Emergent fields through adaptation and identity: overcoming social distance

We examine the inseparability of one’s environment with the elements of adaptation and identity. Specifically, we revisit the Project H.O.M.E. learning environment as we suggest that the entities of adaption and environment are not only binding, but also naturally in constant flux as they interact with each other. Contrary to nature, however, the social distance between the instructors and learners is the result of a human construct that often hinders adaptation and identity development. We address the factors that afforded participants overcoming social distance and ultimately cultivating a shift in the learning structure of Project H.O.M.E.

Emerging from the Pipeline: African American Students,Socioeconomic Status,and College Experiences and Outcomes

This study focuses on how social class affects the college experiences and outcomes for African American students in 4-year colleges and universities. Using a national, longitudinal data base, the findings indicate that low SES African American students have less contact with faculty, study less, are less involved with student organizations, work more, and have lower grades than do their high SES peers or all African American students. Furthermore, 9 years after entering college, low SES students report lower incomes, lower rates of degree attainment and lower aspirations than their high SES peers, and were less likely to have attended graduate school. Logistic regression results indicate that sex, college GPA, and plans following college significantly affect the likelihood that a student will attend graduate school.

Technology in Support of Collaborative Learning

This paper reviews the research conducted in the last 20 years on the application of technology in support of collaborative learning in higher education. The review focuses primarily on studies that use Internet-based technologies and social interaction analysis. The review provides six sets of observations/recommendations regarding methodology, empirical evidence, and research gaps and issues that may help focus future research in this emerging field of study.

Evaluation of a collaborative multimedia conflict resolution curriculum

This article describes the development and evaluation of STARstreams, a pilot effort to utilize videos and online discussions in a conflict resolution curriculum that acknowledges the inherent socio-personal aspects of conflict. The STARstreams curricula includes a set of video-based scenarios depicting conflict situations and potential resolutions to those conflicts, a web-based conferencing system for cross-classroom discussion of the scenarios, and a handbook to guide teacher implementation of the curriculum. These materials were evaluated in a 2-week field trial with four geographically diverse 5th and 6th grade classrooms. The experimental STARstreams curriculum was well-received by participating students and teachers, engendered extensive participation in online discussions about the scenarios, and had a statistically significant effect on measures of social problem solving, self-efficacy toward conflict resolution, and perceived value and satisfaction with the materials. The overall program and its development are described; classroom experiences, online discussion, and quantitative outcome measures are presented; and implications for future efforts are discussed.

Strategies and Intervening Factors Influencing Student Social Interaction and Experiential Learning in an Interdisciplinary Research Team

Faculty have long incorporated students into interdisciplinary research projects to meet increasingly common demands for collaborative research by federal funding agencies. Despite the critical role of experiential learning in building student research skills and capacity, few have explored social interaction mechanisms used to facilitate student experiential learning in an interdisciplinary research team. Drawing upon the New Rural Economy project as a case study, interviews with 13 students from eight Canadian universities were conducted to explore these social interaction mechanisms. While findings revealed an array of social interaction mechanisms used to develop student learning networks, the quality of these mechanisms were mixed; thereby influencing the utilization of these networks for guidance and feedback. As faculty organize social interaction mechanisms, they should consider factors such as previous experience, student and faculty relationships, finances, language, gender, ethnicity, and other issues, that will have an impact on student engagement with experiential learning.

Providing Bottom-Up Support to Middle School Science Teachers’ Reform Efforts in Using Inquiry-Based Kits

Middle grades science teachers need professional support in practice as they implement new inquiry-based science. Professional development schools can provide this bottom-up support through connecting preservice and inservice teacher education programs in classroom practice. In this study, coteaching arrangements with secondary science education majors provided additional teachers in the classroom to support a materials-rich curriculum and the needed associated pedagogies. Science education majors provided needed assistance in troubleshooting difficulties with the new curriculum. They also provided needed content knowledge to support inquiry, along with creating moments and space for teachers to reflect on inquiry practice. Ongoing assistance by preservice teachers allowed inservice teachers to progress from logistical concerns in implementing kit curriculum to concerns regarding student learning and the supporting professional development.

The influence of personal networks and social support on study attainment of students in university education

In this paper, the influence of personal networks and social support on study attainment of students in university education is examined. Furthermore, the paper aimed at clarifying the possible mediating role of achievement motivation, time spent on studying and working, procrastination and self-esteem. The study is a follow-up of the ’89 cohort study, but is restricted to those students who have transferred to university education after finishing secondary education. The students have been approached with a questionnaire in 2004. Multinomial logistic regression shows that social support has no effect on study attainment, but that personal networks do have an effect on attainment. The relationship between social support and personal networks on the one hand and study progress on the other hand is not mediated by the before mentioned variables.

Transformative learning through open listening: a professional development experience with urban high school teachers

This article relates how an English teacher in an urban high school described his efforts to listen and to perceive a seemingly disaffected student in his efforts to support her learning. He observed her responding to his efforts in positive and unexpected ways that involved her increased involvement in learning in his class. This teacher described how this student had presented many challenges to his teaching and how difficult attending to her overt anger and sullenness in his class was for him. However, by doing so, he said that his perceptions and understandings of her and subsequently, another student, shifted profoundly in ways that he believed helped him help these two students learn more meaningfully in his classes. This example of open listening on the part of a teacher toward his two students opened up new possibilities for learning for all three and may indicate a cycle of transformative listening which will be defined and discussed in this article. Stuart’s experiences in a professional development seminar, facilitated by the author, where teachers’ interpretive and evaluative ideas were listened to openly by colleagues and the facilitator may have influenced Stuart in his responses to his students. His involvement in this study group may have contributed to his learning to see his students in new, unique, and fuller ways, which he said he thought helped him help these students learn better in his classes.

The Efficacy of Personal Learning Plans in Early Childhood Teacher Preparation

The purpose of this paper is to present data demonstrating the potential efficacy of Personal Learning Plans (PLPs) as an instructional tool in early childhood teacher preparation. One hundred and thirty-nine undergraduate students enrolled in an introductory course offered within a unified early childhood education program over a period of four years completed preliminary and final surveys including items on student background, efficacy of course methods, and student learning style and outcomes. Data related to the PLP and other, more didactic, methods used in the target course are presented. A general conclusion that can be drawn from these data is that students believed the PLP method to be no less effective than other methods relative to some indicators and significantly more effective than other methods relative to other indicators. Results are discussed in terms of self-efficacy theory.

A research framework for creative and imitative reasoning

This conceptual research framework addresses the problem of rote learning by characterising key aspects of the dominating imitative reasoning and the lack of creative mathematical reasoning found in empirical data. By relating reasoning to thinking processes, student competencies, and the learning milieu it explains origins and consequences of different reasoning types.

Powerful knowledge and quality talk: maximising learning of genetics during collaborative group work

This commentary brings additional theoretical perspectives to bear on data and findings presented by Anniken Furberg and Hans Christian Arnseth in their paper on students’ meaning making in genetics in collaborative learning activities. The theoretical perspectives converge on the importance of maximizing students’ learning in genetics. The perspectives include the notion of powerful knowledge which raises the issue of whether the curriculum being delivered is a means by which students can acquire powerful knowledge that will provide them with more reliable explanations and new ways of thinking about the world. The role of the teacher in fostering social interactions that result in conceptually focused discussions within small group work also is considered. Finally, the issue of whether students can be taught how to improve the quality of their talk within small groups is explored.

Student–Faculty Interaction in Research Universities: Differences by Student Gender, Race, Social Class, and First-Generation Status

This study examined whether the effects of student–faculty interaction on a range of student outcomes—i.e., college GPA, degree aspiration, integration, critical thinking and communication, cultural appreciation and social awareness, and satisfaction with college experience—vary by student gender, race, social class, and first-generation status. The study utilized data on 58,281 students who participated in the 2006 University of California Undergraduate Experience Survey (UCUES). The findings reveal differences in the frequency of student–faculty interaction across student gender, race, social class and first-generation status, and differences in the effects of student–faculty interaction (i.e., conditional effects) that depended on each of these factors except first-generation status. The findings provide implications for educational practice on how to maximize the educational efficacy of student–faculty interaction by minimizing the gender, race, social class, and first-generation differences associated with it.

Sreyashi Jhumki Basu: Building a more equitable world through science education

Dr. Sreyashi Jhumki Basu was a scholar committed to equity and social justice in science education who passed away in December 2008. In this essay, I describe Jhumki’s research and the call to action her life’s work has laid out for the science education community. In particular, I draw attention to the role of critical science agency in learning and the democratic science pedagogy model that Jhumki developed to support students in crafting such agency.

The Consequences of School Desegregation in a Kansas Town 50?Years After Brown

This article examines the legacy of segregation and desegregation in the town of Parsons, Kansas. We argue that school desegregation, the goal of which was to increase access and equalize educational opportunities for African Americans, did not have that desired affect. Fifty years after the closing of the all-Black Douglass School, Parsons’ citizens had not openly acknowledged the effects this event had on the African American community. Three generations later, African American student achievement still lags behind that of White students. These unresolved issues have contributed to a number of losses in the Black community, including loss of Black teachers and loss of talented Black young people. We use theories of social capital and cultural capital as a framework to illustrate how White, middle class students had greater access to school resources, and to identify the social and cultural resources within the Black community that the school district could build upon, such as strong leadership and a sense of resolve and resiliency.

What is shared? A framework for understanding shared innovation within communities

The twenty-first century economy often requires the innovative production of conceptual and physical artifacts. These innovations frequently are developed collaboratively within communities of workers. Previous theories about the nature of work and learning within communities have emphasized shared meaning or shared practice, but now shared innovation is required. In this paper, I describe the development of a model for conceptualizing and studying shared innovation within communities. This model was created from merging elements of social learning and creativity/innovation theories. I explain that at an intersection of these two domains is a unique kind of social structure, called a Community of Innovation, or COI. I conclude by describing the characteristics of a COI and its implications for design and research.

“Suicide machine” seekers: transgressing suicidal taboos online

Internet-mediated joint suicides or “Net group suicides” (Net shinjū) has become a significant social problem in Japan since 2002. Despite a privileged view of suicide-related cyberspaces as a murky underworld, there has been little study about how the participants of such spaces interact and perform their “suicidal” identity. Viewing cyberspace as a unique discursive playground that sprouts a myriad of transgressive narratives, this paper examines “Suicide Club” (Jisatsu Club) an online discussion forum that facilitated the largest “Net group suicide” in Japanese history. A thematic content analysis of actual postings on “Suicide Club” reveals the double-edged nature of the forum. While some participants were determined to seek suicide companions or what I metaphorically call “suicide machines,” others used the board as a social outlet to freely disclose their pent-up struggles, attempting to collectively transgress social taboos of suicide.

Social order perspective on raising student achievement

Despite significant and sustained gains recorded on the national secondary school leaving examinations between 1999–2004, South Africa’s large-scale secondary school reform has receive little international attention. Defenders of the reforms have argued that the ‘success’ in raising student achievement extended beyond gains in the percentage pass rates to include increased numbers of students completing secondary schooling, a growth in the number of students eligible for admissions to university and a decline in the number of ‘collapsed’ secondary schools in disadvantaged communities. Using a comprehensive dataset that includes national examination results for all candidates between 1996 and 2004, survey information from a group of ‘collapsed’ secondary schools located in disadvantaged communities, qualitative data from school ethnographies, as well as official and unofficial documentary sources, the paper locates student achievement within a framework of structural change in the post-apartheid social order. It shows how student achievement is embedded in complex shifts in the state, economy and civil society. Specifically, the paper examines how structural shifts are enacted at the levels of time-in-school, student expectations, school choice and student selectivity.

Influences of Teacher–Child Social Interactions on English Language Development in a Head Start Classroom

Increasing numbers of Spanish-speaking preschool children require attention to improve the likelihood of success in school. This study, part of a larger 2-year ethnographic study of a Head Start classroom, elaborates the role of teachers’ interactions with students who were learning English. Using an interactional ethnography approach, the authors focus on the social nature of these interactions. The study illuminates the kinds of teacher interactions with students that support and hinder the students’ language learning. It reinforces the importance of student engagement in social interactions with teachers and with English other than codes of obedience and authority. Finally, it recommends actions teachers can take to provide optimal circumstances for English learning interactions for students.