What Happens During Language and Literacy Coaching? Coaches’ Reports of Their Interactions With Educators

Research Findings: This study investigated coaches’ interactions with educators in the context of a large-scale, state-implemented literacy professional development (PD). We examined log data and open-comment reports to understand what coaches found salient about their interactions with educators as well as how those reports aligned with the initial design of the PD. Coaches reported spending a large proportion of their interactions with educators completing administrative tasks. Our findings also indicate that coaches disproportionally targeted instructional content from the PD while also adding unrelated instructional content to their coaching. Although coaches reported focusing on relationship building, they reported using less efficacious coaching strategies (e.g., observation and discussion) more frequently than coaching strategies demonstrated to be more efficacious (e.g., modeling and coteaching). Practice or Policy: Our findings suggest an explanation for the mixed evidence around coaching, as coaches in the study seemed to move beyond the specifications of the PD in their coaching interactions. This work has implications for the design of PD for both improving coach training and allowing some flexibility to meet educators’ learning needs that may be secondary to the content of the PD. Findings also support the need for more nuanced mechanisms for investing in coaching and coaching outcomes.     

Sequencing the genome from nematode to human: changing methods,changing science

The history of science tends to be recounted as a story of progress from early goals and discoveries to a unified outcome, in some sense implicit from the beginning, and often due to technological advances. The sequencing of the human genome is no exception. As a crucial part of the Human Genome Project, the history of genomic sequencing is typically presented as a direct result of the discoveries of the structure of DNA and its coding function, together with practical factors such as the development of techniques which made large-scale sequencing possible. However, the history of sequencing is inevitably a more complicated story, not only about molecular biology, but also about the evolving culture of scientific practice at the end of the 20th century.     

Exploring the Potential of Computers to Enrich Home and Community-Based Services Clients' Social Networks

Older persons receiving services in community settings, rather than Nursing Homes, are at risk of social isolation. Computer mediated communication offers technological resources that recipients of Home and Community-Based Services (HCBS) might use to reduce their social isolation. The present study involved personal interviews with 40 HCBS clients regarding their interest in communicating with members of their social networks and using computers. At the time of the interview, 30 of the 40 participants did not use computers and reported cost, lack of training, physical limitations, lack of interest and access, and fraud as the reasons for not using computers. After watching a videotape illustrating an easy-to-use computer interface that allows older persons to communicate with families and friends, 90% reported that it would be helpful for people like them. Participants said such a computer would be helpful because it would make communication with friends and family easy, it could accommodate visual and manual disabilities, and would be interesting. Eighty-five percent said they would use a system like the one they were shown if it were available to them.     

Diverse experiences of women leading in higher education: locating networks and agency for leadership within a university context in Papua New Guinea

The ways in which women deliberately press back against practices of oppression and demonstrate agency in higher education institutions are highly contextual and culturally bound. The formal and informal networks that women develop and maintain are important elements of generating agency and enhancing women's access to and opportunities for leadership. This article presents a case study from research that explored women's leadership experiences in a higher education context in the Pacific Islands – Papua New Guinea. Situated within a feminist poststructural methodology, the research examined women's experiences of leadership and considered aspects that influenced women's access to formal leadership roles. The findings illustrated that the women faced numerous barriers to formal leadership opportunities. A range of culturally and contextually located approaches supported women to demonstrate agency with regard to their own leadership development and practice. This research highlighted the importance of considering the relationship between networks and agency and the impact of associated cultural and contextual practices within organisations, providing insights into the culturally located complexities of women's leadership in higher education contexts.     

Thematic Analysis of Intergenerational Transmission of Trauma in Latinx Immigrant Families in the Southern US

Immigration is a growing social dynamic in many countries, eliciting a variety of different responses. Proponents of immigration note how the influx of new people into the United States (US) has enhanced the workforce and brought cultural enrichment; others have attributed to immigrants, particularly undocumented, a rise in crime and strains on social services. Consequently, immigrants often contend with discrimination and other unique stressors that increase the likelihood that immigration will be a traumatizing experience. Because scholarly focus on the impact of immigration upon psychological wellbeing typically highlights individual experiences, there is limited attention on the impact on immigrant families, particularly mixed-status families comprised of immigrant parents and children who are US citizens by birth. There is also limited attention on immigrant dynamics in the Southern US. This qualitative, thematic analysis explores the experiences of 71 pairs of Latinx immigrant mothers and their US citizen children, living in the Southern US, utilizing the lens of intergenerational transmission of trauma. Using narrative data taken from trauma assessment instruments, the authors identified the most prevalent themes shared by the mothers and their children as crime victimization, deportation, threats to family health, sexual abuse, and marital conflict.

     

What knowledge do early childhood teachers use during literacy instruction? Using stimulated recall to investigate an unexplored phenomenon

Reading and Writing - This study utilized a novel phenomenological approach with a stimulated recall procedure to understand the pedagogical reasoning of eight early child teachers during the...     

Doctoral students’ experiences of nondisclosure with their dissertation chair

We examined doctoral students’ experiences of nondisclosure with their dissertation chairs. Using a hermeneutic phenomenology design, we analyzed two individual interviews of 10 doctoral students. We identified the following three themes: (a) the professional dynamics in the relationship, (b) the interpersonal and cultural dynamics in the relationship, and (c) prioritization of completing the dissertation. Implications for doctoral students and dissertation chairs are discussed.