Instructional Design Practice: Career Environments,Job Roles,and a Climate of Change

Instructional Design and Technology (IDT) professionals practice their skills in a broad range of career environments and job roles. The resulting collection of competency lists and wide range of practice environments, coupled with the frequent changes that have always characterized the field, produce complexity that is difficult to communicate to IDT students. However, students need to understand these complex aspects of the field so that they can make informed decisions about their career goals and educational direction. This review of the current literature looks at the current issues impacting practice and preparation. It concludes that the path professional academic preparation programs choose will depend on their orientation to instructional design and performance improvement, and whether they see themselves as preparing students for specific career environments or are pursuing a generalist program.     

Boundary as Bridge: An Analysis of the Educational Neuroscience Literature from a Boundary Perspective

Within the emerging field of educational neuroscience, concerns exist that the impact of neuroscience research on education has been less effective than hoped. In seeking a way forward, it may be useful to consider the problems of integrating two complex fields in the context of disciplinary boundaries. Here, a boundary perspective is used as a lens for analyzing the results of a systematic review of the educational neuroscience literature. Recurring vocabulary used within the literature suggests indirect use of boundary principles, including the idea of connections and bridges between disciplines, inter-, multi-, and transdisciplinarity, and reference to tools (boundary objects) and people that may be useful in the evolving field of educational neuroscience. Analyzing the educational neuroscience literature through the lens of boundary principles indicates that the boundary between the two disciplines may itself be a bridging mechanism useful for the creation of a new discipline and new knowledge.     

Maternal Representations of Attachment during Pregnancy Predict the Organization of Infant-Mother Attachment at One Year of Age

While strong retrospective and concurrent associations between maternal and infant patterns of attachment have been noted, this is one of the first reports of a prospective investigation of such associations. The Adult Attachment Interview was administered to 100 mothers expecting their first child, and, at 1-year follow-up, 96 of these were seen with their infants at 12 months in the Strange Situation. Maternal representations of attachment (autonomous vs. dismissing or preoccupied) predicted subsequent infant-mother attachment patterns (secure vs. insecure) 75% of the time. These observed concordances, as well as the discordances, are discussed in terms of the uniquely powerful contribution the Adult Attachment Interview makes to the study of representational and intergenerational influences on the development of the infant-mother attachment.     

Pathways to Quality: From Internal Program Supports to Early Educators’ Practice

Research Findings: Early care and education (ECE) quality is critical for children’s learning, and ECE programs’ support of teachers’ learning may be important for ensuring high-quality classrooms. Yet little is known about how such supports operate outside of resource-intensive research studies and interventions. This study explores pathways through which “naturally occurring” professional development supports are related to improved classroom quality. Structural equation modeling results reveal indirect associations of support for mentoring with gains in structural and interactional aspects of classroom quality the following year via teachers’ participation in mentoring. Improvements in classroom quality were not similarly associated with support for degree attainment, nor were they related to teachers’ participation in a degree program, beliefs about teaching and learning, or job satisfaction. Practice or Policy: These findings help to expand our understanding of the complex relations among characteristics of ECE programs, individual teachers, and classroom quality. Specifically, mentoring may be an accessible and effective choice for improving classroom quality and thus may serve as a desirable target for policy aimed at improving ECE quality at scale.     

Using Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to Foster Literacy and Facilitate Discourse Within the Classroom

The literacy skills of students is an issue of great policy importance which has attracted considerable interest in the literature. At the same time, much recent work has been done on the efficacy of learning communities. This paper examines the extent to which fostering learning communities can improve literacy skills. It is shown that it is possible to achieve large improvements in writing and reading by fostering a community of learners that focuses on scientific inquiries utilizing computer technology. The results lend support to the hypothesis that learning communities may be an important instrument in enhancing the reasoning, problem solving and learning strategies of students. This suggests that more work needs to be done in this area of educational research.

Les compétences des élèves en lecture sont un sujet d'extrème importance qui a provoqué un intérêt considérable dans la littérature. Au même moment beaucoup de travaux récents ont été menés sur l'efficacité des établissements d'enseigement. Cet article examine jusqu'à quel point il faut encourager des communautés d'apprentissage peut améliorer les compétences en lecture. Il montre qu'il est possible d'obtenir des améliorations importantes pour la lecture et l'écriture en développant une communauté d'apprenants qui se concentre sur les résultats scientifiques des enquêtes utilisant la technologie de l'ordinateur. Les résultats confirment l'hypothèse que les communautés d'apprentissage peuvent être un instrument important pour améliorer le raisonnement, la solution des problèmes et les stratégies d'apprentissage des élèves. L'article suggère qu'il faut travailler davantage dans ce domaine de la recherche en éducation.

Die Lese- und Rechtschreibfähigkeit von Studenten hat einen hohen politischen Rang, der auch ein entsprechendes Interesse in der Fachliteratur erzeugt hat. Gleichzeitig ist in der letzten Zeit viel Arbeit in die Untersuchung der Wirksamkeit von Lerngemeinschaften gesteckt worden. Dieses Papier überprüft, in welchem Umfang die Förderung der Lerngemeinschaften den Bildungsgrad verbessern kann. Es wird gezeigt, daß es möglich ist, große Verbesserungen im Schreiben und in der Lesefähigkeit durch Förderung einer Lerngemeinschaft, die sich auf wissenschaftliche Anfragen per Nutzung von Computertechnologie konzentriert, zu erreichen. Die Resultate stützen die Hypothese, dass Lerngemeinschaften ein wichtiges Instrument zur Verbesserung von Argumentationsfähigkeit, Problemlöseverhalten und das Entwickeln von Lernstrategien der Kursteilnehmer sein können. Daher sollte die Arbeit in diesem Bereich der pädagogischen Forschung verstärkt werden.     

Training Studies: An Experimental Design to Advance Educational Neuroscience

The promise of educational neuroscience lies in its potential to uncover mechanistic insights into the science of learning. However, to realize that promise, the field must overcome a fundamental difference between the constituent disciplines: neuroscience is primarily concerned with understanding how the brain works; whereas education attempts to change the brain regardless of its workings. Learning is one domain where these orientations align: it is a deep feature of nervous systems and a target outcome of education. This article proposes coupling training studies with neuroimaging to assess the impact of real‐world learning on brain activity patterns, and simultaneously ask fundamental questions about the causal role of specific patterns of brain activity in academic skill acquisition. Finally, planning and implementing these studies requires multiple forms of expertise and collaborating across disciplines, which will contribute to a more cohesive educational neuroscience research community.     

Coaching between experts – opportunities for teachers’ professional development

Sharing experiences among teachers is an important part of professional development. Coaching is defined as an ongoing process in which experts engage with practice, with the purpose of continuous improvement. This article will discuss the principles of peer coaching in teacher development, by examining a specific case of peer coaching between two experienced teacher educators. From this analysis, we derive two major concepts as guiding the process of peer coaching: joint deliberation and metapedagogy. These two features are conceptualized using excerpts from the case study and from the literature.     

Disposition and health outcomes among infants born to mothers with no prenatal care

ObjectiveThis study assessed infant disposition and health outcomes among offspring born to mothers without prenatal care, based on maternal characteristics and the reason for lack of prenatal care (i.e., denial of pregnancy, concealment of pregnancy, primary substance use, financial barriers and multiparity).MethodsA retrospective record review was completed at an urban academic medical center. Subjects were women who presented at delivery or immediately postpartum with no history of prenatal care (N = 211), and their infants.ResultsInfants of mothers with substance use problems had the highest rates of referral to child protective services and out-of-home placement at discharge, though mothers with other reasons for no prenatal care also experienced both referral and placement. Infants born to mothers using substances experienced the highest rates of neonatal intensive care unit admission, and the lowest mean birth weight.ConclusionsThough those without prenatal care experienced a variety of adverse outcomes, substance use problems were most frequently correlated with adverse infant outcomes. Mothers who either had lost custody of other children or with substance use problems were at highest risk of losing custody of their infants. Those who denied or concealed their pregnancy still frequently retained custody.Practice implicationsAmong mothers without prenatal care, those with substance use problems were least likely to retain custody of their infant at hospital discharge. Custody status of the mother's other children was also independently associated with infant custody. Mothers who denied or concealed their pregnancy still often retained custody. Referrals of mothers with no prenatal care for psychiatric evaluation were rare, though referrals to social work were frequent. Child protective services occasionally did not investigate referrals in the denial and concealment groups. Healthcare providers should be aware of the medical and psychological needs of this vulnerable population of infants and mothers.