Reflections on Managing a School Library

The school librarian is a manager — despite what others and they themselves might believe. The school library management experience resembles that of the public, special, and academic library. There are common issues of self-sufficiency, conflicting roles, problematic patrons, and lack of respect. School library managers face unique challenges as well. They often have unusually constricted budgets, dubious personnel support, little time to plan, and facilities that are routinely co-opted for other purposes. They are expected to be technology experts and teach on a regular basis. They act as “loco parentis” for their patrons. They must not just promote their services but advocate for their existence. Graduate library schools often offer few courses in school library management for a variety of, usually economic, reasons. Traditional management courses should be supplemented by in-the-field experience and observation as well as input from practicing school librarians. In conclusion, I offer a wish list of school library management tips from my 30+ years of experience.     

“How Do We Know It's Working?”: The Teaching Artist's Role in Program Evaluations and Assessing Student Work

This article provides a framework to assist evaluators, teaching artists, and program managers in working together.     

A High-Enrollment Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experience Improves Student Conceptions of Scientific Thinking and Ability to Interpret Data

We present an innovative course-based undergraduate research experience curriculum focused on the characterization of single point mutations in p53, a tumor suppressor gene that is mutated in more than 50% of human cancers. This course is required of all introductory biology students, so all biology majors engage in a research project as part of their training. Using a set of open-ended written prompts, we found that the course shifts student conceptions of what it means to think like a scientist from novice to more expert-like. Students at the end of the course identified experimental repetition, data analysis, and collaboration as important elements of thinking like a scientist. Course exams revealed that students showed gains in their ability to analyze and interpret data. These data indicate that this course-embedded research experience has a positive impact on the development of students’ conceptions and practice of scientific thinking.     

The Alert Program for self-management of behaviour in second level schools: results of phase 1 of a pilot study

This article reports on Phase 1 of a pilot programme on self-management of behaviour with challenging class groups of students as part of the evidence-informed practice of the National Behaviour Support Service. The Alert Program is a structured active learning programme using an engine analogy. The person’s engine runs on high, low or just right for the task in hand. The focus of this first phase of the pilot was on the appropriateness of module content, teaching approaches, resource materials and classroom management strategies. Eighty-five first year students (aged 12–13 years) and four teachers in four second level partner schools in areas of social disadvantage were involved. Trial 1 offered five class sessions and Trial 2 offered eight. Phase 1 was occupational therapist led with class teacher support. Perceptions from teachers and students were gathered by questionnaires. Teachers reported that the content and class management strategies were appropriate. Students gained an understanding of their behaviour and identified self-management strategies for use in the class. They recommended that all teachers working with the class group should be familiar with the language and techniques of the programme to reinforce learning. Feedback from 85% (72) of students confirmed that the learning tasks were considered by the majority to be enjoyable and relevant. The group of students perceived to be the most challenging gave the most positive scores, and 100% of these indicated their intention to use their new self-management strategies in class. The positive results led to Phase 2 of the pilot in which teachers took the lead role with occupational therapist support in a national pilot in 16 schools in areas of social disadvantage.     

《国土安全》:最佳美剧打造记

若说《国土安全》的幕后成就了这一台戏,那让凭借精湛演技获奖的克莱尔·丹尼斯情何以堪?但,此刻,你不得不说,幕后创作班底就是灵魂,就是核心。从剧情架构到人物心理,每一个创作环节都堪称编剧心血的结晶,2012年艾美奖颁奖典礼上,《国土安全》和艾美一贯的宠儿《摩登家庭》并驾齐驱,大放异彩。每个看过该剧的人都大呼过瘾,剧情     

《衰姐们》:当年轻梦想照进纽约现实

莉娜·杜汉姆在2010年"西南偏南"大会上受到追捧的电影《微型家具》借用残酷的现实主义,用大胆、幽默的手法,捕捉到20多岁,刚大学毕业的那一代人惴惴不安以及迷茫无助的心态。在其描绘下,曼哈顿变成一     

A hybrid system of pedagogical pattern recommendations based on singular value decomposition and variable data attributes

To carry out effective teaching/learning processes, lecturers in a variety of educational institutions frequently need support. They therefore resort to advice from more experienced lecturers, to formal training processes such as specializations, master or doctoral degrees, or to self-training. High costs in time and money are invariably involved in the processes of formal training, while self-training and advice each bring their own specific risks (e.g. of following new trends that are not fully evaluated or the risk of applying techniques that are inappropriate in specific contexts).This paper presents a system that allows lecturers to define their best teaching strategies for use in the context of a specific class. The context is defined by: the specific characteristics of the subject being treated, the specific objectives that are expected to be achieved in the classroom session, the profile of the students on the course, the dominant characteristics of the teacher, and the classroom environment for each session, among others. The system presented is the Recommendation System of Pedagogical Patterns (RSPP). To construct the RSPP, an ontology representing the pedagogical patterns and their interaction with the fundamentals of the educational process was defined. A web information system was also defined to record information on courses, students, lecturers, etc.; an option based on a unified hybrid model (for content and collaborative filtering) of recommendations for pedagogical patterns was further added to the system. RSPP features a minable view, a tabular structure that summarizes and organizes the information registered in the rest of the system as well as facilitating the task of recommendation. The data recorded in the minable view is taken to a latent space, where noise is reduced and the essence of the information contained in the structure is distilled. This process makes use of Singular Value Decomposition (SVD), commonly used by information retrieval and recommendation systems. Satisfactory results both in the accuracy of the recommendations and in the use of the general application open the door for further research and expand the role of recommender systems in educational teacher support processes.     

Survey of CACREP‐Accredited Programs: Training Counselors to Provide Treatment for Sexual Abuse

The author discusses the importance of training counselors to provide adequate treatment for survivors of sexual abuse, presents the results of a survey of programs approved by the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs regarding current training practices, and offers recommendations and a model for developing a training component in sexual abuse counseling.     

The relationship between reading achievement and morphological word analysis in deaf and hearing students matched for reading level

This study extends the findings of Gaustad, Kelly, Payne, and Lylak (2002), which showed that deaf college students and hearing middle school students appeared to have approximately the same morphological knowledge and word segmentation skills. Because the average grade level reading abilities for the two groups of students were also similar, those research findings suggested that deaf students' morphological development was progressing as might be expected relative to reading level. This study further examined the specific relationship between morphologically based word identification skills and reading achievement levels, as well as differences in the error patterns of deaf and hearing readers. Comparison of performance between pairs of deaf college students and hearing middle school students matched for reading achievement level shows significant superiority of younger hearing participants for skills relating especially to the meaning of derivational morphemes and roots, and the segmentation of words containing multiple types of morphemes. Group subtest comparisons and item analysis comparisons of specific morpheme knowledge and word segmentation show clear differences in the morphographic skills of hearing middle school readers over deaf college students, even though they were matched and appear to read at the same grade levels, as measured by standardized tests.