Are two years better than one year? A propensity score analysis of the impact of Head Start program duration on children's school performance in kindergarten

Using data from a nationally representative sample, this study examined Head Start children's school outcome differences by the end of Kindergarten between children who attended Head Start program for two years and the ones who attended for one year. Propensity scores were used to match children who experienced different durations of the program on a series of demographic characteristics in order to achieve a precise estimation of the effects of program duration. The results showed that in comparison to a demographically comparable group of children who attended the Head Start program for one year, the children who experienced two years of intervention services had statistically significantly higher performance on all six academic and social outcome measures by the end of Kindergarten, which included PPVT, Woodcock–Johnson Reading Skills, Woodcock–Johnson Math Reasoning Skills, teacher-reported composite academic skills, preschool learning behaviors, and social skills. Policy and practice implications are discussed.     

Pond life that ‘know their place’: exploring teaching and learning support assistants’ experiences through positioning theory

Teaching and learning support assistants (TLSAs) are notoriously underpaid and undervalued as members of school workforces in England and elsewhere in the world, where the discourse of support has worked to legitimize their poor status. This article reports and explores empirical findings through the lens of positioning theory. This theoretical approach has revealed ways in which the positions occupied by TLSAs are consolidated in social acts and discursive practices that contribute to a narrative that is shared and understood by those positioned and those positioning. The multiplicity of, and sometimes competing, positions occupied by TLSAs are revealed through different readings of the collective storylines of pond life and knowing one’s place that determine a set of social and occupational practices. These serve to illustrate the discursive fights TLSAs were engaged in to assert their professionalism in schools and to challenge their low status.     

MEMORY FOR PICTORIAL INFORMATION AND THE PICTURE SUPERIORITY EFFECT

This research compared the performance of younger (mean age — 20.7 years) and older (mean age–68.3 years) adults on a memory task that involved pictures, words, and pictures‐plus‐words as stimuli. The results, consistent with previous research, indicated an equivalent picture superiority effect for both young and old adults when pictures were compared to words. More specifically, although recall scores were significantly higher for younger adults compared to older adults, the superior recall scores for pictures versus words did not differ between the age groups. However, the performance of older adults declined markedly, compared to the younger adults, in the picture‐plus‐word condition. These findings are interpreted as providing support for a divided attention model, which involves effortful processing of both visual and verbal aspects of stimuli. This situation of divided attention appears to put older adults at a relative disadvantage compared to young adults.     

Stepping out of our comfort zones: pre-service teachers' responses to a critical analysis of gender/power relations in sexuality education

This paper discusses pre-service teachers' responses to a critical analysis of gender/power relations using examples from a final assessment for an intensive elective unit called Teaching Sexuality in the Middle Years. This unit critically examines gender/ power relations, the production of difference, heteronormativity and pleasure and desire, employing a feminist post-structural framework. Despite the focus on critical thinking, reflection and interrogating structural inequalities in this unit some students were resistant or unable to engage with this approach in their assessments, although appearing to do so in workshops. We consider the broad range of sexuality education discourses mobilised by this unit to try to make sense of what looks like resistance but may be something more complex and difficult to negotiate. The paper ends with a consideration of some of the implications of this approach for practice.     

Elaborated metaphors support viable inferences about difficult science concepts

Instructional metaphors scaffold learning better when accompanied by an elaboration. Applying structure mapping theory, we developed and used an elaborated instructional metaphor (text and illustrations) for introductory chemistry concepts. In two studies (N ₁ = 44, N ₂ = 57), college students with little chemistry background read either the elaborated metaphor, sub‐concept metaphor statements (e.g. an atom is like a tile) only or (Study 2) sub‐concept labels (e.g. atom) only. When asked to write what they knew about the sub‐concept, those in the elaborated metaphor condition wrote more sophisticated domain inferences than those in the other condition(s), p < .05. The elaborated metaphor helped participants construct accurate pre‐conceptual mental models that could prepare them for future learning (i.e. acquisition of new knowledge). The results also suggested that acquisition of high‐level concepts may require active learner transactions with the analogue, as can be had in interactive instructional game worlds.     

Celebrating the achievements of sex and relationship peer educators: the development of an assessment process

Young people engaged as peer educators are increasingly important in sex and relationship education (SRE) programmes in a variety of settings and are particularly valued in the APAUSE programme (Rees et al., 1997 Rees JB Mellanby AR Tripp JH (1997) Peer‐led education in the classroom (APAUSE), a collaborative intervention between education, health and young people in: J. Coleman & D. Roker (Eds) Teenage sexuality: risk, health and education (London, Harwood Academic) 137 164  [Google Scholar]). The increase in popularity of peer education raises a need to value the inputs of young people and to give formal recognition to peers. An assessment process focusing on aspects of performance including communication, teamwork and relationships skills has been developed to assess volunteer peer educators on the APAUSE programme that aims to reconcile the typical tension in assessment of showing public recognition of competence and the ability to motivate learners. This paper reports initial findings from a pilot of this assessment process in 28 schools, involving 484 peer educators across England. Initial data suggest this has been extremely well received by teachers and peers. Experience of the process provides teachers with a method of feedback, which, by sharing the language of assessment with peers, enables the young people to be clearer about their tasks, making them more effective as peers and better able to articulate their experiences. These data are used to describe the contributions that an assessment process, focused on assessing performance in authentic situations, can make to SRE.     

The cranial nerve skywalk: A 3D tutorial of cranial nerves in a virtual platform

Visualization of the complex courses of the cranial nerves by students in the health‐related professions is challenging through either diagrams in books or plastic models in the gross laboratory. Furthermore, dissection of the cranial nerves in the gross laboratory is an extremely meticulous task. Teaching and learning the cranial nerve pathways is difficult using two‐dimensional (2D) illustrations alone. Three‐dimensional (3D) models aid the teacher in describing intricate and complex anatomical structures and help students visualize them. The study of the cranial nerves can be supplemented with 3D, which permits the students to fully visualize their distribution within the craniofacial complex. This article describes the construction and usage of a virtual anatomy platform in Second Life?, which contains 3D models of the cranial nerves III, V, VII, and IX. The Cranial Nerve Skywalk features select cranial nerves and the associated autonomic pathways in an immersive online environment. This teaching supplement was introduced to groups of pre‐healthcare professional students in gross anatomy courses at both institutions and student feedback is included. Anat Sci Educ 7: 469–478. © 2014 American Association of Anatomists.     

The development of a mentoring program for university undergraduate women

The Women's Center at a university in the United States implemented a mentoring program based on feminist and networking models to improve the educational climate for female undergraduate students. Due to a lack of literature detailing how to develop such a program, an interdisciplinary team of researchers collaborated with the Women's Center to address program development and implementation, including how to institutionalize the program, effective recruitment and retention strategies, how to facilitate formation of mentor relationships and strategies for maintaining those relationships, appropriate interventions and monitoring, and how to ensure that the program met mentees' needs. Among the findings are that success depends on a full‐time and dedicated coordinator, appropriate matching of mentors and mentees, and emphasis during training on continuing communication between mentors and mentees to reassess mentee needs.     

Mentoring expectations and realities: an analysis of metaphorical thinking among female undergraduate protegés and their mentors in a university mentoring programme

This article describes the differences between mentors’ and protégés’ expectations and realities regarding mentoring relationships and goals. Faculty and senior undergraduate mentors and female undergraduate protegés who participated in a formal, university mentoring programme at the University of Idaho, organised by the institution’s Women’s Centre, were asked to describe their ideal and actual mentoring relationship through metaphor; the responses were analysed qualitatively to explore protégés’ and mentors’ expectations and experiences. Results indicate that protégés held more traditional and hierarchical mentoring ideals at the beginning of the programme and that most mentoring ideals differed from actual experiences. Given this disparity and because metaphorical processes have the capacity to enhance mentoring experiences due to their generative and expansive capacities, we suggest that metaphors be employed in explicit ways to align expectations and realities between mentors’ and protégés’ expectations through shared reflection. We conclude with metaphorical exercises that can be used in formal mentoring programmes in higher education to help participants negotiate expectations and help organise relationships in ways that are aligned with the mission and goals of particular mentoring programmes.