Using the 6S Pyramid to Identify Research‐Based Instructional Practices for Students with Learning Disabilities

To optimize students’ learning outcomes, educators are increasingly expected to use instructional practices shown to be effective by credible research. To help make this possible, organizations and scholars are producing resources that summarize research related to various instructional practices. However, as the collection of resources grows in size and complexity, it can be difficult and frustrating for practitioners to locate and utilize this information. In this article, we describe the 6S Pyramid (DiCenso, Bayley, & Haynes, 2009), a framework for efficiently and accurately prioritizing different types of research evidence. We also identify and briefly summarize Internet resources corresponding with each level of the Pyramid that can be used to identify research‐based practices for students with learning disabilities. To illustrate how the 6S Pyramid can be used in school and classroom settings, we begin and end the article with vignettes featuring a pair of co‐teachers seeking to improve instruction for their students who struggle with reading.     

Recruiting Future Science and Mathematics Teachers Into Alternative Certification Programs: Strategies Tried and Lessons Learned

SMAR²T: Science and Mathematics Academy for the Recruitment and Retention of Teachers is an NSF-funded project for the alternative certification of science and mathematics teachers. Since 2003, we have recruited 4 cohorts of students for 2 different routes to postbaccalaureate teacher certification for teaching grades 5–12. Because we did not meet our target numbers for the recruitment of the 1st cohort, we examined our recruitment strategies and their effects. In this paper, we discuss strategies used to recruit for the 1st SMAR²T cohort and the outcomes of those strategies. We present ongoing recruitment efforts and data on inquiries and applicants for the 2nd cohort. Finally, we highlight the intentional and unintentional gatekeepers of our program and present implications for others engaged in designing and implementing alternative pathways certification.     

The Future of Radio Revisited: Expert Perspectives and Future Scenarios for Radio Media in 2025

In 2005–2006 the research group DRACE (Digital Radio Cultures in Europe) performed a study on how 43 people in key positions related to the radio industry in 4 European countries and Canada viewed the future of radio and which delivery technologies they considered would be most successful. In addition, it analyzed the motives and reasons certain technologies were seen as more promising than others. Finally, it presented 4 different future scenarios for radio media. The study was published in the Journal of Radio and Audio Media, May 2008.

In 2005 the future of radio was considered much less obvious and clear than it appeared 10 years previously. Instead of a transition from analog to digital audio broad- casting (DAB), there was a selection of alternative technological options for digital audio delivery. When looking back from 2015 and considering the results of expert interviews, the project group about Public Service Media in the HERA project: Transnational Radio Encounters found interesting perspectives in replicating this study—now looking forward to 2025. By using the same questionnaire and interviewing the same experts (or new persons in the same positions) they could compare the predictions with the present situation, looking for technological, regulatory, policy based, and user-oriented contexts. Furthermore, they could ask the experts to look 10 years forward to 2025. Besides from the interviews, desk studies were performed in order to explore the national similarities and differences as background for the analysis of the scenarios for the 2015 and 2025 studies.

This comparative study involves Denmark, Finland, Germany, Ireland, and the UK.     

Physical activity estimated by the bone-specific physical activity questionnaire is also associated with cardiovascular risk

The nature of physical activity that benefits bone is traditionally thought to differ from that benefiting cardiovascular health. Accordingly, exercise recommendations for improving bone health and cardiovascular health are largely incongruent. Our aim was to determine the associations between high-impact physical activity participation and both cardiovascular disease risk factors and bone mass. We recruited 94 men and women (age 34.0?±?13.3 years) to undergo measures of cardiovascular disease risk (BMI, total cholesterol, fasting blood glucose, waist-to-hip ratio, and mean arterial pressure) and dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA XR-800, Norland) measures of bone mass (femoral neck, lumbar spine, and whole body BMD) and body composition (whole body lean mass and fat mass). Physical activity participation was estimated using the bone-specific physical activity questionnaire (BPAQ). Those in the upper tertile for current BPAQ score exhibited lower total cholesterol, waist-to-hip ratio, and mean arterial pressure than those in the lower tertiles (P?r?=??0.49 to 0.29, P?P?=?0.008), with BPAQ score predicting 6% of the variance in BMD (P?=?0.02). We conclude that high-impact physical activity as captured by the BPAQ may be beneficial for both bone health and for attenuating cardiovascular disease risk.     

Teacher Leadership in Practice: Mapping the Negotiation of the Position of the Special Educational Needs Coordinator in Schools

Special needs care has taken on a substantial evolution within education. Special educational needs coordinators (SENCOs) are no longer considered to provide individual guidance to students but to support and professionalize regular teachers in fulfilling special needs care in their classroom. In doing so, they act as teacher leaders. Many concerns are raised about how teacher leadership may interfere with the existing working relationships in schools. In this study, we use Positioning Theory as a theoretical approach to obtain an in-depth understanding of how the position of the SENCO and the responsibilities attached to this position are negotiated within the school. The findings illustrate that SENCOs received the legitimacy to act as teacher leaders when their expertise was recognized, when teachers perceived their task as first-line helpers, and when school principals were willing to release power.     

Towards formal epistemics

In the communication of scientific concepts the nature of instruction is such that the instructor must frequently be more explicit than the scientist himself. The naive questions of students often raise problems of fundamental semantic and philosophical importance ignored by scientists. Many of the epistemic problems so raised require a clarification of the relations between space and time. The present paper discusses the empirical conditions for this clarification.The first part of this article appeared in Instructional Science Vol. 1 No.1.     

Effects of Accent Strength Expectancy Violations on Language Attitudes

This study examined how violations of listeners’ expectancies of the strength of speakers’ foreign accents influence evaluations of foreign-accented speakers. Participants (N = 275) listened to a male or female speaker reading a short passage in Spanish-accented English. Compared to participants whose expectancies about the strength of speakers’ foreign accents were confirmed, listeners whose expectancies were negatively violated reported a more negative affective reaction and attributed less status to the speaker. Affect partially mediated the effect of negative expectancy violations on ratings of status. Participants whose expectancies were positively violated did not differ from those whose expectancies were confirmed on any dependent measures.     

Crashing from cadaver to computer: Covid-driven crisis-mode pedagogy spawns active online substitute for teaching gross anatomy

In early 2020, the Covid-19 crisis forced medical institutions worldwide to convert quickly to online platforms for content delivery. Although many components of medical education were adaptable to that format, anatomical dissection laboratory lost substantial content in that conversion, including features of active student participation, three-dimensional spatial relationships of structures, and the perception of texture, variation, and scale. The present study aimed to develop and assess online anatomy laboratory sessions that sought to preserve benefits of the dissection experience for first-year medical students. The online teaching package was based on a novel form of active videography that emulates eye movement patterns that occur during processes of visual identification, scene analysis, and learning. Using this video-image library of dissected materials, content was presented through asynchronous narrated laboratory demonstrations and synchronous/active video conference sessions and included a novel, video-based assessment tool. Data were obtained using summative assessments and a final course evaluation. Test scores for the online practical examination were significantly improved over those for previous in-person dissection-based examinations, as evidenced by several measures of performance (Mean: 2015–2019: 82.5%; 2020: 94.9%; P = 0.003). Concurrently, didactic test scores were slightly, but not significantly, improved (Mean: 2015–2019: 88.0%; 2020: 89.9%). Student evaluations of online sessions and overall course were highly positive. Results indicated that this innovative online teaching package can provide an effective alternative when in-person dissection laboratory is unavailable. Although this approach consumed considerable faculty time for video editing, further development will include video conference breakout rooms to emulate dissection small-group teamwork.     

Identification of red colorants in van Gogh paintings and ancient Andean textiles by microspectrofluorimetry

Red lake pigments and dyes used in works of art were characterized by microspectrofluorimetry, a new tool in the field of cultural heritage. Emission and excitation spectra were obtained with high spatial resolution (8–30 μm) in cross-sections from paintings by Vincent van Gogh and Lucien Pissarro and from millenary Andean textiles. The fluorophores were identified by comparing their spectra with those from historic reconstructions assembled in a database. In the paints, purpurin and eosin lakes were detected. In the Paracas and Nasca textiles, dated from 200 B.C. to A.D.1476, purpurin and pseudopurpurin were the red dyes used. Carminic acid was detected in textiles dated close to the Inca Empire, A.D. 1000–1476. The results obtained with this new technique were confirmed and are in agreement with those obtained with conventional methods, requiring microsampling, such as HPLC-DAD-MS and SEM-EDX.