The transfer of content knowledge in a cascade model of professional development

A cascade model of professional development presents a particular risk that ‘knowledge’ promoted in a programme will be diluted or distorted as it passes from originators of the programme to local trainers and then to the target teachers. Careful monitoring of trainers’ and teachers’ knowledge as it is transferred through the system is therefore imperative. This paper focuses on the transfer of content knowledge through an in-service teacher professional development programme and offers an innovative methodology for investigating knowledge transfer, i.e. through insights gained during a mentoring process. The findings suggest that this methodology facilitated assessment of knowledge transfer because it involved the identification of knowledge in practice. The focus on knowledge in practice appeared to avoid a deficit model of trainers’/teachers’ knowledge and revealed that content knowledge was generally being successfully transferred throughout the system. A detailed analysis of different aspects of content knowledge transfer suggested various foci for additional training.     

The family as a developmental system: Impact on the career development of individuals with disabilities

Conclusions The current high rates of unemployment and underemployment of individuals with disabilities is evidence that traditional approaches to career development and transitions planning have not adequately met the needs of persons with disabilities. An individual's family and significant others have been recognized as having major impact on career development, although the ongoing dynamics of family influence on career development are not fully understood (Lopez & Andres, 1987). Currently, there is a lack of a conceptual framework to guide professionals in developing programs to utilize the family as a resource in the career development of individuals with disabilities. The developmental approach, as discussed in this article, is a sound basis for developing intervention strategies designed to assist the family and the individual to promote the career development of persons with disabilities.     

Moberly Junior College,the four-year junior college

In Leonard Koos’s book, The Junior-College Movement, he described the establishment of a junior college in an American public school district as the ‘culmination of the local school system’, alluding to the prestige associated with having a junior college in a community. The best-known example of this arrangement was in Pasadena, California where the combined high school and college operated for 27 years. Less well known is the four-year junior college in central Missouri called Moberly Junior College (MJC). MJC operated as a combined high school and college for 36 years from the autumn of 1931 to the autumn of 1967, the longest running four-year junior college in the United States. This case study of the college examines how the seamless transition between high school and college was accomplished, and what changes in the institution and the educational environment led to the eventual dissolution of the four-year junior college.     

Extraordinary Animals and Expository Writing: Zoo in the Classroom

A zoo outreach program led to placing animals in classrooms where those animals became foci for numerous learning activities such as writing, observing, and care. Systematic debriefings suggested uniqueness to learning outcomes connected to zoo animals. Subsequent analysis of student writing indicated that students responded to situational interest by recording more observations, made use of more science facts, and used more science vocabulary when writing about unique animals (albino hedgehog, legless lizard) than ‘ordinary’ animals (rabbit, dove). The results are interpreted in terms of motivation, creating situational interest, and the familiarity of the schema available to the students. Policy implications are discussed.     

The effects of sensory stimulation in inducing or intensifying the “transport response” in white rats

A series of experiments was carried out to investigate the ability of different types of stimulation to induce or intensify the “transport response” in 15-day-old rat pups when an initial stimulus, a pinch to the nape of the neck, produced either no transport response or only a very weak response. Rat pups given supplemental tactile stimulation, in the form of either an airpuff to the ventrum of a pinch to the tail, showed consistently stronger response intensities than when given only a pinch to the nape of the neck. Visual and auditory stimuli produced no increment in response intensities over those with only a dorsal pinch. Two additional experiments were carried out. The first investigated the ability of a puff of mist from an atomizer to induce a transport response in rats too old to show a strong response. The second investigated the induction of the transport response with supplemental stimulation in 19-day-old pups given haloperidol. Results suggest a nondopaminergic system subserving the response facilitation seen with supplemental tactile stimulation.     

The pedagogical potential of drawing and writing in a primary science multimodal unit

In consideration of the potential of drawing and writing as assessment and learning tools, we explored how early primary students used these modes to communicate their science understandings. The context for this study was a curricular unit that incorporated multiple modes of representation in both the presentation of information and production of student understanding with a focus on the structure and function of carnivorous plants (CPs). Two science teacher educators and two first-grade teachers in the United States co-planned and co-taught a multimodal science unit on CP structure and function that included multiple representations of Venus flytraps (VFTs): physical specimens, photographs, videos, text, and discussions. Pre- and post-assessment student drawings and writings were statistically compared to note significant changes, and pre- and post-assessment writings were qualitatively analysed to note themes in student ideas. Results indicate that students increased their knowledge of VFT structure and function and synthesised information from multiple modes. While students included more structures of the VFT in their drawings, they were better able to describe the functions of structures in their writings. These results suggest the benefits for student learning and assessment of having early primary students represent their science understandings in multiple modes.     

A better start to literacy learning: findings from a teacher-implemented intervention in children’s first year at school

Reading and Writing - This study investigated the feasibility of a teacher implemented intervention to accelerate phonological awareness, letter, and vocabulary knowledge in 141 children (mean age...     

Evaluating the quality of peer and self evaluations as measures of student contributions to group projects

ABSTRACT

Educators in higher education commonly use peer and self evaluations to help assess student performance on group projects. Although these evaluations provide multiple benefits, many educators are wary of using them due to concerns about their quality. This study addresses three questions debated in the literature regarding the quality of these assessments. How much do students differentiate among peer contributions through their ratings? How reliable are peer ratings? How much agreement exists between peer and self ratings? Although these questions have been addressed to varying degrees in past work, their answers have been far from settled. While many studies focus on just one of the questions, this study’s data make it possible to address all three questions for the same group of students as well as examine each question by student performance level. The evaluations assessed in this study were completed by a large number of students under conditions associated with obtaining more valid and reliable ratings. Overall, the results provide support for using peer and self evaluations to help assess student contributions to group projects. Peer ratings were largely reliable as group members generally agreed on the scores given to their peers. In addition, most students differentiated among group member contributions through their ratings. Students also tended to rate themselves higher than their peers rated them. This study has implications for how peer and self evaluations can be most effectively used by educators to measure student performance in group work.