A retrospective view of a study of middle school science curriculum materials: Implementation,scale‐up,and sustainability in a changing policy environment

This article provides an extended, comprehensive example of how teachers, schools, districts, and external factors (e.g., parental pressure and policy mandates) shape curriculum research in the U.S. It retrospectively examines how three different middle school curriculum units were implemented and scaled‐up in a large, diverse school system. The curriculum materials were cognitively based, hands‐on, guided inquiry units; each focused on a different “big idea” in science. The units met some criteria for instructional strategies rated by the Project 2061 Curriculum Analysis. Using evidence‐based decisions, two of the units were found to be effective and equitable, and went to scale, but one was not effective. However, the course of scale‐up was also affected by a changing policy climate, and proceeded in unpredictable ways, with small scale effects not found at large scale, and experienced teachers less effective than inexperienced teachers. Four years after funding ended, none of the units were sustained within the school district. The interactions between the demands of the units and of the school district's policy environment suggests reasons why this occurred, despite evidence that two of the units were successful with diverse learners. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 49: 305–332, 2012     

Using Spacing to Enhance Diverse Forms of Learning: Review of Recent Research and Implications for Instruction

Every day, students and instructors are faced with the decision of when to study information. The timing of study, and how it affects memory retention, has been explored for many years in research on human learning. This research has shown that performance on final tests of learning is improved if multiple study sessions are separated—i.e., “spaced” apart—in time rather than massed in immediate succession. In this article, we review research findings of the types of learning that benefit from spaced study, demonstrations of these benefits in educational settings, and recent research on the time intervals during which spaced study should occur in order to maximize memory retention. We conclude with a list of recommendations on how spacing might be incorporated into everyday instruction.     

On the Need for Dionysian Education in Schools Today

Although much has been written about Friedrich Nietzsche's views on education over the years, and much has also been written about Dionysus, god of wine and ecstasy, very little attention has been given to the meaning of, and need for, Dionysian education. In this article, Sean Steel attempts to begin that project. Drawing Nietzsche's articulation of the Dionysian, Apollonian, and anti‐Dionysian into the orbit of broader scholarship on Dionysus, Steel invites readers to think about what a Dionysian education might look like in a modern‐day school setting, as well as to consider what challenges exist for the implementation of such a vision of education.     

Reexamining the Link Between Cultivation Factors and Viewer Involvement: Investigating Viewing Amount as a Catalyst for the Transportation Process

In an effort to expand on prior cultivation research involving narrative processing (Bilandzic &; Busselle, 2008 Bilandzic , H. , &; Busselle , R. W. ( 2008 ). Transportation and transportability in the cultivation of genre-consistent attitudes and estimates . Journal of Communication , 58 ( 3 ), 508 – 529 . doi: 10.1111/j.1460–2466.2008.00397.x [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]), this study examined the interrelationships between viewing amount and the transportation process. Results showed that transportation mediated the relationship between genre-specific television viewing and perceived realism, while overall television viewing directly predicted reduced counterarguing. In addition, structural equation modeling was employed to test a combined cultivation-transportation model leading to changes in viewer excessive drinking perceptions. Findings indicated that genre-specific television viewing indirectly influenced beliefs through increased transportation. Conversely, a significant, direct path was found between overall viewing and excessive drinking beliefs, supporting the original cultivation perspective.     

Selective Attention to Online Political Information

Selective attention is a key concept in communication research despite equivocal supporting evidence. This study focuses on methodological concerns in the study of selective attention. Using unobtrusive measures of selective attention to online political content this study found consistent support for the selective attention hypothesis. Three within-subjects quasi experiments were conducted (n = 29, n = 36, and n = 75) that measured subjects' attention to information consistent with and counter to their beliefs. Two other measures of selective attention were also used: (1) whether subjects turned first to consistent or counter information, and (2) how deeply into the material they read.     

The Relationship Between Trait Affect and Job Attitudes in Library Employees

This research explores the relationship between employees’ disposition and several important job attitudes. Dispositional affect is a personality trait that describes people's emotional responses to situations. This study explored how affective disposition influences the job attitudes of work engagement, organizational commitment, and job satisfaction. Data were collected from a sample of librarians, and the results show that affective disposition strongly predicted the three job attitudes in the expected directions. The findings contribute to knowledge of the role of personality in the workplace and provide guidance for library managers on how best to facilitate positive job attitudes.     

An Integrated Knowledge Framework to Characterize and Scaffold Size and Scale Cognition (FS2C)

Size and scale cognition is a critical ability associated with reasoning with concepts in different disciplines of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. As such, researchers and educators have identified the need for young learners and their educators to become scale-literate. Informed by developmental psychology literature and recent findings in nanoscale science and engineering education, we propose an integrated knowledge framework for characterizing and scaffolding size and scale cognition called the FS2C framework. Five ad hoc assessment tasks were designed informed by the FS2C framework with the goal of identifying participants' understandings of size and scale. Findings identified participants' difficulties to discern different sizes of microscale and nanoscale objects and a low level of sophistication on identifying scale worlds among participants. Results also identified that as bigger the difference between the sizes of the objects is, the more difficult was for participants to identify how many times an object is bigger or smaller than another one. Similarly, participants showed difficulties to estimate approximate sizes of sub-macroscopic objects as well as a difficulty for participants to estimate the size of very large objects. Participants' accurate location of objects on a logarithmic scale was also challenging.     

Children's conceptions of the earth,sun and moon

Understanding of the Earth/Sun/Moon system represents a major cultural nexus in the history of ideas as well as being an important conceptual area in junior science teaching. The situation is one in which the objects in question can be observed but do not lend themselves to hands‐on experience in the case of the Sun and Moon or to obvious meaningful experience of the system in the case of the Earth.

Children from 9 to 12 years of age were questioned using a clinical interview technique and stimulus materials, about the shape, size and motion of the Earth, Sun and Moon. A number of alternative views appear to be held. The use of a similar procedure with a group of children would seem to offer a powerful teaching methodology in which both teacher and students gain from the dialectic learning situation that is developed by this technique ‐ apart from providing insights concerning children's understanding.