Tools for Successful Student–Teacher–Scientist Partnerships

Student–teacher–scientist partnership (STSP) programs are cooperative relationships in which students, with the support of their teachers, participate in and contribute to the research of scientists. This paper examines one of the world's largest STSPs—an international environmental science education program called GLOBE (Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment)—and proposes recommendations to scientists about how they can get the most out of their research and teaching relationship with students and their teachers. GLOBE is an international K–12 STSP that engages students in Earth's Systems investigations. Extensive training is needed for students to collect and report accurate data to scientists, and special preparatory curricula are needed to make their partnership effective and motivating. Recognizing these issues, this research was conducted specifically to identify and recommend a set of training material design criteria for implementation of STSPs in the elementary and middle school levels. The conclusions—the result of background research, extensive interviews and consultation with teachers—provide guidance to GLOBE and other STSP programs to enhance the development of effective and engaging training materials.     

Examining Housing Policy: A Select Annotated Bibliography of Housing Policy–Focused Periodicals

A bibliography of resources focused on housing policy is presented. The bibliography is broken up into two sets, a set of publications focusing on housing policy in the United States and a set focused on housing policy at a multi- or international level. Each entry is detailed with the same categories of information, where applicable. Useful online housing policy resources (organizations, data sets) are provided as well.     

Peer Tutoring: An Aid to Individual Instruction

In this article, the author describes a personal teaching experience that led her to incorporate improvisational drama into her English classroom. The author describes justifications for implementing drama into the classroom as well as the possible benefits gained by teachers and students. Also included are several improvisational dramatic activities and instructions for incorporating them into the English curriculum. Using drama helped to develop confidence, community, and content knowledge in the middle school classroom.     

Bubbles & Squat – did Dionysus just sneak into the fitness centre?

A Danish fitness chain recently introduced a new concept called Bubbles & Squat. Here, fitness training is combined with free champagne and music. In this paper, we examine this new way of bringing parties, alcohol and physical culture together by exploring the possible meaning of it through existential philosophical analysis. We draw in particular on Nietzsche’s distinction between the Apolline and the Dionysiac, as well as his account of great health. On this basis, we analyse Bubbles & Squat as a case of Dionysiac intoxication, excess and ecstasy sneaking into contemporary Apolline fitness culture. In the last part of the paper, we raise the question if adding parties and bubbles to fitness training may, perhaps paradoxically, be healthy for the participants in an existential sense because it contributes to existential balance between the Dionysiac and the Apolline. We conclude that the philosophical framework presented in this paper can contribute to a new understanding of a general physical cultural phenomenon that the case of Bubbles & Squat represents.     

Eclecticism: Psychological theories as interwoven stories

Taking a postmodern perspective, the author makes the claim that all psychological theories could be viewed as stories. Labeling psychological theories as theory-stories, she argues that they reflect the life experience of their authors as well as their socio-political context. Further, by conceiving of psychology itself as a discipline of stories, she proposes that theory-stories are likely to contain many similar themes despite strong differences. These similarities exist because all theory-stories are born of human experience. The author further suggests that past theory-stories have the potential to inform, deconstruct, and add depth to current postmodern practice. This provides the justification for the importance of eclecticism. By way of example, she explores two theories, logotherapy and radical behaviorism, for their fit within a postmodern framework. Finally, by viewing theory as story, the author proposes that eclecticism provides necessary tools to explore story alternatives when liberating clients' from oppressive story lines.     

The Role of Alternative Theories and Anomalous Evidence in Children’s Scientific Belief Revision

Children’s naive theories include misconceptions which can interfere with science learning. This research examined the effect of pairing anomalies with alternative theories, and their order of presentation, on children’s belief revision. Children believe that heavy objects sink and light ones float. In a pre-, mid-, and post-test design, 5-year-olds (N = 96) were assigned to one of two conditions, where they were either exposed to an alternative theory about buoyancy and then observed anomalies (Explanation-First), or the reverse (Anomalies-First). At mid-test, children were more likely to revise their beliefs after exposure to an alternative theory than anomalies alone. At post-test, children revised their naïve belief when they had access to an alternative theory before the anomalous evidence than in the opposite order.     

Item-Level Comparative Analysis of Online and Paper Administrations of the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills

This article describes a comparative study conducted at the item level for paper and online administrations of a statewide high stakes assessment. The goal was to identify characteristics of items that may have contributed to mode effects. Item-level analyses compared two modes of the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) for up to four subjects at two grade levels. The analyses included significance tests of p-value differences, DIF, and response distributions for each item. Additional analyses investigated item position effects and objective-level mode differences. No evidence of item position effects emerged, but significant differences were found for several items and objectives in all subjects at grade 8 and in mathematics and English language arts (ELA) at grade 11. Differences generally favored the paper group. ELA items that were longer in passage length and math items that required graphing and geometric manipulations or involved scrolling in the online administration tended to be the items showing mode differences.     

A Study of Cluster Grouping

The increasing size of most universities in the United States at times has led to efforts to counteract largeness by creating many small units within the larger one. The following study reports on a pilot study to evaluate the effectiveness of a grouping pattern in which freshman students had their class schedules arranged in such a way as to have at least three sections (courses) in common with others in their respective group.