Inspiring Academically Talented High School Students to Consider Teaching Careers in Urban Schools

This article addresses a unique effort to implement a summer residential program that identifies and inspires potential educators by reaching down the pipeline to academically talented high school students. The primary goal of the program was to introduce participants to various dimensions of urban teaching. The research and evaluation for the program was designed to include diverse forms of data (quantitative and qualitative) from both staff and program participants. This study??s findings indicate that participants became more informed about prevalent issues in under-resourced urban schools, better understood the need for teachers?? ongoing professional development and felt more comfortable in urban schools. A number of the focal participants also expressed sustained or increased aspirations for teaching youth in urban schools.     

A reaction to “mathematics education: A vision of its evolutio” by Ricardo Cantoral and Rosa M. Farfán

The present article compares Cantoral and Farfan's socio-epistemological approach to mathematics education research (MER) with approaches of other current constructivist schools (such as emergent and sociocultural constructivism), in which interactionist and realistic approaches blend together. The theoretical problems of all these perspectives seem to center on the role that cultural tools are to play in future discourse of the different approaches to MER and identifying a set of problems with common ground in order to make comparisons possible. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Individual | collective dialectic of free‐choice learning in a community‐based mapping project

In this article we describe an instance of free‐choice learning in the context of an eelgrass mapping and stewardship project (the Project) that covers over 500 kilometers of coastline in British Columbia, Canada, and involves 20 volunteer groups. In this ethnographic case study we sought to (a) explicate the relationship between individual and collective learning in this free‐choice setting and (b) understand how a network of Project participants could both constitute a free‐choice learning setting and support such a setting. We articulate a dialectic relationship between individual and collective learning, which, unfortunately in our view, has not yet been explored in educational research. In this relation, collective learning fosters individual learning and vice versa, whereby individuals produce resources in action and as outcomes of their activities. These resources expand the action possibilities of the collective, and thus constitute learning. The stability of the network of Project participants, which brings about and supports collective and therefore individual learning, rests on the flexibility of the Project that enables local innovation and tailoring of mapping activities as well as access to expertise and tools produced by other groups and Project partners. The possibilities that arise in the Project for local people to participate in relevant ways constitute free‐choice learning settings.     

Further Distinctions between Magic, Reality, Religion, and Fiction

Children's representations of counterintuitive phenomena can be better understood if we take into account the following: (1) Children may develop a conceptual slot for "counterintuitive+real" phenomena, (2) Notions of "reality" in early children's handling of fiction. (4) Cultural systems of religious representations make particular demands on developmental processes.     

Changes in coordination and its variability with an increase in running cadence

Alterations in joint mechanics have been associated with common overuse injuries. An increase in running cadence in healthy runners has been shown to improve several parameters that have been tied to injury, but the reorganisation of motion that produces these changes has not been examined. The purpose of this study was to determine if runners change their segment coordination and coordination variability with an acute increase in cadence. Data were collected as ten uninjured runners ran overground at their preferred cadence as well as a cadence 10% higher than preferred. Segment coordination and coordination variability were calculated for select thigh–shank and shank–foot couples and selected knee mechanics were also calculated. Paired t-tests were used to examine differences between the preferred and increased cadence conditions. With increased cadence, there was a decrease in peak knee flexion and a later occurrence of peak knee flexion and internal rotation and shank internal rotation. Segment coordination was altered with most changes occurring in mid-late stance. Coordination variability decreased with an increase in cadence across all couples and phases of gait. These results suggest examination of coordination and its variability could give insight into the risk of intervention-induced injury.     

Dialogic Approaches to Strategic Planning in Academic Libraries: An Appreciative Inquiry Case Study at Oviatt Library

This article provides an overview of the status of strategic planning in academic libraries. It discusses the trend towards “dialogic” (e.g. Appreciative Inquiry) rather than “diagnostic” (e.g. SWOT) approaches to strategic planning—a trend aligned with a dialogic movement in organization development. The authors explain the difference between dialogic and diagnostic methods and what made Appreciative Inquiry (AI) a good choice for strategic planning at Oviatt Library, California State University, Northridge (CSUN). In the final section, the authors present a case study of the Oviatt Library project with information about the planning process including staffing for the project. Although focused on academic libraries, the information about strategic planning frameworks and processes is applicable to any type of library.     

Can Technology Decrease Sexual Risk Behaviors among Young People? Results of a Pilot Study Examining the Effectiveness of a Mobile Application Intervention

College students represent an important population for studying and understanding factors that influence sexual risk given the populations' high risk of sexually transmitted infections and unintended pregnancies. Using a quasi-experimental design, the efficacy of a brief and theory-driven mobile application intervention designed to decrease sexual risk behaviors among young college students (N = 118) was tested. Ninety-six percent (n = 114) of the participants showed an increase in contraceptive use knowledge from pretest to posttest (p = .013). Participants did not show a statistically significant change in intention to reduce sexual risk behaviors or actual risk reduction. This study supports the use of technology to educate college students about sexual health.     

Examining Kindergarten Students’ Use of and Interest in Informational Text

This article describes a dual-case study that was conducted to examine the effects of The Tools Approach on kindergarten students’ use of and interest in informational text. Children in one teacher’s kindergarten classroom during two subsequent years participated in a writing intervention which included learning about text features, conducting group research, and conducting individual research. During both cases, data were collected during child, parent, and teacher interviews. The results of this study showed that children participating in The Tools Approach strategy increased their abilities to identify and use text features to gather and disseminate information. Children also demonstrated increased interest in reading and writing informational text as a result of their participation in the study.     

Experimenting with global governance: understanding the potential for generational change

The appropriate role for the United Nations in international dispute resolution is a matter of high profile discussion and controversy. This paper begins with this ambivalence about the appropriate role for the United Nations in the world and examines several sets of issues that relate to the future of support for the UN within the US and the prospects for global governance more generally. First, we briefly review two thematic strands in previous and contemporary scholarship:(1) arguments for increased global governance in contemporary world affairs, driven by perceptions of the changing nature of the political, social, economic and military challenges in the contemporary world system. This debate is also put in the context of the relevance of public support for global governance institutions; and (2) why it is valuable to study how the current generation of adolescents perceive issues of global governance and the impact that their views may have on that nexus in the coming years. We then move to an analysis of data generated from an experimental study of American adolescents and their attitudes toward global governance.     

Epistemic witnessing: theoretical responsibilities,decolonial attitude and lenticular futures

Pillow explores complexities of witnessing in research linking theoretical oppression to inadequate, arrogant witnessing. Weaving narrative and reflection, Pillow considers what is engrained in theoretical oppression and reviews trauma studies engagement with witnessing as a case example. Thinking with feminist, queer and decolonial scholars, Pillow argues for epistemic witnessing based on ethical onto-epistemological responsibility driven by decolonial attitude and reparative reading. The essay is written in five phrasings, which may be read consecutively or randomly, and concludes with ideas for epistemic witnessing as reparative lenticular archives for past–present–futures.