Tactile,maternal, and pharmacologic factors involved in the “transport response” in rat pups

A series of eight experiments was run to characterize the potentiation of the transport response reported with tactile stimulation. Experiments 1A–C were designed to investigate the types of tactile stimulation that could potentiate an initially weak transport response. Experiments 2A–C were designed to assess the effect of maternal/littermate deprivation on responsiveness to external stimuli in 9- and 16-day-old rat pups. Experiments 3A and 3B were designed to investigate, pharmacologically, underlying mechanisms for the transport response potentiation effect. It was found that if the initial stimulus in producing a strong transport response is inadequate, additional tactile stimulation can potentiate the response. The additional stimuli work best if they are diffuse, if discrete inputs can summate over areas, or if they encompass the snout area. It also was found that isolation could lead to increased responsiveness to stimuli normally eliciting or potentiating the response in 9- and 16-day-old rats. Finally, results indicate that both dopaminergic and beta-noradrenergic systems are important in the response potentiation seen with maternal/littermate deprivation.     

The amazingly patient tutor: students' interactions with an online carbohydrate chemistry course

Many multimedia chemistry courses fail to reach their full educational potential as they do not engage the learner in a meaningful task or give appropriate feedback. Though molecular modelling is a recognised technique widely used in chemistry to enable students to grasp difficult concepts, tutorials often do not afford students either the time or scope to learn by experimenting with molecular structures. In this paper we describe the educational development of a web based organic chemistry tutorial which aims to enable students to learn chemical concepts through the manipulation of structural formulae and the provision of appropriate feedback. An online chemical structure modelling tool was developed to enable molecules to be drawn online and to provide feedback. The aim of this study is to address key issues relevant to the development of educational resources of this nature. It will be of particular interest to teachers and lecturers working within Science and Engineering, audio–visual staff and educational developers.     

Integrating PCR theory and bioinformatics into a research-oriented primer design exercise

Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is a conceptually difficult technique that embodies many fundamental biological processes. Traditionally, students have struggled to analyze PCR results due to an incomplete understanding of the biological concepts (theory) of DNA replication and strand complementarity. Here we describe the design of a novel research-oriented exercise that prepares students to design DNA primers for PCR. Our exercise design includes broad and specific learning goals and assessments of student performance and perceptions. We developed this interactive Primer Design Exercise using the principles of scientific teaching to enhance student understanding of the theory behind PCR and provide practice in designing PCR primers to amplify DNA. In the end, the students were more poised to troubleshoot problems that arose in real experiments using PCR. In addition, students had the opportunity to utilize several bioinformatics tools to gain an increased understanding of primer quality, directionality, and specificity. In the course of this study many misconceptions about DNA replication during PCR and the need for primer specificity were identified and addressed. Students were receptive to the new materials and the majority achieved the learning goals.     

The Behavioural Approach to Teaching Secondary Aged Children (BATSAC): two behavioural evaluations of a training package for secondary school teachers in classroom behaviour management

The Behavioural Approach to Teaching Package (BATPACK) for training primary teachers in the necessary skills of classroom behaviour management was adapted for use with teachers in secondary schools. Drawing on further research carried out in secondary schools, a prototype version of BATSAC (Behavioural Approach to Teaching Secondary Aged Children) was designed and developed and was subsequently piloted in two independent, one‐shot studies. In the first study, carried out with nine staff of a mathematics department, teachers and their classes were observed before and after experiencing the six‐session package. Teachers’ use of disapproval decreased significantly and pupil on‐task behaviour increased significantly but teacher approval was not appreciably different following the course. In the second study, a modified version of BATSAC was employed with a group of 14 teachers and their classes in another secondary school and again teachers were observed before and after the course. In this study teacher approval increased, the use of disapproval decreased and pupil on‐task behaviour increased, all significantly. It is argued that pupil on‐task behaviour changes largely as a result of improvements in the ratio between teachers’ use of approval and disapproval.     

Unpacking the Treatment Contrast in the Head Start Impact Study: To What Extent Does Assignment to Treatment Affect Quality of Care?

Attending high-quality early childhood care and education (ECCE) is associated with higher cognitive and social-emotional skills, especially for children growing up in poverty, but access to high-quality ECCE is limited. This study capitalizes on the random assignment design of the Head Start Impact Study to better understand whether the randomized offer to attend Head Start, a free comprehensive child development program for low-income and at-risk children, raises the quality of ECCE in which children enroll. Multinomial logistic regression was used to isolate the intent-to-treat impacts of random assignment to Head Start on ECCE quality from impacts on enrollment in formal ECCE. Results indicate that children randomly assigned to receive Head Start (treatment), compared to children in the control group, were more likely to enroll in high-quality and, to a lesser extent, low-quality ECCE. Treatment impacts were largest at the high end of the quality distribution, were driven by increased enrollment in Head Start, and differed for 3- and 4-year-olds. These results highlight the important role of Head Start in providing high-quality ECCE for low-income children.     

Conservation,matching, and the variable-interval schedule

The conservation model was generalized to the variable-interval schedule by incorporating the concept of unscheduled instrumental responses, those which occur in the time before the next setup is due. Thirsty rats responded in constant-duration sessions on two 7-sec schedules that required one leverpress for 25 and 50 licks at a water tube and on a 14-sec 25-lick schedule. In accordance with the model, total licks decreased linearly as total presses increased, and the schedules facilitated leverpressing and suppressed licking relative to paired baseline levels of responding. While the matching model also gave a satisfactory fit to instrumental responding under the schedules, its two constants, representing asymptotic rate of responding and extraneous reinforcement, had anomalous values which led the model to predict that response rate would decrease as the rate of reinforcement increased, directly opposing its prediction for the constant-consumption experiments of its previous tests.     

Contrasting executive function development among primary school children from Hong Kong and Germany

Previous research findings indicate that young children from East Asia outperform their counterparts from Europe and North America on executive function (EF) tasks. However, very few cross-national studies have focused on EF development during middle childhood. The current study assessed the EF performance of 170 children in grades 2 and 4 from Hong Kong (n = 80) and Germany (n = 90) in a cross-sectional design. Children completed tasks assessing the main components of EF, namely inhibition (child-friendly Stroop task), updating (Object Span task), and shifting (Contingency Naming task). Results of multilevel models showed that all three EF measures differentiated well between younger and older children across the full sample. However, contrary to our hypothesis and previous research, we did not find any significant differences in EF performance between children from Hong Kong and Germany at primary school age. Our findings highlight the possibility that issues related to the measurement of EF and features specific to Hong Kong and Germany underlie our results.

     

Curriculum‐embedded performance assessment in higher education: maximum efficiency and minimum disruption

Increasingly, institutions of higher education are required to evaluate student progress and programme effectiveness through implementation of performance assessment practices. Faculty members frequently resist performance assessment because of concerns that assessment activities will increase workloads, reduce time for scholarly activities, eliminate professional autonomy, and reduce faculty work into component parts or discrete technical competences. This paper describes how curriculum‐embedded performance assessment can be used to evaluate student and programme effectiveness without placing an undue burden on faculty. Examples of the use of curriculum‐embedded performance assessment strategies in a graduate‐level educational psychology programme are provided.     

Effective partnership? Perceptions of PGCE student teacher supervision

In England and Wales, Initial Teacher Education depends upon a legal and contractual partnership between schools and higher education institutions in which teacher mentors are often trained to support student teacher development. This paper investigates the much less formal kind of partnership model that has evolved in Scotland, using one university's PGCE (Secondary) programme as a case study. Our research shows that the partnership is based on goodwill and relationships built up over time between university and school staff. However, school staff generally have only a weak understanding of the overall direction of the PGCE programme and they are uncertain about how best to fulfil their role in placement supervision. Partly in consequence, students find it hard to integrate school and university experiences and the quality of placement is very uneven. We identify scope for the development of mentoring skills among teachers and argue that current developments in Scottish education mean that this is a propitious time to begin to strengthen the links between school and university components of PGCE programmes.

En Angleterre et au Pays de Galle, la formation initiale des professeurs repose sur un partenariat contractuel et juridique entre les écoles et les Instituts de formation, c'est‐à‐dire que des professeurs sont formés en tant que mentors pour veiller au bon développement des étudiants. Dans cet exposé nous allons étudier un modèle de partenariat beaucoup moins formel qui s'est développé en Ecosse, en nous basant sur le cas d'étude du programme du PGCE (professeurs du secondaire) d'une université. Nos recherches montrent que le partenariat est basé sur de la bonne volonté et sur des relations bâties au cours des années entre l'université et les enseignants en collège. Cependant en général ces derniers n'ont pas une vision très claire de la direction globale du programme du PGCE et ne savent pas quelle est la meilleure manière de remplir leur rôle de superviseur durant les stages. En partie pour cette raison, les étudiants ont des difficultés à faire le lien entre leur expérience au collège et leur expérience à l'université et la qualité des stages est donc très inégale. Nous constatons donc qu'il faut que les professeurs soient mieux formés à leur rôle de mentor et que—en raison des développements qui ont lieu à l'heure actuelle dans le domaine de l'éducation en Ecosse—le moment est propice pour commencer à créer des liens plus étroits entre les composants universitaires et les stages en collège des programmes du PGCE.

En Inglaterra y Gales, la Educación Inicial del Profesor depende de la asociación legal y contractual entre los colegios y los institutos de educación superior, por donde enseñan a los mentores de profesores a apoyar el desarrollo del profesor en prácticas. Este artículo examina el modelo de asociación mucho menos convencional que ha desarrollado en Escocia, utilizando el programa de PGCE (secundario) de una universidad como estudio de casos. Nuestras investigaciones demuestran que la asociación se funda en la buena voluntad y las buenas amistades que se hace durante cierto tiempo entre la universidad y el personal docente del colegio. Sin embargo, el personal docente del colegio tiene solamente una comprensión floja de la dirección global del programa PGCE, y no está seguro de lo que podría hacer por lo bueno para desempeñar su papel durante la supervisión de la colocación. En cierto modo por consiguiente, los estudiantes tienen dificultades para integrarse en las experiencias del colegio y de la universidad, y la calidad de la colocación es muy desigual. Identificamos el campo de aplicación para el desarrollo de destrezas de mentores entre los profesores, y sostenemos que el desarrollo actual en la educación escocesa significa que ahora es un período propicio para empezar a consolidar las conexiones que hay entre los componentes del colegio y de la universidad en el programa de PGCE.

In England und im Wales, Ausgangslehrerausbildung hängt nach einer zugelassenen und Vertragsteilhaberschaft zwischen Schulen und Ausbildunganstalten ab, in denen Lehrermentors häufig ausgebildet werden, um Kursteilnehmerlehrerentwicklung zu stützen. Dieses Papier forscht die viel weniger formale Art des Partnerschaftssmodells, das sich in Schottland entwickelt hat mit dem PGCE (Sekundär) Programm von einer Universität als Fallstudie. Unsere Forschung zeigt, daß diese Partnerschaft auf dem Wohlwollen und Verhältnissen basiert, die Überzeit zwischen Universität und Schulestab aufgebaut werden. Jedoch hat Schulestab im Allgemeinen nur ein schwaches Verständnis der gesamten Richtung des PGCE‐Programms und sie sind unsicher über, wie man gut ihre Rolle in der Plazierungsüberwachung erfüllt. Teils infolgedessen, finden Kursteilnehmer es hart, Schule zu integrieren und Hochschulerfahrungen und die Qualität der Plazierung ist‐sehr ungleich. Wir kennzeichnen Bereiche für die Entwicklung von mentoring Fähigkeiten unter Lehrern und argumentieren daß gegenwärtige Entwicklungen im schottischen Ausbildungsmittel, daß dieses eine günstige Zeit ist anzufangen, die Verbindungen zwischen Schule und Hochschulbestandteilen der PGCE‐Programme zu verstärken.     

Women and Mentoring in Collegiate Athletics

The number of women working and participating in intercollegiate athletics has steadily increased the past four decades. This has led for a need to develop women as leaders within collegiate athletics and one way of doing this is through mentoring. Mentoring provides guidance in regard to both the professional development and psychosocial support. In our research, we investigated mentoring within the college athletics environment by interviewing female athletic directors and female graduate assistants. Four themes emerged from the interviews: (a) importance of mentorship; (b) quality of mentorship; (c) availability, and (d) lack of female mentorship. Our research builds on the idea that mentorship is important and valued by both the mentor and protégé but the key is determining how to best connect the two groups. This would possibly lead to higher job satisfaction, higher employee retention, and more productive work environment.