Mobilizing a Narrative of Generosity: Patient Experiences on an Urban Mobile Health Clinic

Mobile health clinics address the health needs of underserved populations by bringing healthcare to patients’ communities. Mobile health clinics find unique ways to treat patients and empower them to take control of their health. In this article, we examine how patients who use an urban mobile health clinic narrate their experiences on the clinic and what they see as the impact of the clinic on the community. A narrative of generosity emerged from the interviews, where patients believe the mobile health clinic creates a sense of welcome, encourages patients to become active participants in their health, and fosters a “pay it forward” attitude among community members.     

Student/patient: the school perceptions of children with cancer

Childhood cancer incidence is rising, affecting a growing proportion of elementary school students. For most of these children, school attendance can be limited by hospitalisations, treatments and side effects. However, little is yet known about the educational needs and experiences of this population. This phenomenological study explored the school experiences of 10 6- to 12-year-old children with cancer as they underwent chemotherapy. Results revealed perceptions that attending school in the hospital or home during cancer treatment is essentially lonely, confusing and “different”. These perceptions intertwined to illuminate five themes: (1) school should involve fun activities; (2) group educational formats are preferable; (3) old school is the “best school”; (4) being a “good student” is important during treatment; and (5) attending school is complicated during treatment. Therefore, hospital-based and homebound schooling programmes should integrate socially interactive and cognitively engaging curriculum to best support the learning needs of this population.     

Examining the Impact and School‐Level Predictors of Impact Variability of an 8th Grade Reading Intervention on At‐Risk Students’ Reading Achievement

The purpose of the present article is to report on a large‐scale investigation of six school districts’ implementation of an initiative aimed at reducing dropout rates by improving reading achievement in the middle grades. Data for the Middle School Intervention Project (MSIP) were collected in 25 middle schools across the state of Oregon. We examined (a) the degree to which the schools improved reading achievement for struggling readers in 8th grade, and (b) whether we could account for school differences in the treatment effect through measured explicit and intensive intervention factors. At the end of 8th grade there was no evidence of significant or positive effects on the two primary reading outcome measures.     

THE RESIDUAL PARENT TO COME: ON THE NEED FOR PARENTAL EXPERTISE AND ADVICE

In this essay, Nancy Vansieleghem starts from the observation that parents nowadays are addressed as individuals in need of parental expertise and advice. She maintains that the notion that we are living in a permanently changing society has created a context in which parents feel that they no longer “know” what is good or bad for their children. On this view, parents need to learn how to manage their parenthood. Vansieleghem questions the need for expertise and advice that is characteristic of our new mode of understanding parenting. In developing her argument, she borrows from Michel Foucault the notion “figure”—in this case, the type of parents who understand themselves as in need of expertise in order to respond to their children—and she draws further on Giorgio Agamben's analysis of the state of exception. Vansieleghem concludes by detailing the figure of the residual self as one that understands parental care as something that can and should be managed beyond concepts such as “disciplinary power” and “normalization.”     

Exploring identities to deepen understanding of urban high school students' sexual health decision‐making

Sexual health is a controversial science topic that has received little attention in the field of science education, despite its direct relevance to students' lives and communities. Moreover, research from other fields indicates that a great deal remains to be learned about how to make school learning about sexual health influence the real‐life choices of students. In order to provide a more nuanced understanding of young people's decision‐making, this study examines students' talk about sexual health decision‐making through the lens of identities. Qualitative, ethnographic research methods with twenty 12th grade students attending a New York City public school are used to illustrate how students take on multiple identities in relation to sexual health decision‐making. Further, the study illustrates how these identities are formed by various aspects of students' lives, such as school, family, relationships, and religion, and by societal discourses on topics such as gender, individual responsibility, and morality. The study argues that looking at sexual health decision‐making—and at decision‐making about other controversial science topics—as tied to students' identities provides a useful way for teachers and researchers to grasp the complexity of these decisions, as a step toward creating curriculum that influences them. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 47:742–762, 2010     

Instructors' uses,experiences, thoughts and suggestions regarding Calibrated Peer Review

This paper presents a qualitative study conducted with faculty members who participated in a project funded by the National Science Foundation focusing on student development with Calibrated Peer Review (CPR)?, a web‐based tool created to promote writing and critical‐thinking skills. The purpose of the study was to gain an understanding of faculty members' thoughts and opinions about CPR. Interviews with 12 faculty members – six in biology, three in physics and three in mathematics – were audiotaped, transcribed and analysed. Findings revealed various aspects of instructors' experiences, thoughts and opinions regarding CPR. Findings provided information about how instructors used CPR, how CPR helped their teaching and enhanced students' critical‐thinking skills and writing skills, and positive and challenging aspects of CPR, as well as various observations and suggestions for others using CPR.     

The importance of number sense to mathematics achievement in first and third grades

Children's symbolic number sense was examined at the beginning of first grade with a short screen of competencies related to counting, number knowledge, and arithmetic operations. Conventional mathematics achievement was then assessed at the end of both first and third grades. Controlling for age and cognitive abilities (i.e., language, spatial, and memory), number sense made a unique and meaningful contribution to the variance in mathematics achievement at both first and third grades. Furthermore, the strength of the predictions did not weaken over time. Number sense was most strongly related to the ability to solve applied mathematics problems presented in various contexts. The number sense screen taps important intermediate skills that should be considered in the development of early mathematics assessments and interventions.