Getting Ready to Learn—And Learning

Research Findings: The study examined children's recognition of emotion from faces and body poses, as well as gender differences in these recognition abilities. Preschool-aged children (N = 55) and their parents and teachers participated in the study. Preschool-aged children completed a web-based measure of emotion recognition skills that included 5 tasks (3 with faces and 2 with bodies). Parents and teachers reported on children's aggressive behaviors and social skills. Children's emotion accuracy on 2 of the 3 facial tasks and 1 of the body tasks was related to teacher reports of social skills. Some of these relations were moderated by child gender. In particular, the relationships between emotion recognition accuracy and reports of children's behavior were stronger for boys than girls. Practice or Policy: Identifying preschool-aged children's strengths and weaknesses in terms of the identification of emotion from faces and body poses may be helpful in guiding interventions with children who have problems with social and behavioral functioning that may be due in part to emotion knowledge deficits. Further developmental implications of these findings are discussed.     

Assessing Teachers’ Science Content Knowledge: A Strategy for Assessing Depth of Understanding

One of the characteristics of effective science teachers is a deep understanding of science concepts. The ability to identify, explain and apply concepts is critical in designing, delivering and assessing instruction. Because some teachers have not completed extensive courses in some areas of science, especially in middle and elementary grades, many professional development programs attempt to strengthen teachers’ content knowledge. Assessing this content knowledge is challenging. Concept inventories are reliable and efficient, but do not reveal depth of knowledge. Interviews and observations are time-consuming. The Problem Based Learning Project for Teachers implemented a strategy that includes pre-post instruments in eight content strands that permits blind coding of responses and comparison across teachers and groups of teachers. The instruments include two types of open-ended questions that assess both general knowledge and the ability to apply Big Ideas related to specific science topics. The coding scheme is useful in revealing patterns in prior knowledge and learning, and identifying ideas that are challenging or not addressed by learning activities. The strengths and limitations of the scoring scheme are identified through comparison of the findings to case studies of four participating teachers from middle and elementary schools. The cases include examples of coded pre- and post-test responses to illustrate some of the themes seen in teacher learning. The findings raise questions for future investigation that can be conducted using analyses of the coded responses.     

Imaging,imagining knowledge in higher education curricula: new visions and troubled thresholds

It is urgent that we re-examine models of knowledge and knowledge-making within the university, at this time of open learning and deregulated multi-million dollar and euro open science hubs and portals. For otherwise, we are bound into ‘crude’ instrumentalism, ‘delivering’ ‘knowledge packets’ rather than seeing our curricula as potentially transformative (Head in the Clouds and Feet on the Ground. http://www.srhe.ac.uk/events/details.asp?EID=54). This article reflects on two issue-raising colloquia which challenged and reimagined our models of disciplinary knowledge and curricula design: the Society for Research in Higher Education (SRHE) Theory Network ‘New Visions’ symposium and the 4th Biennial Threshold Concepts Conference. Both were linked by a pre-occupation with the visualisation and modelling of knowledge and university knowledge-making: the first looking to Barnett's ‘Structuring Knowledge in an Age of Non-Structure’ and Peters ‘Open Science Economy’ and the second concerned with academic and, now, professional, ‘threshold concepts’; both challenged the way we imagine, and image, knowledge and its incorporation and creation in university curricula.     

Sexuality education in Europe: an overview of current policies

Comprehensive sexuality education is one of the most important tools to ensure that young people have the information they need to make healthy and informed choices. The aim of this article is, firstly, to outline general issues about sexuality education pertaining to curriculum content, the didactic methods used, agencies involved, political support, coverage and adequacy of provision and barriers to effective sexuality education in Europe. Secondly, the current state of sexuality education in most European Union member states and Norway is described, enabling a Europe-wide comparison of country experiences in the field. This reveals a wide variety of didactic methods and policies that have shaped the provision of sexuality education and the ease and difficulties with which the subject can be implemented, and at what age and in what form it is available.     

InfoEyes Information Service: A Virtual Reference Service for Print-Impaired Individuals

This article discusses the InfoEyes Information Service, an innovative virtual reference service for individuals who are print-impaired, which began as a pilot project in 2004 and continues to serve this historically underserved population. The context for this discussion is framed by a brief historical summary of the provision of library services for people who are blind or visually impaired in the United States. Challenges facing this service such as accessibility of virtual reference chat products, reference staffing issues in talking book libraries, and the relationship to public library virtual reference services are also presented.     

Articulation Visibility at Two-Year Colleges

Articulation between two-year colleges and universities provides a critical opportunity for potential students. Most institutions declare their support of articulation; however, the visibility of this support to potential students is inconsistent at best. Articulation agreements that are visible and easily understood by potential students serve as a motivation to the pursuit of higher education. Conversely, the lack of a complete, visible path to a baccalaureate degree is a powerful deterrent to enrollment. For this study, articulation is a coordinated effort and process to support efficient transfer between institutions of higher education. (DeMott, 1999 DeMott , J. ( 1999 ). Seven steps to articulation success . High School Magazine , 6 , 22 – 24 . [Google Scholar]). The purpose of this study is to explore the general visibility of existing articulation opportunities at two-year colleges. The visibility of articulation agreements is a critical practical factor in their potential positive impact on student behavior and success.     

Understanding life together: A brief history of collaboration in biology

The history of science shows a shift from single-investigator ‘little science’ to increasingly large, expensive, multinational, interdisciplinary and interdependent ‘big science’. In physics and allied fields this shift has been well documented, but the rise of collaboration in the life sciences and its effect on scientific work and knowledge has received little attention. Research in biology exhibits different historical trajectories and organisation of collaboration in field and laboratory – differences still visible in contemporary collaborations such as the Census of Marine Life and the Human Genome Project. We employ these case studies as strategic exemplars, supplemented with existing research on collaboration in biology, to expose the different motives, organisational forms and social dynamics underpinning contemporary large-scale collaborations in biology and their relations to historical patterns of collaboration in the life sciences. We find the interaction between research subject, research approach as well as research organisation influencing collaboration patterns and the work of scientists.