Teaching manuals and the blackboard: accessing historical classroom practices

The blackboard, a useful teaching tool in nineteenth-century England, was transformed into a teaching necessity in the decades follwing 1870, when the Education Acts made school free and mandatory for all children. The resulting huge population of schoolchildren inspired the development of teaching techniques appropriate for large-group learning. Many of these techniques relied on the blackboard as a reusable demonstration space visible to the entire class at once, unlike a book or slate. To share these new practices among teachers, particularly the novice teachers recruited to serve the increased school population, dozens of teaching manuals were published around the turn of the twentieth century. These manuals’ instructions for how to teach reading, writing, arithmetic and nature study to elementary school students offer historians a rare glimpse into teachers’ and students’ school experiences by suggesting how the blackboard shaped classroom practices in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century England.     

Communicating the Value of Cartoon Art Across University Classrooms: Experiences From the Ohio State University Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum

ABSTRACT

This article is an exploration of the varying applications of comics and cartoon art as primary resources and pedagogical tools within the university setting. Following some background information on cartoon art forms including early American newspaper comics, nineteenth century humor serials, political cartoons and manga, the article explores how the perception of comics has changed and suggests ways librarians can work with academics to better utilize comics and cartoon art as educational resources. Drawing on the literature and the author's experience of working with Faculty and students at The Ohio State University, this article highlights ways to embed comics and cartoon art into the curriculum in disciplines ranging from Women's Studies to Psychology, ESL, History, Fashion, and more. The article aims to serve as a springboard for “thinking outside of the box” to maximize the value and use of library collections.     

Co‐teaching in a mainstream post‐primary mathematics classroom: an evaluation of models of co‐teaching from the perspective of the teachers

This article examines the use of a range of co‐teaching models when teaching mathematics. The approaches suggested have potential for all students, but in this instance their importance as a pedagogical approach with students with special educational needs (SEN) in inclusive classrooms is considered. The study was based in the first‐year mathematics classroom of an Irish, urban, mainstream, post‐primary, girls’ school. This article highlights the findings from the teacher's perspective and presents their reflections on a range of co‐teaching approaches. The potential and challenges of these are considered in the context of schools generally.     

A validity study of two paper-pencil tests of concrete and formal operations

Two group paper-pencil batteries, the Longeot (consisting of three subtests) and three puzzles (KLR) from Science Teaching and the Development of Reasoning, were administered to 607 students from ninth and tenth grade mathematics and science classes. A subsample of 69 students was then administered three Inhelder tasks (chemicals, rods, and shadows). In general, the expected developmental trends were confirmed, with formal status being most difficult to attain on the Inhelder tasks and easiest to attain on the Longeot. The correlations between the KLR and Inhelder (0.61, p < 0.01) and the Longeot and Inhelder (0.55, p < 0.05) were moderately high. According to the method of Shayer (Note 2), it was found that each of five paper-pencil subtests discriminates at or between the 2B (late concrete) and 3A (early formal) levels while the sixth subtest, the mealworm puzzle, was found to discriminate at the 3A level. This study indicates that either group battery may be useful in identifying transitional subjects. However, if a more stringent criterion of “formal” is needed, a “success” rate of four or five out of the six subtests may be required. Both group batteries are relatively easy to administer and score with a minimum of guidance, although the KLR scoring might need to be simplified for use by the practitioner. Sex differences found on the KLR and the Longeot are suggestive of the potential differential use of these tests by researchers investigating sex differences in achievement or aptitude.     

Working around the ERM: Automating Accurate Electronic Serials Holdings Data in Bibliographic Records

Accurate holdings information for electronic serials is essential to librarians and users. Collection management staff spent copious amounts of time creating and updating links and public notes in electronic serials bibliographic records. This effort not only duplicated the work of our e-resource access and management software, but the updated information also quickly became outdated and inaccurate. This article describes our project to replace platform-specific Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) with an International Standard Serial Number–specific, static URL that points to the e-resource access and management software resource page and details the. process, from generating the URL and batch-editing machine-readable cataloging records, to garnering support from stakeholders and teaching users to navigate new steps.     

Classroom benefits of recess

Despite research demonstrating the importance of recess and free play for children, schools have been reducing free play time for more academic pursuits (Ramstetter et al. in J Sch Health 80:517–526, 2010; Waite-Stupiansky and Findlay in Educ Forum 66:16–25, 2001). Recently, there has been renewed interest in understanding the critical role that free play has for children’s development. The current study was designed to contribute to this literature as well as investigate how the type of environment in which children play influences their behaviour in the classroom. Children in grades 3–5 were tested before and after recess on cognitive measures of sustained attention and creativity. We found an increase in children’s sustained attention after recess. We additionally found that the type of environment in which children played differed depending on children’s behaviour and traits. Our findings suggest that recess is an important factor in children’s performance in school and should be considered an important part of the school day. Furthermore, we suggest that researchers should consider how individual differences influence the relationship between recess and children’s performance in the classroom. Implications of this research for schools are considered.     

SSP-NASIG Joint Meeting: Wrap Up Panel with All Speakers

The expert speakers from the publishing, librarian, and vendor communities regrouped at the end of the Society for Scholarly Publishing–NASIG Joint Meeting to answer questions or elaborate on information they presented earlier during the meeting.     

A new jump-landing protocol identifies differences in healthy,coper, and unstable ankles in collegiate athletes

Ankle sprains are the most common injury in sport. With stability being an important risk factor for ankle sprains, a jump-landing protocol that can elicit differences in time-to-stabilisation (TTS) is necessary. The objective of this study was to develop a jump-landing protocol that could identify differences in TTS among healthy, ‘coper’, and unstable ankles of high-level athletes. 61 Division I collegiate athletes (32 females, 29 males; age: 19.9 ± 1.2 years; height: 176.6 ± 9.5 cm; mass: 74.3 ± 10.8 kg) participated in a jump-landing protocol that utilised sporting movements with preparatory steps and a vertical propulsion of the body in two multi-directional jumps. Utilising the landing on a force plate, ground reaction forces were used to quantify TTS. TTS of the unstable group (1.58 ± 0.62s) was significantly longer than the healthy (1.19 ± 0.37s; p = 0.050) and ‘coper’ (1.13 ± 0.49s; p = 0.019) groups in the forward hops. In addition, TTS of the lateral hops in the unstable group (1.55 ± 0.63s) was also significantly longer than the healthy (1.14 ± 0.37s; p = 0.026) and ‘coper’ (1.15 ± 0.39s; p = 0.028) groups. This new jump-landing protocol was able to elicit differences in TTS in high-level athletes that were not found using previous protocols. This new jump-landing protocol could be an effective tool to identify injury risk for high-level athletes.