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We extended research on social skills training to determine if the activities first-grade students were engaged in while Tootling would influence their performance of two recently trained social skills: complimenting and encouraging peers. After receiving social skills training, students engaged in two experimental small-group activities, a cooperative activity and a parallel-play activity. During both activities, a Tootling intervention was applied and interdependent group rewards (e.g., every student in the class receives the reward) were delivered contingent upon the number of peer reports of classmates providing compliments and encouragements meeting an unknown, randomly selected criterion. Students also engaged in their typical classroom activity, an individual competition, without Tootling. Statistical analysis indicated that during the cooperative-play activity there were significantly higher levels of complimenting and encouraging than during the parallel-play and individual competition activities. More compliments were delivered during the parallel-play activity than during the individual competition, but there was no significant difference in encouragements across the two conditions. Also, during the parallel-play activity, compliments where higher than encouragements. These findings suggest that after social skills training, Tootling can enhance social skill performance when educators schedule activities that provide opportunities to engage in these recently trained skills. Discussion focuses on task and goal structures associated with activities and applied implications for enhancing social skill development.

Measures of learning speed (i.e., the amount of learning/cumulative time learner spends engaged in an intervention) are rarely included in research designed to evaluate and compare academic interventions. We build a case that includes analyses of learning speed metrics in academic intervention research can provide more useful information for prevention and remediation efforts, deter researchers from drawing misleading data-based conclusions, and promote scientific parsimony. Research is reviewed where the same learning data is analyzed across different metrics (i.e., same amount of learning, different measurement scales) including learning per event, learning speed, and growth. Patterns are analyzed and examples are provided that demonstrate how altering metrics can influence relative effectiveness conclusions and applied recommendations when researchers compare two or more interventions, conduct component analysis or optimization studies, and apply meta-analytic techniques. Opportunity costs for learners, educators, and learning scientists that may be caused by failure to measure learning speed are identified and analyzed. Our review and analyses support the conclusion that, in most instances, researchers can better inform prevention and remediation efforts by including precise measures of learning speed as dependent variables when they evaluate and compare interventions designed to enhance academic skills. Limitations and challenges associated with measuring learning speed are described and directions for future research are provided.

Tootling is a classwide, peer-mediated intervention created to encourage desired classroom behaviors and enhance students' awareness of classmates' incidental prosocial behaviors (Cashwell et al., 2001; Skinner et al., 2000). This intervention was named Tootling by combining the word "tattling," which is a type of peer reporting, and the phrase "toot your own horn," which is a way of reporting desired behaviors (Skinner et al., 2002). When tattling, peers report classmates' incidental antisocial or undesired behaviors. Tootling interventions encourage students to tootle, or report, classmates' incidental prosocial behaviors. Developing, installing, and maintaining Tootling interventions requires working through several steps. Each step is necessary but can be modified. This article describes each of the following seven steps and how the interventions can be modified: (1) Select the prosocial behaviors; (2) Teach students how to engage in the prosocial behaviors; (3) Select group rewards; (4) Establish group criteria; (5) Develop and train in peer reporting procedures; (6) Describe the procedures for obtaining group rewards; and (7) Begin Tootling.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate and describe why alternating treatments design (ATD) researchers should consider employing a no-treatment series during the alternating treatments phase. To identify limitations associated with excluding this design element, we obtained examples of ATD studies published in five school psychology journals published over 10 years. Next we read, scored, and analyzed these articles with our primary focus being authors' isolated and comparative effectiveness conclusions. After taking into account authors' relative effectiveness conclusions, we describe why some isolated treatment effectiveness conclusions may not be warranted because threats to internal validity were not controlled. Also, we describe how including a no-treatment series during the alternating treatments phase can address these limitations by allowing researchers to assess and possibly rule out many threats to internal validity. Discussion focuses on how including this design element may increase the number of studies validating specific interventions, yield better relative effectiveness conclusions, and prevent researchers and consumers of research from concluding that an intervention was effective when observed changes were caused by uncontrolled threats to internal validity.

Teachers focused on prevention of academic problems should apply procedures that enhance learning speed, or learning as a function of the time that the learner spends engaged in the intervention(s). Although few researchers evaluate or compare academic interventions using precise measures of learning speed, several strategies for modifying interventions or instructional procedures have been developed that may enhance learning speed. Teachers who apply strategies that increase learning speed may allow students who receive remedial and special education services to incur fewer opportunity costs associated with time reallocation strategies and allow them to return to typical school activities earlier. More importantly, applying interventions that cause more rapid learning may "prevent" learning deficits, which may be the best way to minimize opportunity costs and enhance student success.

Technology-assisted instruction has potential for helping students improve their reading skills. In the current studies, "PowerPoint" software was used to supplement teacher-led reading instruction for elementary-aged students with disabilities who struggled with phoneme blending to read words. The effectiveness of the intervention was assessed using two multiple probe design studies across sets of words based on an onset-rime (word family) strategy. In Study 1, teacher-led instruction was paired with technology-assisted instruction for all intervention sessions for three students in first and second grade. In Study 2, teacher-led instruction occurred between baseline and technology-assisted intervention sessions for three students in third and fourth grade. During the initial instruction sessions, participants recorded their own voices onto "PowerPoint" slides so that their technology-assisted instruction included self-modelling. Results of both studies indicated that technology-assisted instruction can be effective for helping students learn how to blend phonemes to read words; however, performance varied and there were limitations in each study that should be addressed in future research. Relevant implications for classroom instruction are emphasized.

Aims: In patients with breast cancer (BCa) and diabetes (DM), diabetes distress (DD) and treatment satisfaction (DTS) can influence BCa management and outcomes. We assessed the impact of implementing a personalized diabetes care model in patients with BCa. Methods: Patients in active treatment or surveillance for BCa with an HbA1c > 53 mmol/mol (7%) or random blood glucose >11.1 mmol/L were included. Participants were offered continuous glucose monitoring (CGM), virtual care and a dedicated diabetes provider for 6 months. Primary outcomes included DD measured by the Diabetes Distress Survey (DDS) and DTS measured by the Diabetes Treatment Satisfaction Questionnaire (DTSQ). Questionnaires were conducted at 0, 3 and 6 months. Results: Thirty‐one women were enrolled (median age 61, IQR 49.0–69.0). Compared to baseline, the mean DDS score was lower at both 3 months (2.2 vs. 1.8 [n = 27], p = 0.004, SD = 0.70) and 6 months (2.3 vs. 1.8 [n = 23], p = 0.002, SD = 0.70). The mean DTSQ score was higher at 3 months (baseline: 20.5 vs. 3 months: 28.7 [n = 28], p < 0.001, SD = 9.2) and 6 months (baseline: 20.4 vs. 6 months: 30.0 [n = 26], p < 0.001, SD = 9.7). Conclusions: Personalized diabetes care models that emphasize remote management and optimize access for those with BCa may lower DD and improve DTS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article gives a broad sense of existing debate about Global Citizenship Education (GCE) to help situate and contextualize a novel case study. Scholars for Syria originated at a small university in southern Indiana. This grassroots response to the turmoil in Syria bridges the gap between a seemingly distant crisis and a midwestern city in the United States. The unique pedagogical and curricular dimensions of the case study work as a helpful framing device for facilitating exploration of debates about the shape of GCE, as well as providing new ways in which to imagine GCE curriculum, pedagogy, and embedding ethics into wider university initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]