Typing With Purpose: Linking the Word Processing Curriculum to Real World Applications Through Service Learning

Service learning actively engages students in the curriculum through participation in projects that meet a community need. It links the curriculum to the “real world,” thus providing an authentic context for learning. Over the past two years, university and high school staff have collaborated to develop, implement, and evaluate a service learning component in a word processing course that includes students with and without disabilities. In this article, we share strategies for incorporating service learning into the word processing curriculum and meeting the needs of diverse learners.     

Transactivism and Postmodernity: An Agonistic Analysis of Transliterature

Combining scholarship on hurtful messages with research on humor as a communication strategy, this investigation compared humorously and non‐humorously phrased comments that hurt recipients’ feelings. The topics of hurtful messages, the relationship between recipients and the person who hurt their feelings, as well as recipients’ perceptions about the amount of hurt elicited and about the speaker's intentions and feelings were examined. The results indicated that humorous messages used to convey hurtful information were seen as less intentionally hurtful, as expressing less intense feelings across most message topics, and as causing less hurt as compared to non‐humorously phrased comments. These findings suggest that incorporating humor may make hurt‐evoking statements more palatable to recipients than non‐humorously phrased hurtful comments. The implications of this project for future research on hurtful communication and humor usage in personal relationships are discussed.     

The Function of Parental Communication Patterns: Reflection-Enhancing and Reflection-Discouraging Approaches

This study explored patterns and effects of communication apprehension and classroom apprehension in Nigerian classrooms. Significant correlation was found between student communication apprehension and student classroom apprehension. Analysis of variance revealed significant differences in classroom apprehension by class type, but no significant differences in communication apprehension by choice of occupation. Perceptions of academic performance were negatively associated with classroom apprehension scores.     

Building and Sustaining a Grassroots Library Organization: A Three-Year Retrospective of Library Pipeline

This article is on overview of Library Pipeline, a grassroots library organization dedicated to supporting structural changes by providing opportunities, funding, and services that improve the library as an institution and librarianship as a profession.     

Learning through personal connections: cogenerative dialogues in synchronous virtual spaces

This study describes the role of cogenerative dialogues in a synchronous virtual classroom. Cogenerative dialogues are a way for students and instructors to reflect upon in-class events and work collaboratively during the course to optimize teaching and learning. In the present study, cogen has been found to be a tool for enhancing connections among graduate students in the class leading to a reported increase of motivation and engagement. Cogenerative dialogues were essential in shifting responsibilities so that students took a more active role in their own learning while supporting each other.     

Promoting student engagement in science: Interaction rituals and the pursuit of a community of practice

This study explores the relationship between interaction rituals, student engagement with science, and learning environments modeled on communities of practice based on an ethnographic study of an eighth grade urban magnet school classroom. It compares three interactional events in order to examine the classroom conditions and teacher practices that can foster successful interaction rituals (IRs), which are characterized by high levels of emotional energy, feelings of group membership, and sustained interest in the subject. Classroom conditions surrounding the emergence of successful IRs included mutual focus, familiar symbols and activity structures, the permissibility of some side‐talk, and opportunities for physical and emotional entrainment. Sustained interest in the topic beyond the duration of the IR and an increase in students' helping each other learn occurred more frequently when the mutual focus consisted of science‐related symbols, when there were low levels of risk for participants, when activities involved sufficient challenge and time, and when students were positioned as knowledgeable and competent in science. The results suggest that successful interaction rituals can foster student engagement with topics that may not have previously held interest and can contribute to students' support of peers' learning, thereby moving the classroom toward a community‐of‐practice model. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach     

Defining Quality Child Care: Multiple Stakeholder Perspectives

Multiple perspectives regarding the definition of quality child care, and how child care quality can be improved, were examined using a focus group methodology. Participants were representatives from stakeholder groups in the child care profession, including child care center owners and directors (3 groups), parents (3 groups), child caregivers (3 groups), policy makers (1 group), and social service providers (1 group). Qualitative analysis revealed 6 components of quality that were consistently discussed across all participant groups: (a) communication and rapport, (b) caregiver practices, (c) staff characteristics, (d) finances and resources, (e) visibility and involvement, and (f) professionalism. Analyses highlighted differences among stakeholder groups and the complex interplay among quality components. Findings are compared to previously documented perspectives on child care quality, and a conceptual model is presented that (a) summarizes findings about how proximity to child impacts definitions of quality and (b) highlights the central role played by child care center directors. Implications for child care practice and policy are discussed.     

Promises and Pitfalls of Adapting Utility Value Interventions for Online Math Courses

A growing body of research suggests that interventions promoting students’ utility value for a subject can improve their academic outcomes. However, numerous questions remain regarding how much to adapt prior intervention materials to promote utility value in new educational contexts and how implementation constraints of an educational context may impact the success of these interventions. In this study, using a design-based process we developed and tested three utility value interventions in a new educational context (online high school math). We found that one of the interventions increased utility value compared to control conditions, but we also encountered constraints on intervention implementation that limited the effectiveness of our intervention and the conclusions we could draw from this work. We use our experience as a case study to illustrate the costs and benefits of making certain implementation choices when partnering with practitioners to administer utility value interventions in new contexts.     

The impact of AVID tutoring on developing a teacher identity Bradley Bowen,Stacy Duffield

ABSTRACT

There is extensive research demonstrating the benefit tutoring has on the tutee. However, minimal research exists about the impact tutoring has on the tutor, and particularly, how being a tutor influences pre-service teacher development during teacher preparation. Using qualitative measures, we documented the influence participating in the tutoring program, Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID), has on a pre-service teacher’s development of their teacher identity, predominantly in the areas of pedagogical knowledge and practice. We revealed how the AVID tutoring program influenced the tutors’ development of their teacher identity, implications of the findings, and areas for future research and practice.