Inquiry-based learning and e-mentoring via videoconference: a study of mathematics and science learning of Canadian rural students

This research seeks to (1) establish a feasible development and implementation model for an inquiry-based learning environment with e-mentoring using videoconference, and (2) apply the model to examine its impact on rural students’ learning. To achieve these goals, we developed a model of inquiry-based learning with e-mentoring (IBLE) based on CII’s inquiry model (Community Informatics Initiative 2009; http://inquiry.uiuc.edu/). We then tested the effectiveness of the IBLE model and reported our work in a rural context. Results showed that IBLE had enhanced students’ learning, most significantly on their affective development, including increased motivation, broadened understanding, and augmented career awareness. Implications for design and limitations of the study are also discussed.     

Environmental policy vs. public pressure: Innovation and diffusion of alternative bleaching technologies in the pulp industry

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, concern over dioxin in both paper products and wastewater led to the development of techniques that reduced the use of chlorine in the pulp industry. Both regulatory and consumer pressure motivated this change. Unlike previous studies, we use patent data to examine the evolution of two competing bleaching technologies in five major paper-producing countries, both of which reduce the use of chlorine in the pulping process. The use of patent data allows us to focus on the invention stage. However, adoption data are also presented, and by the end of the 1990s, nearly all pulp production in these countries used one of these technologies. While previous studies emphasize the importance of regulation for inducing innovation, here we find substantial innovation occurring before regulations were in place. Instead, pressure from consumers and the public at large to reduce the chlorine content of paper drove invention, prior to the introduction of environmental policies in any of the countries concerned.     

Reading the image of Rigoberta Menchu: Undecidability and language lessons

This essay frames issues of historical truth, interpretation, and translation in reading I, Rigoberta Manchu in terms of the analysis of qualitative data. Using Walter Benjamin's work on translation and historiography, posited lessons include: to read for difference rather than the same; to focus on what is becoming in the data; to probe the price people pay to tell the truth about themselves; to attend to how stories are told; and to situate interpretation as supplement rather than mimesis, both inadequate and necessary. Such lessons are endorsed toward the goal of what Gayatri Spivak terms a "knowledgeable Eurocentrism" rather than a naive one in first-world dealings with third-world texts.     

2007 Kneller Lecture,AESA Getting Lost: Social Science and/as Philosophy

This article probes how philosophical structures are immanent in empirical work and how philosophy might be understood when it is within the precincts of science. My interest is in both opening philosophy to disruption by a science that knows itself as inside history and opening science to the costs of its inability to tolerate the necessary lack in any determinism. Against the more typical focus on how philosophy provides the reason of science, here the task is to rethink the relation between empirical work and philosophy in a way that posits an engagement with not knowing as an ethical and political move. The goal of such a project is a double(d) science that works the necessary tensions that structure contemporary social science as fertile ground for the production of new practices where theoretical complexities are used as tools to make a material difference in terms of “what works” in the public interest.     

A Little Bit of the Blues: Low-Level Symptoms of Maternal Depression and Classroom Behavior Problems in Preschool Children

Research Findings: The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between low-level depressive symptoms in mothers and teacher-reported child behavioral outcomes. Participants included 442 low-income mothers of preschool-age children who were screened for maternal depression by their child's preschool teacher. Teacher reports of child behavior problems were collected on a random sample of the children (n = 264). Of mothers screened for depression, 16.7% reported low-level depressive symptoms (below the cutoff on the screener indicating clinically elevated symptoms). Analyses revealed that children of mothers with low-level depressive symptoms had significantly greater problems with externalizing behavior compared to children of mothers with no depressive symptoms. Practice or Policy: Results suggest that children whose mothers experience even low-level depressive symptoms are at risk for problems with behavior, pointing to the need for screening and interventions to address maternal depression at all levels of severity. Early childhood education providers are in an excellent position to support families impacted by symptoms of maternal depression through screening and education, supportive daily interactions, and referrals for services if needed. Teachers can also provide direct support for high-risk children's social and emotional skill development through the provision of sensitive, nurturing care.     

The Literature on Academic Integrity and Graduate Students: Issues,Solutions, and the Case for a Librarian Role

SUMMARY

Graduate and professional school students face a variety of academic integrity issues and are sometimes academically dishonest. The author surveys the literature of the last decade on graduate student academic integrity, including plagiarism, cheating, falsification, and authorship conflicts, focusing on empirical studies in multiple disciplines, studies that portray issues arising in individual disciplines, and solutions suggested. The author proposes that librarians who serve, teach, and consult with graduate students should develop their instructional role in this area. By becoming aware of the chief academic integrity problems and the subject-discipline related concerns, they can better assist graduate students in the context of information literacy and collaborate with faculty on training and other solutions.     

Lost in Narration: Applying Autoethnography

The authors convey a story of getting lost in narration, on an applied and collaborative research project in which they combined autoethnography (AE), mindfulness, and relational communication. They examine common criticisms of AE in an effort to more accurately narrate how the method operates communicatively and resonates with commitments of applied communication research. This tale ends with a few invitational morals that are directed to skeptics and practitioners of AE.     

图书馆特殊发展阶段中的问题、原因和对策研究

根据图书馆的发展趋势和目前的形势,分析访问和使用图书馆的人越来越少这一问题的主要成因,并根据当前图书馆的特殊发展阶段的特点,提出一些可能的解决办法和理念。