Teaching Contemporary Physics Topics Using Real-Time Data Obtained via the World Wide Web

As a teaching tool, the World Wide Web (WWW) is unprecedented in its ability to transmit information and enhance communication between scientist and student. Just beginning to be developed are sites that actively engage the user in the learning process and provide hands-on methods of teaching contemporary topics. These topics are often not found in the classroom due to the complexity and expense of the laboratory equipment and the WWW is an ideal tool for overcoming this difficulty. This paper presents a model for using the Internet to teach high school students about plasma physics and fusion energy. Students are given access to real-time data, virtual experiments, and communication with professional scientists via email. Preliminary data indicate that student collaboration and student-led learning is encouraged when using the site in the classroom. Scientist/student mentoring is enhanced with this form of communication.     

The American College Counseling Association: A Historical View

The history of college counseling reflects its multifaceted, dynamic character. Numerous works track the historical development of counseling in higher education (Bragdon, 1929; Farnsworth, 1957; Fitzpatrick, 1968; Heppner& Neal, 1983; Siegel, 1968; Williamson, 1939). Contemporary authors also have analyzed current trends and issues facing the college counseling profession (Dean & Meadows, 1995; Steenbarger, 1990; Stone & Archer, 1990). The American College Counseling Association (ACCA) was created and has developed in the context of both history and recent issues in counseling within higher education settings. This article examines factors contributing to the birth and rapid growth of this successful and growing professional association.     

Prenatal Maternal Stress,Child Cortical Thickness,and Adolescent Depressive Symptoms

Prenatal maternal stress predicts subsequent elevations in youth depressive symptoms, but the neural processes associated with these links are unclear. This study evaluated whether prenatal maternal stress is associated with child brain development, and adolescent depressive symptoms using a prospective design with 74 mother child pairs (40 boys). Maternal stress was assessed during pregnancy, child cortical thickness at age 7, and depressive symptoms at age 12. Prenatal maternal stress was associated with less cortical thickness primarily in frontal and temporal regions and with elevated depressive symptoms; child cortical thickness additionally correlated with adolescent depressive symptoms. The observed associations are consistent with the possibility that cortical thickness in superior frontal regions links associations between prenatal maternal stress and adolescent depressive symptoms.     

Pathways of China's PM2.5 air quality 2015–2060 in the context of carbon neutrality

Clean air policies in China have substantially reduced particulate matter (PM_2.5) air pollution in recent years, primarily by curbing end-of-pipe emissions. However, reaching the level of the World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines may instead depend upon the air quality co-benefits of ambitious climate action. Here, we assess pathways of Chinese PM_2.5 air quality from 2015 to 2060 under a combination of scenarios that link global and Chinese climate mitigation pathways (i.e. global 2°C- and 1.5°C-pathways, National Determined Contributions (NDC) pledges and carbon neutrality goals) to local clean air policies. We find that China can achieve both its near-term climate goals (peak emissions) and PM_2.5 air quality annual standard (35 μg/m³) by 2030 by fulfilling its NDC pledges and continuing air pollution control policies. However, the benefits of end-of-pipe control reductions are mostly exhausted by 2030, and reducing PM_2.5 exposure of the majority of the Chinese population to below 10 μg/m³ by 2060 will likely require more ambitious climate mitigation efforts such as China''s carbon neutrality goals and global 1.5°C-pathways. Our results thus highlight that China''s carbon neutrality goals will play a critical role in reducing air pollution exposure to the level of the WHO guidelines and protecting public health.     

Choices for studying choice: Assessing charter school effectiveness using two quasi-experimental methods

Two quasi-experimental methods – fixed effects (FE) and virtual control records (VCR) – were used to measure charter schooling in 14 states and two districts. The new VCR method uses all available observable charter student characteristics and prior performance to create a composite comparison record. A head-to-head comparison of the FE and VCR methods used the same charter students to test the FE control (e.g., the charter student's own traditional public school experience) and the VCR for equivalence. The comparison produced highly similar estimates; charter coefficients were identical in sign and significance and of the same general magnitudes. In an analysis of the sampling fractions included in each method using all available tested charter students, the VCR method was found to produce more generalizable results. In the policy analysis, charter school quality was found to be demographically and geographically uneven with only 19 percent of charter schools outperforming their local markets.     

Investigating teacher learning supports in high school biology curricular programs to inform the design of educative curriculum materials

Reform efforts have emphasized the need to support teachers' learning about reform‐oriented practices. Educative curriculum materials are one potential vehicle for promoting teacher learning about these practices. Educative curriculum materials include supports that are intended to promote both student and teacher learning. However, little is known about the extent to which existing curriculum materials provide support for teachers and the ways they can be improved. In this study, eight sets of high school biology curriculum materials were reviewed to determine their potential for promoting teacher learning. Design heuristics for educative curriculum materials were adapted for use as evaluation criteria. From this analysis, several themes emerged. First, the materials tended to provide support for teachers' subject matter knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge for students' ideas (e.g., misconceptions) but rarely for their pedagogical content knowledge of scientific inquiry. Second, the materials contained several implementation guidance supports but far fewer rationales for instructional decisions, which are an important feature of educative curriculum materials. Finally, the quality of support varied widely, differing in its degree of relevance, pedagogical helpfulness, and depth. The article concludes with recommendations for the redesign of existing curriculum materials. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 46: 977–998, 2009     

Comparing deaf and hearing college students' mental arithmetic calculations under two interference conditions

Deaf and hearing college students' mean reaction times (RTs) were compared on a mental calculation task in which they had to verify the accuracy of solutions to addition and multiplication problems. The deaf students were divided into higher and lower readers. Higher deaf readers and hearing students had similar RTs and accuracy on addition problems; their RTs were greater in the voicing interference mode than in the manual tapping interference mode. The lower deaf readers showed no RT differences between the two interference modes and had consistently lower RT performance and score accuracy across the verification tasks. On the verification task for multiplication problems, all participants showed a greater RT effect for manual tapping. The lower deaf readers were significantly less accurate on multiplication problems.