On not becoming ‘a mere empirical existence’: exploring ‘who’ and ‘what’ narratives in pre-service English teachers’ writing

Standards-based reforms of education favour narrow forms of teacher professional learning tied to generic standards and pre-determined, measurable outcomes. In high-stakes accountability-driven environments, in schools and initial teacher education programs, educators are rarely encouraged to inquire into their work and professional identities through narrative writing. This article describes and analyses an assessment task in a pre-service teacher education course wherein students explore dialogic forms of critical autobiographical writing as part of an ongoing process of examining and clarifying their views and values about English teaching. Drawing on Cavarero, we argue that the writing these preservice teachers do provides a space for them to negotiate ‘what’ and ‘who’ narratives as they journey to become English teachers. Their writing productively grapples with generic ‘what’ stories such as what standards documents attempt to tell about English teaching, and the ‘unrepeatable uniqueness’ of ‘who’ stories developed out of their individual cultural, educational and linguistic difference.     

A Qualitative Investigation of College Students' Facebook Usage and Romantic Relationships: Implications for College Counselors

The use of social media is a societal trend influencing the way that individuals communicate with and relate to one another. Moreover, Facebook use may facilitate or hinder individuals' relationship growth and development. The purpose of this article is to (a) review research examining Facebook usage and interpersonal relationships, (b) present qualitative insight into the Facebook experiences of college students (N = 16) from a large southeastern university, and (c) offer implications for college counselors.     

Encouraging IT students to get serious about assignment writing: evaluation of a Web-based initiative

Traditionally, students attending university have received support for their assignment writing within a face-to-face framework. Academic writing support delivered via the Internet needs to be rendered in very subject-specific terms for the resource to be perceived as valuable. This paper reports on a project involving writing support staff and a computer science subject leader to develop and evaluate a Web-based academic skills tutorial. The tutorial sought to provide online learning support for interpreting an information technology (IT) assignment topic, extracting information from sources, and integrating the material into a report with the support of online lexical tools. The evaluation sought to determine whether the students found the resource helpful, if improvements were still required, and what implications there were for integrating the resource with subject teaching. Students perceived most value in those sections of the resource that provided them with examples and models, and least in those that required them to engage in interactive activity.     

Evaluating the cost-effectiveness of the Dyslexia Pilot Project: A multitiered system of supports for early literacy

The Dyslexia Pilot Project provided funding to school districts to implement a multitiered system of support (MTSS) framework for the prevention, early identification, and early intervention of reading difficulties. This article describes the evaluation of the multiyear Dyslexia Pilot Project for students in kindergarten through Grade 2. The evaluation extended a conceptual model for evaluating the systems effects of an MTSS for reading by including a cost-effectiveness analysis. The results indicate that mean rates of improvement on Dynamic Indicators for Basic Early Literacy Skills Next curriculum-based measures for students in participating schools exceeded the expected rates of improvement based on benchmark norms. This reduction in risk precluded the need for more intensive, individualized, and costly interventions and specialized educational services. Implications of the findings and future directions are discussed.     

Impact of a Content Selection Framework on Portfolio Assessment at the Classroom Level

Among the various alternative approaches to student evaluation, portfolio assessment has been shown to have considerable potential in terms of its use in the evaluation of higher-order, cross-curricular skills. Despite this favourable outlook, it may nevertheless remain a passing fad due to the lack of a conceptual content selection framework and difficulties surrounding its implementation within the classroom setting. The present study reports on the conceptual issues that arose when a generic content framework was used to guide the selection of entries for assessment purposes. The framework proposed the systematic collection of evidence of the cognitive, affective, behavioural, metacognitive and developmental dimensions of students' mastery of a specific competency. Data were drawn from 11 case-studies of portfolio applications by teachers from eastern Ontario, Canada. It was found that the effective integration of the portfolio into teaching and assessment practices depended largely on the flexibility of the framework and, to some extent, on the type of training or support provided to the teachers.     

Polemics and synthesis: Ernst Mayr and evolutionary biology

Mayr has justifiably earned for himself the title “Darwin of the 20th century”. He declared himself Darwin's champion, and was particularly wont to point out that a most important consequence of the Darwinian revolution was the destruction of typological thinking. Mayr also repeatedly stressed that there were important differences between Darwinism and contemporary theories of evolution. Evolution as conceived by Darwin was not goal-directed, while contemporary theories were orthogenetic or aristogenetic in the sense that they believed in a predetermined progression of lower to higher forms. Furthermore, by focusing on individuals, Darwin destroyed the tyranny of typological thinking, which was a left over from the essentialism of Plato, who believed that groups of organisms were constructed according to certain homogeneities. By attacking the concept of essentialism, Darwin provided a mechanism by which individuals became both a focus and an essential ingredient in the evolutionary process. This was a paradigm shift and according to Mayr, a conceptual leap that constituted a true scientific revolution. Mayr's zeal in defending Darwin and in protecting organismal biology and evolution from the “non-believers” has formed the subject of this entire article, but it can also be seen in the titles of some of his recent books, e.g.One Long Argument. Charles Darwin and the Genesis of Modern Evolutionary Thought (1991),This is Biology—the Science of the Living World (1997), andWhat Evolution Is (2002).     

An investigation of listening and listening‐while‐reading accommodations on reading comprehension levels and rates in students with emotional disorders

Researchers used alternating treatment designs to investigate the effects of listening‐while‐reading (LWR) and listening interventions on comprehension levels and rates in four middle school students with emotional disorders. During LWR, students were instructed to read passages silently along with experimenters. During the listening condition, we did not give students a printed copy of the passage but merely instructed them to listen as an experimenter read the passages aloud. The control condition consisted of students reading passages silently. After each condition, students answered 10 comprehension questions without referring back to the printed passage. Although neither intervention resulted in comprehension levels consistently superior to those of the silent reading control condition, LWR and listening resulted in higher rates of comprehension than the silent reading control condition across all four students. However, listening appeared to improve reading comprehension rates in only two students. These results suggest that LWR may be an efficient procedure for enhancing comprehension across content areas with groups of students who have heterogeneous reading skills. The discussion focuses on future applied research with students with disabilities. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Psychol Schs 42: 39–51, 2005.     

Editorial

Twelve focus groups were conducted with African-American and Latino youth (age 14-19) in Washington, DC to inform the development of a program to postpone sexual involvement among younger teens (age 12-14). The study's objectives were to uncover the prime motivators for early sexual involvement, examine attitudes towards pregnancy and contraception, explore peer and family influences on sexual decision-making, and identify the youth's preferred sources of information and advice on sexual matters. The data suggest that sex is a peer norm for these youth and generally begins by age 15 or before. The prime motivator for early sex among the young women appears to be social pressures from boyfriends, peers and even older siblings. In contrast, young men seem to be more motivated by physical desire, and draw a clear distinction between relationships that are exclusively sexual and those that are more serious and romantic. Early pregnancy was universally viewed as undesirable, but not always as a hindrance to one's future. While motivation to avoid pregnancy appears to be less pronounced among the African-American youth, potential barriers to contraceptive use seem prominent in both groups due to strong negative opinions about the safety and efficacy of various methods. Condoms are viewed as being appropriate for casual sexual encounters, but not for longer, more established relationships. Parents received mixed reviews as sources of information and guidance on sexual matters. Latino youth were more likely than African-Americans to view parents as being influential in their sexual decision-making, but appear less likely to rely on them for information and advice. All youth preferred clinics to schools for sex education and related services. Overall, these data signal the need for interventions that generate peer support for delaying sex and pregnancy, correct misinformation about contraceptives, and encourage frank, open discussions between youth and their parents or other caring adults.     

GROWING AS TEACHER EDUCATORS: Learning New Professional Development Practices

This article examines the ways that, in Holocaust education in Jewish schools in Melbourne and New York at the beginning of the 21st century, knowledge of the Holocaust is transferred to students in chronological form. It begins by asking: What work do chronological narratives do within the Holocaust historical narratives offered within Jewish high school classrooms? In order to explore this question, examples from curricula and interviews with the teachers are explored. It is argued that while the use of chronological narratives within the high-school classroom to narrate historical events is not unique to the teaching of the Holocaust, the work which this narrative form does is particular to the negotiation of the traumatic aftermath of the Holocaust.