Exploring dynamic assessment as a means of identifying children at risk of developing comprehension difficulties

In this study, the authors explore a newly constructed dynamic assessment (DA) intended to tap inference-making skills that they hypothesize will be predictive of future comprehension performance. The authors administered the test to 100 second-grade children using a dynamic format to consider the concurrent validity of the measure. The dynamic portion of the assessment comprised teaching children to be "reading detectives" by using textual clues to solve what was happening in the story. During the DA children listened to short passages and answered three inferential questions (i.e., one setting, two causal). If children were unable to answer a question, they were reminded what a reading detective would do and given a set of increasingly concrete prompts and clues to orient them to the relevant portion of text until they could answer the question correctly. Results showed that the DA correlated significantly with a standardized measure of reading comprehension and explained a small but significant amount of unique variance in reading comprehension above and beyond vocabulary and word identification skills. In addition, results suggest that DA may be better than the standardized measure of reading comprehension at identifying intraindividual differences in young children's reading abilities.     

Family disruption and academic functioning in urban,black youth

The purpose of this study was to examine from an ecological perspective the relationships between multiple levels of family disruption and children's academic functioning in a sample of 390 urban, Black adolescents at age 14. Subjects in this cohort have been followed longitudinally since before their birth. Data from previous assessments at birth and age 7 years allowed for control of important correlates in this analyses. Examination of this unique sample, using multisource data collection procedures, provides important information about the many family disruptions among urban, low‐income families and the effects of these disruptions on academic outcomes. Results revealed several consistent findings, the most notable of which is that, when parents were married, adolescents demonstrated significantly higher grades, mediated through paternal involvement. Of all variables studied, the role of fathers in the lives of these adolescents was the most influential on academic outcomes. In this unique sample, even variables such as involvement with child protective services were not significantly related to outcomes after important control variables were factored into analyses. Results of this study have important implications for future research and for prevention and intervention efforts in urban, at‐risk samples. Emphasis is made for work in the school context, particularly for school psychologists. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Book reviews

Acting as the mentor for a cohort of post-baccalaureate teacher certification students was a learning experience. Working as interns in an urban middle school over the course of a year, the students learned about the culture of a struggling school, the needs of the young adolescents they were teaching, and what it means to be a teacher in such a school. Not all of their lessons were positive ones, however, as socialization into the culture often prevailed over critique. As a result of reflecting on the year, I saw how I also was socialized by the culture, and guilty of some of the same attitudes myself and my students criticized in the school. My reflections point to some necessary components of the kind of partnerships sought by public schools and universities.     

Student and Police Partnerships: Cultivating Student Success and Community Development

Scholarship on service-learning and experiential learning increasingly demonstrates benefits for student access and success, but evidence is still needed of the impact of these strategies on sustainable development of communities and their infrastructure. This case study examines a university Police and Society course that partners with four police departments to use both experiential learning and service-learning in the form of ride-alongs, simulation trainings, and written and physical examinations, as well as hosting a police–community relations event. Focus groups of students and officers reveal how service-learning and experiential learning build capacity for police–community relations. Orienting students toward officer procedures, requirements, and culture creates a learning opportunity for both students and departments, while police–community relations activities humanize officers and build public understanding and trust.     

LIFESTYLE VARIABLES RELATED TO COMMUNITY COLLEGE ATTENDANCE

This study investigated a set of variables – designated by marketing researchers as psychographic – and their relationship to non‐residential college students' concerns centering around commuting to class. A fourteen item instrument was developed and responded to by 425 students. A factor analysis revealed four factors and the dominant factor was comprised of items such as car security, parking, physical security and traffic. Other factors such as education quality items (i.e, library, faculty) accounted for a small percentage of the variance. A discriminant function analysis of the psycho‐graphic variables compared with six student time‐distance groups did not find differences among the groups by various class attendance times and commuting distances. Research limitations and future research directions are offered.     

The Order of Things: Ethical Foundations for Community College Leaders

This article calls attention to the need for community college leaders to develop a deeper understanding of ethics in preparation for addressing ethical issues that arise in the administration of their institutions. It discusses briefly the nature of ethics and the ethical theories of some modern and postmodern authors. The article is concerned with how students in a doctoral program of study in community college leadership can incorporate ethics into their study of leadership, and it describes briefly the manner in which this is done at Mississippi State University.     

Storytelling Dramas as a Community Building Activity in an Early Childhood Classroom

Healthy social-emotional development is promoted by building a safe, secure and respectful environment in an early childhood setting with positive and consistent relationships among adults, children, and their peers. This study explored storytelling dramas as an opportunity to build community within the context of one early childhood classroom. The study was a qualitative, interpretive analysis of 20 videotaped storytelling drama sessions containing approximately 100 stories told by children in one preschool classroom over a 6-month period. Videotapes of the 20 storytelling sessions were analyzed for patterns and themes that may represent community building within the context of one preschool classroom. Qualitative methods were used to identify themes that emerged from the videotaped data. Triangulation across investigators, time, and methods enhanced trustworthiness of interpretations. Results showed that the storytelling drama activity provided opportunities to promote community building through four emerging themes: (1) individual roles, (2) group membership, (3) inclusion, and (4) relationship building. Storytelling dramas provide teachers with an easy to implement teaching strategy that builds community and aligns with current early childhood education quality standards and child development theory.     

Politics,Identity, and College Protest: Then and Now

Kathryn Lynn Weiland, Amilcar Guzman, and KerryAnn O'Meara explore historical and contemporary student protest movements at three academic institutions and provide suggestions to educators on how to support students (and their learning) through their protest activities.