Sustaining High-Quality Teaching and Evidence-Based Curricula: Follow-Up Assessment of Teachers in the REDI Project

Research Findings: Recent research has validated the power of evidence-based preschool interventions to improve teaching quality and promote child school readiness when implemented in the context of research trials. However, very rarely are follow-up assessments conducted with teachers in order to evaluate the maintenance of improved teaching quality or sustained use of evidence-based curriculum components after the intervention trial. In the current study, we collected follow-up assessments of teachers 1 year after their involvement in the REDI (REsearch-based, Developmentally Informed) research trial to evaluate the extent to which intervention teachers continued to implement the REDI curriculum components with high quality and to explore possible preintervention predictors of sustained implementation. In addition, we conducted classroom observations to determine whether general improvements in the teaching quality of intervention teachers (relative to control group teachers) were sustained. Results indicated sustained high-quality implementation of some curriculum components (the Promoting Alternative THinking Strategies curriculum) but decreased implementation of other components (the language/literacy components). Sustained intervention effects were evident on most aspects of general teaching quality targeted by the intervention. Practice or Policy: Implications for practice and policy are discussed.     

Choice of Reading Comprehension Test Influences the Outcomes of Genetic Analyses

Vowel representations are particularly difficult for children to learn because most vowel phonemes can be spelled in several different ways. Children in Grades 1, 2, and 3 spelled nonwords with an ambiguous vowel and reported their spelling strategies. Analysis of the children's spellings and strategy reports revealed a shift in relying solely on phonological information to considering orthographic information for making vowel letter choices. Implications for vowel spelling development are discussed.     

An investigation of oral language and writing proficiency in third-grade students

Over the years, professionals have hypothesized that a positive relationship exists between children's oral language proficiency and their written language performance. This study examined the following two aspects of the relationship between oral and written language: (a) Are specific linguistic components of language more closely related than others? (b) Do groups rated high, medium, or low on written language measures differ significantly in oral language proficiency? Measures of oral and written language were administered to 77 third-grade students. Results indicated that moderate relationships existed between grammatical aspects of oral and written language. Oral language proficiency was significantly different for groups rated high, medium, and low on the basis of written language performance.     

The Central Asylum for the Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb, Canajoharie, New York, 1823-1835

The Central Asylum for the Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb, Canajoharie, NY, was a public school for the Deaf that existed from 1823 to 1835. Little has been written about it. This study draws upon as much information as appears to be available on the history of this school. The history of the Central Asylum adds to the understanding of the beginnings of public education for the Deaf in the United States.     

How We Used to Build the Future: 30 Years of Collection Development Trends

This session highlighted trends in continuing resource collections and collection management throughout the 30-year period from 1985 through 2015. Electronic resources became available in the 1990s and grew in prevalence from the 2000s through the present, changing the make-up of library collections and also how libraries measure collections and collection usage. Two librarians and two vendors shared their perspectives on these changes in collection development, describing how library collections now contain a combination of older formats and older ways of collecting data, and new, electronic content and automated ways of collecting and disseminating data about collections.     

Wear Attitude Inventory Applied to Junior High School Boys

Abstract

Form A of the Wear Attitude Inventory was administered to one randomly selected physical education class of seventh grade boys, one class of eighth grade boys, and one class of ninth grade boys in each of five junior high schools. The mean Inventory score for each grade was found to be equal to or superior to the mean reported in Wear's validation study. A significant X₂ value was found for the distribution of Inventory scores of the three junior high school grades. A biserial coefficient of correlation item analysis which was computed for each of the three grades established that the 30 items correlated significantly with the total score and that the item score also had a significant correlation with the Inventory category score. On the basis of these results, the conclusion was advanced that the Wear Attitude Inventory was an appropriate instrument to measure attitudes of junior high school boys toward physical education.     

Postural stability,clicker reaction time and bow draw force predict performance in elite recurve archery

Recurve archery is an Olympic sport that requires extreme precision, upper body strength and endurance. The purpose of this research was to quantify how postural stability variables both pre- and post-arrow release, draw force, flight time, arrow length and clicker reaction time, collectively, impacted on the performance or scoring outcomes in elite recurve archery athletes. Thirty-nine elite-level recurve archers (23 male and 16 female; mean age?=?24.7?±?7.3 years) from four different countries volunteered to participate in this study prior to competing at a World Cup event. An AMTI force platform (1000Hz) was used to obtain centre of pressure (COP) measurements 1s prior to arrow release and 0.5s post-arrow release. High-speed footage (200Hz) allowed for calculation of arrow flight time and score. Results identified clicker reaction time, draw force and maximum sway speed as the variables that best predicted shot performance. Specifically, reduced clicker reaction time, greater bow draw force and reduced postural sway speed post-arrow release were predictors of higher scoring shots. It is suggested that future research should focus on investigating shoulder muscle tremors at full draw in relation to clicker reaction time, and the effect of upper body strength interventions (specifically targeting the musculature around the shoulder girdle) on performance in recurve archers.     

A case study of scientific reasoning

Concern is increasingly being expressed about the teaching of higher order thinking skills in schools and the levels of understanding of scientific concepts by students. Metaphors for the improvement of science education have included science as exploration and science as process skills for experimentation. As a result of a series of studies on how children relate evidence to their theories or beliefs, Kuhn (1993a) has suggested that changing the metaphor to science as argument may be a fruitful way to increase the development of higher order thinking skills and understanding in science instruction. This report is of a case study into the coordination of evidence and theories by a grade 7 primary school student. This student was not able to coordinate these elements in a way that would enable her to rationally consider evidence in relation to her theories. It appeared that the thinking skills associated with science as argument were similar for her in different domains of knowledge and context. Specializations: science learning, scientific reasoning, learning environments, science teacher education. Specializations: cognition, reasoning in science and mathermatics.     

Classroom justice: Perceptions of fairness as a predictor of student motivation,learning, and aggression

The present study examined the relationship between students’ perceptions of distributive and procedural justice in a college course and student motivation concerning the course, affective learning in the course, and aggression toward the course instructor. Although student perceptions of both distributive and procedural justice were positively correlated with student motivation and affective learning and negatively correlated with student aggression toward the course instructor, multiple regression analyses indicated that only perceptions of procedural justice predicted the three criterion variables at a statistically significant level while distributive justice perceptions did not. Implications and suggestions for future research in classroom justice are offered.     

Carnosine in health and disease

Abstract

Carnosine was originally discovered in skeletal muscle, where it exists in larger amounts than in other tissues. The majority of research into the physiological roles of carnosine have been conducted on skeletal muscle. Given this and the potential for muscle carnosine content to be increased with supplementation, there is now a large body of research examining the ergogenic effects (or otherwise) of carnosine. More recent research, however, points towards a potential for carnosine to exert a wider range of physiological effects in other tissues, including the brain, heart, pancreas, kidney and cancer cells. Taken together, this is suggestive of a potential for carnosine to have therapeutic benefits in health and disease, although this is by no means without complication. Herein, we will provide a review of the current literature relating to the potential therapeutic effects of carnosine in health and disease.