New Approaches to Subject Indexing at the British Library

The constantly changing metadata landscape means that libraries need to re-think their approach to standards and subject analysis, to enable the discovery of vast areas of both print and digital content. This article presents a case study from the British Library that assesses the feasibility of adopting FAST (Faceted Application of Subject Terminology) to selectively extend the scope of subject indexing of current and legacy content, or implement FAST as a replacement for all LCSH in current cataloging workflows.     

Books,Bytes, and Buildings: The Academic Library's Unique Role in Improving Student Success

Student persistence and completion are paramount in higher education, and institutions are employing targeted programs and initiatives to address these concerns. The academic library can play an especially important role in these efforts, given its unique interdisciplinary mission and its integrated instructional programs. With a foundation in both higher education and library and information science literatures, this article describes how one academic library engaged in cross-campus programs, partnerships, and initiatives to contribute to student success efforts. Other libraries may find these examples useful as they consider how to frame their work in the context of their institutions’ student persistence efforts.     

Exploring the Impact of Prior Experiences in Non-Formal Education on My Pedagogy of Teacher Education

The purpose of this article is to use self-study methodology to analyze critically the impact of 30 years of non-formal education on my development as a teacher educator. I begin within a particular conception of self-study research and make a case for situating martial arts as non-formal education. The data for this article are presented as a series of episodes, in which I write a short paragraph about each phase in my development as a martial artist and comment on my approach to learning and teaching, where appropriate, during each episode. At the end of the article, I draw several links to self-study literature and to my own understanding of teacher education. In so doing, I demonstrate the value of examining the impact of non-formal education experiences as a teacher educator.     

Microfluidic devices fitted with “flowver” paper pumps generate steady,tunable gradients for extended observation of chemotactic cell migration

Microfluidics approaches have gained popularity in the field of directed cell migration, enabling control of the extracellular environment and integration with live-cell microscopy; however, technical hurdles remain. Among the challenges are the stability and predictability of the environment, which are especially critical for the observation of fibroblasts and other slow-moving cells. Such experiments require several hours and are typically plagued by the introduction of bubbles and other disturbances that naturally arise in standard microfluidics protocols. Here, we report on the development of a passive pumping strategy, driven by the high capillary pressure and evaporative capacity of paper, and its application to study fibroblast chemotaxis. The paper pumps—flowvers (flow + clover)—are inexpensive, compact, and scalable, and they allow nearly bubble-free operation, with a predictable volumetric flow rate on the order of μl/min, for several hours. To demonstrate the utility of this approach, we combined the flowver pumping strategy with a Y-junction microfluidic device to generate a chemoattractant gradient landscape that is both stable (6+ h) and predictable (by finite-element modeling calculations). Integrated with fluorescence microscopy, we were able to recapitulate previous, live-cell imaging studies of fibroblast chemotaxis to platelet derived growth factor (PDGF), with an order-of-magnitude gain in throughput. The increased throughput of single-cell analysis allowed us to more precisely define PDGF gradient conditions conducive for chemotaxis; we were also able to interpret how the orientation of signaling through the phosphoinositide 3-kinase pathway affects the cells’ sensing of and response to conducive gradients.     

Designing for culturally responsive science education through professional development

Educational stakeholders across the globe are demanding science education reform that attends simultaneously to culturally diverse students’ needs and promotes academic excellence. Although professional development programs can foster science teachers’ growth as culturally responsive educators, effective supports to this end are not well identified. This study examined associations between specific Science Teachers are Responsive to Students (STARTS) program activities and United States high school life science teachers’ understanding and enactment of culturally responsive science teaching. Findings suggest: (a) critically examining their practices while learning of students’ needs and experiences enabled teachers to identify responsive instructional strategies and relevant science topics for culturally responsive teaching; (b) evaluating culturally responsive exemplars while identifying classroom-based needs allowed teachers to identify contextually appropriate instruction, thereby yielding a robust understanding of the purpose and feasibility of culturally responsive science teaching; and (c) by justifying the use of responsive and reform-based instructional strategies for their classrooms, teachers made purposeful connections between students’ experiences and science instruction. We propose a set of empirically based design conjectures and theoretical conjectures to generate adaptable knowledge about preparing culturally responsive science teachers through professional development.     

Pitfalls in the evaluation of principals

This paper describes the characteristics of a statewide principal evaluation system. Present empirical knowledge of the ways school principals are evaluated is almost nonexistent (Harrison, 1985); because of this we will employ a design drawn from studies of evaluation in other settings (Dornbusch and Scott, 1975), of teachers (Natriello and Dornbusch, 1981) and control of principals (Peterson, 1984). A questionnaire was used to gather information about the ways principals are evaluated as reported by principals and superintendents. The authors find that even when an evaluation system is detailed, specific, and statewide, inconsistencies develop because of the special nature of principals' work. The systems appear to break down in the sampling of performance and outputs and in the communication of negative feedback-key areas if principals are to improve their performance. Suggestions for research and practice are presented.Presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association in San Francisco, 1986.     

Situating graphs as workplace knowledge

We investigate the use and knowledge of graphs in the context of a large industrial factory. We are particularly interested in the question of “transparency”, a question that has been extensively considered in the general literature on tool use and, more recently, by Michael Roth and his colleagues in the context of scientific work. Roth uses the notion of transparency to characterise instances of graph use by highly educated scientists in cases where the context was familiar: the scientists were able to read the situation “through” the graph. This paper explores the limits of the validity of the transparency metaphor. We present two vignettes of actual graph use by a factory worker, and contrast his actions and knowledge with that of a highly qualified process engineer working on the same production line. We note that in neither case the graphs were transparent. We argue that a fuller account that describes a spectrum of transparency is needed, and we seek to achieve this by adopting some elements of a semiotic approach that enhance a strictly activity-theoretical view.     

tetrad: A Set of Stata Commands for Confirmatory Tetrad Analysis

This article provides a brief overview of confirmatory tetrad analysis (CTA) and presents a new set of Stata commands for conducting CTA. The tetrad command allows researchers to use model-implied vanishing tetrads to test the overall fit of structural equation models (SEMs) and the relative fit of two SEMs that are tetrad-nested. An extension of the command, tetrad_matrix, allows researchers to conduct CTA using a sample covariance matrix as input rather than relying on raw data. Researchers can also use the tetrad_matrix command to input a polychoric correlation matrix and conduct CTA for SEMs involving dichotomous, ordinal, or censored outcomes. Another extension of the command, tetrad_bootstrap, provides a bootstrapped p value for the chi-square test statistic. With Stata’s recently developed commands for structural equation modeling, researchers can integrate CTA with data preparation, likelihood ratio tests for model fit, and the estimation of model parameters in a single statistical software package.