Student learning outcomes and attitudes when biotechnology lab partners are of different academic levels

The North Carolina State University Biotechnology Program offers laboratory-intensive courses to both undergraduate and graduate students. In "Manipulation and Expression of Recombinant DNA," students are separated into undergraduate and graduate sections for the laboratory, but not the lecture, component. Evidence has shown that students prefer pairing with someone of the same academic level. However, retention of main ideas in peer learning environments has been shown to be greater when partners have dissimilar abilities. Therefore, we tested the hypothesis that there will be enhanced student learning when lab partners are of different academic levels. We found that learning outcomes were met by both levels of student, regardless of pairing. Average undergraduate grades on every assessment method increased when undergraduates were paired with graduate students. Many of the average graduate student grades also increased modestly when graduate students were paired with undergraduates. Attitudes toward working with partners dramatically shifted toward favoring working with students of different academic levels. This work suggests that offering dual-level courses in which different-level partnerships are created does not inhibit learning by students of different academic levels. This format is useful for institutions that wish to offer "boutique" courses in which student enrollment may be low, but specialized equipment and faculty expertise are needed.     

Examination for Bias in Principal Ratings of Teachers' Preparation

The Department of Education is moving to change accountability for teacher preparation institutions to include surveys of the graduates and their supervising principal following paid employment. This study describes one of a number of quantitative studies that examine the validity and usefulness of such follow-up surveys. Using multiple years of data, the authors examined the effect of teacher socioeconomic status and ethnicity on principals' evaluation of the teachers' preparation. The results indicated that there was no difference in ratings based on graduates' parent education, family income, or ethnicity. Post hoc evaluation showed that Latino teachers were rated better prepared to work with diversity in the classroom and to teach English learners. Bias does not appear to be part of principal evaluation. However, because principals are prone to rating teachers on a binary, satisfactory/unsatisfactory basis, follow-up surveys may not be the most useful tool for assessing some nuances of teacher preparation.     

The Public's Bounded Understanding of Science

This introduction to the special issue Understanding the Public Understanding of Science: Psychological Approaches discusses some of the challenges people face in understanding science. We focus on people's inevitably bounded understanding of science topics; research must address how people make decisions in science domains such as health and medicine without having the deep and extensive understanding that is characteristic of domain experts. The articles reflect two broad streams of research on the public understanding of science—the learning orientation that seeks to improve understanding through better instruction and the communications orientation that focuses on attitudes about science and trust in scientists. Challenges to understanding science include determining the relevance of information, the tentativeness of scientific truth, distinguishing between scientific and nonscientific issues, and determining what is true and what is false. Studying the public understanding of science can potentially contribute to psychological theories of thinking and reasoning in modern societies.     

Acculturative Experiences of Black-African International Students

There has been a significant increase in the number of international students pursuing higher education in the U.S. since 2001. Upon arrival, students are often beset with feelings of isolation and alienation, which are characteristic of adjusting to a new culture. African International students, specifically Black-African international students, are no different in this regard and often experience significant adjustment concerns. Most notable of the concerns for Black-African students are the issues of prejudice and discrimination, which can lead to the experience of acculturative stress. It is, therefore, imperative that institutions find ways to help Black-African international students adjust better to life in the U.S. This paper discusses some adjustment concerns of Black-African international students and provides some suggestions for addressing their concerns.     

Linking research and practice through teacher communities: a place where formal and practical knowledge meet?

This study characterises the links between research and practice across 12 projects concerned with the collaborative design of lesson plans by teacher communities (TCs). Analyses focused on sources of knowledge used to inform lesson design, participants’ roles and knowledge generated by the teacher community. Three patterns emerged pertaining to the sources of knowledge informing lesson plans: design guided by formal and practical knowledge, by classroom-data and practical knowledge or by a combination of all three. Findings further suggest that the emphasis given to the use of formal knowledge over classroom-data or vice versa restrains the full accomplishment of research and practice links. Across the projects studied, university researchers contributed to linking research and practice by directly or indirectly supporting community activities. Surprisingly, the role of teachers in the generation and dissemination of formal knowledge was limited. Further research should explore the effects of collaboration within TCs on researchers and policy-makers.     

School decentralization as a process of differentiation,hierarchization and selection

The Austrian ‘school autonomy policy’, which allowed schools to develop specific ‘curricular profiles’, is taken as an example for discussing processes and effects of school decentralization policies. Data from school case studies (based on qualitative interviews and document analysis) are used to analyse and interpret the processes by which schools and teachers take up policy innovations and translate it into action and structures on school and classroom level. These policy changes and the resulting governance regimes are examined from a perspective on changing modes of ‘action coordination’ between actors on different levels of a school system and from an attention to processes of ‘re-contextualization’ in multi-level governance systems. The main result is that the Austrian decentralization policy – although not explicitly based on a market approach – boosted principles of competitive coordination between schools. In consequence, it resulted in processes of differentiation and hierarchization of schools and classes and offered new legitimatory and practical opportunities for student selection.     

Culture-General and Culture-Specific Approaches to Counselling: Complementary Stances

For the past 40 years, the helping professions have attempted to address the uniqueness of therapeutic relationships that involve clients and counsellors of different cultures. Counselling psychology has been at the forefront in the cultural movement within the helping profession. Approaches utilized by multicultural counsellors can be classified into two basic stances: culture-general and culture-specific. This paper argues that an either/or perspective does not stand to benefit the profession; however, a framework that encompasses the best of both approaches provides the building blocks for a hermeneutic approach to multicultural counselling. The two stances are explained and each is critiqued. The false dichotomy that has evolved within the profession between these two stances is discussed and an argument for focusing research on multiethnic counselling relationships is given. Finally, an integrative approach that privileges hermeneutics is presented.     

What's sexy? Adolescent girls discuss confidence,danger, and media influence

Building on qualitative research about sexualisation by media and culture and the impact on girls' development, in this article we present a discourse analysis of three focus groups of teen girls of colour and of diverse ethnicities asked to talk about sexiness. We focus on the ways the girls both support and resist hegemonic discourses about femininity and sexuality as well as on the discursive strategies used by the girls to separate sexiness from lack of respectability and present themselves as both knowing consumers of media and passive responders. The girls constructed sexiness in three ways that we refer to as interpretive repertoires and analyse each for paradoxes, contradictions, and resistance to mainstream conceptualisations of sexiness. These are sexy as confident; disadvantages and advantages to sexy; and sexy as sold to you.     

Exploring Mathematics Teacher Educator Questioning as a Relational Practice: Acknowledging Imbalances

ABSTRACT

The desire to understand our questioning practices as relational led us to use collaborative self-study to construct images of our questioning practice within our mathematics teacher education practices. In a prior exploration of written feedback we had begun to consider how our practices supported relationships with preservice teachers. As a result, we began to consider ways we engaged preservice teachers during instruction and wondered how our questions supported or constrained growth of relationships. In this article we share ways our expectations for what we call balance in our questioning practices were disrupted. We describe three waves of inquiry that gave form to our exploration and resulted in awareness of the role and anticipation of imbalance in our questioning practice. Each new wave resulted from findings of the previous waves and pushed us back to the research literature and forward to new images of our questioning. We tell our story using one episode from our practice, images of that practice shared at the 2018 Castle Conference, and lenses that help us anticipate imbalance in our practice.     

Examples of the Use of Technology in Teaching Statistics

This article describes the use of Microsoft Excel, graphics calculators and a multimedia CBL package by students on an introductory statistics course.