Balancing Faculty and Student Preferences in the Assignment of Students to Groups

This article describes a practical methodology for assigning students to groups where the goal is to create diversity within the groups while taking into consideration the preferences of the students. A motivating application of this work is the assignment of students to first‐year seminars. In this common scenario, students select and rank a small subset of seminars from the list of those available. The academic institution then attempts to assign students to a seminar on their list, while maintaining course capacities. Faculty are interested in having seminars that are balanced with regards to gender and the number of international students, while students are interested in being assigned to one of their higher ranked seminars. In this article, we develop a simple multi‐objective convex quadratic program that can determine assignments that are well balanced and satisfy the highest preferences of the students. The advantage of our approach is that the model can be submitted directly to a standard optimization software package, eliminating the need for a specialized algorithm.     

Cell Phones in the Classroom: Teachers’ Perspectives of Inclusion,Benefits, and Barriers

Historically viewed as a disruption by teachers, cell phones have been banned from 69% of classrooms (Common Sense Media, 2009). The increased ubiquity and instructional features of cell phones have prompted some teachers to re-evaluate the ban and consider the benefits associated with allowing cell phones in the classroom. This study surveyed 79 teachers to determine their perceptions of using cell phones for classroom instruction. Findings indicated that the majority (69%) of teachers support the use of cell phones in the classroom and were presently using them for school-related work. Teachers identified student engagement and motivation as the primary benefits; barriers included lack of access and class disruption.     

You don’t always get what you pay for: User experiences of engaging with contract cheating sites

Abstract

Contract cheating sites advertise that they provide high quality, undetectable, bespoke work delivered in a timely manner to students purchasing their assignments. This paper tests contract cheating sites’ promises about the products they sell. We built on previous reported research examining contract cheating sites’ persuasive features which were mapped into three major dimensions. In this study, we explore how those dimensions are realised in practice. By purchasing 54 assignments from 18 different contract cheating sites across a range of disciplines, we found contract cheating sites’ promises flawed. Many sites do not deliver assignments on time, or at all; they provide variable quality assignments (including fail grade work), and do not necessarily respond rapidly to user queries. When markers graded work, 52% of cheated tasks failed to meet the university pass standard. Furthermore, many contract cheating sites retain the right to share personal details with third parties under their privacy clauses and require levels of personal identification that leave users vulnerable. Students need to be aware that contract cheating sites’ slick advertising is not necessarily borne out in reality. Universities can draw on this study’s findings for student awareness and deterrence campaigns pointing out the risks of using contract cheating sites.     

Why educate “little scientists?” Examining the potential of practice‐based scientific literacy

In recent years, a number of curriculum reform projects have championed the notion of having students do science in ways that move beyond hands‐on work with authentic materials and methods, or developing a conceptual grasp of current theories. These reformers have argued that students should come to an understanding of science through doing the discipline and taking a high degree of agency over investigations from start to finish. This stance has occasionally been mocked by its critics as an attempt to create “little scientists”—a mission, it is implied, that is either romantic or without purpose. Here, we make the strong case for a practice‐based scientific literacy, arguing through three related empirical studies that taking the notion of “little scientists” seriously might be more productive in achieving current standards for scientific literacy than continuing to refine ideas and techniques based on the coverage of conceptual content. Study 1 is a classroom case study that illustrates how project‐based instruction can be carried out when teachers develop guidance and support strategies to bootstrap students' participation in forms of inquiry they are still in the process of mastering. Study 2 shows how sustained on‐line work with volunteer scientists appears to influence students' success in formulating credible scientific arguments in written project reports following an authentic genre. Study 3, using data from three suburban high school classes, suggests that involving students in the formulation of research questions and data analysis strategies results in better spontaneous use of empirical data collection and analysis strategies on a transfer task. The study also suggests that failing to involve students in the formulation of research can result in a loss of agency. The implications of these findings for future research and practice are discussed. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 41: 234–266, 2004     

Parent,Student, and Teacher Perceptions of Parental Involvement

Parental involvement is a key predictor of a student's academic success. However, little research has explored whether parent, student, and teacher perceptions are similar regarding what constitutes parental involvement and the communication activities it entails. The present study examines parent, student, and teacher perceptions of parental involvement and communication. While agreement exists on the importance of monitoring a child's academic performance and constructive teacher-parent communication, disagreement on the role of discipline and the use of extracurricular programs exist. Two discourses surrounding parental involvement are articulated--information transmission and partnership--and the implications of these discourses for developing parental involvement interventions are examined.     

Community financing of education: issues from Kenya

Given the squeeze on national budgets and the need for priorities over investment choices in education, many governments have turned to communities in the search for alternative sources of revenue. In Kenya, there is a long and rich history of community involvement in the financing of education at all levels, rooted within the phenomenon of the dynamic self‐help movement harambee, which underpins much of Kenya's grass roots development activity. Within education, the conscious partnership between communities and government has been most manifest within the unaided harambee secondary school sector, although a more recent policy shift has witnessed the transfer to communities of all capital expenditures associated with a structural and curriculum reform, particularly at primary level. Despite opening up access to education to a high percentage of the school age population, there remain, however, fundamental questions associated both with the quality and equity of systems dependent upon community financing.     

Rerun content preferences: An examination of favorite program types

Loyalty to program types is recognized as a significant characteristic of television viewing behavior. Few studies have investigated preferences for rerun program types. This study examines the content preferences of favorite programs for differences of rerun programs and first‐run programs among 489 respondents.     

Learning to Balance Assistance With Assessment: A Scholarship of Field Instruction

In this self-study, the author focuses on ways of embracing and managing a central dilemma of student teaching supervision: balancing assistance with assessment. Drawing on his practice as a field supervisor, the author chronicles conversations with student teachers over a 2-year period in the context of two distinct teacher education programs. Through qualitative methods of data analysis, the author finds that supervisors have access to specific discursive tools and strategies that allow them to balance support with assessment of their student teachers. In this article, he describes and explains five key strategies and concludes with implications for the preparation and support of supervisors that can help them engage in critical dialogue with their student teachers to push their practice forward.