Taking Up Opportunities to Learn: Constructing Dispositions in Mathematics Classrooms

This article presents an analysis of how students' dispositions toward learning shift and change over time through their engagement with particular classroom practices and identifies classroom practices that support the development of more productive dispositions. An analysis of 4 purposefully selected students from 2 different classrooms reveals that membership in a classroom activity system does not determine one's emergent disposition toward learning. However, it is likely that similar types of dispositions might emerge within a single classroom activity system. The analysis further seeks to understand the mechanisms that underlie the ways in which dispositions are enacted in moments of interaction, and how aspects of classroom practice impact this enactment. The findings support the argument that social, affective, and motivational factors are not simply influences on learning but are, instead, central to and inseparable from the learning process.     

Striking Out on Its Own: The Divergence of Criminology and Criminal Justice from Sociology

As education budgets shrink and interest in criminal justice at the collegiate level expands, large classes are being implemented in colleges and universities that traditionally have offered only small ones. If increasing criminal justice class sizes are inevitable, it is crucial that we gain an understanding of how large classes are currently taught and the extent to which these teaching techniques are employed in large criminal justice classes. This paper reports on an exploratory survey of criminal justice programs that ascertained the extent to which large classes are being offered, the organization of these courses, and how they are evaluated. These data enable us to identify current practices, speculate on the future of large classes in the criminal justice field and let us document how university/college characteristics are related to the prevalence, structure, and nature of large courses.     

Community Colleges: Rethinking STD Prevention for the Nontraditional College Campus

ABSTRACT

As increased attention and proposed funding are being directed toward community colleges, it is important to consider the sexual and reproductive health care needs of this growing population. Existing data suggest there are significant sexual health needs among this population and often insufficient provision of services. Some community college students are more likely than students at 4-year colleges to test positive for sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). Given resource constraints, creative solutions are required. These may include campus-wide policies addressing STD/HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) prevention, referral systems to connect students to care in the community, and partnerships with local health departments, Federally Qualified Health Centers, or community-based organizations to assist with the provision of services. Colleges have the unique opportunity to provide students with valuable information about sexual health and services. Community colleges, in particular, are uniquely positioned to reach at-risk community members for STD testing and sexual health care who might otherwise be lost to care. More research is needed on the sexual health needs of community college students, especially on factors such as geographic location, how embedded the school is into the community, social norms around sexual health on college campuses, and health services offered. New and innovative ways to promote linkage to care for testing and counseling could offer potential health benefits to this growing at-risk population.     

EARLY CHILDHOOD TEACHERS’ PLAYFULNESS AND AMBIGUITY TOLERANCE: ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS OF ENCOURAGING CREATIVE POTENTIAL OF CHILDREN

This article examines the concept of an early childhood teacher learning, in stages, a new method for integrating the arts into the early childhood curriculum. An early childhood graduate course, Aesthetics as Learning, is the learning ground. In this course, the graduate students discover the “Adult Within,” the “Child Within,” the “Teacher Within” and the “Artist Within.” The innovative component is the fourth dimension, which is defined as learning to “feel like an Artist Within.” This is accomplished through 1-hour arts experiences in every 3-hour class, where the graduate student experiences the arts followed by discussion and reflection on the readings with a facilitative teacher in a supportive environment.     

Teachers’ first year in the profession: the power of high-quality support

ABSTRACT

In research on teacher induction, scholars have pointed at the pivotal role of collegial support to overcome the challenges inherent to the first years of teaching. In this quantitative study, we extend current work by using a social network perspective to examine characteristics (i.e. network size, frequency and perceived usefulness) of professional, emotional, and social collegial support networks. Moreover, we explore the extent to which these characteristics explain key factors affecting teacher retention, namely job satisfaction, intrinsic motivation to teach, and self-efficacy. An online survey was completed by 292 beginning primary school teachers in Flanders (Belgium). Social network data showed that, on average, they receive professional, emotional and social support from six colleagues each week and found this mostly useful. Regression analyses demonstrated that network size and perceived usefulness of professional, emotional, and social collegial support networks were positively related to job satisfaction and intrinsic motivation to teach, thus confirming the importance of collegial support in teacher induction. Frequency of support was not significant. Finally, no substantial relationship was found between collegial support and teachers’ self-efficacy. Implications of these findings for practice and policy are discussed.     

Success factors impacting Latina/o persistence in higher education leading to STEM opportunities

This study investigates how Latina/Latino youth resist, conform to, and persist in schooling, and explores their preparation for an education in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields. Using Latino Critical Race Theory as a framework, evidence of the “sticky mess” of racial inequalities (Espinoza and Harris in Calif Law Rev 10:499–559, 1997) and the concept of community cultural wealth (Yosso in Race Ethn Educ 8:69–91, 2005) will be used to understand how Latina/o students successfully persist in college. Quantitative and qualitative findings collected at two public universities in 2007–2012 show that Latina/o parents play a significant role in influencing their children’s decision to attend college; family, friend and community support and hard work have also been instrumental in college success. This is evident through parents’ encouragement to persist, expectations to do well and students serving as role models for siblings and peers. As policy makers in the educational arena emphasize STEM fields, there is a significant opportunity for Latino students to make valuable contributions.     

LibQUAL Revisited: Further Analysis of Qualitative and Quantitative Survey Results at the University of Mississippi

This paper updates an earlier 2010 longitudinal study of LibQUAL qualitative and quantitative data from the University of Mississippi libraries with an additional year of LibQUAL data, collated with other library-collected data such as gate-count numbers. In doing so, it identifies several results that are not satisfactorily analyzed by LibQUAL, and it concludes that a more specialized local survey may be helpful to supplement or supplant LibQUAL.     

Do Job Advertisements Reflect ACRL's Standards for Proficiencies for Instruction Librarians and Coordinators?: A Content Analysis

This study investigates the extent to which the skills and proficiencies mentioned in ACRL's Standards for Proficiencies for Instruction Librarians and Coordinators are represented in a current sample of instruction librarian job advertisements. Advertisements from U.S. academic institutions posted on the American Library Association's JobLIST site were collected over a period of six months. Results from a content analysis of these advertisements as compared to the Standards reveal trends in those skills which are in-demand. These results add support for the importance of collaboration, instructional design, leadership, and subject expertise as they relate to instruction and demonstrate that not all skills identified as crucial for instruction librarians within the Standards are typically indicated within the content of a job advertisement. This research will be of interest to library science students, job seekers, LIS faculty, and employers hoping to attract qualified candidates to fill library instruction-related positions.     

Doing More With Less: How a Library Expanded Its Oral History Collection

This article highlights a successful collaborative project between the Toledo–Lucas County Library System, a university professor, and a local production company in order to expand the library's African American oral history collection. The project, made possible from a state technology grant, also resulted in the production of 20 television-quality DVDs and lesson guides. In addition to describing how we expanded the library's local African American history collection, we discuss how the project required a new collaborative culture. We also describe the unintended discovery of the evolving role and required skill sets of the librarian in the new collaboration relationship. The knowledge we gained helps us to fill a gap in our understanding about how to establish specialty collections as well as the required emergent role of the librarian.