The role of video in teacher professional development

This literature review focuses on the e-use of video in teacher initial and continuing professional development. There is evidence that video technology used synchronously, and particularly asynchronously, can extend the quantity and quality of classroom observation experience, which in turn supports the development of observation, analysis and reflection in viewers. Theorising on these gains, the authors describe how the linking of theory to practice, the development of pedagogical language and collaborative learning through communities of practice might all be related to video-enhanced teacher education. Claims for gains in codified subject knowledge are less convincing.     

Deconstructing Building Blocks: Preschoolers' Spatial Assembly Performance Relates to Early Mathematical Skills

This study focuses on three main goals: First, 3‐year‐olds' spatial assembly skills are probed using interlocking block constructions (N = 102). A detailed scoring scheme provides insight into early spatial processing and offers information beyond a basic accuracy score. Second, the relation of spatial assembly to early mathematical skills was evaluated. Spatial skill independently predicted a significant amount of the variability in concurrent mathematical performance. Finally, the relation between spatial assembly skill and socioeconomic status (SES), gender, and parent‐reported spatial language was examined. While children's performance did not differ by gender, lower SES children were already lagging behind higher SES children in block assembly. Furthermore, lower SES parents reported using significantly fewer spatial words with their children.     

An Examination of the Replicability of Angoff Standard Setting Results Within a Generalizability Theory Framework

Evidence of stable standard setting results over panels or occasions is an important part of the validity argument for an established cut score. Unfortunately, due to the high cost of convening multiple panels of content experts, standards often are based on the recommendation from a single panel of judges. This approach implicitly assumes that the variability across panels will be modest, but little evidence is available to support this assertion. This article examines the stability of Angoff standard setting results across panels. Data were collected for six independent standard setting exercises, with three panels participating in each exercise. The results show that although in some cases the panel effect is negligible, for four of the six data sets the panel facet represented a large portion of the overall error variance. Ignoring the often hidden panel/occasion facet can result in artificially optimistic estimates of the cut score stability. Results based on a single panel should not be viewed as a reasonable estimate of the results that would be found over multiple panels. Instead, the variability seen in a single panel can best be viewed as a lower bound of the expected variability when the exercise is replicated.     

How context shapes practitioner research and professional learning in schools in Singapore and NSW

The New South Wales (NSW) Government Department of Education and Communities and the Singapore Ministry of Education have encouraged teachers to engage in practitioner research as part of their professional learning agenda because it is perceived as a powerful means of investigating and improving educational practice. Drawing on a Schatzkian perspective, where social life is understood as being tied to a context, or ‘the site of the social’, we examine teachers’ experiences as practitioner researchers in NSW and Singapore. We also argue that practitioner research has been remodelled and re-interpreted differently in different contexts and that cultural context is a potent constituent of the practice architecture that prefigures practitioner research. Using data collected from interviews with 42 participants comprising academics, policy makers and teachers, we specifically illuminated those contextual/cultural characteristics respondents identified as factors that actively shape teachers’ experiences as practitioner researchers.     

Learning of a formation principle for the secondary phonemic function of a syllabic orthography

It has been observed in Japanese children learning to read that there is an early and rapid shift from exclusive reading of hiragana as syllabograms to the dual-use convention in which some hiragana also represent phonemic elements. Such rapid initial learning appears contrary to the standard theories of reading acquisition that require instruction in nonlexical procedures for learning phonemic elements of an orthography. However, the alternative Knowledge Sources theory implies that the shift would be achievable from lexical input by which the learner acquires an implicit formation principle for this secondary phonemic function of hiragana. In two training experiments (Studies 1 & 2), this hypothesis was examined in transfer tests with 5-year-old Japanese and with 14-year-old English-speaking beginner learners of Japanese. As predicted, relative to phonological controls, very limited lexical training of exemplar hiragana words transferred to phonemic use of other (previously unknown and untrained) hiragana in untrained words, but not in isolation from these words. In Study 3, at both beginning and adult reading levels, novel hiragana symbol combinations were created to represent individual phoneme elements in ways that do not exist in conventional hiragana orthography but are exemplars for induction of a potential generalized formation principle of the secondary phonemic function of the system. At all reading levels there was evidence of use of this generalized formation principle, a result not explained by the standard theories but implied by the alternative theory, which offers a potential universal feature of learning to read.     

“The Scientific Method” as Myth and Ideal

“The Scientific Method” as it has been portrayed in popular and introductory contexts has been declared a myth. The variation that one finds in introductory presentations of “The Scientific Method” is explained by the fact that there is no canonical account among historians and philosophers of science. What, in particular, is wrong with “The Scientific Method”? This essay provides a fairly comprehensive survey of shortcomings of “The Scientific Method”. Included are corrections to several misconceptions that often accompany such presentations. Rather than treating “The Scientific Method” as a useful approximation or an ideal, the myth should be discarded. Lessons can be learned for introductory pedagogical contexts from considering the shortcomings of the myth.     

An Architecture of Collaboration

The market for reading is expanding significantly, but the gains are seen almost entirely outside the prevailing supply chain. Fixed on the creation, management and sale of physical and digital objects, publishers view other forms of writing and reading as potential threats to their established markets. To take advantage of market growth, publishers need to rethink traditional models and develop an “architecture of collaboration”, exploring ways to engage with companies and communities to find new sources and uses of what was once just book content.     

The Evolution of Critical Thinking Skills in Library Instruction, 1986–2006: A Selected and Annotated Bibliography and Review of Selected Programs

ABSTRACT

Undergraduate students are increasingly being asked to conduct higher-level research in their areas of study. In order to address undergraduate needs, many academic librarians, especially those charged with crafting instruction, take critical thinking as a given in the teaching of information literacy skills. However, this review of the literature has revealed that, though there was some discussion of critical thinking in a library context in the mid 1980s, the concept did not really take hold until the 1990s, when higher education reform began to appear on many campuses. Additionally, the literature regarding critical thinking skills during this period exhibits four themes: (1) a lack of agreement among librarians and others on what critical thinking is and how it can be defined, (2) the importance of subject and course integration in the teaching of critical thinking skills in libraries, (3) the necessity of reaching undergraduate students, and (4) the special challenges of teaching critical thinking skills in an age when technology is changing so rapidly.     

Unlocking the Interlibrary Loan Code for the United States

A newly revised Interlibrary Loan Code for the United States was approved in 2016, the 100th anniversary of its first appearance. This article outlines the 2-year, iterative revision process undertaken by the ALA RUSA STARS Codes, Guidelines, and Technical Standards Committee, including the results of two public surveys and significant changes to the Interlibrary Loan Code for the United States. The authors hope to provide a template for future revisions and share the process with the entire interlibrary loan community.