What high school biology teachers say about their textbook use: A descriptive study

This article reports the findings from a study that examined how high school biology teachers describe their instructional use of reading and textbooks. In the study, both quantitative and qualitative data were collected—by self-report mail questionnaire and personal interview, respectively. Eighty percent of 184 sampled teachers responded to the questionnaire, and, of these, a subsample of 16 teachers—selected to be broadly representative of the questionnaire sample—were interviewed subsequently with their instructional materials present to increase recall. We found that biology teachers modified their use of textbooks according to the academic level of the biology class that they taught. In lower academic level classes, teachers provided students with many reading activities but expected them to learn biology content in class. In higher academic level classes, teachers expected students to learn from both independent reading and classroom instruction. Biology teachers viewed both reading and inquiry activities as important to learning biology, but they appeared unsure of how to incorporate reading comprehension strategies into their science instruction.     

Reformed undergraduate instruction and its subsequent impact on secondary school teaching practice and student achievement

The Arizona Collaborative for Excellence in the Preparation of Teachers (ACEPT) Program is one of several reform efforts supported by the National Science Foundation. The primary ACEPT reform mechanism has been month‐long summer workshops in which university and community college science and mathematics faculty learn about instructional reforms and then attempt to apply them in their courses. Previous ACEPT evaluation efforts suggest that, when implemented, the reforms boost undergraduate student achievement. The initial purpose of the present study was to discover whether enrollment of preservice teachers in one or more of these reformed undergraduate courses is linked to the way they teach after they graduate and become in‐service teachers. Assuming that a link is found, a second purpose was to discover whether the presumed positive effect is in turn linked to their students' achievement. In short, the answer appears to be yes, at least among the biology teachers and students surveyed. Compared with controls, the biology teachers who had enrolled in one or more ACEPT reformed course during their teacher preparation program demonstrated significantly higher scores on the measure of reformed instruction and their students demonstrated significantly higher achievement in terms of scientific reasoning, nature of science, and biology concepts. These results support the hypothesis that teachers teach as they have been taught. Furthermore, it appears that instructional reform in teacher preparation programs including both methods and major's courses can improve secondary school student achievement. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 40: 939–957, 2003     

The Library is Dead,Long Live the Library! The Practice of Academic Librarianship and the Digital Revolution

As a direct consequence of the digital revolution, academic libraries today face competition as information providers. Using Richard N. Foster's technology S curves as the analytical model, this article shows that academic libraries are in the midst of discontinuous change by questioning a number of assumptions that support the current practice of academic librarianship. The authors challenge these assumptions, and analyze the manner in which digital communications affect academic libraries.     

Practicing what we teach.

Brown, Roger. A First Language: The Early Stages. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1973; pp. xx+437. $15.00.

Emig, Janet. The Composing Processes of Twelfth Graders. Urbana, Ill.: NCTE, 1971; pp. 151. $3.00.

O'Hare, Frank. Sentence Combining: Improving Student Writing without Formal Grammar Instruction. Urbana, Ill.: NCTE, 1971; pp. 108. $2.50.

Young, Richard E. and Frank Koen. The Tagmemic Discovery Procedure: An Evaluation of its Uses in the Teaching of Rhetoric. Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan, n.d.; pp. 69+.     

The Impact of Field Trips and Family Involvement on Mental Models of the Desert Environment

This study examined the mental models of the desert environment held by fourth‐ and seventh‐grade students in the USA and whether those mental models could be affected by: (1) classroom field trips to a desert riparian preserve, and (2) interaction with family members at the same preserve. Results generally indicated that students in this study were resolute in their models and that field trips did not impact the types of models students adhered to. Twenty‐three seventh‐grade students who self‐selected to participate in a Family Science Club with their parents did demonstrate a shift in their mental models and developed significantly more sophisticated models over time. A critical implication of the study is that unless transformation of mental models of the environment is an explicit goal of instruction, simple exposure to the environment (even within the context of life science instruction) will not transform understandings of how organisms within an environment act and interact interdependently.