Reweaving the tapestry of teacher education

Abstract

This article describes what happened to an elementary education preparation program when a few faculty members started asking questions, looking at practice, making changes, and collecting data based on the changes. The current program has many outstanding attributes; but when student perceptions were examined, holes were found and ways to mend these holes have been implemented. The authors describe the process of weaving concept Strands throughout the entire four‐year program.     

Jefferson,The Road to Glory: 1743 To 1776 by Marie Kimball. Coward-McCann,Inc. 335 p. $4.00

As state legislatures and noneducation agents become increasingly involved in regulating the preparation of teachers, the long-term consequences of the resulting policies—which prioritize economic efficiency over investments in the cultivation of a stable, professionalized workforce—are of concern. This article uses insights from political economy to examine the model of teacher preparation that derives from these sources, with particular attention devoted to Indiana's Rules for Educator Preparation and Accountability.     

Homophone effects in deaf readers: evidence from lexical decision

The current study examined the nature of deaf readers’ phonological processing during online word recognition, and how this compares to similar effects in hearing individuals. Unlike many previous studies on phonological activation, we examined whether deaf readers activated phonological representations for words as opposed to pseudohomophones. Both hearing and deaf adults performed lexical decisions on homophones and control words in the context of either pseudoword foils (e.g., CLANE) or pseudohomophone foils (e.g., BRANE). As expected, hearing readers responded more slowly to homophones than to control words in both non-word contexts, reflecting phonological activation during reading. In contrast, deaf readers responded more slowly to homophones than to control words in the pseudohomophone foil context, but not in the pseudoword foil context. This finding suggests that deaf readers are able to activate phonological representations; however the nature of these representations appears to be more coarse-grained in deaf readers.     

Long-run effects of public-private research joint ventures: The case of the Danish Innovation Consortia support scheme

Subsidized research joint ventures (RJVs) between public research institutions and industry have become increasingly popular in Europe and the US. We study the long-run effects of such a support scheme that has been maintained by the Danish government since 1995. To cope with identification problems we apply nearest neighbor matching and conditional difference-in-difference estimation methods. Our main findings are that (i) program participation effects are instant for annual patent applications and last for three years, (ii) employment effects materialize first after one year and (iii) there are no statistically significant effects on value added or labor productivity. We further show that these overall results are primarily driven by firms that were patent active prior to joining the RJV and that there are no statistically significant effects for large firms. The insignificant results we document for large firms coupled with the fact that these type of firms are over-represented in many support programs, including the one considered here, leads us to suggest a rethinking of support policies that often aim at large firms.     

The development of argument skills

This work sought to obtain experimental evidence to corroborate cross-sectional patterns of development in argument skills and to evaluate the effectiveness of an intervention designed to foster development of these skills in academically at-risk 13- to 14-year-olds. Students participated in 16 sessions of a collaborative, goal-based activity providing dense exercise of argumentive thinking. One condition included peer dialogues; another did not. The former was the more effective, although both groups progressed. Participants showed increased frequency of usage of powerful argumentive discourse strategies, such as counterargument, and decreased frequency of less effective strategies. Quality of individual arguments (for or against a claim) also improved, supporting the existence of a close relation between these two kinds of argument skills.     

Using Smartphones as Experimental Tools—a Follow-up: Cognitive Effects by Video Analysis and Reduction of Cognitive Load by Multiple Representations

Journal of Science Education and Technology - Mobile devices (smartphones or tablets) as experimental tools (METs) offer inspiring possibilities for science education, but until now, there has been...     

Does rational persuasion influence potential consultees?

Success in collaborative school‐based consultation depends on whether teachers implement interventions suggested by consultants. In business literature, Rational Persuasion (RP) has been identified as one potentially effective way to influence consultee perceptions about proposed interventions. RP includes intervention information, why it is important to decide to use the intervention, and potential objections to the intervention with arguments against those objections. The influence of these RP elements on potential school‐based consultees has not been studied. This preliminary analog study investigated whether presenting RP importance and objections for behavioral interventions influenced teachers' ratings of acceptability, effectiveness, and commitment‐to‐implement. Participants included 71 teachers enrolled in graduate education courses. The within‐subject design included three video vignettes of each of three conditions for three different behavioral interventions (total of nine possible videos, three presented to each group). Results suggest that the influence of RP on acceptability, perceived effectiveness, and commitment‐to‐implement ratings was inconsistent. Implications for research and practice are discussed. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Psychol Schs 40: 627–640, 2003.     

Using Entrepreneurial Activities as a Means of Survival: Investigating the Processes used by Australian Universities to Diversify their Revenue Streams

This study provides a profile of the actions taken by Australian universities to diversify their revenue streams in order to generate more independent (non-government) income. Marginson’s taxonomy of Australian universities is used to catergorise universities and contrast levels of independent income (Marginson and Considine 2000). This study finds that some Australian universities have used isomorphic tactics in their attempts to diversify their revenue streams. Unitechs (Universities of Technology) and New Universities are over-reliant upon income earned from overseas student fees, whilst earning comparatively small amounts of revenue from Royalties, Trademarks and Licences, Consultancy, Contract Research and Investments. This work discusses the dangers inherent in over-reliance on a single type of independent income. It argues that if Australian universities seek to enhance their success competing in global research, staff and student markets then they need to augment efforts to diversify revenue streams with structural and cultural changes, transforming themselves from being rigid hierarchical public bureaucracies to become more flexible network enterprises (Castells 2000).     

Young Children's Long-Term Retention of a Pediatric Examination

Children at ages 3, 5, and 7 ( N = 187) provided reports of their physical examinations immediately following the checkup and after a delay of either 1, 3, or 6 weeks, or only after 3 weeks. The protocol used for all interviews consisted of initial general prompts, followed by increasingly specific questions as needed. Recall of standard features of the examinations was scored, along with responses to questions concerning acts that did not occur. Retention of the event was extensive and accurate. Although clear age effects were observed in recall, the delay interval did not strongly affect performance over the 6-week period. The amount of forgetting was significant at ages 3 and 5, but not at age 7. With increasing age, a greater percentage of the features was spontaneously recalled. When presented with incongruous questions, all children evidenced rates of correct denials that exceeded chance and few errors of commission. The initial interview did not affect delayed recall. Implications for children's testimony are discussed.