Teacher use of evidence to customize inquiry science instruction

This study investigated how professional development featuring evidence‐based customization of technology‐enhanced curriculum projects can improve inquiry science teaching and student knowledge integration in earth science. Participants included three middle school sixth‐grade teachers and their classes of students (N = 787) for three consecutive years. Teachers used evidence from their student work to revise the curriculum projects and rethink their teaching strategies. Data were collected through teacher interviews, written reflections, classroom observations, curriculum artifacts, and student assessments. Results suggest that the detailed information about the learning activities of students provided by the assessments embedded in the online curriculum motivated curricular and pedagogical customizations that resulted in both teacher and student learning. Customizations initiated by teachers included revisions of embedded questions, additions of hands‐on investigations, and modifications of teaching strategies. Student performance improved across the three cohorts of students with each year of instructional customization. Coupling evidence from student work with revisions of curriculum and instruction has promise for strengthening professional development and improving science learning. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 47: 1037–1063, 2010     

Book Reviews

A major role that two‐year colleges play is to provide graduates who are prepared to meet the labor demands of business and industry. Business is no longer content with employees who possess job specific knowledge only, but is seeking employees who possess other attributes as well, such as the ability to solve problems, relate to others, and adapt to changing situations. To meet these demands, a curriculum model has been developed at Spartanburg Technical College to combine job specific content with work‐related skills. Innovative teaching strategies are used to bridge content and skills in such a way so content is not sacrificed, while at the same time, student's work‐related skills are developed. Teaching methodologies are sequentially and strategically placed to allow students to build from a basic to an advanced level of competency for each work‐related skill. The six step process results in several benefits including faculty, student and college development and improved college‐business/industry relations.     

Participatory action research as pedagogy: investigating social and ecological justice learning within a teacher education program

A research collective comprised of teacher candidates, graduate students, and faculty set out to investigate the role and impact of social and ecological justice learning in a teacher education program. Amidst the tensions, negotiations, and articulations of the research design, the collective came to recognize the spaces of participatory action research as sites of growth and efficacy toward justice learning. And, each began to perceive themselves as both impacted by educational structures and as agents enacting their own visions of professional practice. These outcomes are discussed in the context of the growing body of participatory action research, emphasizing the dynamic learning precipitated within the intersections of the research collective. The empirical analysis, involving survey and interview data, brought to bear the rarity of events participants (teacher candidates) recognized as invoking meaningful social and ecological justice learning, and goes some way to describe such learning in terms of embodied experience. The paper closes with a selection of testimonials provided by members of the research collective, offering personal accounts of what was gained through participating in the research process.     

Project high hopes summer institute: Curriculum for developing talent in students with special needs

This article examines a summer institute curriculum that was developed for and used with handicapped students who were identified as gifted in the area(s) of visual arts, performing arts, engineering, or life sciences. The students and the summer institute were part of a federally funded Javits program, Project High Hopes. The curriculum was real world, multi‐disciplinary and problem based in that it used a decaying water feature on the school grounds as its focus. Using a creative problem solving process, students identified problems with the water feature, developed solutions, created presentations, and presented their solutions to the school board. Student products are described as are conclusions, results and possible implications for other educational settings.     

MY MOTHER,YOUR MOTHER: EMBRACING “SLOW MEDICINE”: THE COMPASSIONATE APPROACH TO CARING FOR YOUR AGING LOVED ONES By Dennis McCullough

Dysphagia, or disordered swallowing, is explained relative to normal swallowing. Social, psychological, medical, and economic consequences of dysphasia are discussed with note of the particular prevalence of the disorder among the elderly. A multidisciplinary team approach to treatment is presented with roles of the various professionals defined. Case studies demonstrating the benefits of treatment are presented.     

A legacy of promise: Reflections,suggestions, and directions from contemporary leaders in the field of gifted education

Abstract

Six contemporary leaders from the field of gifted education responded to questions concerning past, present, and future issues surrounding the education of gifted and talented youth. This report was designed to provide expert perspectives on (a) the accomplishments of gifted education, (b) core non‐negotiables about educating gifted children that all teachers should know, and (c) future challenges and directions for this field of study and practice. Qualitative analysis of the responses yielded core themes in each of the major areas, which are reported with summaries of responses and quotes from each respondent.     

Scholarship as intervention: critique,collaboration and the research imagination

Following Scott (this issue), this paper examines how environmental education researchers might intervene to greater effect in the policies and practices of our governments and local and international organizations through individual and collective programmes of research. Suggesting that public scholarship or academic activism can engage a wide spectrum of genres and outcomes of research activity, the paper proposes that what stands out are not the methods employed in seeking to have research ‘be of use’, but instead what can be termed modes of engagement. These can be described as including interpretive critique or ‘speaking truth to power’, public space and collaboration, and the role of research imagination in social life. These three modes are discussed with the hope that researchers will consider their possibilities and implications in working towards more powerful public scholarship in environmental education.     

Modeling Passing Rates on a Computer-Based Medical Licensing Examination: An Application of Survival Data Analysis

The purpose of this article was to model United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE) Step 2 passing rates using the Cox Proportional Hazards Model, best known for its application in analyzing clinical trial data. The number of months it took to pass the computer-based Step 2 examination was treated as the dependent variable in the model. Covariates in the model were: (a) medical school location (U.S. and Canadian or other), (b) primary language (English or other), and (c) gender. Preliminary findings indicate that examinees were nearly 2.7 times more likely to experience the event (pass Step 2) if they were U.S. or Canadian trained. Examinees with English as their primary language were 2.1 times more likely to pass Step 2, but gender had little impact. These findings are discussed more fully in light of past research and broader potential applications of survival analysis in educational measurement.     

Control of pigeons’ keypecking by the left-right arrangement of stimuli

Control of pigeons’ keypecking by conditionalities in the spatial arrangement of two element stimuli (designated A and B) was investigated. In Experiment 1, reinforcement for keypecking was made conditional upon the left-right location of A and B: Reinforcement was available when A was on the left and B was on the right (AB), but not on BA, AA, or BB trials. The pigeons successfully discriminated the rewarded AB configuration, but only after a stage in which a particular element in a particular location (e.g., A on left) primarily controlled pecking. Experiments 2 and 3 systematically replicated these findings and included controls to discount discrimination of the AB compound on the basis of the temporal order (e.g., A followed by B) rather than the spatial configuration of the elements. During a generalization test in Experiment 4, the elements were presented singly either in the left (AX, BX) or right (XA, XB) positions. As would be expected had the animals learned “A on the left, B on the right is rewarded,” responding on AX trials exceeded that on XA trials, and responding on XB trials exceeded that on BX trials.     

Control of pigeons’ keypecking topography by a schedule of alternating food and water reward

Food- and water-deprived pigeons keypecked for food or water reinforcement on alternate trials. Under one condition, explicit stimuli on the key provided information about the trial outcome; under another condition, only the alternation schedule provided this information. Latency and/or response rate differences between food- and water-rewarded trials emerged during both conditions. Response topography also differed on food- and water-rewarded trials. These differences, as revealed by duration and force measurements of the keypeck and by human ratings of the pecking responses as being water- or food-related, were anticipatory in nature. These results not only extend previous work on reward alternation and reward-specific response topographies, but also have implications for theories of animal memory. In particular, these results are amenable to memory models that assume that an animal “codes” information that later must be recalled.