How does validating activity contribute to the modeling process?

Contemporary scholars describe mathematical modeling as a transformation of a real-world problem to a mathematical problem and back again. This paper treats a critical issue in the modeling process: how modelers determine if the transformation from the real world to mathematics was carried out well. I present an empirically derived typology of validating activities explaining how validating functions to ensure a mathematical model will yield a reasonably accurate prediction. The typology arose from analysis of four engineering undergraduates’ production of 276 instances of validating. The nuances of validating suggest that creating and maintaining relationships between reality and mathematics is more complex than a transformation and that we should afford a more prominent role to validation in the modeling process.     

Auditing for Score Inflation Using Self-Monitoring Assessments: Findings From Three Pilot Studies

Test-based accountability often produces score inflation. Most studies have evaluated inflation by comparing trends on a high-stakes test and a lower stakes audit test. However, Koretz and Beguin (2010) noted weaknesses of audit tests and suggested self-monitoring assessments (SMAs), which incorporate audit items into high-stakes tests. This article reports the first three trials of SMAs, evaluating whether SMAs can detect inflation that had already been documented. The studies were conducted with mathematics tests in three grades. Despite severe conservative biases, the audit component functioned as expected in many of the trials. The difference in performance between nonaudit and audit items was associated with factors that earlier research showed to be related to test preparation and score inflation, such as scoring just below the Proficient cut in the previous year and school poverty. However, a number of null findings underscore the need for additional research into the design of audit items.     

A Professional Development System as a Catalyst for Changing Science Teachers

Journal of Science Teacher Education -     

Suicide Prevention Program on a Diverse College Campus: Examining the Effectiveness of a Peer-to-Peer Model

With the high prevalence of college students experiencing psychological distress, it is becoming increasingly important to provide prevention and early intervention programs in addition to traditional psychological counseling services. This study examined the effectiveness of a suicide prevention program led by peer educators/trainers on a diverse college campus. Twenty-five suicide prevention workshops were conducted with 479 attendees. Preworkshop and postworkshop assessments revealed significant improvements in participants’ knowledge of suicide and resources. Recommendations for campus-wide suicide prevention efforts using diverse peer educators that reflect the students’ demographic and cultural background, recruitment strategies, and utilization of outreach programming in suicide prevention.     

Discourse appropriation and category boundary work: casual teachers in the market

With the increasing casualisation of the teacher labour force, there is little written on the experiences of casual teachers and the challenges they face in brokering professional identities within constantly shifting and uncertain work contexts. Being a category bound casual teacher (a product of category boundary work) is a complex subject position. The aim of this article is to advance our understandings of the identity work inherent in casual relief teachers (CRTs) performativity. Anti-essentialist theories support this exploration of CRT subjectivities and processes of discourse appropriation. Using collective biography methodology as re-storied memory work, this article speaks back to neoliberal politics of casualisation. The stories draw attention to how both experienced practitioners and newly graduated teachers might ‘do’ category boundary work within the complexity of school politics as they navigate the uncertainty of gaining and maintaining employment in the Education market.     

Structural marginalisation,othering and casual relief teacher subjectivities

Produced through market relations of neoliberal managerialism, teacher subjectivities are becoming progressively commodified. With the increasing casualisation of the teaching workforce, the well-being and status of casual relief teachers (CRTs) can be seen as an area of concern, at risk of ‘flexploitation’. More than just a convenient labour pool, CRTs operate on the margins of school communities, a space fraught with a range of issues. In many instances, CRTs experience less job satisfaction; less rapport with students and colleagues and less access to school information, professional development, resources and teaching materials. This article draws on a positioning theory to frame the discursive production of CRT selves within the neoliberal milieu. It offers a detailed analysis of collective biographies that explore narrative formations of casual teaching. Schooling discourse is replete with metaphorical language that frames teacher positioning, and a range of existing metaphors in CRT literature highlight their vulnerability in particular. Rather than offering an analysis that addresses casual teacher performance as a problem to be solved, this article proposes that the relationship between ‘structural marginalisation and the ‘othering’ that CRTs can experience is associated with the politics of market-related performativity.     

Moving Beyond the Lecture: Inspiring Social Justice Engagement through Counter-Story Using Case Study Pedagogy

Abstract

The paper examines participant perceptions of the effectiveness of using case studies with college students (undergraduate – doctoral) to teach social justice and educational equity. Findings indicate that participants who identified with the characters in the cases were able to draw connections between the case and their own personal experiences. They felt the cases broadened their understanding of the topics and increased their sense of empathy and their commitment to principles of social justice.     

Teacher Scaffolding: An Exploration of Exemplary Practice

While computers have increasingly been used in classroom over the last twenty years, their application has often been mundane; being merely used to reinforce existing educational practices rather than as a catalyst for educational innovation. An effective way to bring about change may be to identify instances of best practice and then study associated strategies that may be useful for teachers trying to use computers in new and meaningful ways. This study investigates strategies used by a teacher deemed to be exemplary at using computers and associated technology in her classroom. It involved observing and recording teaching sessions conducted by the teacher. This paper discusses the learning task, the children's progression through the task and the teaching strategies used. In particular, it looks for instances of teacher scaffolding as a strategy for supporting children working with computers.     

Malta's National Curriculum: A critical analysis

Malta has recently introduced a National Minimum Curriculum (NMC) for primary, secondary and post-secondary levels. The authors of this article argue that the NMC, like similar national curricula in Britain, the United States and other countries, is underpinned by a conservative ideology. They criticize the NMC for, among other things, discriminating against women, giving insufficient value to non-European cultures, and promoting a hierarchical form of education that is geared to a capitalist concept of work. They argue that the curriculum, in its present form, cannot serve to promote a genuinely democratic education.

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Zusammenfassung Malta hat vor kurzem ein National Minimum Curriculum (NMC — Nationales Minimum Curriculum) für Schulen der Primar-, Sekundar-und Post-sekundarbildung eingeführt. Die Autoren dieses Artikels argumentieren dahingehend, daß dem NMC, wie ähnlichen nationalen Curricula in Großbritannien, den Vereinigten Staaten und anderen Ländern, eine konservative Ideologie zugrunde liegt. Sie kritisieren das NMC u.a. für eine Diskriminierung der Frauen, eine ungenügende Integration nicht-europäischer Kulturen und die Förderung einer hierarchischen Bildungsform, die in ein kapitalistisches Arbeitskonzept mündet. Sie argumentieren, daß das Curriculum in seiner gegenwärtigen Form der Förderung einer wahrhhaft demokratischen Erziehung nicht dienlich sein kann.

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Résumé Le gouvernement de Malte a récemment instauré un programme minimum national (NMC) pour les cycles primaire, secondaire et universitaire. Les auteurs de l'article objectent que ce programme, comparable à ceux de Grande-Bretagne, des Etats-Unis et d'autres pays, se fonde sur une idéologie conservatrice. Ils dénoncent entre autres la discrimination des femmes, la mise en avant de la culture européenne, et la défense d'une hiérarchie pédagogique orientée vers une conception capitaliste du travail. Ils affirment que ce programme dans sa forme actuelle ne peut constituer le fondement d'une éducation véritablement démocratique.

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Sumario Malta acaba de introducir un Curriculum Mínimo Nacional (NMC) para niveles primarios, secundarios y post-secondarios. Los autores de este artículo sostienen que el NMC, al igual que otros currículos similares de Gran Bretaña, los Estados Unidos y otros países está apuntalado por una ideología conservadora. Entre otras cosas, ellos critican el NMC por discriminar a la mujer, valorar insuficientemente las culturas no europeas y promover una forma de educación jerárquica orientada hacia un concepto de trabajo capitalista. Además, opinan que el currículo en su forma actual no podrá servir para promover una educación genuinamente democrática.