On Misfits and Margins: Narrative,Resistance, and the Poster Child Politics of Rosie O'Donnell

This essay addresses why Rosie O'Donnell's “coming out” as a lesbian, as a gay parent, and as an advocate for gay adoption generated such little and lukewarm response, arguing that O'Donnell's lesbianism was rationalized in the public discourse by powerful preexisting narratives that constructed her as both maternal and childlike. These narratives converged with the narrative alterity of O'Donnell's homosexuality in such a way as to sharpen and strengthen established heteronormative discursive margins. The O'Donnell case contributes to an understanding of how dominant narratives negotiate competing narratives of resistance and offers an opportunity to examine mediated representations of “coming out.”     

THE IMAGE OF PUBLIC OPINION SURVEYS IN BRITAIN AND FRANCE

This paper examines the results of studies in Britain and Franceon the views of the two peoples towards public opinion surveys: — their experience of surveys — attitudes towards the concept of sample surveys — the accuracy of sample surveys — the publication of polls during election campaigns — exposure to news information — interest in survey data The results in the two countries were, to a substantial degree,similar and showed an underlying positive attitude towards publicopinion surveys. There are, however, a number of points to bearin mind, where more public relations and more public informationis required to improve public awareness of, and public acceptanceof, opinion surveys.     

Microfluidic concentration of bacteria by on-chip electrophoresis

In this contribution, we present a system for efficient preconcentration of pathogens without affecting their viability. Development of miniaturized molecular diagnostic kits requires concentration of the sample, molecule extraction, amplification, and detection. In consequence of low analyte concentrations in real-world samples, preconcentration is a critical step within this workflow. Bacteria and viruses exhibit a negative surface charge and thus can be electrophoretically captured from a continuous flow. The concept of phaseguides was applied to define gel membranes, which enable effective and reversible collection of the target species. E. coli of the strains XL1-blue and K12 were used to evaluate the performance of the device. By suppression of the electroosmotic flow both strains were captured with efficiencies of up to 99%. At a continuous flow of 15 μl/min concentration factors of 50.17 ± 2.23 and 47.36 ± 1.72 were achieved in less than 27 min for XL1-blue and K12, respectively. These results indicate that free flow electrophoresis enables efficient concentration of bacteria and the presented device can contribute to rapid analyses of swab-derived samples.     

A blended learning approach for teaching computer programming: design for large classes in Sub-Saharan Africa

The challenge of teaching programming in higher education is complicated by problems associated with large class teaching, a prevalent situation in many developing countries. This paper reports on an investigation into the use of a blended learning approach to teaching and learning of programming in a class of more than 200 students. A course and learning environment was designed by integrating constructivist learning models of Constructive Alignment, Conversational Framework and the Three-Stage Learning Model. Design science research is used for the course redesign and development of the learning environment, and action research is integrated to undertake participatory evaluation of the intervention. The action research involved the Students’ Approach to Learning survey, a comparative analysis of students’ performance, and qualitative data analysis of data gathered from various sources. The paper makes a theoretical contribution in presenting a design of a blended learning solution for large class teaching of programming grounded in constructivist learning theory and use of free and open source technologies.     

Conversations with Five Highly Successful Female Educational Psychologists: Patricia Alexander,Carol Dweck,Jacquelynne Eccles,Mareike Kunter,and Tamara van Gog

Educational Psychology Review - Previous studies have investigated the characteristics, influencing factors, and working strategies of highly successful educational psychologists. These studies,...     

Configuring the teacher as data user: public-private sector mediations of national test data

ABSTRACT

Datafication of student learning has carved out an influential space for public and private actors who design technologies for visualizing data. As data visualizations shape how teachers’ interpret data, they are powerful devices. This paper examines how teachers get configured as data users in the making of Danish national test data visualizations for municipal primary and lower secondary schools. The paper is based on a qualitative study of the Danish Ministry of Education, which develops the official visualizations, and NordicMetrics, a private consultancy offering a supplementing visualization of student progression. We draw on science and technology studies (STS) to theorize techno-organizational dynamics of developing visualizations. We propose to understand data visualizations as contingent, situated and socio-material achievements that configure teacher as data users. Comparing two institutions’ respective negotiations of different concerns when developing data visualizations enables us to consider the otherwise ‘hidden’ data mediators and the entwined relations between public and private data mediators.     

Creating cooperative classrooms: effects of a two‐year staff development program

In this study, the implementation effects of a staff development program on cooperative learning (CL) for Dutch elementary school teachers were studied. A pre‐test–post‐test non‐equivalent control group design was used to investigate program effects on the instructional behaviours of teachers. Based on observations of teacher behaviour during cooperative lessons, a statistically significant treatment effect was found for the following instructional behaviours: structuring positive interdependence, individual accountability, social skills and evaluation of the group process. Training effects were also found for the combination of CL with the model of direct instruction and the activation of prior knowledge of social skills. Moreover, teachers in the experimental group scored statistically significantly higher than the teachers in the control group on the activation of prior academic knowledge.     

Development of decoding,reading comprehension,vocabulary and spelling during the elementary school years

The goal of this study was (1) to investigate the development of decoding(efficiency), reading comprehension, vocabulary and spelling during theelementary school years and (2) to determine the differences between poor,average and good performers with regard to the development of theseskills. Twice each year two standardized tests for each skill wereadministered. For two successive periods, one of the tests for each skill wasthe same. To describe the development in terms of a latent variable evolvingacross grades, the structured-means version of the structural equationmodel was used. The growth was expressed in terms of effect size. Withrespect to the first question, clear seasonal effects were found for readingcomprehension, vocabulary and spelling, while the seasonal effect fordecoding efficiency was restricted to the early grades. Progress tended tobe greater from fall to spring than from spring to fall. For decodingefficiency, and to a lesser degree for vocabulary and spelling, growthshowed a declining trend across grades. For reading comprehension, theprogress in grade 2 was lower than the progress in grade 3, but progresswas declining across higher grades. With respect to the second question,it appeared that initially low performers on reading comprehension,vocabulary and spelling tended to show a greater progress, especially inperiods where the largest amount of instruction was given. Although it wasfound that the low, medium and high ability groups remain in the sameorder, as far as their means are concerned, these findings do not confirmthe existence of a Matthew effect for reading comprehension, vocabularyand spelling. For decoding efficiency no clear differential effect could befound: the gap between the poor and good performers did not widen overtime for this skill.