Perusing Google eBookstore

Google launched the Google eBookstore in December 2010. This edition of Techcast provides some initial thoughts on its impact on libraries.     

Cooperative Learning: A Motivational Tool to Enhance Student Persistence,Self‐Regulation,and Efforts to Please Teachers and Parents

ABSTRACT

The effects of cooperative group learning on students’ persistence, self‐regulation, and efforts to please teachers and parents were examined. Eighty‐one high school geometry students were randomly assigned to either a cooperative learning or traditional lecture group. Twenty‐seven students received cooperative group instruction for nine weeks and then received traditional classroom instruction for nine weeks. Twenty‐five students received traditional instruction for nine weeks and then received cooperative group instruction for nine weeks. Twenty nine students received traditional classroom instruction for 18 weeks. Participants completed pre, post, and post‐posttest motivation questionnaires at each phase of the project. Students in the cooperative group classrooms exhibited significantly greater gains in persistence, self‐regulation, and efforts to please their parents and teacher. The implications of these findings for motivation theory and cooperative group structures are discussed.     

Prospective elementary science teachers and biomythographies: An exploratory approach to autobiographical research

This study explores an approach to autobiographical research based on a notion of “outlaw genre” autobiography referred to as biomythography. Outlaw genres of autobiography resist the tendency of western autobiography to craft narratives that will ultimately link the life of an individual to a universalised person—someone to whom all readers can relate. In this study, photo essays are used to learn about prospective elementary teachers' stories of science and science education. The photo essays and the theoretical framework of “biomythography” helped us reflect on layers mediating teaching and learning in our courses. Implications of the study call for us to examine hegemonies extending from our students' personal histories as science learners, and through mythologies of teacher education. Alternative research frameworks and approaches, such as those represented in this study, might help science teacher educators explore myths undermining the preparation of future science teachers and learners.     

In practice: The green zone: A program to support military students on campus

Like many institutions of higher education, Virginia Commonwealth University has seen an increase in the number of military students. Ann Nichols‐Casebolt describes one strategy the university has implemented to respond to the needs of this important group.     

Children as citizens: literacies for social participation

The last decade has seen, in the policy arena, a broad global push for children to be treated as active participants in society rather than as the passive recipients of adult decisions and interventions. The topic of literacy learning and teaching has, however, been absent from much of the policy and literature on children's social participation. This paper is an exploratory foray into possible connections between literacy and citizenship from the perspective of young children and those responsible for their education. Drawing from both sociocultural and semiotic perspectives on literacy, this analysis crosses between institutional texts, ethnographic accounts and children's own representations of their places in the world. A hierarchical model of literacy development, which emphasises the teaching of basic decoding skills in the early years, is associated with a view of young children as future citizens rather than as active social participants. Recognising children's agency, and supporting their meaningful participation, requires literacies of social participation.     

Dual Audiences, Double Pedagogies: Representing Family Literacy as Parental Work in Picture Books

Narrative for a dual audience of children and adults is a field of expanding interest among children’s literature scholars. A great deal of the extant research is implicitly or explicitly informed by longstanding anxieties about the status of children’s fiction, a context that shifts the parameters of the analysis to questions of literary sophistication. Whilst some attention is paid to the reader-subject position of the child reader, rather less is given to the positioning of the adult reader in relation to the pedagogical agendas of such texts. This article examines picture books featuring parents reading to preschool children. In the context of family literacy, it is an instance in which the pedagogical address to the adult reader is as significant as the address to the child. Drawing on distinctions between double and dual address, the article examines the ways in which representations of parents reading to children position adult and child reading-subjects to understand reading as work and leisure, respectively. We conclude with some observations about how the dual address might in fact subvert the literacy agendas in these texts.     

Unique Characteristics, Leadership Styles, and Management of Historically Black Colleges and Universities

Historically Black colleges and universities play a significant role in our nation's higher education system. Currently, there are 105 historically Black colleges operating in the United States. Over the years there have been many challenges for these institutions. Given the importance of these institutions, the purpose of this article is to explore and understand the leadership styles and management of the institutions and provide insight into how they might adapt their leadership styles to ensure that they not only survive but prosper. This article also highlights strategies suggested by former presidents of historically Black Colleges to ensure educational opportunities for African-American students and others.