Third-Grade Students Investigate and Represent Data

Results of a collaborative project between two mathematics education faculty, a third-grade teacher, and her beginning third-grade students are presented. The purpose of this project was to collect information from these students as they thought through how to ask, collect, and then answer their own data-driven questions. These young students exhibited a growing understanding, sophistication, and comfort with the use and application of data and data terminology as they developed their strategies for collecting, analyzing, and presenting their results.     

Cross-cultural perceptions of assessment of selected international science teachers in American high schools

International high school science teachers are crossing international and cultural borders to teach, raising important issues in education. In this article, we describe the cross-cultural assessment challenges that four international science teachers encountered when they migrated to teach in the United States. These included differences in grade expectations for a given quality of work, the weight given to final examinations, the assessment process, and cut-off scores for letter grades. To become proficient in their new teaching contexts, the participating teachers had to modify (or hybridize) their assessment philosophies and practices in order to conform to the expectations of their new schools. This hybridization process ushered them into what is proposed as the pedagogical imaginary; a transitional space between the “purity” of their native educational conventions and that of their American schools. The implications of these findings are discussed in hopes of improving high school science teaching experiences for international science teachers.     

Classroom Attrition in Computer Science

Students drop out of university courses for a multitude of reasons. Whatever the cause, the costs of an unsuccessful attempt to complete a course are significant to student and university alike. This paper examines student attrition in computer science classes with the hope of identifying common causes and ultimately reducing the number of students dropping computer science courses. Survey data were analyzed to determine if reasons for dropping differed for various groupings of students including undergraduate/graduate, male/female, computer science major/non‐major, and service/non‐service courses.     

Preservice Teachers' Use of the Technology Integration Planning Cycle to Integrate iPads Into Literacy Instruction

The purpose of this case study was to examine preservice teachers' use of the Technology Integration Planning Cycle (TIPC; Hutchison & Woodward, 2014 Hutchison, A., & Woodward, L. (2014). A planning cycle for integrating technology into literacy instruction. Reading Teacher, 67(6), 455–464. doi:10.1002/trtr.1225.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] [Google Scholar]) to integrate iPads into literacy instruction. Analysis revealed two findings related to using the TIPC to plan instruction: (a) Though the TIPC provides a structured approach to planning that guides teachers in using their Technological, Pedagogical, and Content Knowledge (TPACK), the preservice teachers still used a technocentric approach to planning instruction and did not fully engage in all elements of the planning cycle; (2) even with the structured planning approach, preservice teachers had difficulty aligning their lesson content with the instructional goals of the lesson; and (3) preservice teachers rely on recommendations from their university classes when selecting apps to use in instruction, rather than independently seeking out resources. The implications of this research suggest the need to support preservice teachers in developing a professional learning network; the importance of a structured approach to planning technology integration to support preservice teachers; and considerations for helping preservice teachers develop their TPACK. (Keywords: Common Core State Standards, digital technology, instructional planning, TPACK, technology integration)     

Connecting Past to Future Needs: Nursing Faculty and Librarian Collaboration to Support Students’ Academic Success

The article illustrates the evolution of a research assignment in an undergraduate nursing course and the development of the information literacy session. The authors show how, through a variety of strategies, they were able to retain research and writing rigor and at the same time, decrease research stress in the students. Through feedback from students, observations, and analysis of the research articles, the authors were able to think critically on how and what to teach the students. The article supports the existing literature on research stress in nursing students and offers a model on how nursing faculty and librarians can collaborate to support students’ academic success.