A Study of the Effects of a LSC Project on Scientists’ Teaching Practices and Beliefs

The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of a local systemic change (LSC) project on scientists’ practices and beliefs about teaching and learning. A mixed-method design was implemented that consisted of a series of interviews and the administration of the Classroom Learning Environment Survey (paper presented at the annual meeting of the National Association for Research in Science Teaching, Anaheim, CA, 1994). Results from this study suggest that collaborative opportunities afforded by this model program have positively influenced scientists’ beliefs about teaching elementary science and may be impacting some of the scientists’ pedagogical and curricular practices in their general education courses. Many scientists have developed new collaborative projects, all intended to improve science education at the graduate and undergraduate level, and are beginning to understand the complexity of science education reform.     

Evaluating a digital library self-archiving service: The BDBComp user case study

In this article, we present an overview of a self-archiving service for the Brazilian Digital Library of Computing (BDBComp) and describe a user experiment conducted to evaluate it. This experiment involved several potential real users, including computer science graduate students and professors, and archivists/librarians. The results of this study and their implications for similar services are described and analyzed, following sound statistical principles, which can serve as a basis for other similar studies. These results and their analysis indicate that we have successed in building a usable, efficient and learnable self-archiving service, properties which are essential to bring users to the system.     

Anthropogenic emission is the main contributor to the rise of atmospheric methane during 1993–2017

Atmospheric methane (CH₄) concentrations have shown a puzzling resumption in growth since 2007 following a period of stabilization from 2000 to 2006. Multiple hypotheses have been proposed to explain the temporal variations in CH₄ growth, and attribute the rise of atmospheric CH₄ either to increases in emissions from fossil fuel activities, agriculture and natural wetlands, or to a decrease in the atmospheric chemical sink. Here, we use a comprehensive ensemble of CH₄ source estimates and isotopic δ¹³C-CH₄ source signature data to show that the resumption of CH₄ growth is most likely due to increased anthropogenic emissions. Our emission scenarios that have the fewest biases with respect to isotopic composition suggest that the agriculture, landfill and waste sectors were responsible for 53 ± 13% of the renewed growth over the period 2007–2017 compared to 2000–2006; industrial fossil fuel sources explained an additional 34 ± 24%, and wetland sources contributed the least at 13 ± 9%. The hypothesis that a large increase in emissions from natural wetlands drove the decrease in atmospheric δ¹³C-CH₄ values cannot be reconciled with current process-based wetland CH₄ models. This finding suggests the need for increased wetland measurements to better understand the contemporary and future role of wetlands in the rise of atmospheric methane and climate feedback. Our findings highlight the predominant role of anthropogenic activities in driving the growth of atmospheric CH₄ concentrations.     

The power of positioning: on the normalisation of gender,race/ethnicity,nation and class positions in a Swedish social work textbook

This article presents a feminist reading of a Swedish social work academic textbook as a case study. We use a discourse analytic approach and positioning theory, focusing on author positions through different story lines. The aim is to make visible how differences are created and positions of the author/reader normalised in terms of gender, race/ethnicity and class. The analysis illustrates how the organisation of the book privileges a particular story line by presenting gender research in a special section of the book and as a perspective. A neutral, unmarked author position is assumed, presented as a common ‘we’ by identifying ‘women researchers’ and ‘feminist’ points of departure as different. If the unmarked author/reader ‘we’ position appears desirable and morally superior, the clients’ gender, ethnicity and class are often openly discussed in relation to social problems, positioning them as ‘the other’. Finally there is also a story line of more critical and ambivalent knowledge positions.     

Different Methods – Different Results: How the Swedish Results in Mathematics Vary Depending on Methodological Approach

The results for TIMSS population 2 in Sweden indicated that Swedish student achievement in mathematics was average. There were even mass media reports that indicated that Swedish students had some of the lowest results in mathematics. The issue that is addressed in this article is whether the performance of Swedish students is average or even low. To answer this, the basis of comparison between the different countries needs to be discussed. Mass media, for example, based its comparison on all 45 countries participating in TIMSS population 2 and in its national TIMSS report, the Swedish National Agency for Education presented a different selection of countries. The report compared the results of the 25 countries that met the sampling requirements set by the TIMSS International Study Centre. This focuses the discussion on what approaches are used when comparing results from different countries in an international comparative study. In this article the TIMSS results, as presented by the Swedish National Agency for Education, are compared with the results obtained with other methodological approaches. The comparison is based on the importance of three variables for the results of the comparison: equal number of years in school, the selection of countries, and the contents of the textbooks in the different countries. The results indicate that the number of years in school, as well as the content of the textbooks in each country, are important factors when comparing the results for different countries.     

Remembering Nina Lenček, 18 January 1924–25 November 2014

Columbia University Libraries’ longtime Slavic & East European Studies Librarian Nina Len?ek passed away on November 25, 2014, at the age of 90. On January 22, 2015, a large group of her friends, family, and colleagues gathered at Butler Library to remember, honor, and celebrate her remarkable life and legacy.     

A Conceptual Characterization of Online Videos Explaining Natural Selection

Educational videos on the Internet comprise a vast and highly diverse source of information. Online search engines facilitate access to numerous videos claiming to explain natural selection, but little is known about the degree to which the video content match key evolutionary content identified as important in evolution education research. In this study, we therefore analyzed the content of 60 videos accessed through the Internet, using a criteria catalog with 38 operationalized variables derived from research literature. The variables were sorted into four categories: (a) key concepts (e.g. limited resources and inherited variation), (b) threshold concepts (abstract concepts with a transforming and integrative function), (c) misconceptions (e.g. that evolution is driven by need), and (d) organismal context (e.g. animal or plant). The results indicate that some concepts are frequently communicated, and certain taxa are commonly used to illustrate concepts, while others are seldom included. In addition, evolutionary phenomena at small temporal and spatial scales, such as subcellular processes, are rarely covered. Rather, the focus is on population-level events over time scales spanning years or longer. This is consistent with an observed lack of explanations regarding how randomly occurring mutations provide the basis for variation (and thus natural selection). The findings imply, among other things, that some components of natural selection warrant far more attention in biology teaching and science education research.