Teacher retention in Appalachian schools: Evidence from Kentucky

In this paper we analyze teacher attrition from Appalachian school districts over nearly twenty years of data. We employ a unique panel of public K-12 teachers active in Kentucky between 1986 and 2005, and discern several patterns of interest to scholars and policymakers. Inter-district mobility is rare in Kentucky, and rarer still among Appalachian teachers. Few teachers transfer between regions, but teachers are considerably more likely to leave Appalachia than to transfer to it. Our results also indicate that Appalachian teachers are more likely to exit the profession. One implication of this evidence is that improvements to teacher quality in such isolated areas would require a focus on the home labor pool.     

Support for distance learners in a Nigerian distance education programme

This paper reports on a research study that draws on the perceptions of students, tutors, field centre coordinators and central management to evaluate the support services provided to students in the National Teachers’ Institute’s distance teacher training programme. Within a conceptual framework that built upon models of teaching and learning at_A_distance, both quantitative and qualitative approaches were used for data collection and analysis. Although the major forms of support provided were found to be relevant to students, the study highlights the need to improve the current level of student satisfaction by strategies that will improve the supply of course materials and tutorial support, enhance students networking and exploit the use of multimedia.     

Design and Reflection Help Students Develop Scientific Abilities: Learning in Introductory Physics Laboratories

Design activities, when embedded in an inquiry cycle and appropriately scaffolded and supplemented with reflection, can promote the development of the habits of mind (scientific abilities) that are an important part of scientific practice. Through the Investigative Science Learning Environment (ISLE), students construct physics knowledge by engaging in inquiry cycles that replicate the approach used by physicists to construct knowledge. A significant portion of student learning occurs in ISLE instructional labs where students design their own experiments. The labs provide an environment for cognitive apprenticeship enhanced by formative assessment. As a result, students develop interpretive knowing that helps them approach new problems as scientists. This article describes a classroom study in which the students in the ISLE design lab performed equally well on traditional exams as ISLE students who did not engage in design activities. However, the design group significantly outperformed the non-design group while working on novel experimental tasks (in physics and biology), demonstrating the application of scientific abilities to an inquiry task in a novel content domain. This research shows that a learning environment that integrates cognitive apprenticeship and formative assessment in a series of conceptual design tasks provides a rich context for helping students build scientific habits of mind.     

Home schooling

Conclusion Variation in the way persons receive their education is an evolving process. Cooperation and collaboration proves to be the most effective means of making this change effective and valuable. Examine the world around you and consider how the education of every child stems from the need to flourish and grow. Just as a flower needs nourishment, sun, and water, so a child needs stimulation, security, love, and encouragement to fluorish at home or at school.     

Investigating the Impact of NGSS-Aligned Professional Development on PreK-3 Teachers’ Science Content Knowledge and Pedagogy

This pilot study investigates the impact of a 2-week professional development Summer Institute on PK-3 teachers’ knowledge and practices. This Summer Institute is a component of [program], a large-scale early-childhood science project that aims to transform PK-3 science teaching. The mixed-methods study examined concept maps, lesson plans, and classroom observations to measure possible changes in PK-3 teachers’ science content knowledge and classroom practice from 11 teachers who attended the 2014 Summer Institute. Analysis of the concept maps demonstrated statistically significant growth in teachers’ science content knowledge. Analysis of teachers’ lesson plans demonstrated that the teachers could design high quality science inquiry lessons aligned to the Next Generation Science Standards following the professional development. Finally, examination of teachers’ pre- and post-Summer Institute videotaped inquiry lessons showed evidence that teachers were incorporating new inquiry practices into their teaching, especially regarding classroom discourse. Our results suggest that an immersive inquiry experience is effective at beginning a shift towards reform-aligned science and engineering instruction but that early elementary educators require additional support for full mastery.     

Massed and spaced training build up different components of long-term habituation in the crabChasmagnathus

The crabChasmagnathus granulatus reacts to a shadow passing overhead with an escape response that habituates after 30 trials and for 5 days at least. The effect of a wide range of different intertrial intervals (ITIs) (0, 9, 27, 45, 81, 135, and 171 sec) on theChasmagnathus long-term habituation (LTH) was evaluated at 24 h. Memory retention was estimated separately at two phases of a six-trial testing session: at first trial (the initial testing phase) and at the subsequent block of five trials (the retraining phase). A training of 30 trials with an ITI equal to or longer than 27 sec induced LTH at both testing phases, however, with a 0- or a 9-sec ITI, training wholly failed to build up LTH. When the number of trials was increased, a massed training (ITI=0 or 9 sec) induced LTH at retraining but not at initial testing. Thus, massed training produces LTH only at retraining, whereas spaced training (ITI ≥ 27 sec) produces LTH at both initial phase and retraining. An ITI shift from training to testing diminished or abolished retention at retraining regardless of the direction of the shift, thus suggesting that crabs acquire a memory of the trial-spacing at training. According to these results, it is postulated that LTH consists of two memory components: one produced by spaced training and expressed at both initial testing and retraining, and one yielded by massed training and expressed only at retraining. The possibility that the two components of LTH were differentially affected by cycloxemide and context shift is discussed.     

Cross-domain effects of achievement goals: social costs and benefits

European Journal of Psychology of Education - In this research, we examined cross-domain effects of achievement goals. In two experimental studies, we manipulated achievement goals and assessed...     

THE SYSTEM OF COORDINATES AS AN OBSTACLE IN UNDERSTANDING THE CONCEPT OF DIMENSION

The concept of dimension, one of the most fundamental ideas in mathematics, is firmly rooted in the basis of the school geometry in such a way that mathematics teachers rarely feel the need to mention anything about it. However, the concept of dimension is far from being fully understood by students, even at the college level. In this paper, we examine whether the Cartesian x-y plane is responsible for student difficulty in estimating the value of the dimension of an object, or is it only students misconceptions about dimension that lead them to a false estimation of the value of the dimension of various objects. A second question discussed in this paper examines whether the system of coordinates acts as an epistemological obstacle or whether it has only a didactical character.