Developing an Online Support Community for Pre-service Teachers at East Carolina University

This article discusses the planning and initial research behind the design of an online support community for pre-service teachers. This community is initially being designed to support pre-service teachers with their technology integration efforts during their student teaching experiences, but may also grow to serve special teaching cohorts in high need areas of eastern North Carolina. Included is a presentation of pre-service teacher usability preferences and desired functionality.     

Serving the preschool gifted child: Programming and resources

Highlighting the unique educational needs of gifted and high ability preschoolers, this article guides the reader to consider the characteristics of young gifted children along with appropriate assessment practices in planning educational programming. A triarchic approach to programs and services for gifted preschoolers is outlined with major emphases on an integrated curriculum, ongoing evaluation, and parental involvement. Specific strategies including internet resources are described to guide practitioners in providing optimal learning environments for this distinctive student population.     

The Officers of The Association,for 1906

Catherine Beebe has written numerous short stories and articles and fifteen books for Catholic children. She is a library consultant to Catholic schools and is a member of the Gallery of Living Catholic Authors.

(Copyright in this article is held by Catherine Beebe)     

Using cognitive science to assign test weights

This article attempts to develop an objective method for assigning weights to questions on examinations. Departing from the statistical discrimination approach of classical test theory, we use a domain-dependent approach. Our method is developed using cognitive science. Previously formulated methods of task analysis are used to break up a domain into segments that are independent pieces of knowledge. A Pareto distribution is used to assign relative weights. This distribution is selected simply because it is ubiquitous in the social sciences. Word frequency rankings, business firm sizes and ranking scientists by number of publications are all distributions that are skewed, or Pareto distributions. Optimistically, we are hoping that ranking knowledge elements by importance will follow the same distribution.     

Development of moral reasoning in situational and cultural contexts

ABSTRACT

This article examines relationships between children and youths’ judgments and their justifications of truth telling and verbal deception, in situational and cultural contexts. Han Chinese, Euro-Canadians and Chinese-Canadians, seven- to 17-years of age were presented competitive scenarios in which protagonists told either lies to protect, or truths to harm, various levels of collectivity. Participants evaluated protagonists’ statements, using a 7-point scale, and justified their judgments. Cultural variations in moral evaluations emerged among the three groups of participants. Older Chinese participants reflected significant collective cultural values in their judgements; by contrast, Euro-Canadians identified more individualistically; and Chinese-Canadians demonstrated notable variability between these perspectives in their judgments. The article enhances understanding of situational and cultural sources in the development of moral reasoning within a sociocultural framework.     

Building a game-enhanced formative assessment to gather evidence about middle school students’ argumentation skills

Educational technology research and development - In this paper, we describe an effort to develop and evaluate an innovative formative assessment to gather evidence about middle school...     

云端上的梦

俗话说,志当存高远——那么,渴望翱翔天际、腾云驾雾的梦想,着实够高够远了吧?头脑简单的我,也曾像许多人一样,对那群以飞来飞去为职业的人充满好奇和惊叹。仰视——正如我们需要抬起头来看在空中变得如绿豆般大小的飞机一样。你看啊,这帮人,人不傻,钱又多,而且都是帅哥美女,简直把世上的好处都占去了,能不招人羡慕妒忌恨吗?