Asian Journal of Education and Social Studies

This paper is a brief overview of the use of Social Stories (SS) as a strategy to support students in attaining communicative skills. More specifically, it presents the general purpose as well as the positive results after integrating story-telling methods into the learning and teaching process for children within the autism spectrum; this is so because they typically manifest serious weaknesses with respect to social and communicative skills. Additionally, this study refers to the beneficial prospects of creating SS through digital media as they arouse children’s interest in the subject matter and do reinforce their creativity in developing a variety of life skills. Finally, some enlightening examples of digitally integrated SS are presented within the Greek educational setting especially nowadays in connection with the Covid pandemic. Any educator can actually benefit from reading this paper and, more particularly, those educators who instruct students identified with autism spectrum disorder or any other developmental disability.

Bangladesh has three basic levels of education: primary, secondary, and tertiary. English is taught as a mandatory subject/course at all levels. This is the only language through which people can get information from one part of the world to another. The 21^st century has witnessed tremendous growth in information technology. Technology is used in medicine, business, agriculture, airlines, education, and what not. The government of Bangladesh enacted a policy in 2009 to use ICT for multivariate purposes. The policy makers aspire to impart education at all levels through the use of modern technology. This is why the curriculum has been updated. CALL (Computer-assisted language learning) and MALL (Mobile-assisted language learning) have become generic approaches in teaching and learning. To teach English, several computer-based programs and mobile-based applications can be utilized. This paper investigates the prospects of such measures in the context of BSMRSTU (Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Science and Technology University). Participants were selected from the students of foundational English courses who are taught using the traditional classroom set-up. Through interviews and focused group discussions, the study diagnoses some pressing pedagogical problems that hinder effective teaching and learning and proposes that technology can be a probable solution in this regard.

This research adopted the qualitative research methodology to study teachers’ ability to identify students with learning difficulties. The study was conducted in the Udawalawa region of the Ratnapura district of Sri Lanka and it provided teachers with a tool to help identify pupils with learning difficulties and facilitate their learning using adaptive instructions to meet their needs. The study highlights the challenges that pupils with learning difficulties face in the selected school. The findings provide insights into how teachers can identify pupils with learning difficulties in the classroom and provide suggestions for skill development of the teachers in the school. The sample studied included the two subject teachers and eight class teachers. The average age of the pupils studied was found to be eight years. The convenient sampling method was adopted for the study. Study revealed that teachers were aware of pupils with learning difficulties but not the specific type of learning difficulties that they experienced. Teachers also were not well equipped to use adaptive instructions to meet their needs. The study concluded that there was a gap as far as the teachers and their learners were concerned and that this needs to be further analyzed.

The use of Information Communication and Technology in teaching learning has been emphasized a lot in the recent times as an effective instructional tool and it will only grow and develop further. Augmented Reality is one of the futuristic pedagogy that will offer great opportunities in the incorporation of information technology in teaching and learning. Augmented Reality refers to the introduction of virtual elements in the real world. This will supplement students’ learning through the use of technology. This study assessed the students’ and teachers’ attitude towards the use of Augmented Reality as a learning tool after they experimented and experienced the use of augmented reality through mobile application. For the teachers, a three-hour professional development session on Augmented Reality was conducted. Teachers were taught how to use mobile application to create Augmented Reality. For the students, research team created the Augmented Reality using a mobile application and let students experience it in a biology lesson. After the sessions, their attitudes towards the use of Augmented Reality was assessed through statements of agreement on a 5-point Likert scale. SPSS has been used for statistical analysis. The results show that both the teachers and students have overwhelming support-positive attitude towards the use of Augmented Reality in the classroom teaching and learning. 

This study was conducted to investigate the influence of guidance and counseling programme on academic performance of secondary school students in Maiduguri metropolitan council. An ex post facto and survey research design was adopted in this study. Data was collected through administration of questionnaires to the selected respondents. The collected data was then processed and analyzed using descriptive statistics of frequency and percentage. The study established the following findings: Secondary schools in the study area differed in the number of guidance and counseling services that they had implemented. Teacher counselors had little training in guidance and counseling. Stakeholders adequately supported guidance and counseling programme in the schools. Students were aware of the role and importance of career counseling in their schools (89.39%). Guidance and counseling programme has a positive impact on the academic performance of students. Based on these study findings, the following recommendations were made: There is need for the teacher counselors to implement all the services required for guidance and counseling and improve the level of training of teacher counselors in guidance and counseling. Guidance and counseling programme should be strengthened in order to improve the academic performance of secondary schools in the area.