Ignis Fatuus Effect of Faculty Category: Is the Tenure Versus Non-Tenure Debate Meaningful to Students’ Course Experiences?

The American professoriate is shifting its majority makeup from tenure track to non-tenure track faculty members. Less known, though, is what the implications of this shift are for students’ course experiences. We sought to examine the extent to which the teaching practices, with regard to academic rigor and cognitively responsive teaching, differ between faculty category using observational measures of teaching in the classroom. We found that broad categorizations of faculty may not be meaningful unless they are examined in particular contexts, such as discipline and class size.     

The formation of teacher work teams under adverse conditions: Towards a more realistic scenario for schools in distress

Group formation studies are rare in the literature on teacher professional learning communities (PLCs). But they are needed to render realistic scenarios and design interventions for practitioners who work in schools where teachers encounter distress and social adversity. Under these conditions, we may need approaches to PLC development that are not adequately captured with conventional models. Drawing from the literature on teacher collaboration, effective work teams, group development and identity, problem solving, conflict and collective resilience, the article traces the development of a grade level team in a distressed urban middle school that was charged to make the learning environment for students safer, more orderly, and more caring. When teachers face the social adversity that students bring to them from their life experiences, the problems faced by teachers are often not “friendly” problems. Rather these problems cause suffering: being challenged in one’s basic competencies as a teacher or one’s personal integrity. Oftentimes, they require collective action while they at the same time increase individual distress, fear of being seen as weak, and isolation. Work team development under these circumstances needs to capitalize on the desire to connect that may be imbued in collective suffering. Against norms of privacy, non-interference, and conflict avoidance, ideological rifts, and interfering interpersonal dynamics work team members need to look for the seeds of the desire to connect in the midst of this suffering.     

Experiential influences on multimodal perception of emotion

The impact of 2 types of learning experiences on children's perception of multimodal emotion cues was examined. Children (aged 7-12 years) were presented with conflicting facial and vocal emotions. The effects of familiarity were tested by varying whether emotions were presented by familiar or unfamiliar adults. The salience of particular emotional expressions was tested by contrasting the performance of physically abused and nonabused children. Children exhibited a preference for auditory expressions produced by their mothers but not by strangers. Additionally, abused children were biased to rely on auditory cues when their own abusive mother was expressing anger. These results are discussed in terms of the impact of both typical and atypical early experiences on the development of emotion perception.     

Implementation Lessons from Six Early Head Start - Child Care Partnerships

ABSTRACT

Research Findings: This study examined the development and implementation of six Early Head Start Child Care Partnerships (EHS-CCPs), unique collaborations between EHS grantees and community-based child care partners that expand access to high-quality child care and comprehensive services for low-income infants, toddlers, and their families. Interviews and focus groups with 111 key informants identified similarities across the six EHS-CCPs in initial outreach to community partners for establishing partnerships and approaches to developing partnership agreements but variation in approaches to monitoring quality improvement activities. Benefits and challenges to partnerships for programs and families were noted. Practice or Policy: Findings suggest a need for additional guidance for EHS-CCPs on key components of implementation, including the partnership agreement process, monitoring quality improvement plans, offering support for meeting program requirements, and providing comprehensive services. For example, five of the six partnerships reported the EHS grantee led the development of their partnership agreements. While this approach was attributed to child care partners’ lack of prior experience in developing agreements, further guidance on how to engage partners collaboratively in an agreement process that better emulates the principles of authenticity and equality from the conceptual framework for collaborations in early care and education would be useful.     

Examining the influence of international large-scale assessments on national education policies

This paper examines whether, to what extent, and how international large-scale assessments (ILSAs) have influenced education policy-making at the national level. Based on an exploratory review of the research and policy literature on ILSAs and two surveys administered to educational policy experts, researchers, policymakers, and educators, our research found that ILSAs, with their multiple and ambiguous uses, increasingly function as solutions in search for the right problem – that is, they appear to be used as tools to legitimize educational reforms. The survey results pointed to a growing perception among stakeholders that ILSAs are having an effect on national educational policies, with 38% of respondents stating that ILSAs were generally misused in national policy contexts. However, while the ILSA literature indicates that these assessments are having some influence, there is little evidence that any positive or negative causal relationship exists between ILSA participation and the implementation of education reforms. Perhaps the most significant change associated with the use of ILSAs in the literature reviewed is the way in which new conditions for educational comparison have been made possible at the national, regional, and global levels.     

Supervisory Style: Its Relation to the Supervisory Working Alliance and Supervisor Self‐Disclosure

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between supervisor perceptions of their supervisory style and elements of the supervision process, including the supervisory working alliance and supervisor self‐disclosure. Data from 137 counselor supervisors demonstrated a significant positive relationship between attractive, interpersonally sensitive, and task‐oriented supervisory styles and the (a) goals, tasks, and bond components of the supervisory working alliance and (b) frequency of supervisor self‐disclosure. Limitations and implications for counselor supervision theory, research, and practice are addressed.     

Effects of MyTeachingPartner–Math/Science on Teacher–Child Interactions in Prekindergarten Classrooms

Research Findings: This study examined the impact of MyTeachingPartner–Math/Science, a system of math and science curricula and professional development, on the quality of teachers’ interactions with children in their classrooms. Schools were randomly assigned to 1 of 2 intervention conditions (Basic: curricula providing within-activity, embedded teacher supports; Plus: curricula plus implementation support via online resources and in-person workshops) or to a Business-as-Usual (BaU) control condition. Results showed that teachers in the Basic and Plus conditions showed higher levels of Instructional Support and Facilitation of Mathematical and Scientific Thinking. Teachers in the Basic condition also showed higher levels of Emotional Support compared with teachers in the BaU condition. We did not find any significant differences between teachers’ interactions in the Basic and Plus conditions. Practice or Policy: Children are entering kindergarten unprepared in the areas of mathematics and science, largely as a result of inadequate exposure to early experiences and high-quality interactions in these domains. The results of this study suggest that providing teachers with math and science curricula that include embedded teacher supports can have an impact on the quality of their math and science instruction.     

Digital writing practices: a close look at one grade three author

This paper reports on the digital writing practices of a Grade Three primary school student as he used an iPad to plan, produce and share digital texts. The case study acknowledges that writing is undergoing a period of great change in many classrooms and works to show how a student author has interpreted and produced digital texts with new technologies. In particular, the specific practices, digital materials and literacy concepts will be explicated through analyses of two digital texts created by this author. This focus acknowledges the ways texts can be planned, produced and shared using multiple modes and media. These social practices and the wider learning opportunities afforded through the flexible and recursive ways students produce text have yet to be fully explored. This paper also extends current understandings about digital writing practices through its examination of the connections between and among multiple apps as an author crafts digital text.     

Positioning as not‐understanding: The value of showing uncertainty for engaging in science

Not understanding is central to scientific work: what scientists do is learn about the natural world, which involves seeking out what they do not know. In classrooms, however, the position of not‐understanding is generally a liability; confusion is an unfortunate condition to resolve as quickly as possible, or to conceal. In this article, we argue that students' public displays of uncertainty or confusion can be pivotal contributions to the classroom dynamics in initiating and sustaining a class's science inquiry. We present this as a central finding from a cross‐case analysis of eight episodes of students' scientific engagement, drawing on literature on framing to show how participants positioned themselves as not‐understanding and how that was consequential for the class's scientific engagement. We show how participants enacted this positioning by asking questions or expressing uncertainty around a phenomenon or model. We then analyze how participants' displays of not‐understanding shaped the conceptual, epistemic, and social aspects of classroom activity. We present two cases in detail: one in which a student's positioning helped initiate the class's scientific engagement and another in which it helped sustain it. We argue that this work motivates considering how to help students learn to embrace and value the role of expressing one's confusion in science.     

A Longitudinal Investigation of Conflict and Delay Inhibitory Control in Toddlers and Preschoolers

Research Findings: A total of 81 children participated in a longitudinal investigation of inhibitory control (IC) from 2 to 4 years of age. Child IC was measured via maternal report and laboratory measures under conditions of conflict and delay. Performance on delay IC tasks at 3 years was related to performance on these same tasks at 2 and 4 years, but performance on conflict IC tasks was not related over time. Delay IC task performance was concurrently related to conflict IC task performance in 3- and 4-year-olds but was not related in 2-year-olds. Measures of IC varied in their associations with measures of verbal ability and maternal-report IC. Such findings highlight important similarities and distinctions between conflict and delay IC abilities in their relation to one another and to temperament and language over time. Practice or Policy: Studies of IC and related concepts reveal that children who are regulated enjoy school more and have higher school competence, particularly in mathematics and reading achievement. Because conflict IC and delay IC show unique patterns of development over time, educators can expect classroom behaviors drawing on the state-like conflict IC to show more fluctuation over time than those drawing on the trait-like delay IC.