic Induction as an Example.

Multi-level teaching has been proven to be more effective than a one-size-fits-all learning approach. This study aimed to develop and implement a multi-level remedial teaching scheme in various high school classes containing students of a wide range of learning levels and to determine its effect of their learning. The deterministic inputs noisy and gate model of cognitive diagnosis theory was used to classify students at multiple levels according to their knowledge and desired learning outcomes. A total of 680 senior high school students from central provinces in China participated in the initial cognitive diagnostic test, and 1,615 high school sophomores from seven high schools in China participated in a formal cognitive diagnosis test. Thirty-six high school students from Southwestern China participated in the think-aloud protocols, and 258 seniors from three high schools in southwest China participated in the remedial teaching experiment. Through an analysis of students' think-aloud protocols, cognitive errors of students at all levels were determined, and multi-level remedial teaching programs were designed to address these common cognitive errors. The remedial teaching programs were then implemented in three schools and compared with a control group. The results indicated that the students in the experimental group showed a more significant improvement. In this study, the steps of designing multi-level remedial teaching include assessment, classification, and preparing a teaching scheme, which are feasible and can have remarkable teaching effects. This process can be used for reference by teachers of various subjects.

An analysis of the questionnaire survey about the first year residency training in internal medicine in Peking Union Medical College Hospital / 中华内科杂志

Objective To evaluate the effects of medical residency training program in postgraduate-year-one (PGY-1) residents at Peking Union Medical College (PUMC) Hospital.Methods PGY-I medical residents at PUMC Hospital were surveyed by a self-administered questionnaire after they completed their first year residency.Results Forty-nine residents who completed their first year residency training participated in the survey with a 100％ response rate.Before training,only a few had bedside (n =18) and on-call experiences (n =10).At the end of the one-year-training,all the residents (100％) considered themselves being improved to certain degrees,especially in clinical practice capability,and passed all the examinations.However,53.1％ and 8.2％ of all the residents agreed that they need to improve their abilities in teaching (n =26) and doctor-patient communication (n =4),respectively.All residents hoped to get further improved by taking part in various forms of teaching activities,including experience summary/sharing and basic skills training.During the first year,95.9％ of them participated in all teaching activities in medicine actively.Conclusions The tradition and current models of medical residency training program at PUMC Hospital had a significant impact on professional development of the 1st year resident physicians.It is critical to focus on basic skill training and multi-level teaching to improve residents' clinical competency.

Practice and thinking on the functional design experiment teaching with multi-level structure / 中华医学教育探索杂志

In medical colleges, it is difficult to effectively carry out design experiment teach-ing in functional experiment because of the limitation of many factors such as the large number of stu-dents and the shortage of teachers and teaching resources. This study explored the multi-level teaching of designing experiment. Through gradually increasing the difficulty of the teaching content, the center position of the students was improved. Besides, the students' knowledge expanded from books to the subject research frontiers and their awareness of innovation was gradually enhanced. The survey showed that students' satisfaction with the teaching was up to 90% and their self-learning ability was en-hanced. However, it should be noticed that teaching time should be arranged reasonably and the teach-ing process should be supervised in design experiment to ensure the effective experiment teaching.