Coupling Admissions and Curricular Data to Predict Medical Student Outcomes

The relative impact of admissions factors and curricular measures on the first medical licensing exam (United States Medical Licensing Exam [USMLE] Step 1) scores is examined. The inclusion of first-year and second-year curricular measures nearly doubled the variance explained in Step 1 scores from the amount explained by the combination of preadmission demographic characteristics and admissions factors. In addition, the relationship between the Medical College Admissions Test (MCAT) and Step 1 scores becomes counterintuitive in models that include curricular measures, where students with the lowest combined admissions metrics (MCAT, grade-point average) score higher, on average, than those with some of the highest admissions metrics. Overreliance on traditional metrics in admissions decisions can exclude students from medical school who have the ability to succeed.     

浅析《行政许可法》中的信赖保护原则

我国《行政许可法》作为世界首创专门而统一的立法体例，有诸多创新，但在信赖保护原则及相关规定上存在问题：行政补偿方面缺少标准和程序的规定，没有体现违法行政许可决定原则上不得撤销理念和限制撤销行使的时间；对行政相对人的信赖利益采用不完全财产保护而没有完全确立起信赖利益保护的途径。     

CET-Band Four中虚拟语气的使用

本文在此对1996～2002年每年四级考题中出现的有关虚拟语气的句子加以分类讲解，希望可以帮助广大学生进行考前复习，让更多学生顺利通过考试。     

开放教育半开卷考试改革的实践与思考

半开卷考试是近年来出现的一种新的考试方法,天津电大的公司财务课程和高级财务管理课程期末考试实施新型半开卷考试,减轻了学生死记硬背的负担,提高了学生学习的主动性和自觉性,培养了学生独立思考和分析问题、解决问题的能力。但也有一些学生对半开卷考试产生误解,对半开卷考试存有侥幸心理,甚至出现新的考试作弊行为。半开卷考试是考试制度改革的一次新尝试,教务和教学管理部门应积极配合,不断完善这一考试方式。     

An Experiment Comparing HBSE Graduate Social Work Classes: Face‐to‐Face and at a Distance

This article describes a quasi‐experimental comparison of two master's level social work classes delivering content on human behavior in the social environment. One class, delivered face‐to‐face, was largely synchronous. The other class, delivered using distance technologies, was more asynchronous than the first. The authors hypothesized that students would learn equally well in both classes, and did not reject that hypothesis. That was so even after accounting for strong explanation of achievement by grade point average adjusted for grade inflation. Though this study indicates that the distance education studied was apparently successful, the findings may not be highly generalizable, and the authors suggest that future studies need to look at achievement in various settings and curricular areas while carefully measuring and accounting for extraneous variables.     

Taking on Bourdieu’s ‘destiny effect’: theorising the development and sustainability of a socially just second-chance schooling initiative using a Bourdieusian framework

This article aims to theorise a storyline account of a collaborative three-year action research project into schooling re-engagement using a Bourdieusian framework. In the article we discuss how we (two teachers and a social worker) developed an alternative senior secondary school that re-engaged a sizable minority of marginalised young people back into formalised learning and consider how this school became a significant and sustainable educational alternative. Our work during this developmental period drew us into community-based activism enacting socially just curricular and pedagogical experiments. Through networked political action for schooling justice in concert with critical friends (our university partners), the marginalised young people we worked with and supportive regional youth stakeholders, we reconstructed our professional habitus as professionals into a more enabling rendering and strived to proffer through our relational, pedagogical and curricular work with students more of a transformative habitus. Our curricular and activist work inside the community extended the field of schooling relations into a more socially just orientation. This more enabling community field merged with our schooling field and enabled us to source political capital engendering secure, recurrent school funding and a purpose-built schooling facility. We claim that the market logics of schooling significantly influenced our beginning enrolment growth trajectory, and discuss how these logics compromised our ability to break through Bourdieu’s notion of the ‘destiny effect’. Since its inception in 2003, the Second Chance Community College has offered a comprehensive senior secondary schooling programme for more than 1000 young people. Throughout its 12-year history, the majority of students have gone on to secure work, apprenticeships and tertiary study but only 10% of students have successfully completed their final year of schooling.     

I Have a Friend on the Other Side of the Earth: twinning classes from different cultures to introduce environmental and development education

This paper describes an educational activity that was undertaken by starting an exchange of letters between Italian and Indian students. The main goal of this initiative was to encourage friendly relationships among students living in very different cultures and socio‐economic conditions, through direct communication. The general objectives of this initiative were: to encourage Italian and Indian children to have an affective, cognitive and emotional openness towards different people, cultures and environments; to make the concept of ‘global village’ more real and the ties that constitute our interdependent world more actual; to stimulate a reflection upon the ‘Western’ model of development, that destroys our resources, the resources of other peoples and of future generations. In this work targets related to several subjects have been identified: geography, environmental science, foreign language and social studies. A few possible interdisciplinary teaching paths have been pointed out, which originated from the development of cross‐curricular themes (environment, development, world studies). Our approach has stressed the comparison between ‘us’ and ‘the other’, the deliberate effort to put oneself in the others’ place and to see the world through ‘their’ eyes. Thanks to the exchange of letters this comparison has been made more concrete, immediate and relevant. Finally, some critical thoughts about the experiences that have been carried out up till now will be suggested in order to open a debate with teachers and researchers who have had similar experiences and to provide useful elements to those who are willing to take the path of environmental and development education through the exchange of letters among their students.     

Lessons learned in an urban school: Preparing teachers for the educational village

Abstract

The disparities between the education of the rich and poor of this nation will continue to grow until educators are more willing and better prepared to work effectively in a variety of schools operating within a variety of models. Teacher education must prepare new teachers with open minds, willing hearts, and myriad strategies to address the realities, strengths, and critical needs of poor, culturally diverse urban schoolchildren and their families. This article describes an initiative that engages one teacher education program with an innovative urban “full‐service” elementary school in a joint effort to serve children and families and to provide a deeper and broader experience for preservice teachers. Education students complete traditional and nontraditional field work in a full‐service school with an “educational village” mission that extends from preschool to adult education.     

Promoting student agentic engagement through curriculum: exploring the Negotiated Integrated Curriculum initiative

Building on the various works of theorists pertaining to curriculum negotiation, the Negotiated Integrated Curriculum (NIC) initiative detailed in this article attempts to redress the imbalance within curricular decision-making whereby student voice and learner agency is largely absent. The NIC initiative enquires into students’ concerns about life and constructs a curriculum to address these concerns as a mechanism that can be shaped to make learning more meaningful through agentic engagement. Based on a longitudinal study of two primary schools, this small scale, exploratory research details the influence of this process on learners and educators and the challenges that were faced during its implementation. The findings of this study examine two main issues: the first is how student voice, particularly around the decision-making of pedagogical activities, can be practically implemented to enhance the perceived relevance of a curriculum; and secondly the process of negotiation between teachers and students to achieve this. Recommendations for the promotion of learner agency and further research are discussed in the context of Irish curriculum reform.     

以生涯发展为导向的高校学生工作目标体系的构建

高校学生工作在当代大学教育中起着越来越重要的作用,但传统模式下,学生的自主性和主观能动性受到了一定程度的抑制,而现代模式正是基于传统模式下存在的问题而做出的重要改变。从学生工作目标体系的构建来阐释现代模式的学生工作。目标体系的构建是基于学生工作的总目标即学生个人全面发展提出的,主要包括学生个人生活服务、学生职业生活服务和学生社会生活服务三个方面。     

Improvements in school climate associated with enhanced health and welfare services for students

School improvement initiatives are needed to better meet the needs of underprivileged students, to reduce underachievement and to break a continuing cycle of disadvantage. This article describes part of a school improvement initiative in New Zealand that provided additional funding for school nurse and social worker services in nine secondary schools with the most disadvantaged students in New Zealand. It describes the nature and delivery of services provided by the social workers in these schools. In addition, the article reports changes over time in staff and student views about school climate including a comparison with non-participating schools of similar socioeconomic status. The findings indicated that school climate is a useful intermediate measure of the effectiveness of school improvement initiatives. There were significant improvements in staff views about school climate over time, with staff views about school climate becoming more favourable on scales measuring Improvements in the Last 12 Months and Support for Ethnic Diversity compared to eight non-participating schools. Student views were more favourable on scales measuring Satisfaction with School, Support for Achievement and Support for Ethnic Diversity, compared to the non-participating schools.     

Teachers’ work and innovation in alternative schools

Toronto boasts a large and diverse system of public alternative schools: schools where democratic practices, student access and a commitment to public education are fundamental. There are academic schools; schools with thematically focused curricula; schools driven by social movement principles such as antiracism and global education; schools for students who do not thrive in mainstream schools; and schools with alternative scheduling and delivery practices for students who must work. The schools are small, supporting personalized relationships among teachers and students, with teacher-driven curricular programs that are responsive to student interests. Curricular innovation is made possible because alternative schools are only loosely coupled with the rest of the public education system, but they still must comply with school system regulations. This paper describes how teachers’ work and the structural elements of alternative schools support school-based innovation.     

Improving Opportunities for Bridging Social Capital: The Story of a Full-Service Community School Initiative at an Alternative High School

Abstract

This article describes the collective efforts educators and multiple community partners are taking to transform one alternative urban high school into a full-service community school. The article presents preliminary findings on the opportunities for bridging social capital that the full-service initiative has created and the impacts such opportunities have for students in urban alternative settings with multiple risk factors stacked against them.     

Teaching the Election with Purpose: Toward a Framework of Racial Media Literacy and [Socio] Political Consciousness When Discussing Elections in the Social Studies Classroom

Infusing content about elections has not been an issue for social studies teachers, but rather contextualizing race discourse in discussions of elections has served as a curricular cessation for social studies teachers. This is especially concerning given that teachers' attempts to remain neutral with regards to race consequently results in a lack of racial awareness and sociopolitical consciousness pertaining to political issues among students. This article advocates for pedagogical frameworks of racial media literacy and (socio)political consciousness to address systemic issues of race as they are discussed in the election. The author argues that students, especially students of color, should be afforded the opportunity to critically interrogate media outlets, messages, and candidates' positioning of race as an effort to promote political consciousness that could potentially impact their immediate or future political decision making. Suggestions for enacting these frameworks are provided within the broader discourse on acquiring knowledge, political disclosure, and inquiry pedagogy.     

Developing communities of learners

This article describes some of the findings of an evaluation of a ‘cross- curricular’ digital media arts project for Year 8 students at Lister Community School in the London Borough of Newham. The project was designed to provide opportunities for a thematic curriculum in which quality learning encompassing both independent and collaborative learning was central. The project was also aimed at fostering a range of knowledge, skills and attitudes around students' personal and social development. The findings of the evaluation suggest that the project was successful in a number of ways: in enhancing students' personal and social development; in developing a community of learners in which learning was shared between teachers and students; in developing students' confidence and skills in their own learning; and in providing models of a more integrated and thematic curriculum.     

A Call for Self-Compassion in Social Work Education

Many social work students approach the end of their formal training unprepared to utilize self-care approaches to prevent burnout. Providing students more comprehensive self-care training can help address this issue. One approach to fostering self-care and addressing stress and burnout in social work students is the attitude and practice of self-compassion (SC; i.e., compassion directed inward). Training in SC can be helpful, as it has been shown to be effective in addressing stress and burnout, as well as enhancing practice. This article explores the benefits of integrating an SC approach within professional social work education. A definition, review of the SC literature, and a conceptual sketch for integrating SC approaches in social work education are presented.     

Cross‐Curricular Gallery Learning: A Phenomenological Case Study

This article examines the strategies that can be used to enhance students' understanding of how subjects link together and whether cross‐curricular approaches, through a gallery project, have any real impact on students' understanding of the links between subjects. A substantial part of this article, however, describes the methodological aspect of the project. A phenomenological case study approach was used in order to engage fully with individual students' learning experiences. It was found that the students who were involved directly with the study felt that the links between subjects had more relevance to their learning when the teacher made such links explicit. They were unaware of the relevance of many cross‐curricular links made in lessons, but the study indicated that cross‐curricular learning can enable students to transfer skills and knowledge in order to understand concepts more fully.     

Guiding explanation construction by children at the entry points of learning progressions

Policy documents in science education suggest that even at the earliest years of formal schooling, students are capable of constructing scientific explanations about focal content. Nonetheless, few research studies provide insights into how to effectively provide scaffolds appropriate for late elementary‐age students' fruitful creation of scientific explanations. This article describes two research studies to address the question, what makes explanation construction difficult for elementary students? The studies were conducted in urban fourth, fifth, and sixth grade classrooms where students were learning science through curricular units that contained 8 weeks of scaffold‐rich activities focused on explanation construction. The first study focused on the kind and amount of information scaffold‐rich assessments provided about young students' abilities to construct explanations under a range of scaffold conditions. Results demonstrated that fifth and sixth grade tests provided strong information about a range of students' abilities to construct explanations under a range of supported conditions. On balance, the fourth grade test did not provide as much information, nor was this test curricular‐sensitive. The second study provided information on pre–post test achievement relative to the amount of curricular intervention utilized over the 8‐week time period with each cohort. Results demonstrated that when taking the amount of the intervention into account, there were strong learning gains in all three grade‐level cohorts. In conjunction with the pre–post study, a type‐of‐error analysis was conducted to better understand the nature of errors among younger students. This analysis revealed that our youngest students generated the most incomplete responses and struggled in particular ways with generating valid evidence. Conclusions emphasize the synergistic value of research studies on scaffold‐rich assessments, curricular scaffolds, and teacher guidance toward a more complete understanding of how to support young students' explanation construction. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 49: 141–165, 2012     

Are Graduating Students Ready for Financial Aspects of Social Work Practice?

ABSTRACT

Graduating students must be prepared with knowledge and skills for the financial aspects of social work practice. This study examines graduating students’ attitudes and perceptions about client finances, as well as their financial knowledge. Internet survey results (n = 116) of BSW and MSW graduating students indicate that respondents (a) perceive a limited function for discussing client financial circumstances in practice, (b) understand the relevance, however, of client finances, (c) are unprepared to address this aspect, and (d) are supportive of integrating this content into required policy and practice courses. Teaching and curricular implications, along with programmatic recommendations, are included.