RLG and PCC: An Interview with Karen Smith-Yoshimura*

Abstract

It is important to remember that there were two bibliographic networks, OCLC and the Research Libraries Information Network (RLIN), which together with the Library of Congress enabled the sharing of bibliographic and authority records amongst PCC members. Karen Smith-Yoshimura was active in the early years of the Program for Cooperative Cataloging (PCC) representing RLIN. In this interview with Smith-Yoshimura in the summer of 2019, Joan Schuitema poses five questions which provide an opportunity for Smith-Yoshimura to share her memories about her participation in PCC prior to RLG’s merger with OCLC.     

Nesta Pain

The ‘cultural translator’ is an individual who expresses the essence of entanglement in their career choices, moving between genres, media, or nations. This article suggests that the BBC producer and writer, Nesta Pain, was such an individual. Over the course of her career, Pain not only wrote and produced radio features and radio dramas but was also a successful journalist and author. She translated her experience in radio production onto the stage and on television by exploiting the different possibilities offered by these visual media—all evidence of her transmedial cultural translation. Further adding to the transgressive nature of her career, was her place as a woman in male-dominated radio production arenas.     

Fostering Peer Dialogic Engagement in Science Classrooms with an Educational Videogame

This study examines the design and enactment of a secondary physics unit on electromagnetism. The unit used an educational videogame to support peer dialogic engagement in a Singapore secondary school by engaging learners with qualitative physics phenomena. As an example of game-based learning, the unit includes activities and resources that organize a recurring progression of playing and interacting around science that we term play-centered cycles. We incorporate two complementary, qualitative analyses to consider how a recurring progression of playing with and talking about science-mediated peer dialogic engagement across two separate classes. Findings demonstrate that peer dialogic engagement occurred within each play-centered cycle for both classes but that the nature of such engagement varied across cycles and student teams. Additionally, comparative case analyses of focal teams’ peer dialogic engagement illuminate how the design of play-centered cycles productively supported play and learning while also highlighting emerging tensions for sustaining dialogic engagement. Findings underscore the plausibility of this approach to fostering science learning by articulating two principles for designing science learning environments that can guide ongoing efforts to enlist videogames and play in the service of talking about and learning science.

     

The use of questions to scaffold narrative coherence and cohesion

We examined the quality of 4‐ to 6‐year‐olds' production of narratives from picture sequences. Children (N = 81) first viewed a narrative picture sequence and then completed the narrative production task in each of two orders: either before or after answering a set of questions about the core elements of the story. Narratives elicited after questions were more coherent than those produced before the questions. In contrast, task order did not influence the cohesion of narratives nor the accuracy of responses to questions. An independent measure of memory was related to the gains in narrative coherence after answering questions. The results are discussed in relation to the role of questions as a guide to the structural elements of a narrative and a scaffold for understanding.     

Extending students’ mathematical thinking during whole-group discussions

Studies show that extending students’ mathematical thinking during whole-group discussions is a challenging undertaking. To better understand what extending student thinking looks like and how teachers’ mathematical knowledge for teaching (MKT) supports teachers in their efforts to extend student thinking, the teaching of six experienced elementary school teachers was explored. During group discussions, all six teachers created opportunities for extending student thinking about important mathematical ideas and solution methods. Findings on the nature of these episodes include identification of individual instructional actions and the ways in which teachers’ MKT was connected to these actions.     

Strategies by Norwegian universities to meet diversified market demands for continuing education

In the 1990s, universities received morediversified demands for continuing education.Market demands may contribute to createinnovative courses and introducing newperspectives. A critical question is, however,if universities should respond to all marketdemands, or base continuing education onresearch-oriented teaching and learning. Casestudies of Norwegian universities show thesecond understanding to be universal there.Strategic plans are quite general, so differentstrategies for continuing education areinferred from course offers and interviews. Sixstrategies are presented and discussed:Research news for professionals; Same contentwith flexible delivery; Adapted specialisation;Interdisciplinary Master's degrees;Interdisciplinary courses for new markets;Tailor-made on commission.     

Lessons Learned from PISA: A Systematic Review of Peer-Reviewed Articles on the Programme for International Student Assessment

International large-scale assessments are on the rise, with the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) seen by many as having strategic prominence in education policy debates. The present article reviews PISA-related English-language peer-reviewed articles from the programme’s first cycle in 2000 to its most current in 2015. Five literature bases were searched, and results were analysed with SPSS. Results map the frequency of publications according to journal, country, and scientific discipline. They also summarise major themes within three identified categories: secondary analysis, policy impact, and critiques. Findings indicated that studies based on the PISA dataset has led to progress in educational research while simultaneously pointing to the need for caution when using this research to inform educational policy.     

The Development and Validation of the Perceived Academic Underachievement Scale

Academic competence beliefs have been widely studied. However, conceptual and measurement efforts have not yet been directed toward understanding perceived underachievement (feeling that one's accomplishments fall below perceived capability). We conducted two studies in order to develop and examine validity evidence for the Perceived Academic Underachievement Scale (PAUS). Participants were individuals enrolled for credit in at least one post-secondary course. In Study 1, we evaluated content validity and conducted an exploratory factor analysis. In Study 2, we conducted a confirmatory factor analysis and investigated external validity. For both samples, PAUS demonstrated good internal consistency reliability, and items loaded strongly onto a single factor. PAUS was empirically distinct from a range of related constructs. Findings represent preliminary validation evidence.     

Visual narrative: a technique to enhance secondary students' contribution to the development of inclusive, socially just school environments – lessons from a box of crayons

This paper reports on a project that involved Australian secondary school students working as participatory researchers in collaboration with a researcher and two teachers. Research methodology using visual narrative techniques provided the students with a conceptual lens to view their school community. The examples of visual narrative shared in this presentation depict problems, contradictions of exclusion and celebrations of inclusion in the lived world of the students. Photographs combined with narratives represent students' views of their social, cultural and political environment. This project illustrates how the insights of students can help break down assumptions, values and meanings that block progress to achieving more socially just schools.     

Exploring reading in social semiotics: theory and methods

ABSTRACT

The aim of this paper is to critically review how social semiotics has contributed to the study of reading and to develop an agenda for further research. We consider the theoretical and methodological resources that social semiotics has developed to account for multimodal text in the contemporary semiotic landscape, and explore how they can be used to teach critical reading skills to young people to support their participation in different social domains. We reflect on the possibilities and limitations of different analytical frameworks, highlighting barriers and possibilities for advancing social semiotic scholarship on reading and beyond. We end with a sketch of a new research agenda for social semiotics, in the light of technological change and its implications for reading.