Experiential Engineering Through iGEM—An Undergraduate Summer Competition in Synthetic Biology

Unlike students in other engineering disciplines, undergraduates in biological engineering typically have limited opportunity to develop design competencies, and even fewer chances to implement their designed projects. The international Genetically Engineered Machines (iGEM) competition is a student Synthetic Biology competition that, in 2009, included 110 teams from across Asia, Europe, Latin America, and the US. Working at their own schools over the summer, the students use a kit of biological parts from the Registry of Standard Biological Parts, as well as new parts of their own design, to build biological systems that operate in living cells. Two years of survey data collected from undergraduates after their iGEM experiences in 2007 and 2008 suggest that both learning and identity as a biological engineer increase as a result of iGEM.     

Ten Years of LibQual: A Study of Qualitative and Quantitative Survey Results at the University of Mississippi 2001-2010

This article analyzes quantitative adequacy gap scores and coded qualitative comments from LibQual surveys at the University of Mississippi from 2001 to 2010, looking for relationships between library policy changes and LibQual results and any other trends that emerged. Analysis found no relationship between changes in policy and survey results but did identify a number of trends across the survey period.     

‘I could do with a pair of wings’: perspectives on physical activity,bodies and health from young Australian children

There is little research that reports children's perspectives on physical activity, bodies and health. This paper, drawn from a larger multi-method study on physical activity in the lives of seven- and eight-year-old Australian children, attempts to ‘give a voice’ to 13 children's views. Interviews focused on children's activity preferences and related decision making and motivations pertaining to these activities, as well as how they thought about the relationships between physical activity, health and their bodies. Data suggest some tensions surrounding the importance of fun for children alongside their awareness of ‘healthist’ discourses that require self-monitoring and improvement.     

Development and Testing of a Curriculum to Improve Decision-Making Skills in Middle and High School Students

Adolescence is a key developmental period for developing and strengthening brain circuits that underlie effective decision-making skills, which profoundly impact lifelong health and academic, professional, and economic achievement. But decision-making skills are learned rather than inherent. School presents an ideal environment for the direct instruction and frequent practice of decision-making skills, however, finding time in the school day is a challenge for contemporary educators. We have developed a learning curriculum that involves active student participation to strengthen decision-making skills that is sufficiently flexible and adaptable to be utilized in a wide variety of content-specific classwork. Using this curriculum, students show evidence of improved decision-making skills, including increased consideration of the number of factors that are relevant to their decision, the resources needed to make a particular decision, and both the short-term and long-term consequences of decisions.     

Transformative learning approaches for public relations pedagogy

Public relations educators are frequently challenged by students' flawed perceptions of public relations. Two contrasting case studies are presented in this paper to illustrate how socially-oriented paradigms may be applied to a real-client project to deliver a transformative learning experience. A discourse-analytic approach is applied within the case studies as a technique for identifying changes in students' understandings of the ideological structures, power relations and knowledge systems that underpin public relations and for determining whether transformative learning has taken place. The discourse engagement and normative/critical/ethical paradigmatic orientations examined in this paper provide conceptual foundations for developing civic responsibility that needs to be underpinned by salient social theory.     

Parent Teacher Education Connection: Preparing Preservice Teachers for Family Engagement

This article describes the Parent Teacher Education Curriculum, a Web-based curriculum focused on instructing teachers about best practices in family involvement and assesses its impact on the knowledge and attitudes of preservice teachers related to family involvement. Pre- and post-measures of preservice teacher candidate knowledge of and attitude toward parent involvement were analyzed using multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) and paired-samples t-tests. Findings revealed a significant multivariate main effect for the time of knowledge assessment administration (pre vs. post): Wilks' λ = .613, F(6, 449) = 47.308, p < .001, partial eta squared = .387. This suggested that overall Knowledge increased significantly from pre- to post-administration. In addition, multivariate analysis for the time of attitude assessment administration (pre vs. post) was Wilks' λ = .982, F(3, 1548) = 9.65, p <. 001, partial eta squared = .018. This suggested that overall Attitude increased significantly from pre- to post-administration.     

Fair and equitable assessment practices for all students

This paper focuses on promoting fairness and equity in student assessment practices. The researchers used questionnaires and interviews and the study encompassed a total of 3312 individuals representing a range of stakeholders. The paper is presented in two parts: fairness and discrimination, and challenging policy and practice. Five key principles emerged. Educators must strive to address the personal impact of assessment practices on individual students and their families. Assessment must be differentiated to accommodate the ability, social, cultural and linguistic background of students. All members of school communities must challenge the complacency associated with accepting indefensible assessment practices. The frequency, intensity and intrusiveness of assessments must not be overwhelming for students and their families. Finally, assessment must not be used to counter inappropriate student behaviour or reward desired behaviour. Implications for practice are presented. Additionally, the authors describe changes to policy and practice that occurred as a result of the study.     

PISA,TIMSS and Finnish mathematics teaching: an enigma in search of an explanation

Finnish students’ success on all three content domains of each of the four cycles of the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) has created much international interest. It has also prompted Finnish academics to offer systemic explanations typically linked to the structural qualities of Finnish schooling and teacher education. Less well-known has been the modest mathematics performance of Finnish grade 8 students on the two Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) in which Finland has participated, which, when compared with its PISA successes, has created something of an enigma. In this paper, we attempt to shed light on this enigma through analyses of Finnish mathematics classroom practice that draw on two extant data sets—interviews with Finnish teacher educators and video-recordings of sequences of lessons taught on standard topics. Due to the international interest in Finnish PISA success, the analyses focus primarily on the resonance between classroom practice and the mathematical literacy component of the PISA assessment framework. The analyses indicate that Finnish mathematics didactics are more likely to explain the modest TIMSS achievements than PISA successes and allude to several factors thought to be unique to the Finns, which, unrelated to mathematics teaching practices, may be contributory to the repeated Finnish PISA successes. Some implications for policy-borrowing are discussed.