Advancing Research in the National Science Foundation’s Advanced Technological Education Program

ABSTRACT

Advanced Technological Education is distinct from typical National Science Foundation programs in that it is essentially a training—not research—program, and most grantees are located at technical and two-year colleges. This article presents empirical data on the status of research in the program, discusses the program’s role in supporting NSF’s values of intellectual merit and broader impacts, and offers strategies for enhancing research within the program.     

Human Relations: The Cornerstone of a Roeper Education

This article traces the evolution of a moral philosophy curriculum originally taught by George A. Roeper in the earliest years of The Roeper School. The first author, a student at The Roeper School in the 1960s and 1970s, describes the impact of the class George Roeper called “Human Relations” on her life. Returning to the School as a parent and trustee, she had the opportunity to re-create for current students the experience of the Human Relations class in a workshop, liberally borrowing material from a philosophy class taught by Harvard political philosopher Michael Sandel. In the second part of the article, a current English teacher at The Roeper School and attendee at that workshop discusses how she was inspired to revise her literature courses to incorporate the moral philosophy approach of George Roeper and Michael Sandel.     

Making sense of technology in educational leadership programs

Conclusion Identify standards, align curricula, support technology—these are the three strategies that bring clarity to the process. As technology changes, the standards, curricula and support must change. ACTIVStudio, interactive whiteboards and cyber diaries are not just buzzwords — they are the new language of technology. The Citadel School of Education is paying attention — making sense of the challenge of keeping current technology in educational leadership programs. She is a former teacher and school administrator and currently teaches graduate courses, including microcomputers and school management, to aspiring administrators. Ms. Alice B. Hambright, a former public school teacher.     

The Structure of Achievement and Behavior across Middle Childhood

This research used data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) to describe and model developmental trajectories across middle childhood. Our sample consisted of approximately 1,000 children of NLSY women who were aged 6 to 7 years in either 1986 or 1988. Assessments of PIAT math and reading scores and the mother-reported Behavior Problem Index in 1986, 1988, 1990, and 1992 provided data for middle-child trajectories of children aged 6 to 7 in 1986. Assessments in 1988, 1990, 1992, and 1994 provided data for children aged 6 to 7 in 1988. We used the raw score form of these data to estimate LISREL-based models of their autoregressive structure. As with other samples, average math and reading achievement trajectories were parabolic for NLSY children, with scores increasing at a decreasing rate over this period. Average behavior-problem trajectories were flat. Behind these average shapes was extreme diversity in level (and in some cases, slopes), of individual trajectories and a pronounced tendency for above average changes between two adjacent assessments to be followed by opposite-signed changes in the subsequent period. Estimates from our structural models showed great heterogeneity in the average level of achievement and behavior for all three outcomes and heterogeneous slopes for reading scores as well. Boys but not girls were found to have heterogeneous slopes for math and behavior problems, whereas girls but not boys showed a significantly higher degree of persistence if "shocked" off of their expected trajectories.     

Pigeons’ memory for empty time intervals marked by visual or auditory stimuli

In Experiment 1, pigeons were trained to discriminate the duration (2 or 8 sec) of an empty interval separated by two 1325-Hz tone markers by responding to red and green comparison stimuli. During delay testing, a choose-short bias occurred at 1 sec, but a robust choose-long bias occurred at 9 sec. Responding in the absence of tone markers indicated that the pigeons were attending to the markers and not simply timing the total trial duration. The birds were then trained to match short (2-sec) or long (8-sec) empty intervals marked by light to blue/yellow comparisons. For both visual and auditory markers, delay testing produced a choose-short bias at 1 sec and a choose-long bias at 9 sec. In Experiment 2, the pigeons were shifted from a fixed to variable intertrial intervals (ITI) within sessions. On trials with tone markers, the duration of both the empty interval and the preceding ITI affected choice responding. On trials with light markers, only the duration of the empty interval influenced choice responding. Subsequent delay testing in the context of variable ITIs replicated the memory biases previously obtained. In Experiment 3, performance was assessed at various delay intervals on trials in which either the first or the second marker was omitted. The data from these omission tests indicated that the first marker initiated timing but that the second marker sometimes initiated the timing of a new interval. Explanations of these effects in terms of the internal clock model of timing are discussed, and a simple quantitative model of the delay interval data is tested.     

Emergent patterns of teaching/learning in electronic classrooms

Novel patterns of teaching/learning have emerged from faculty and students who use our three teaching/learning theaters at the University of Maryland, College Park. These fully-equipped electronic classrooms have been used by 74 faculty in 264 semester-long courses since the fall of 1991 with largely enthusiastic reception by both faculty and students. The designers of the teaching/learning theaters sought to provide a technologically rich environment and a support staff so that faculty could concentrate on changing the traditional lecture from its unidirectional information flow to a more collaborative activity. As faculty have evolved their personal styles in using the electronic classrooms, novel patterns of teaching/learning have emerged. In addition to enhanced lectures, we identified three common patterns: (a) active individual learning, (b) small-group collaborative learning, and (c) entire-class collaborative learning.     

Embracing the complexity of inclusive science classrooms: Professional development through collaboration

There are no panaceas and no shortcuts. Man is an amphibious being who lives simultaneously or successively in several universes: in the world of matter, the world of mind, the world of spirit; in the individual world and in the social world; in the homemade universe of his own artifacts, institutions, and imaginings, and in the given, the God-made universe of nature and grace. In the very nature of things none of the major problems confronting such a being can possibly be a simple problem. Those who seek simple solutions for complex problems may have the best of intentions; but unfortunately there is an original sin of the intellect in our habit of arbitrary oversimplification. Those who act without taking precautions against this vice of their intellectual nature doom themselves and their fellows to perpetual disappointment. (Aldous Huxley, 1953, p. 1.)     

Measuring Effectiveness of Health Education in a Web‐based Learning Environment: a preliminary report

Driven by claims of efficacy, flexibility and resource effectiveness, higher education is increasingly utilising the Web as an instructional tool. The claims for pedagogical effectiveness are often just that – claims — and appear not to have been proven in the reality of subject presentation and evaluation. Thus, it is necessary to examine assumptions regarding the benefits of Web‐based instruction in terms of effectiveness. This article discusses aspects of an investigation which examined and compared the effectiveness of HIV/AIDS related collaborative tutorial activities carried out in both a Web‐based learning environment and a face‐to‐face class situation within an undergraduate health education subject. Effectiveness of the pedagogical strategy and the different learning environments were measured in terms of observed learning outcomes and reported perceptions of the learners regarding their learning experience. Preliminary results based on measured learning outcomes related to the subject matter, HIV/AIDS, demonstrated that collaborative learning activities were significantly more effective in the Web‐based than in the class environment. Additionally, the vast majority of learners perceived the Web‐based environment to be as effective or more effective than the face‐to‐face, class environment in terms of facilitating their understanding of the issues explored in the subject.