On Collaboration: teachers,self‐assessment and professional journals

... educational reformers have responded to the crises in public education by primarily offering solutions that either ignore the roles of teachers in preparing learners to be active and critical citizens, or they suggest reforms that ignore the intelligence, judgement and experience that teachers might bring to bear. (Aronowitz & Giroux, 1985, p. 23)     

Weather worlding: learning with the elements in early childhood

In the context of challenges posed by climate change, this paper draws attention to the significance of children’s relationship with weather. The paper contends that it is time to engage more closely with children’s weather relations when developing and experimenting with new environmental pedagogies. Furthermore, it is argued that there is a need look beyond the ways children learn ‘about’ the weather (where this is presented as something separate to our human selves), to more situated and entangled ways of learning in and ‘with’ weather. Notions such as the ‘weather world’ and ‘weathering’ are discussed here as valuable starting points for re-thinking child/weather relations. These offer a way forward where the lively curiosity of children, combined with the educational practice of being with the weather, may open up alternative, less human-centric ways of coming to know and respond to the environmental challenges ahead.     

Training and Scoring Issues Involved in Large-Scale Writing Assessments

Many states are implementing direct writing assessments to assess student achievement. While much literature has investigated minimizing raters' effects on writing scores, little attention has been given to the type of model used to prepare raters to score direct writing assessments. This study reports on an investigation that occurred in a state-mandated writing program when a scoring anomaly became apparent once assessments were put in operation. The study indicates that using a spiral model for training raters and scoring papers results in higher mean ratings than does using a sequential model for training and scoring. Findings suggest that making decisions about cut-scores based on pilot data has important implications for program implementation.     

The effects of practice and orienting activities on learning from interactive video

The purpose of this study was to examine the combined effects of orienting activities and levels of practice on learning from interactive video. Participants were 72 college students. Each participant was randomly assigned to an orienting activity group and to one of three practice groups: No Practice, Limited Practice, or Elaborate Practice. The lesson, which focused on characteristics of various artists and art periods, included practice for one half of the facts and applications cued initially via the orienting activity. The posttest included both new and repeated items for both facts and applications taught during the lesson. Results indicated significant main effect differences related to item familiarity and practice. In addition, interactions were detected between type of learning and practice, and item familiarity and practice.     

Developing culturally responsive mathematics teachers: secondary teachers’ evolving conceptions of knowing students

Research advances in teaching, learning, curriculum, and assessment have not changed the continued underperformance of marginalized students in mathematics education. Culturally responsive teaching is a means of addressing the needs of these students. It is sometimes challenging, however, to convince secondary mathematics teachers about the importance of culture in mathematics education. To contribute to what is known about supporting secondary mathematics teachers in developing a culturally responsive teaching practice, we studied the impacts of a graduate course called Culture in the Mathematics Classroom on 13 teachers enrolled in the course. The course was designed to guide secondary mathematics teachers in understanding and growing their capacity to enact culturally responsive teaching in their classrooms. The purpose of our research was to explore how teachers’ perceptions changed as a result of their engagement in the class with respect to understanding the role of culture in knowing and being responsive to their students. Specifically, we examined how each of the four course projects seemed to individually and collectively influence teachers’ thinking. Overall, teachers appeared to expand their cultural awareness and dispositions for cultural responsiveness that would support them in knowing and supporting their students in the manner of a culturally responsive teacher. Teachers did not, however, develop some more “advanced” understandings related to power and privilege in society. This study provides researchers and mathematics teacher educators with a potential analytic framework for understanding teacher change with respect to culturally responsive teaching.     

Rapid prototyping: An alternative instructional design strategy

There is a design methodology calledrapid prototyping which has been used successfully in software engineering. Given the similarities between software design and instructional design, we argue that rapid prototyping is a viable model for instructional design, especially for computer-based instruction. Additionally, we argue that recent theories of design offer plausible explanations for the apparent success of rapid prototyping in software design. Such theories also support the notion that rapid prototyping is appropriate for instructional design. We offer guidelines for the use of rapid prototyping and list possible tradeoffs in its application.     

How Interest in Science Negatively Influences Perceptions of Women

We examined whether women who pursue scientific training are viewed negatively by college students. Participants (N = 114 college students; 56 women, 58 men) saw a woman describe her major (either chemistry or the humanities) and express either strong commitment to her course of study or ambivalence about it. Participants then provided judgments about the speaker's traits (such as assertiveness and sociability), social behaviors (including how often she dates), and her future potential (including happiness and fulfillment with her career, as well as starting salary). Results indicated that both major and commitment level influenced perceptions of the speaker. Commitment to the major increased judgments of future career fulfillment, intellectual competence, school achievement, and assertiveness. Pursuit of chemistry, however, was perceived as negative, as people judged the woman as less sociable when she was committed to being a chemist, and women participants predicted she would have a less fulfilling career. Men participants said they would not want to date her. Although women may understand that they could make more money in the sciences, negative judgments about their social capabilities and future happiness may contribute to their propensity to avoid science.     

Ten Essential Questions Educators Should Ask When Using Video Annotation Tools

The increasing ease and ubiquity of video has resulted in a proliferation of video annotation tools used and designed for improving education. While similar, each tool has its relative strengths and weaknesses. Choosing the “right” tool can have an impact on the experience of teachers and the effectiveness of video as a means for improving teaching and learning. In this article, we present ten guiding questions for making an informed choice about which video annotation tool will best suit each individual situation.