Research Schools: Grounding Research in Educational Practice

ABSTRACT— Education lacks a strong infrastructure for connecting research with educational practice and policy. The need for this linkage grows as findings in cognitive science and biology become ever more relevant to education. Teachers often lack the background knowledge needed to interpret scientific results, whereas scientists often lack an understanding of pedagogical goals. We need to build an infrastructure that supports sustainable collaboration between researchers and teachers and creates a strong research foundation for education. A primary agent of the lasting collaboration between researchers and practitioners in medicine is the teaching hospital, where researchers and practitioners work together on research that is relevant to practice and the training of young professionals. Education needs analogous institutions—research schools—that join researchers and teachers in living, community‐based schools. In these schools, practice shapes research as much as research informs practice. Research schools will provide a fundamental infrastructure for linking transdisciplinary research on learning with educational policy and practice.     

Teleconsultation: Application to Provision of Consultation Services for School Consultants

ABSTRACT

In this article, we provide critical information on previous research and offer recommendations for establishing and implementing teleconsultation services within a school setting. Specifically, we review (a) the history behind teleconsultation, (b) previous applications of technology and teleconsultation within the school setting, (c) recommended equipment for completing teleconsultation, (d) previously identified benefits of using teleconsultation, (e) previously identified concerns regarding the use of teleconsultation, and (f) the best practices for providing teleconsultation services. Important considerations from current research in the area of teleconsultation are highlighted.     

A Sense of Place: London in contemporary women's writing

Traditional literary images of London posit a male space, yet the city also allows women to step beyond the gendered norms of their times. For contemporary women writers, London typography becomes a backdrop on to which they project their investigations of female creativity, identity and connection. The work of Buchi Emecheta, Beryl Gilroy, Gilda O'Neill and Sarah Waters shows that urban space is not only gendered, but that it is also racialised and sexualised and that class differentiation underscores the urban experience. For these authors, exploring different parts of the city becomes a metaphor for trying on multiple selves, and London comes to represent freedom and possibility despite the obstacles.     

Adapting to large-scale changes in Advanced Placement Biology,Chemistry, and Physics: the impact of online teacher communities

Over the past decade, the field of teacher professional learning has coalesced around core characteristics of high quality professional development experiences (e.g. Borko, Jacobs, & Koellner, 2010. Contemporary approaches to teacher professional development. In P. L. Peterson, E. Baker, & B. McGaw (Eds.), International encyclopedia of education (Vol. 7, pp. 548–556). Oxford: Elsevier.; Darling-Hammond, Hyler, & Gardner, 2017. Effective teacher professional development. Palo Alto, CA: Learning Policy Institute). Many countries have found these advances of great interest because of a desire to build teacher capacity in science education and across the full curriculum. This paper continues this progress by examining the role and impact of an online professional development community within the top-down, large-scale curriculum and assessment revision of Advanced Placement (AP) Biology, Chemistry, and Physics. This paper is part of a five-year, longitudinal, U.S. National Science Foundation–funded project to study the relative effectiveness of various types of professional development in enabling teachers to adapt to the revised AP course goals and exams. Of the many forms of professional development our research has examined, preliminary analyses indicated that participation in the College Board's online AP Teacher Community (APTC) – where teachers can discuss teaching strategies, share resources, and connect with each other – had positive, direct, and statistically significant association with teacher self-reported shifts in practice and with gains in student AP scores (Fishman et al., 2014). This study explored how usage of the online APTC might be useful to teachers and examined a more robust estimate of these effects. Findings from the experience of AP teachers may be valuable in supporting other large-scale curriculum changes, such as the U.S. Next Generation Science Standards or Common Core Standards, as well as parallel curricular shifts in other countries.     

School achievement differences among Chinese and Filipino American students: acculturation and the family

The general belief that Asian American adolescents are successful has led researchers to ignore variations in Asian adolescents’ academic success. Using samples of Chinese and Filipino adolescents drawn from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, this study examined whether differences between these two groups in acculturation, parent–adolescent attachment, and parental school involvement could account for academic achievement differences. Results revealed that Chinese adolescents generally performed better in school than their Filipino counterparts. Factors that predicted academic achievement were ethnicity, acculturation, and parents’ academic involvement. An interaction was found between ethnicity and acculturation, indicating that acculturation is a predictor of academic performance among Filipino youth but not among Chinese youth. Cultural values in parent–adolescent attachment, acculturation, and parents’ school involvement are discussed.     

Characteristics that contribute to effective simultaneous communication.

Simultaneous communication (SC) is commonly used in deaf education. Since it is not always totally successful, it is important to determine what characteristics influence its success. In an earlier study, Stinson, Newell, Castle, Mallery-Ruganis, and Holcomb (1989) identified a number of characteristics deemed important for comprehension, based on interviews with deaf professionals. Our study followed up on the earlier study. Three videotapes used in the previous study were independently measured and evaluated on the basis of the characteristics that had been identified as important. Our study largely confirmed the previous findings. What seemed to contribute most to successful SC were clear lip movement, fingerspelled support for potentially ambiguous signs, eye contact, communication of mood and attitude, modality match, and grammatical facial expression. Equally important was the need to match the semantically appropriate sign to the particular sense of an English word rather than use a superficial one-to-one correspondence. In addition, the results suggest that with deletions, the types rather than the number are crucial in determining comprehension and comfort. It was also found that the perception of pace does not always match actual pace and that the perception of pace can be influenced by other factors.     

The biomechanical structure of swim start performance

The aim of this study was to analyse the significance of various biomechanical parameters in swim start performance for the grab and track start techniques. To do so, structural equation models were analysed, incorporating measurements for the take-off phase, flight phase and entry phase. Forty-six elite German swimmers (18 female and 28 male; age: 20.1 ± 4.2 yrs; PB (100 m Freestyle): 53.6 ± 2.9 s) participated in the study. Their swim start performance was examined within a 25-m sprint test. Structural equation modelling was conducted in separate models for the block time, flight time and water time and in a combined model for swim start time. Our main finding was that swim start time is predominantly related to water time and determined to a lesser extent by block time and flight time. We conclude that more emphasis should be given to the water immersion behaviour and the gliding phase when analysing swim start performance. Furthermore, significant differences were found between the grab start and track techniques as regards the biomechanical parameters representing the take-off phase and water phase.     

A Room of Our Own: Rodinsky,Street Haunting and the Creative Mind

Drawing on Virginia Woolf's 'Street Haunting', Rachel Lichtenstein and Iain Sinclair's Rodinsky's Room and on autobiography, this essay explores place, memory and artistic vision. Just as a room of her own provided Woolf with the solitude necessary to write, rambling through the streets of London fed her imagination. In Rodinsky's Room , Rachel Lichtenstein and Iain Sinclair explore both these creative spaces. Their book gives testimony to the creative mind and to the role that memory, history and place play in creating story, mythology and identity. The author also discusses her personal and family history in relation to place.