THE LEADERSHIP INSTITUTE FOR A NEW CENTURY: LINCING WOMEN AND MINORITIES INTO TOMORROW'S COMMUNITY COLLEGE LEADERSHIP ROLES

The Iowa Association of Community College Trustees, the Iowa Association of Community College Presidents, and Iowa State University Higher Education Program created a partnership to develop women and minorities for leadership roles in community colleges. The Leadership Institute for a New Century (LINC) program, which is in its eleventh year, uses a combination of national and state community college leaders, community leaders, trustees, and university faculty members to offer personal and professional development activities for participants. University credit that may be used as part of an academic degree program and for state licensure purposes is granted. Participants are nominated by their college; participate in monthly seminars; and complete projects related to local, state, and national issues. Nearly 70% of participants reported receiving a leadership promotion or advancement during or since their acceptance into the LINC program. The majority indicated that the program was very influential in their advancement. With the predicted impending administrator shortage, more cooperative leadership development programs need to be developed. The future of our community college system depends on the development of leadership opportunities and an infusion of leadership.     

Research in interactive technologies at the Children's Television Workshop

This article presents a model for integrating research into the software design process, based on the experience of the Interactive Technologies Division of the Children's Television Workshop. The model has three components: (a) using existing research literature to inform initial design decisions and suggest possible issues to be tested during the development of prototype products, (b) conducting in-house basic research studies to provide information unavailable in the published literature, and (c) conducting formative research studies on products in development to assess their usability and to ensure their effectiveness as learning tools. Issues in interpreting published studies are considered, and insights from the results of basic and formative studies conducted by the Interactive Technologies Division are also reviewed.He attended Cornell and received his Ph.D. from Rutgers University in developmental psychology and research design in 1988.She holds a Ph.D. in developmental psychology from the University of Michigan and has been researching and producing software at CTW for seven years.     

Using Interactive Journal Writing as a Strategy for Professional Growth

In recent years journal writing as a tool for reflective practice has gained prominence in teacher education programs. This paper reports the investigation of journal writing as a means for student teachers and university to better understand the process of learning to teach. The aims of the study were to examine how journals are used; to explore what students learn and what university teachers learn; and to identify which strategies work best. Survey and interview data were collected from the student authors of the journals. Analysis of the data contributed to our understanding of the process of interactive journal writing and the strategies we used as university teachers. Students used the journals in a number of ways. They used the journals to get direction on practice and planning, as a tool for analysis, as an emotion release, and as a way of 'sorting things out'. Students identified a number of strategies used by the university teachers as journal respondents which contributed to students' learning about teaching. This research focused our attention on interactive journal writing as a strategy that has the potential to promote reflective practice.     

Integrating marriage education into perinatal education

Couples making the transition to parenthood experience challenges that can threaten the quality and stability of their relationships and the health of family members. Currently, the educational infrastructure to support the delivery of couple-relationship education during the transition to parenthood is limited. Because new-parent couples interact with the health care system at many points during this transition time, an opportunity exists for strengthening couple relationships within the system to improve the well-being of adults and children. In this article, we propose a productive collaboration between marriage/couple educators and health care systems to integrate couple-relationship education into the standard of perinatal care.     

Choice of operation in verbal problems with decimal numbers

This article examines the conceptual problems that children experience when attempting to solve verbal problems which contain decimal numbers. After discussing the existing research, we then describe an experiment that was designed in three phases:

1. Exploratory interviews to discover existing conceptions and difficulties and to discover how pupils made use of diagrams, simpler numbers, and strategies. These interviews exposed difficulties with the understanding of place value, the effect of multiplying and dividing by a positive number less than one, the symbolisms of division and its noncommutative nature, the units associated with the numbers and also with familiar names for the operations. The three strategies were all found to be unfamiliar to pupils and their difficulties are discussed.
2. The design and administration of a diagnostic test, based on the results of these interviews, to a class of less able 14 year olds.
3. The preparation and use of calculator enriched teaching materials designed to remedy the identified misconceptions. From the pre- and post-test results we note the dramatic success of the teaching in improving pupils' understanding of place value, although there is a more modest improvement in enabling pupils to choose the correct operation by drawing diagrams, using easier numbers and estimating.

     

A Visual Search Tool for Early Elementary Science Students

Journal of Science Education and Technology - This paper reports on the development of a visual search interface (called “SearchKids”) to support children ages 5–10 years in their...