Integration Factors Related to the Academic Success and Intent to Persist of College Students with Learning Disabilities

Despite increased enrollment, outcomes such as grade point average (GPA), persistence, and graduation rates for college students with learning disabilities (LD) continue to lag behind those of their nondisabled peers. Reasons for the differences vary but may include academic and social integration, factors identified as important to the success of college students in general. This research investigated the relative influence of background characteristics, precollege achievement, and college integration variables on the academic success and intent to persist of college freshmen and sophomores with LD. While academic and social integration were not unique predictors of college GPA, both integration variables were unique predictors of intent to persist. The findings suggest that beyond high school achievement and background characteristics, college experiences as captured by academic and social integration are promising constructs to help explain the persistence of college students with LD. Implications for future research and practices for high school and college personnel are discussed.     

企业竞争中掌握对手情报的一些有效方法

本文通过一系列例子来阐述建立关键同业者/竞争对手时一些可行的方法.归纳起来是四条,1)如何寻找出当今在企业中起决定影响的人士而不仅仅只看头衔职务,2)如何用生动的人性特征来区分企业,心理学方法提供了描绘企业个性化的途经,3)如何用企业独特的文化来预测企业的行为和反应,何时这种方法会有效何时失灵.在没有强势人物出现时企业文化通常延续,4)解读对手信息时注意来龙去脉,在不能求证信息来源时,不能用一孔之见随便推理.     

Leadership Reflections: Resiliency in Library Organizations

Similar to individuals, organizations display characteristics that speak to qualities and abilities. Our guest writer, Lisa Bodenheimer, discusses a trait that is critical for library organizations during this period of constant change and transformation. Resiliency is the ability to rebound and flex as circumstances shift enabling an organization to thrive and adjust during difficult times. This skill is typically developed through experiences, but, as Ms. Bodenheimer outlines, organizations are able to strategize in order to build employee and organizational resilience. Such a proactive approach will enable a library organization to better weather challenging situations and times as difficulties will enviably occur. The following article provides practical suggestions for library organizations that will enable them to be more successful while leading and managing in a changing environment.     

Examiner scoring of ambiguous WISC-R responses

Fabricated test protocols were used to study how effectively examiners agree in scoring ambiguous WISC-R responses. Clinical and school psychologists (N = 62) and graduate students (N = 48) scored WISC-R Similarities, Comprehension, and Vocabulary responses obtained in a group administration procedure. From over 15,000 responses obtained, only unusual, atypical, or ambiguous responses were selected; 726 responses were scored, with 11 groups of 10 raters each scoring 66 responses. Considerable scoring disagreement occurred. Unanimous agreement (within each group of 10 raters) was found on only 13% of the responses, while 80% of the raters agreed on 44% of the responses. Rates of scoring agreement were not related to level of rater experience, but were related to specific subtests. Higher rates of agreement were found on the Similarities and Comprehension subtests than on the Vocabulary subtest for both experienced and inexperienced raters. The results suggest that even with the improved WISC-R manual, scoring remains a difficult and challenging task.     

Setting the Stage and Keeping Sane: Implementing ArchivesSpace at the University of Minnesota

As the University of Minnesota's Archives and Special Collections began the daunting task of migrating into ArchivesSpace over 5,000 finding aids from fifteen different units, a clearly defined workflow provided clarity and success. This article outlines how staff developed an implementation timeline and workflow, harnessed support from partners in IT, provided training, and what the benchmarks to success were. By sharing this well-documented and thought-out implementation workflow, it can provide guidance as others try to navigate the many moving parts of implementing new collection management technology.     

Implementing Cooperative Learning with Mildly Handicapped Students in Regular Classrooms

THE LITERATURE on cooperative learning suggests it can benefit mildly handicapped and nonhandicapped students academically, socially, and emotionally. This article emphasizes the cooperative learning approaches of Johnson and Johnson, Slavin, and other closely related practitioners. It discusses salient research on cooperative learning, shows how it can help meet student needs in heterogeneous classes, addresses how to overcome potential problems, and offers implementation guidelines. It also provides a framework for initiating cooperative learning in ways that reduce or eliminate resistance.     

The Importance of Teaching and Learning Nature of Science in the Early Childhood Years

Though research has shown that students do not have adequate understandings of nature of science (NOS) by the time they exit high school, there is also evidence that they have not received NOS instruction that would enable them to develop such understandings. How early is “too early” to teach and learn NOS? Are students, particularly young students, not capable of learning NOS due to developmental unreadiness? Or would young children be capable of learning about NOS through appropriate instruction? Young children (Kindergarten through third grade) were interviewed and taught about NOS in a variety of contexts (informal, suburban, and urban) using similar teaching strategies that have been found effective at teaching about NOS with older students. These teaching strategies included explicit decontextualized and contextualized NOS instruction, through the use of children’s literature, debriefings of science lessons, embedded written NOS assessments, and guided inquiries. In each context the researchers interviewed students prior to and after instruction, videotaped science instruction and maintained researcher logs and field notes, collected lesson plans, and copies of student work. The researchers found that in each setting young children did improve their understandings of NOS. Across contexts there were similar understandings of NOS aspects prior to instruction, as well as after instruction. There were also several differences evident across contexts, and across grade levels. However, it is clear that students as young as kindergarten are developmentally capable of conceptualizing NOS when it is taught to them. The authors make recommendations for teaching NOS to young children, and for future studies that explore learning progressions of NOS aspects as students proceed through school.     

Science and Mathematics Mentees and Mentors: Who Benefits the Most?

The purpose of our study was to determine the extent to which differences in a mentor model for science and mathematics teachers accounted for variances in mentoring effectiveness and persistence rates of teachers. School district designee, mentor, and teacher perceptions of mentoring support were collected through the use of interviews and surveys and analyzed using the grounded theory approach and open coding. Findings revealed that teachers and mentors recommended that future mentor models provide strong support and more face-to-face meetings. The most common change mentors made was that they incorporated new strategies into their teaching. Findings offer insight for structuring mentor models to increase effectiveness and persistence of teachers and build the capacity of mentors.