The Impact of a Practice-Teaching Professional Development Model on Teachers’ Inquiry Instruction and Inquiry Efficacy Beliefs

This study examined changes in middle school teachers’ beliefs about inquiry, implementation of inquiry practices, and self-efficacy to teach science through inquiry after participating in a year-long professional development program. The professional development model design was based on Bandura’s (1986) social cognitive theory of learning and literature on effective professional development. Using the Electronic Quality of Inquiry Protocol (EQUIP) before and after the program (Marshall, Smart & Horton, 2010), teachers’ quality of inquiry instruction significantly increased across all 4 EQUIP factors. To assess teachers’ inquiry teaching efficacy, the Teaching Science as Inquiry (TSI; Dira-Smolleck, 2004) instrument was administered 3 times to the teacher participants. Changes between time points of TSI administration were examined for personal self-efficacy and outcome expectancy across 5 essential features of classroom inquiry. Findings for the personal self-efficacy scale showed statistically significant gains from pre-Institute to 1-year follow-up for all 5 inquiry features. Teachers’ outcome expectancy beliefs significantly increased across the program for 3 of the 5 essential features of inquiry. The results indicate the effectiveness of the professional development model at increasing the participants’ inquiry efficacy as well as the quality of their inquiry instruction. Our study provides evidence to support the need to include collaborative practice-teaching and reflection opportunities within professional development models that aim to increase teachers’ use of inquiry-based instructional strategies.     

Curating care-full spaces: doctoral students negotiating study from home

ABSTRACT

This article explores how care and space shape doctoral becoming. We extend previous higher education research that has critically examined the spatial arrangements of postgraduate study to explore how doctoral students negotiate both study from home and care-work responsibilities. The article draws on collaborative autoethnographic texts created by the authors to understand the ways in which care shaped their decisions about study spaces. We identify both exclusions and disadvantage in these accounts, at the same time as we discern wilfulness in the ways the contradictory positions of postgraduate student and caregiver were negotiated. We conclude the article by arguing that educational spaces are involved in the maintenance of academic norms that position care-work as invisible and out-of-place/space. Despite this, the creation of productive home spaces that facilitate both care and doctoral work remain possible.     

Hopes and hazards of transculturalism

Educators of international students are frequently challenged by a clashing diversity of cultures in a global classroom. This study examines the sorts of themes and images that might resonate across nationalities and cultures, and could then be used to ease the way for students and educators in international classes. The analysis indicates that applied themes and images, including babies and children, animals, relationships, sports, life cycles, and self image, may help evoke a positive transcultural resonance that draws on a common base of shared experience. The findings are used to consider instructional applications for more effective learning in international classroom settings, and to identify the hazards of misapplying transcultural tools.     

Efficacy of a blended learning approach to elementary school reading instruction for students who are English Learners

U.S. Department of Education data continually indicate that students who are English Learners (ELs) underperform in reading compared to students who are not English Learners (non-ELs). This study examined whether a personalized, adaptive blended learning approach can support reading development in ELs and non-ELs. There were 442 ELs and 442 non-ELs matched on grade level, beginning-of-year aimsweb tier status, and placement level in the blended learning program (Lexia Reading Core5 ^®). After 1 year, both groups showed significant gains on aimsweb with no differences between groups for kindergarten, and second through fifth grade. In first grade, students who are ELs outperformed students who are non-ELs. For students who continued the blended learning program for 2 years, ELs and non-ELs showed similar changes in aimsweb tier status. Notable reduction in the percentage of students identified as at-risk for reading failure was found in both the EL and non-EL groups.     

Early dental journalism: a mirror of the development of dentistry as a profession

The rise of dentistry from a mechanical trade to a profession has often been attributed to the so-called "triumvirate" of organization, education, and journal literature. This essay focuses on one part of the triumvirate, examining the role of journals in the growth of dentistry as a profession, from the appearance of the first journal in 1839 to the publication of the Index to Dental Literature in 1921. Rather than discussing the history of individual titles, it identifies some of the broader issues and problems that confronted early dental journalism. The evolution of dental journals from trade house publications to independent scientific literature mirrored the movement toward professional status in dentistry during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.     

You've got mail: hospital postcards as a reflection of health care in the early twentieth century.

PURPOSE: The author shows that not only can the illustrations on the front of postcards reveal a considerable amount of information about hospitals in the early twentieth century, but that the messages, addresses, captions, postmarks, and stamps on the back of postcards also offer a valuable glimpse into the lives of ordinary citizens and their interactions with the health care system. METHOD: In addition to a literature review on postcards and their history and use, particularly in the depiction of health care, the author reviews the postcards in her own collection, which includes a variety of hospital postcards from this time period. CONCLUSIONS: Early hospital postcards provide a framework for examining individual elements of postcards and show how postcards can be used as key sources in historical research on health care in the early 1900s.