Gender ratios in high school science departments: The effect of percent female faculty on multiple dimensions of students' science identities

To examine how school characteristics are tied to science and engineering views and aspirations of students who are underrepresented in science and engineering fields, this mixed‐methods study explores relationships between aspects of students' science identities, and the representation of women among high school science teachers. Quantitative analyses tested the hypothesis that percent female faculty would have a positive effect on girls' science interests, and perceptions in particular, given the potentially greater availability of women role models. Findings indicate that percent female science faculty does not have an effect on a range of science measures for both male and female students, including the ways in which they understand scientific practice, their science self‐concept, and their interest in science‐related college majors. As qualitative data demonstrate, this could reflect practical constraints at schools where female faculty are concentrated and narrow perceptions of science teachers and “real” science. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 44: 980–1009, 2007     

Distance education plans: Course planning for online adult learners

Summary There can be an untethered excitement connected with ever-expanding technologies and the vastness of educational opportunities that online learning generates. Yet, these new and exciting opportunities do not diminish the real-life concerns and issues that online professors face. Lack of planning often sets the stage for disastrous educational experiences. Problems with technology, the lack of professor guidance and the inability to build community, facilitate communication or humanize learning can sabotage educational efforts. Minimal or nonexistent evaluation can lead to a recycling of futile educational efforts in future online courses. Yet, you can circumvent these issues with proper planning-with the use of distance education plans     

Conceptual difficulties experienced by senior high school students of electrochemistry: Electric circuits and oxidation-reduction equations

The purpose of this research was to investigate students' understanding of electrochemistry following a course of instruction. A list of conceptual and propositional knowledge statements was formulated to identify the knowledge base necessary for students to understand electric circuits and oxidation-reduction equations. The conceptual and propositional knowledge statements provided the framework for the development of a semistructured interview protocol which was administered to 32 students in their final year of high school chemistry. The interview questions about electric circuits revealed that several students in the sample were confused about the nature of electric current both in metallic conductors and in electrolytes. Students studying both physics and chemistry were more confused about current flow in metallic conductors than students who were only studying chemistry. In the section of the interview which focused on oxidation and reduction, many students experienced problems in identifying oxidation-reduction equations. Several misconceptions relating to the inappropriate use of definitions of oxidation and reduction were identified. The data illustrate how students attempted to make sense of the concepts of electrochemistry with the knowledge they had already developed or constructed. The implications of the research are that teachers, curriculum developers, and textbook writers, if they are to minimize potential misconceptions, need to be cognizant of the relationship between physics and chemistry teaching, of the need to test for erroneous preconceptions about current before teaching about electrochemical (galvanic) and electrolytic cells, and of the difficulties experienced by students when using more than one model to explain scientific phenomena.     

Catching sight of talk: Glimpses into discourse groups

This article reports on a study conducted in a graduate teacher research class with elementary and secondary classroom teachers. Wanting to create a collaborative environment in which their students could use language to support each other's learning, the instructors formed discourse groups. The article introduces a theoretical framework for discourse groups and using examples from the groups, presents a methodology for analyzing the social practices reflected in the teachers’ talk. It concludes with a discussion of the nature of the discourse that supported (and in some cases did not support) the re-storying of teachers’ knowledge.     

Impact of federal intervention on higher education

One of the most serious crises currently facing institutions of higher education is federal intervention. The level which this crisis has reached is attested to by the fact that the presidents of three leading universities (Yale, Harvard, and Cornell) have in the past two years presented major reports addressed exclusively to this concern.The purpose of this article is to assess the impact of recent federal legislation and regulations on higher education. The author articulates the precepts posited in defense of such federal intervention, some of which are: financial contributions, social injustice, moral responsibility, student unrest, etc. The general costs of complying with federal laws and regulations are enumerated. In addition, the article considers the impact of a number of recent federal laws and regulations, including: Health Professions Educational Assistance Act of 1976; Copyright Law of 1976; Affirmative Action and Equal Opportunity; and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. The author explores the steps that have recently been undertaken to reduce costs of complying with federal regulations and suggests additional solutions to this problem. The article concludes with a prognosis for what higher education can anticipate from the federal government and how higher education best protects its interests.Presented at the Annual Forum of the Association for Institutional Research, Houston, Texas, May 1978.     

Demonstrator influence on observer diet preference: Effects of simple exposure and the presence of a demonstrator

Previous studies in our laboratory have demonstrated that a naive rat (an observer), after interacting briefly with a previously fed conspecific (a demonstrator), will exhibit an enhanced preference for the diet its demonstrator had been fed. The present studies were undertaken to determine whether demonstrator-induced alterations in observer diet preference were the result of simple exposure of observers to diet-identifying cues emitted by demonstrators during the period of demonstrator-observer interaction. Our results indicated that observer experience of diet-related cues in the stimulus context provided by the presence of a demonstrator was sufficient to enhance observer preference for a diet, whereas simple exposure to that diet was not. We concluded that demonstrator influence on observer diet preferences was not the consequence of simple exposure of observers to demonstrator-emitted cues reflecting demonstrators’ diet.     

Supporting Teachers' Professional Learning by Navigating Openings in the Curriculum

Researchers agree that achieving thefundamental changes called for by currentreforms in mathematics education requires newlearning on the part of teachers. Currently,across the United States there exists atremendous variety of teacher-enhancementprojects representing a range of perspectivesand approaches to supporting teachers'learning. This paper presents a comparativeanalysis of three teacher educators using acurriculum designed for use with elementaryteachers in an inquiry-group setting. The aimof the study was to examine the process anddemands of supporting teachers' learning andteachers' efforts to reform their practices. Analyses revealed that the central demand ofsupporting teachers' learning through inquiryinvolved navigating through what we have calledopenings in the curriculum. Theseopenings took the form of unanticipatedquestions, challenges, observations, or actionsby participating teachers that requiredfacilitators to make on-the-spot judgmentsabout how to guide the discourse. Examinationsof the facilitators' processes of navigatingthese openings revealed a set of threeactivities they employed in determining how torespond. Analysis of the activities offacilitators in response to openings furtherilluminates the work involved in supportingteachers' learning and has implications for theskills needed by teacher educators engaged inthis work.     

Adult-child interaction in children’s learning from “Sesame Street”

This study examined whether children’s learning from “Sesame Street” could be improved by having adults ask the children questions and provide them with feedback while they watched the show. Subjects were 23 three- and four-year-old, white, middle-class children who were randomly assigned to one of two conditions. Children in both conditions watched three specially edited versions of “Sesame Street” with an adult. While they did so, children in the experimental condition were asked to name the letters and numbers shown on the programs. Results indicated that 3 days after watching the last program, children in the experimental condition were better able to name and identify the letters and numbers they had seen (p < .01). Three features of the experimental treatment that may have contributed to these results are discussed, as are the implications of the findings.     

Economic Deprivation and Early Childhood Development

We consider 3 questions regarding the effects of economic deprivation on child development. First, how are developmental outcomes in childhood affected by poverty and such poverty correlates as single parenthood, ethnicity, and maternal education? Second, what are the developmental consequences of the duration and timing of family economic deprivation? And, third, what is the comparative influence of economic deprivation at the family and neighborhood level? We investigate these issues with longitudinal data from the Infant Health and Development Program. We find that family income and poverty status are powerful correlates of the cognitive development and behavior of children, even after accounting for other differences—in particular family structure and maternal schooling—between low- and high-income families. While the duration of poverty matters, its timing in early childhood does not. Age-5 IQs are found to be higher in neighborhoods with greater concentrations of affluent neighbors, while the prevalence of low-income neighbors appears to increase the incidence of externalizing behavior problems.     

The “Autodidact”, the Pursuit of Subversive Knowledge and the Politics of Change

This paper contrasts two types of “autodidact” located in the UK in different historical periods, which utilised different learning/research technologies to different ends. From the 1920s to the 1960s some working-class activists committed to the Communist Party of Great Britain became “educated” in Marxism (and more) through the processes intrinsic to their politics. This radical acculturation was undertaken outside the universities in consequence of both an absence of access to higher education and because of the relatively enclosed social world of British Communism. The widening of educational opportunities and the decline of political Marxism effectively extinguished this kind of autodidact. New technologies have meant that the 21st century is witnessing individuals and cyber-communities that are creating knowledge-based challenges to professional and institutional power in the face of personal/family “medical” crises. The paper outlines the characteristics of these two categories of autodidact and a new terrain of counter-hegemonic learning.