Incompatible Rhetorical Expectations: Julia W. Carpenter's Medical Society Papers, 1895–1899

This article examines 3 papers presented before the Cincinnati Academy of Medicine by 19th-century physician Julia W. Carpenter. The article identifies 3 strategies Carpenter used to negotiate the incompatible rhetorical expectations for women and for physicians. The published records of academy discussions provide evidence for Carpenter's colleagues' reactions to each strategy, revealing the complexity of her rhetorical situation and demonstrating the complex links among rhetorical practice, professional identity, and a communicator's social position.     

How Can Community Colleges Better Serve Low-Income Single-Mother Students? Lessons From the For-Profit Sector

Low-income single-mother students are disproportionately choosing to attend for-profit schools over community colleges when pursuing associate’s degrees and subbaccalaureate certificates. For-profit schools offer single mothers juggling school, employment, and family the benefits of accelerated degree programs along with enhanced convenience and streamlined student services. Community colleges can become a more appealing and feasible option for low-income single-mother students by adopting some of these characteristics while concurrently advertising their relative affordability and high level of academic rigor.     

WRITING ACROSS THE CURRICULUM PROGRAMS IN NEW JERSEY'S PUBLIC COLLEGES

Since 1976 in response to growing concern about college students’ writing abilities, faculty development programs on writing across the curriculum have arisen in a number of two‐ and four‐year colleges throughout the United States. This movement, for it seems to be one, has its roots in a similar movement that began more than 15 years ago in British secondary schools. This paper first reviews briefly the early history of the movement in England and compares the movement there to the one now under way in U.S. higher education. It then presents the results of a questionnaire survey of New Jersey's public two‐ and four‐year colleges undertaken in the spring of 1979. The purpose of the survey was to determine whether and to what extent New Jersey's public colleges had started or were planning to start development programs designed to bring groups of faculty together, across disciplines, to discuss problems relating to student writing performance and to develop specific interdisciplinary plans for solving these problems. In addition, information is presented about the nature of the steps taken in those institutions that reported having initiated such programs and about the efforts to evaluate the impact of these programs. Finally, conclusions are drawn about the state of writing across the curriculum programs in New Jersey public higher education and recommendations are made for further action in this direction.     

The Teacher as Creative Artist: Harold O. Rugg: 1886‐1960

IN AN AGE OF MASS CONSUMPTION In our age of mass consumption, the ubiquity of commodification's many forms establishes and constitutes a significant fact of our everyday existence. A Starbucks on every corner. Between supermarket and superstore, supply almost never a problem. So much merchandise just a mouse click away. Nearly everything having its price. A product for every imaginable problem.     

Framing Quality: Annotated Video-Based Portfolios of Classroom Practice by Pre-service Teachers

In this paper we describe the use of peer learning teams creating annotated video-based portfolios to improve the quality of teacher–child interactions of undergraduate majors in early childhood and family studies. We used the intentional teaching framework (Hamre et al. in Handbook of early education. Guilford Publications, New York, 2012a) to create a course that moved students through the process of “knowing,” “seeing,” “doing,” and “reflecting & improving.” Forty-four undergraduate early childhood students formed eleven peer learning teams of four. We started the course by teaching the teacher–child interaction skills that are considered to be high-quality and linked to positive child outcomes (knowing). After learning to reliably identify (seeing) high quality instruction using the Classroom Assessment Scoring System, the students created video portfolios featuring their own adult-child interactions (doing). These portfolios, featuring short salient examples of six different dimensions of quality instruction, were posted to a website and shared with their peer learning team. Each team member then commented on the extent to which she or he believed the students’ example was high quality. The portfolios and the peer coaching learning team (PCLT) process have improved our ability to document change in interactions as well as the students’ abilities to see their own growth (reflecting & improving). Further, it allows us to tighten the connection between course content and practical application as well as providing us with an alternative to on-site supervision of practicum students, which can be challenging due to budget constraints. Finally, we hope that sharing this activity will encourage others to integrate video-based technology into their coursework as a means to demonstrate positive change in students’ learning.     

Steps to Opening Scientific Inquiry: Pre-Service Teachers’ Practicum Experiences with a New Support Framework

This qualitative multiple-comparative case study investigates (1) The reported experiences and impressions of four pre-service teachers (PTs) on practicum placement in four different classrooms (grades 1–9) where a new Steps to Inquiry (SI) framework was being utilized to support students conducting open inquiry; (2) The relative dispositions of the PTs toward conducting open inquiry, as indicated by their core conceptions regarding science, the purpose of education, effective teaching, and the capacity of students. Findings indicate that (1) although there were differences in the experiences of the four PTs, all four had an opportunity to observe and/or facilitate students conducting open inquiry with the SI framework, and after the practicum, all of them reported that they would like to include open inquiry in their own classrooms in the future; (2) one PT already possessed core conceptions indicative of a favorable disposition toward open inquiry before the placement; another altered her core conceptions substantially toward a favorable disposition during the placement; a third altered her conceptions regarding the capacity of students; and one PT maintained core conceptions indicative of a disposition that was not favorable to open inquiry despite the pronouncements that she would like to conduct open inquiry with students in their own future classroom. Possible reasons for the differences in the responses of the four pre-services teachers to the practicum placement are discussed.     

The Instructional and Emotional Quality of Parent–Child Book Reading and Early Head Start Children's Learning Outcomes

Research Findings: The objective of this study was to understand how two dimensions of parent–child book-reading quality—instructional and emotional—interact and relate to learning in a sample of low-income infants and toddlers. Participants included 81 parents and their children from Early Head Start programs in the rural Midwest. Correlation and multiple regression analyses were used to test the hypothesis that parental book-reading qualities interact and relate to children's concurrent cognitive and language scores. Exploratory analyses examined if patterns of relationships varied for families who had different home languages (i.e., English, Spanish). Results included that book-reading qualities and home language interacted to predict child scores. Practice or Policy: Findings suggest a need to further explore potentially complex patterns of relationships among parental book-reading behaviors and child learning for diverse families. Understanding these patterns could inform the development of culturally-sensitive intervention approaches designed to support high-quality shared book reading.     

Direct Behavioral Consultation in Head Start to Increase Teacher Use of Praise and Effective Instruction Delivery

Chronic disruptive behaviors during early childhood are associated with many poor developmental outcomes including, but not limited to, school dropout and conduct disorder during adolescence. Much is known regarding effective intervention procedures for disruptive classroom behaviors by preschool children. Unfortunately, evidence-based intervention procedures may not be implemented with integrity in applied settings. Direct behavioral consultation may increase teacher intervention integrity because of direct training procedures used with teachers and students during routine classroom activities. This study evaluated a nondisruptive direct training method for increasing Head Start teachers' use of praise and effective instruction delivery. Results indicated that the direct training procedure implemented during routine instructional activities resulted in increased use of praise and effective instruction delivery that maintained following training. Additionally, increased use of praise and effective instruction delivery resulted in reductions in children's disruptive classroom behavior.     

A New Disciplinarity: Communities of knowledge,learning and practice

The welcome new attention paid to subject teaching should have bridged the old divide between pedagogical and disciplinary research. But this paper argues that the focus on subject, rather than disciplinary communities is part of the commodification of higher education; that what is needed to re-energise both teachers and students is an inclusive new model of disciplinary education based on an engaged community's processes and practices. Each discipline, it is proposed, will model differently its practices, knowledge creation and dissemination, its writing, its community. The model may change received ideas about the focus and central concerns of the discipline, and in modelling disciplinary learning will change teaching and assessment. The model will be discipline specific and, as such, will resist generic and imposed 'skills and outcomes' frameworks. Evolving out of practice, rather than an external agenda, it should link disciplinary and pedagogical research so that they are mutually informing and transforming.