Improving and Sustaining Center Quality: The Role of NAEYC Accreditation and Staff Stability

Research Findings. This study examines child care centers that improved quality and sustained these improvements over time. Quality was assessed using the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scales (ECERS). Forty-three centers were visited three times over six years. Centers that substantially improved by Time 2 were not initially rated better than those that did not improve but did employ less harsh teachers. At the second visit, centers that improved substantially were higher in quality, employed more sensitive and less harsh teachers, had experienced lower teaching staff turnover, and achieved NAEYC accreditation. The vast majority sustained these improvements. Centers seeking NAEYC accreditation were more likely to become accredited if they received moderate to intensive support and experienced less teaching staff turnover. Centers were more likely to experience lower turnover if they paid staff higher wages. Practice or Policy. Resources to support centers in becoming accredited and to increase the retention of teaching staff can assist centers in improving and sustaining quality.     

Rebels of the underground: Media,orality, and the routes of black emancipation

Studies of race in communication studies often critique and/or celebrate representations of people of color, but recently scholars have called for studies to “go beyond” representation. Building off the work of Sarah Sharma, Harold Innis, Marshall McLuhan, and Walter Ong, this article considers how forms of media, rather than solely content, have racial implications that exceed their representational capabilities. Through an analysis of slave narratives, this article argues that the Underground Railroad was a “media environment” that assisted slave emancipation. This environment celebrated oral forms of mediation and the bodies of certain black runaway slaves to mediate the lines between freedom and bondage.     

Gauging the gaps in student problem-solving skills: assessment of individual and group use of problem-solving strategies using online discussions

For the past 3 yr, faculty at the University of New Mexico, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology have been using interactive online Problem-Based Learning (PBL) case discussions in our large-enrollment classes. We have developed an illustrative tracking method to monitor student use of problem-solving strategies to provide targeted help to groups and to individual students. This method of assessing performance has a high interrater reliability, and senior students, with training, can serve as reliable graders. We have been able to measure improvements in many students' problem-solving strategies, but, not unexpectedly, there is a population of students who consistently apply the same failing strategy when there is no faculty intervention. This new methodology provides an effective tool to direct faculty to constructively intercede in this area of student development.     

New research paradigms in instructional technology: An inquiry

In this paper, we review the current state of research paradigms in the field of instructional technology from the perspective of research standards and paradigms recommended by Leslie J. Briggs in the early 1980s. Our analysis of articles published in Educational Technology Research and Development from 1992 to 1996 revealed that relatively few research paradigms were used and that studies did not, for the most part, adhere to Briggs's (1984) Culture Four standards. Perhaps the most startling result was that more than half the articles published were not empirical studies at all. We discuss some reasons for these findings and suggest that instructional technology (IT) researchers make a renewed commitment to Briggs's standards. IT researchers can again advance knowledge in the field in significant ways by collaborating with partners in the field and focusing on questions related to instructional design processes, questions that require the use of more developmental research methods. She is President Elect of AECT and will assume the presidency in February 2000.     

“I believe I will go out of this class actually knowing something”: Cooperative learning activities in physical chemistry

The purposes of this study were to describe the structure of events during cooperative learning activities—Friday discussion sessions—in a graduate-level thermodynamics course and to understand what these activities meant to the students. First, we describe the structure of Friday discussion sessions in our classroom, which were used to focus student attention on conceptual issues rather than algorithmic problem solving. Second, we delineate findings which emerge from the perspective of the students. We found that cooperative learning activities move students away from rote learning strategies and toward more meaningful strategies which allowed them to integrate concepts over the entire semester. In addition, we discovered that the sharing of insights and ideas between students leads to the development of interpersonal skills and communication skills which the students perceive as an important component of the Friday discussion sessions. Implications for further classroom use, low-status versus high-status students, and assessment are discussed. J Res Sci Teach 34: 819–835, 1997.