The Impact of Quality Matters Professional Development on Teaching across Delivery Formats

ABSTRACT

This study explored the impact of professional development workshops for online course design on faculty’s pedagogical practices in online, face-to-face (f2f), and blended instructional modes. It specifically focused on trainings offered by the Quality Matters (QM) organization on a rubric for assessing quality in online course development. A mixed-methods analysis of survey data collected from 2,148 participants in QM workshops over a three-year period (2012–2015) demonstrated that, across all three teaching modes, participants revised learning objectives, improved course alignment, and paid greater attention to communication with students. Additional benefits from participating in QM training related to specific modalities. Common online and blended impacts included changes in assessment practices as well as in modifying course materials to be more compliant with accessibility standards. In f2f settings, frequent changes involved redesigning learning activities to increase learner-learner interaction.     

Finding the Hook: Computer Science Education in Elementary Contexts

The purpose of this study was to investigate how elementary teachers with little knowledge of computer science (CS) and project-based learning (PBL) experienced integrating CS through PBL as a part of a standards-based elementary curriculum in Grades 3–5. The researchers used qualitative constant comparison methods on field notes and reflections to describe the teachers' participation in professional development to create CS-infused projects to be implemented with their students. Categories that emerged included standards integration, student autonomy, and challenges of infrastructure and time. The data are from the first 6 months of a 3-year, National Science Foundation-funded project. (Keywords: computer science, project-based learning, integration, elementary curriculum)     

Understanding patterns of food insecurity and family well-being amid the COVID-19 pandemic using daily surveys

This paper investigates economic and psychological hardship during the COVID-19 pandemic among a diverse sample (61% Latinx; 16% White; 9% Black; 14% mixed/other race) of socioeconomically disadvantaged parents (90% mothers; mean age = 35 years) and their elementary school-aged children (ages 4–11; 49% female) in rural Pennsylvania (N = 272). Families participating in a local food assistance program reported on food insecurity (FI) and parent and child mood and behavior daily from January to May 2020. Longitudinal models revealed that FI, negative parent and child mood, and child misbehavior significantly increased when schools closed; only FI and parent depression later decreased. FI decreased most among those who received the local food assistance program; Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program receipt uniquely predicted decreases in child FI.     

Maternal Support of Children’s Math Learning in Associations Between Family Income and Math School Readiness

This study examined maternal support of children’s math learning at 36 months (n = 140) as a mediator of the association between early childhood family income and children’s counting and calculation skills at 4½ and 6–7 years. Family income was associated with this measure of children’s math school readiness, but the association was almost entirely indirect and mediated by observed maternal support of children’s numerical skills at 36 months. Maternal support of children’s spatial concept and general learning (cognitive stimulation and sensitivity) were not significant mediators of this association. Results suggest that income-based gaps in counting and calculation skills at school entry may be due in part to the constraints that low family income places on early numerical learning support.     

Neuropsychological correlates of vocabulary, reading, and working memory in deaf children with cochlear implants

The performance of deaf children with cochlear implants was assessed using measures standardized on hearing children. To investigate nonverbal cognitive and sensorimotor processes associated with postimplant variability, five selected sensorimotor and visuospatial subtests from A Developmental Neuropsychological Assessment (NEPSY) were compared with standardized vocabulary, reading, and digit span measures. Participants were 26 deaf children, ages 6-14 years, who received a cochlear implant between ages 1 and 6 years; duration of implant use ranged from 3 to 11 years. Results indicated significant correlations between standard scores on the Design Copying subtest of the NEPSY and standard scores on vocabulary comprehension, reading, and digit span measures. The results contribute to our understanding of the benefits of cochlear implantation and cognitive processes that may support postimplant language and academic functioning.     

Early Maternal Employment and Children's Academic and Behavioral Skills in Australia and the United Kingdom

This study assessed the links between early maternal employment and children's later academic and behavioral skills in Australia and the United Kingdom. Using representative samples of children born in each country from 2000 to 2004 (Australia N = 5,093, U.K. N = 18,497), OLS regression models weighted with propensity scores assessed links between maternal employment in the 2 years after childbearing and children's skills in first grade. There were neutral associations between maternal employment and children's first‐grade skills in both countries. However, there was a slight indication that more time away from parenting was negatively linked to children's behavioral functioning in Australia and employment begun between 9 and 24 months was positively linked to cognitive skills for U.K. children of low‐wage mothers.     

Integrated schools and intergroup relations in Northern Ireland: the importance of parents

Background: Integrated schools were established in Northern Ireland in the early 1980s. With an explicit intention to build better relations between Catholics and Protestants, it has an intuitive appeal in a society which has long experienced sectarian division. Whilst the sector has attracted considerable research, less is understood about how parents’ perceive the approach adopted by schools to build intergroup relations.

Purpose: The present article seeks to address the gap in the literature by exploring parents’ views of integrated education. Drawing on theories of intergroup contact, the paper seeks specifically to explore how parents and head teachers perceive and negotiate the approach that the schools adopt to build intergroup relations.

Method: In an attempt to probe the deeper meanings that participants attach to integrated education, a qualitative research approach was adopted; semi-structured interviews were carried out with 17 parents and 2 head teachers in two integrated primary schools.

Findings: Through the data analyses, three main aspects were evident. Firstly, the study reveals something of the relational dynamic between head teachers and parents and the significance of this relationship for determining how intergroup relations are pursued in integrated schools. Secondly, it highlights the nebulous nature of identity salience and the practical challenges of making identity salient within mixed identity contexts. Finally, the study suggests the value of qualitative approaches for exploring intergroup contact initiatives.

Conclusions: Overall, the paper demonstrates the inherent challenges of establishing an integrated school where good relations will be developed when multiple interpretations of what constitutes an appropriate response to difference and diversity prevails.     

Show me the money! An empirical analysis of mentoring outcomes for women in academia

This paper discusses and comprehensively evaluates a mentoring scheme for junior female academics. The program aimed to address the under‐representation of women in senior positions by increasing participation in networks and improving women’s research performance. A multifaceted, longitudinal design, including a control group, was used to evaluate the success of mentoring in terms of the benefits for the women and for the university. The results indicate mentoring was very beneficial, showing that mentees were more likely to stay in the university, received more grant income and higher level of promotion, and had better perceptions of themselves as academics compared with non‐mentored female academics. This indicates that not only do women themselves benefit from mentoring but that universities can confidently implement well‐designed initiatives, knowing that they will receive a significant return on investment.     

Teaching citizenship in the faith school: qualitative evidence from separate schools in Northern Ireland

The purpose of this paper is to examine how teachers teach and students learn about citizenship education in two faith-based schools in Northern Ireland. The data show that participants in the Catholic school were confident in their own identity; teachers encouraged active engagement with contentious, conflict-related debates and students displayed empathy with other racial and religious groups. In the Protestant school, teachers avoided any reference to identity and conflict and students seemed to have limited knowledge of these issues. The findings emphasise the extent to which separate schools embody the cultural norms prevalent within each of the communities that they serve and reveal the influence which these norms have for teaching and learning about citizenship.     

Semantic and Phonological Ability to Adjust Recoding: A Unique Correlate of Word Reading Skill?

This study addresses whether reading involves a process termed semantic and phonological ability to adjust recoding (SPAAR). It was hypothesized that SPAAR helps readers link inaccurate pronunciations to lexical entries (e.g., spynitch to spinach). Psychometric properties of the Mispronunciation Correction Task (MCT), a measure of SPAAR, were investigated using a sample of 206 elementary-age children. The 25-item MCT appeared to measure a single construct, and the items discriminated well across the range of ability. Based on a sample of 94 children, construct validity analyses indicated that phonological awareness and decoding skill predicted MCT performance. Hierarchical regressions were used to test the relationship between SPAAR and word reading. After controlling for other skills, SPAAR showed a relationship with both timed and untimed word reading. Phonological awareness did not. These data suggest that SPAAR may be a reading-related ability involving phonological processing and some form of semantic processing.