Gathering Requirements for Teacher Tools: Strategies for Empowering Teachers Through Co-Design

Technology can enhance teachers’ practice in multiple ways. It can help them better understand patterns in their students’ thinking, manage class progress at individual and group levels, and obtain evidence to inform modifications to curriculum and instruction. Such technology is most effective when it is aligned with teachers’ goals and expectations. Participatory methods, which involve teachers closely in the design process, are widely recommended for establishing accurate design requirements that address users’ needs. By collaborating with researchers, teachers can contribute their professional expertise to shape the tools of their practice, and ultimately ensure their sustained use. However, there is little guidance available for maintaining effective teacher–researcher design partnerships. We describe four strategies for engaging teachers in designing tools intended to support and enhance their practice within a web-based science learning environment: discussing physical artifacts, reacting to scenarios, customizing prototypes, and writing user stories. Using design artifacts and documents of teachers’ reflections, we illustrate how we applied these techniques over 5 years of annual professional development workshops, and examine their affordances for eliciting teachers’ ideas. We reflect on how these approaches have helped inform technology refinements and innovations. We moreover discuss the further benefits these strategies have had in encouraging teachers to reflect on their own practice and on the roles of technology in supporting it; and in allowing researchers to gain a deeper understanding of the relationship between technology, teaching, and design.     

The Teacher''s Role in Facilitating Memory and Study Strategy Development in the Elementary School Classroom

The efforts of 69 elementary school teachers to instruct children in cognitive processing activities were observed. Although the teaching of such activities was relatively infrequent, it varied by grade (occurring more often in grades 2-3 than in higher or lower grades) and by the content of instruction. Teachers of grade 4 and above more often provided rationales for the use of cognitive strategies than did teachers of younger children. In a second study, children of three achievement levels were selected from classrooms in which teachers varied in their use of suggestions regarding cognitive processes. Subsequent to training in the use of a memory strategy, children's performance on a maintenance trial was evaluated: Among average and low achievers, those whose teachers were relatively high in strategy suggestions showed better maintenance and more deliberate use of the trained strategy than did children whose teachers rarely made strategy suggestions. The role of school experience in the development of children's memory skills is discussed.     

Childhood abuse and later parenting outcomes in two American Indian tribes

OBJECTIVES: To examine the relationship of childhood physical and sexual abuse with reported parenting satisfaction and parenting role impairment later in life among American Indians (AIs). METHODS: AIs from Southwest and Northern Plains tribes who participated in a large-scale community-based study (n=3,084) were asked about traumatic events and family history; those with children were asked questions about their parenting experiences. Regression models estimated the relationships between childhood abuse and parenting satisfaction or parenting role impairment, and tested for mediation by depression or substance use disorders. RESULTS: Lifetime substance use disorder fully mediated the relationship between childhood physical abuse and both parenting satisfaction and parenting role impairment in the Northern Plains tribe. There was only partial mediation between childhood sexual abuse and parenting role impairment in the Southwest. In both tribes, lifetime depression did not meet the criteria for mediation of the relationship between childhood abuse and the two parenting outcomes. Instrumental and perceived social support significantly enhanced parenting satisfaction; negative social support reduced satisfaction and increased the likelihood of parenting role impairment. Exposure to parental violence while growing up had deleterious effects on parenting outcomes. Mothers and fathers did not differ significantly in the relation of childhood abuse experience and later parenting outcomes. CONCLUSIONS: Strong effects of social support and mediation of substance abuse disorders in the Northern Plains offer direct ways in which childhood victims of abuse could be helped to avoid negative attributes of parenting that could put their own children at risk. PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS: Mothers were not significantly different from fathers in the relation of abusive childhood experiences and later parenting outcomes, indicating both are candidates for interventions. Strong effects of social support offer avenues for interventions to parents. The prevalence of substance use disorders and their role as a mediator of two parenting outcomes in the Northern Plains should focus special attention on substance use treatment, especially among those who experienced childhood victimization. These factors offer direct ways in which childhood victims of abuse can be helped to avoid negative attributes of parenting that could put their own children at risk of violence.     

Working for Independence by Working Together: a case study of an information technology consultancy with a secondary mathematics department

ABSTRACT

The purpose of the research reported in this paper was to investigate strategies to aid teachers in delivering the mathematical component of the English National Curriculum with the help of electronic databases and spreadsheets. It is widely realised within mathematics that information technology remains a relatively neglected part of the curriculum in some schools. The provision of short courses in using spreadsheets and databases as part of a traditional inservice package is often considered to be unsuccessful as a means of enabling teachers to deliver the material back in the classroom. It could be argued that for progress to be made, an expert must spend time working in situ in the school with the teacher(s). Clearly an expert cannot provide such support for every department that requires assistance, so there is a need to develop generally applicable strategies as a springboard for their own means. This paper reports on a case study designed to start the process of developing such strategies.     

A longitudinal study of state government homepage accessibility in Maryland and the role of web page templates for improving accessibility

It is well documented that government agencies, at all levels, continue to have problems ensuring that government web sites follow laws related to web accessibility for people with disabilities. Although there are a number of published studies on government web accessibility that are point-in-time, there are no published studies consisting of a longitudinal analysis of state-level government web site accessibility. This paper contributes to the research literature in three ways: 1) an accessibility inspection of 25 Maryland state government homepages in 2012 which involved 150 human inspections of web pages, 2) a comparison of the results from 2012 to a similar accessibility evaluation in 2009, and 3) a discussion of the role of a web page template, which was introduced in Maryland state government shortly after the 2009 evaluation. The data from this longitudinal evaluation leads to the conclusion that web page templates do tend to result in more accessible sites within state government.     

Museums,Meaning Making,and Memories: The Need for Museum Programs for People with Dementia and Their Caregivers

Abstract At times considered an unreachable audience, people with dementia have found a wealth of positive and meaningful experiences in museum settings. Making a case for the creation of museum programs for people with dementia and their caregivers, this article describes the experience of dementia both for those diagnosed with the disease and for those providing care; highlights several existing museum programs for people with dementia; and offers suggestions for future programming options.