Let the (Board) Games Begin: Creative Ways to Enhance Teaching and Learning

Gaming, in its many forms, is becoming a more active force in classrooms. To prepare preservice candidates for this trend, one teacher education program asked candidates (n = 60) to develop games in varied curricular fields tied to curriculum standards. This article describes the development of a model game, assignment requirements, provides a content review of eight games (geography and novels), their features, and highlights benefits and lessons learned from this experience.     

Reading comprehension in adolescents with learning disabilities: semantic and syntactic effects

Ninety-two adolescents with learning disabilities were randomly assigned to four groups to determine the effects of semantic and syntactic complexity on the reading comprehension of content area prose. One group served as a control and read a social studies passage without change. The three treatment groups read passages with syntactic and/or semantic modifications. Comprehension was significantly better for those groups reading passages with combined semantic and syntactic modifications and syntactic modifications alone, when compared to the control group. Semantic modifications alone did not significantly improve comprehension.     

Balance in Positive Emotional Expressivity Across School Contexts Relates to Kindergartners’ Adjustment

Positive emotional expressivity has been associated with increased social competence and decreased maladjustment in childhood. However, a few researchers have found null or even positive associations between positive emotional expressivity and maladjustment, which suggests that there may be nuanced associations of positive expressivity, perhaps as a function of the social context in which it is expressed. We examined whether observed positive emotional expressivity balance across peer-oriented/recreational and learning contexts predicted kindergarten children’s adjustment (N = 301). Research Findings: Higher positive expressivity during lunch/recess compared to positive expressivity in the classroom was associated with lower teacher–student conflict, externalizing behaviors, and depressive symptoms. In addition, overall positive emotional expressivity predicted lower externalizing behaviors as well as lower depressive and anxiety symptoms. Practice or Policy: The results suggest the importance of assessing observed positive emotional expressivity in context as a potential indicator of children’s maladjustment risk and the need for children to adapt their emotions to different contexts. Implications for assessing and supporting positive emotional expression balance and training emotional regulation in school are discussed.     

Ethics and Visual Rhetorics: Seeing's Not Believing Anymore

When working with graphics and illustrations, technical communicators face ethical questions at almost every step. The visual rhetorics available offer help with evaluating visual components but little guidance on ethical issues. This article presents examples of ethical conflicts, describes some of the prominent visual rhetorics, and discusses ethical issues that need to be addressed. Some steps for improving ethical awareness related to graphics and illustrations are suggested.     

Masculinity, Femininity, and Sex Role Attitudes in Early Adolescence: Exploring Gender Intensification

This longitudinal study of 200 young adolescent girls and boys (mean age 11.6 years in sixth grade) investigated the hypothesis that differences in masculinity, femininity, and sex role attitudes would intensify across the sixth, seventh, and eighth grades (between 11 and 13 years of age) and that pubertal timing (early, on time, late) would play a role in this intensification. Analyses revealed that sex differences in masculinity and sex role attitudes increased across grades, but not sex differences in femininity. Pubertal timing was not associated with this gender divergence, although the evidence is equivocal for boys. The results provide support for gender intensification, but the role of pubertal timing may not be as strong as previously supposed.     

Giving up technology and social media: why university lecturers stop using technology in teaching

University lecturers use a wide range of technologies when teaching and there has been much research into how particular technologies are adopted. However, there are also many technologies that, despite early promise, are no longer being used in university teaching and have been abandoned by institutions or individuals. This article presents the results of a qualitative investigation into why university lecturers stop using technology. It used detailed episodic narrative interviews to explore the experiences of lecturers using technology in their teaching at three UK universities. While the data provides examples of technologies that were discarded as they became outdated and were replaced by new devices, this was not the only reason that technologies are rejected. The data also demonstrated that even relatively up-to-date or innovative technologies or practices (e.g. the use of Facebook) may be abandoned. The article discusses the participants’ experiences of ceasing to use technology and demonstrates the importance of context in decisions about using technology and social media in teaching. The article argues that studies of technology adoption should be accompanied by research that revisits the sites of these studies to consider how the implementation of technology continues over time and how it comes to an end.     

The Mediating Role of Parenting Stress in Methadone-Maintained Mothers' Parenting

OBJECTIVE: To (1) examine the subjective experience of parenting stress as a mediator between 2 distal stressors (sociodemographic risk and global psychological maladjustment), and examine the parenting of methadone-maintained mothers, and (2) identify maladaptive and adaptive parenting correlates of specific types of parenting stress. DESIGN: We analyzed baseline data from interviews conducted with 74 methadone-maintained mothers who expressed interest in a randomized clinical trial study testing the efficacy of a relational parenting intervention. Baseline measures included questionnaires on maternal psychological maladjustment, parenting stress, parenting problems, and children's maladjustment. Three series of hierarchical linear regressions were conducted to test the mediation model and specificity of associations. RESULTS: Parenting stress mediated the associations between sociodemographic risk and 2 maladaptive parenting domains (aggression and neglect) and between psychological maladjustment and all 5 parenting domains examined (aggression, neglect, affective interactions, limit setting, and autonomy), although correlations were modest. Child-focused stress was associated with higher levels of aggression, limit-setting problems, and restricted autonomy. Stress derived from the mother - child relationship was associated with higher levels of neglect and affective withdrawal. CONCLUSIONS: Although preliminary in nature, results of this study indicate the importance of understanding the role of internal mechanisms (e.g., parenting stress) in the parenting processes of addicted women and examining specific correlates of their parenting problems.