Dancing in the ditches: reflecting on the capacity of a university/school partnership to clarify the role of a teacher educator

This paper used the data collected from reflective diaries, semi-structured interviews and surveys to identify and examine common themes identified in the roles required and/or perceived for teacher educators by both teachers and teacher educators. Collaboration, discussion and critique enabled personal reflection as teacher educators worked as partners to schools in a state-sponsored teaching and learning skills project. We have termed the collaboration in such an interactive project as one of ‘dancing in the ditches’, often requiring both groups to get out of their comfortable spaces and engage with each other in constantly moving situations. The teacher educators were required to be change agents at the interface of theory and practice and their experiences reflected individual journeys, but their reflections have ongoing implications for clarifying and professionalising the role of teacher educators.     

Depth psychology and giftedness: Bringing soul to the field of talent development and giftedness

While the field of gifted education has relied on educational, cognitive, counseling, behavioral, developmental, and social psychology, the domain of depth psychology offers special insights into giftedness, especially with regard to individuation. The notion of passion, or the thorn (J. S. Piirto, 1999, 2002), the incurable mad spot (F. C. Reynolds 1997, 2001), the acorn (J. Hillman, 1996, 1999), the daimon (C. G. Jung, 1965); the importance of integration through the arts and through dreams; the existence of the collective unconscious; the presence of archetypes; and the transcendent psyche—all have resonance with the binary etymological idea of “gift” as both blessing and poison. Depth psychology offers a way of understanding that is physical, psychological, and spiritual.     

The World Trade Center Attacks and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

Reflective decision making is an important component in a teacher's professional expertise, and aptness for integrating it into professional practice can be nurtured in most teachers. This article uses vignettes from student teachers’ journals to describe four modes of thinking that can provide a useful framework for fostering growth in novice and veteran teachers’ conceptualization of reflective decision making and the ability to incorporate it into their repertoire of professional competencies.     

Learning from Organizations: Mobilizing and Sustaining Teacher Change

Peter Senge's (1990) theory of organizational change includes teams that perceive the whole of the organization; grow professionally; navigate short- and long-term organizational experiences through exposed mental models; share a vision; and hear each voice in an ongoing communal learning process. The Margaret Sue Copenhaver Institute for Teaching and Learning is changing teacher education and professional development by employing Senge's model of learning organizations.

When you ask people what it is like being part of a great team, what is most striking is the meaningfulness of the experience. People talk about being part of something larger than themselves, of being connected, of being generative. It becomes quite clear that, for many, their experiences as part of truly great teams stand out as singular periods of life lived to the fullest. Some spend the rest of their lives looking for ways to recapture that spirit. (Senge 1990, 13)     

GERONTOLOGY CAREER PREPARATION AT THE ASSOCIATE DEGREE LEVEL FOR THE COMMUNITY‐BASED PRACTITIONER

This paper presents a 2‐year, associate degree curriculum as a basic model for training in gerontology. The curriculum was designed to assure that each student would gain the necessary background to pursue either a paraprofessional career in the field or advanced education at a 4‐year institution leading to a professional career. The curriculum accomplishes the first objective by incorporating courses that train students in the specific skills they will need, as determined by an investigation of the employment needs in the community. It accomplishes the second objective by including courses from traditional academic disciplines, such as the social and biological sciences, which provide a broad base of knowledge. The program is closely coordinated with and transferable to a university and can be initiated with a minimum of new personnel.     

Learning the Language of Evolution: Lexical Ambiguity and Word Meaning in Student Explanations

Our study investigates the challenges introduced by students’ use of lexically ambiguous language in evolutionary explanations. Specifically, we examined students’ meaning of five key terms incorporated into their written evolutionary explanations: pressure, select, adapt, need, and must. We utilized a new technological tool known as the Assessment Cascade System (ACS) to investigate the frequency with which biology majors spontaneously used lexically ambiguous language in evolutionary explanations, as well as their definitions and explanations of what they meant when they used such terms. Three categories of language were identified and examined in this study: terms with Dual Ambiguity, Incompatible Ambiguity, and Unintended Ambiguity. In the sample of 1282 initial evolutionary explanations, 81 % of students spontaneously incorporated lexically ambiguous language at least once. Furthermore, the majority of these initial responses were judged to be inaccurate from a scientific point of view. While not significantly related to gender, age, or reading/writing ability, students’ use of contextually appropriate evolutionary language (pressure and adapt) was significantly associated with academic performance in biology. Comparisons of initial responses to follow-up responses demonstrated that the majority of student explanations were not reinterpreted after consideration of the follow-up response; nevertheless, a sizeable minority was interpreted differently. Most cases of interpretation change were a consequence of resolving initially ambiguous responses, rather than a change of accuracy, resulting in an increased understanding of students’ evolutionary explanations. We discuss a series of implications of lexical ambiguity for evolution education.     

Better science through rhetoric: A new model and pilot program for training graduate student science writers

Graduate programs in the sciences offer minimal support for writing, yet there is an increasing need for scientists to engage with the public and policy makers. To address this need, the authors describe an innovative, cross-disciplinary, National Science Foundation (NSF)–funded training program in rhetoric and writing for science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) graduate students and faculty at the University of Rhode Island. The program offers a theory-driven, flexible, scalable model that could be adopted in a variety of institutional contexts.     

美国黑莓鲈繁殖生物学的初步研究

对美国黑莓鲈（Ｐｏｍｏｘｉｓｎｉｇｒｏｍａｃｕｆａｔｕｓ）的繁殖生物学进行了初步研究．结果显示在池塘自然繁殖条件下,当平均水温上升至１６℃,黑莓鲈开始筑巢产卵．鱼卵一般筑在岸边水草根部或较硬的泥底上,水深１５～４０ｃｍ,鱼巢平坦,范围在２０ｃｍ×３０ｃｍ左右,每巢产卵数千粒．产卵后雄鱼有守巢行为．在池塘中投入２０ｃｍ×４０ｃｍ的人工鱼巢黑莓鲈也可在其上产卵．在水泥池中,通过注射ＨＣＧ可进行人工催产,鱼卵产在人工鱼巢上,但无守巢行为．黑莓鲈卵小,卵径平均０８８ｍｍ,卵具油球,卵间隙小．水温１９℃时需４８ｈ以上受精卵方可孵出仔鱼．在人工观察条件下,仔鱼孵出６ｄ后离巢起水,８ｄ后卵黄囊、油球消失,１０ｄ后开始摄食,初摄食物为轮虫     

Statistical edutainment: Correlation recreation

Cartoons, songs, poems, and games can be useful ways to engage students in discussion and learning key concepts about correlation.     

Evaluating subscale performance on the adaptive behavior inventory for children

Statistics are presented to allow ipsative interpretation of the scaled scores for the six subscales of individual children on the Adaptive Behavior Inventory for Children. Included are the standard error of the difference between each part score and the mean of all scores and values required for statistical significance at the traditional significance levels of .05 and .01, with the Bonferroni adjustment for the number of comparisons included. The ready availability of this information should enhance application of the ABIC in clinical practice and facilitate research on its efficacy for educational planning and placement of children in various regular and special education programs.