Storylines in public news media about mathematics education and minoritized students

Educational Studies in Mathematics - Public media both reflects and shapes societal perceptions and attitudes. Teachers and others around students in mathematics classrooms have expectations for...     

Assessment of the effectiveness of the studio format in introductory undergraduate biology

Kansas State University converted its introductory biology course, previously taught as an audio-tutorial (A-T), to a studio format in 1997. We share with others information about the process involved and present assessment data for the studio format course that address 1) student exam performance in A-T and studio; 2) student course grades in A-T and studio; 3) student and instructor perceptions and attitudes for A-T and studio; 4) student performance in subsequent biology courses for A-T and studio; and 5) gains in student learning for the studio course and other traditional lecture/lab courses. Collectively, these measures demonstrate that the studio format is as effective as or more effective (for some measures) than the A-T approach and traditional approaches in providing an effective learning environment. We discuss the issues involved in comparing course formats.     

Social working memory: Memory for another rat's spatial choices can increase or decrease choice tendencies

In two experiments using a radial-arm maze, pairs of rats made choices among eight maze locations, each containing a large quantity of one of two food types. The choices made by 1 rat affected the choices made by the other rat. Under most conditions, visits by 1 rat increased the tendency of the other rat to subsequently choose that maze location. However, the effect depended on the quality of the food available in a particular location. When it was possible for the rats to observe each other on the maze arms and a rat had experienced that a location contained the less preferred food type, a previous visit to that location by the foraging partner decreased the tendency to visit that location. These effects are attributed to working memory for the spatial choices of another rat, and they indicate that memory produced by a rat’s own visit to a maze location is integrated with memory for the behavior of another rat to determine spatial choice     

Topicalization and the Processing of Expository Prose by Children: mediating effects of cognitive styles and content familiarity

This study assessed the effects of text topicalization conditions (initial position, final position, or no topic sentence) on the comprehension of main ideas and specific passage information for middle school readers. Also of interest were interactions of topic familiarity and readers’ cognitive styles (degree of field independence) with text topicalization. One hundred and seven subjects were randomly assigned to one of the three topicalization conditions and read three familiar and three less‐familiar multipleparagraph expository texts. Main idea comprehension was assessed with both a sentencesummary (generation) and best‐title (recognition) task. Comprehension of specific passage information was evaluated with multiple‐choice items. Text topicalization effects were observed for main idea comprehension (with initial position best, followed by final position), while topic familiarity resulted in higher comprehension scores for specific passage information. Moreover, a cognitive style‐text topicalization interaction was found on the best‐title task; in this case, relatively field dependent readers were assisted by a final topic sentence placement. Implications are drawn for future research concerning the complex interplay of texts, tasks and readers in prose‐processing.     

“The Coat Traps All Your Body Heat”: Heterogeneity as Fundamental to Learning

This article explores heterogeneity as fundamental to learning. Inspired by Bakhtin's notion of heteroglossia, a design team consisting of an experienced classroom teacher and 2 researchers investigated how a class of 3rd and 4th graders came to understand disciplinary points of view on heat, heat transfer, and the particulate nature of matter. Through a series of planned and unplanned encounters, official versions of the Second Law of Thermodynamics and the particulate view of matter were juxtaposed with varied domains of experience of heat transfer and phase change in water. We analyze the children's discourse to examine how they populated these phenomena with meaning and what they learned in the process. We conclude by describing key principles and a conundrum that emerged from this research.     

Weak Ties in Networked Communities

Communities with high levels of social capital are likely to have a higher quality of life than communities with low social capital. This is due to the greater ability of such communities to organize and mobilize effectively for collective action because they have high levels of social trust, dense social networks, and well-established norms of mutuality (the major features of social capital). Communities with “bridging” social capital (weak ties across groups) as well as “bonding” social capital (strong ties within groups) are the most effective in organizing for collective action. People who belong to multiple groups act as bridging ties. When people with bridging ties use communication media, such as the Internet, they enhance their capability to educate community members and to organize, as needed, for collective action. This article summarizes evidence from stratified household survey data in Blacksburg, VA, showing that people with weak (bridging) ties across groups have higher levels of community involvement, civic interest, and collective efficacy than people without bridging ties among groups. Moreover, heavy Internet users with bridging ties have higher social engagement, use the Internet for social purposes, and have been attending more local meetings and events since going online than heavy Internet users with no bridging ties. These findings may suggest that the Internet—in the hands of bridging individuals-is a tool for enhancing social relations and information exchange, and for increasing face-to-face interaction, all of which help to build both bonding and bridging social capital in communities.     

Beyond “Woodstein”: Narratives of Investigative Journalism

ABSTRACT

Using a methodology inspired by structural narratology and by James Hamilton’s [2016. Democracy’s Detectives: The Economics of Investigative Journalism. Cambridge: Harvard] economic analysis of investigative journalism, this paper identifies a set of 14 recurring structural and formal elements (plot events, character types and functions, visual iconography) that constitute a fable about investigative journalism. The fable structure is applied to analyze six diverse films about investigative journalism produced in the US in the last 40 years. The films include two instantiations of successful investigative journalism (All the President’s Men, Spotlight), two cases where conflict between journalists and corporate managers diminished the impact of the investigation (Good Night and Good Luck, The Insider), and two instances of a counter-fable of failed investigative journalism (Truth, Kill the Messenger). The paper argues that the films’ representation of investigative journalism influences public perceptions of investigative journalism. It also speculates about the factors that will influence investigative journalism and its representations in the current political context in the US.     

Troubleshooting Electronic Resources with ILL Data

Troubleshooting electronic resource linking issues can seem to be an insurmountable task—so many resources, so little time. Using interlibrary loan (ILL) data on requests for materials available online, the electronic resources staff at the Samford University Library detected problems with the implementation of their new link resolver. This data also provided a window into some systemic issues within the metadata of certain sources and the link resolver knowledgebase. In addition to helping us improve linking for our users, the establishment of a workflow for communicating cancelled ILL transaction data on an ongoing basis has also improved the communication between electronic resources staff and the ILL department regarding the overall linking process.