A timeline of the racialist movement in the United States: A teaching tool

Since the 1995 bombing of the Alfred R. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, academics and the general public have shown increased interest in white racial extremist and other right-wing radical groups. The interest in understanding any form of extreme intolerance requires locating the historical development of the ideas, beliefs, and actions espoused through the legislation of miscegenation in our nation's history and by extremist organizations. A chronology, used as a teaching tool, reviews the unique strands of extreme beliefs and actions and connects these understandings to the growth of racialist and extremist ideologies in the United States. This timeline provides a tool for instructors and other interested individuals in gaining an understanding of such groups by locating key developments within the laws as well as within the white racial extremist movement. Thus this chronology focuses on legislative acts and Supreme Court decisions that mirror our nation's early white racialist history. Additionally, this timeline also provides information about other social movement forces that may have affected the white racial extremist movement.     

Productive Usability: Fostering Civic Engagement and Creating More Useful Online Spaces for Public Deliberation

This article offers productive usability as a usability approach that focuses on the usefulness of civic Web sites. Although some sites meet traditional usability standards, civic sites might fail to support technical literacy, productive inquiry, collaboration, and a multidimensional perspective—all essential ingredients for citizen-initiated change online. In this article, we map productive usability onto broader philosophies of usability and offer a framework for rethinking usability in civic settings and for teaching productive usability.     

The Rhetoric of Free: Open Source Software and Technical Communication During Economic Downturns

This article explores the ramifications of deploying free and open source software (F/OSS) for technical communication program development. Against the backdrop of the recession, the article draws on empirical research to examine how different stakeholders understand the F in F/OSS, its relationship with proprietary software, and the institutional contexts surrounding these technologies. It contributes four recommendations for working with F/OSS that might help programs shore up in tough times and thrive postdownturn.     

Finding Common Ground: A Synthesis of Science and Mathematics Teacher Educators’ Experiences with Professional Growth

The seven articles that comprise this Special Issue examine the professional growth of mathematics and science teacher educators across different contexts and different foci of who is the teacher educator being studied. Despite these differences, a common thread running throughout these seven articles is the need for learning to be situated in collaboration with others. In this final article, we examine the contribution of these articles through two perspectives: that of the collaborative contexts supporting the professional growth of mathematics and science teacher educators, and the role of disciplinary knowledge as part of the purpose for teacher educators’ professional growth. We notice that collaboration can take on very different structures in supporting teacher educators’ professional learning due to the different purposes and roles of the teacher educators in the studies. We also notice that while collaboration figures as an important component in all of the studies, the disciplinary specific aspects of collaboration, i.e., how collaboration might be negotiated differently by teacher educators in mathematics and science, is still not well understood. Overall, these articles provide important insights that help to shed new light on the complex and multifaceted nature of teacher educators’ learning and growth and provide productive avenues for future research.

     

Anatomy as a Model Environment for Acquiring Professional Competencies in Medicine: Experiences at Harvard Medical School

Anatomy education provides students with opportunities to learn structure and function of the human body, to acquire professional competencies such as teamwork, interpersonal skills, self-awareness, and to reflect on and practice medical ethics. The fulfillment of this wide potential can present challenges in courses that are part of an integrated curriculum and shorter than traditional courses. This new reality, together with students' increasing concern about the stresses within medical education, led to efforts at Harvard Medical School to implement practical steps toward an optimal learning environment in anatomy. These were based on core elements of ethical anatomy education and principles of trauma-informed care. Anatomy is conceptualized here as the “first clinical discipline,” with relational interactions between anatomical educators, medical students, and body donors/patients. Essential prerequisites for the implementation of this work were support by the medical school leadership, open partnership between engaged students and faculty, faculty coordination, and peer-teaching. Specific interventions included pre-course faculty development on course philosophy and invitations to students to share their thoughts on anatomy. Student responses were integrated in course introductions, combined with a pre-dissection laboratory visit, an introductory guide, and a module on the history and ethics of anatomy. During the course, team-building activities were scheduled, and self-reflection encouraged, for example, through written exercises, and elective life-body drawing. Students' responses to the interventions were overall positive, but need further evaluation. This first attempt of a systematic implementation of an optimal learning environment in anatomy led to the identification of areas in need of adjustment.