“We were slow; it was challenging” and “It was hard not to make knots”: Crocheting as a Literacy Event in a Second Grade Classroom Community

This paper describes a “crazy about crocheting class” and shows how crocheting became a literacy event that promoted student empowerment and classroom community while engaging second grade students in authentic literacy practices. We document how crocheting evolved from a classroom management activity that also encouraged fine motor skills to a stimulus that drove individual and shared reading and writing. We show how this teacher planned instruction by building on student interest and enthusiasm and how these students experienced literacy as an every day social practice.     

Early Malnutrition and Child Neurobehavioral Development: Insights from the Study of Children of Diabetic Mothers

In this study we sought to discern whether disturbances in mothers' metabolism during pregnancy may exert long-range effects on the neurobehavioral development of the progeny. Participants were 139 Women with diabetes in pregnancy and their singleton offspring. Serial estimates of circulating maternal fuels were obtained for each pregnancy, along with detailed records of perinatal course and outcome. Offspring were administered the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for children—Revised (WISC-R) full-scale IQ scores below 70 in our cohort did not differ significantly from national estimates. Nonetheless, after statistically controlling for other influences, WISC-R verbal, performance, and full-scale IQ scores, and Bannatyne's indices of Verbal Conceptualization Ability, Acquired Knowledge, Spatial Ability, and Sequencing Ability were inversely correlated with measures, of maternal lipid and glucose metabolism in the second and third trimesters. KTEA Arithmetic scores were similarly correlated with measures of maternal lipids in the third trimester. All correlations indicate that poorer metabolic regulation was attended by poorer child performance. The effects of maternal metabolism on fetal brain and neurobehavioral development are discussed as potential intermediary factors.     

Evaluation of a University‐Based Mentoring Program: Mentors’ Perspectives on a Service‐Learning Experience

Researchers in the educational field have investigated how a caring adult can best provide mentoring support to youth placed at risk and what functions a mentoring program should serve to promote healthy mentoring relationships. However, the perspective of mentors rarely has been sought to elicit their evaluation of a mentoring program or recommendations for programmatic change. The purpose of this article was to investigate the views of university students serving as mentors in high‐need high schools or community centers. We asked 49 students, primarily undergraduates across a range of liberal arts disciplines, who were participating in a university‐based service‐learning mentoring program for youth attending high‐poverty high schools: (a) what activities they engaged in with mentees, (b) how they benefited from the mentoring program, and (c) how they perceived the program and what recommendations they had for change. Findings revealed specific suggestions that mentoring program coordinators can adopt to address mentors’ concerns and promote sustained, durable mentoring relationships for youth.     

如何在招聘会上给人留下深刻印象

招聘会可以说是求职者和招聘者之间的一场电式约会。每年毕业来临之际,许多大学都会为毕业生组织招聘会,帮助他们寻求工作机会。通过招聘会,求职者可以了解到招聘者的信息、相关工作情况和基本行业信息等。     

Acquisition of Complex Systemic Thinking: Mental Models of Evolution

We investigated the impact of introducing college students to complex adaptive systems on their subsequent mental models of evolution compared to those of students taught in the same manner but with no reference to complex systems. The students' mental models (derived from similarity ratings of 12 evolutionary terms using the pathfinder algorithm) were significantly similar to their teachers' mental models and were correlated to their performance on an essay on evolution. Introducing students to complex systems facilitated their understanding of the mechanism of inheritance, the mechanism of evolution, and the role of chance in evolution.     

The critical spirituality of Paulo Freire

Starting from the premise that Paulo Freire’s capacity for hope in the face of personal struggle and exile issued from his spirituality, this paper examines Freire’s spirituality through the lens of Michael Dantley’s concept of critical spirituality. The concept of spirituality as discussed in the literature is explored, followed by an explication of Dantley’s concept of critical spirituality, which is an integration of critical theory and African-American spirituality as articulated by Cornel West and others. After briefly reviewing Freire’s religious and cultural background, the paper compares Dantley and Freire in terms of their perspectives on hope, conversion to or solidarity with the oppressed and prophetic vision. The paper concludes by offering four implications of Freire’s critical spirituality for educators seeking to work for social change.     

A Comparison of Exposure Control Procedures in CAT Systems Based on Different Measurement Models for Testlets

The purposes of the study were twofold: (a) to test for evidence of construct validity related to social and academic (general, English, mathematics) competencies, as measured by self, teachers, parents, and peers, for children in Grades 3 (n = 175), 7 (n = 193), and 11 (n = 159), and (b) to examine the extent to which ratings by significant others were concordant with self-ratings for these four constructs. Based on a comparison of nested multitrait-multimethod covariance structure models, results demonstrated that despite evidence of global convergent and discriminant validities, method effects were instrumental in attenuating trait variances. In particular, self-ratings for early preadolescents and peer ratings for all ages were the most vulnerable to this anomaly. Overall, results suggest that researchers consider making greater use of parent ratings in the measurement of social and academic competencies for elementary children.