‘It’s not that easy to solve’: edTPA and preservice teacher learning

This three year qualitative study of a university pilot of the edTPA, a performance assessment for preservice teachers, questioned candidates’ learning at the nexus of claims that the edTPA serves a dual role as both a formative assessment for candidates’ ongoing learning as well as a summative assessment of their readiness to teach. The analysis highlighted affordances and constraints of the assessment in the areas of: (1) depth of professional learning, (2) differentiation for diverse learners, (3) focus on school, community and family context, (4) professional reflection within classroom realities, and (5) as an evaluation tool. The discussion positions the findings alongside other published implementation studies of the edTPA in terms of current reforms. It especially problematizes the positioning of preservice teachers as professional learners in light of pressures for compliance and standardization.     

The ICPSR and Social Science Research

ABSTRACT

The Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR), a unit within the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan, is the world's largest social science data archive. The data sets in the ICPRS database give the social sciences librarian/subject specialist an opportunity of providing value-added bibliographic information. Access to the data sets is by membership in the consortium. This article gives an overview of the ICPSR database and of other services provided by the ICPSR, including sample usage statistics and reports. Research has shown that use of electronic resources, such as that provided by the data sets of the ICPSR, leads to an increase in publications by scholars. Librarians from a variety of disciplines—economics, political science, education, sociology, criminal justice, and social work—can help their researchers use the ICPSR's data sets to help further the goals of social science.     

A Reggio-Inspired Music Atelier: Opening the Door Between Visual Arts and Music

The Reggio Emilia approach is based on the idea that every child has at least, “one hundred languages” available for expressing perspectives of the world, and one of those languages is music. While all of the arts (visual, music, dance, drama) are considered equally important in Reggio schools, the visual arts have been particularly central in the development of the approach. This article explores how a Reggio-inspired atelier (art studio) can be expanded to include music. Commonalities between visual art and music are discussed, as well as the use of music learning techniques, materials, and documentation for the music atelier.     

The Application of Learning Theory to Information Literacy

ABSTRACT

Many colleges and universities are advocating information literacy within their mission statements. To this end, many librarians are offering for-credit courses that incorporate the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) Information Literacy Competency Standards in their instructional programs. In their role as instructors, librarians should be familiar with learning theory, in particular behaviorism and constructivism. The application of a particular learning theory dictates the structure of the course and reinforces the role of librarian as educator.     

Robot minds and human ethics: the need for a comprehensive model of moral decision making

Building artificial moral agents (AMAs) underscores the fragmentary character of presently available models of human ethical behavior. It is a distinctly different enterprise from either the attempt by moral philosophers to illuminate the “ought” of ethics or the research by cognitive scientists directed at revealing the mechanisms that influence moral psychology, and yet it draws on both. Philosophers and cognitive scientists have tended to stress the importance of particular cognitive mechanisms, e.g., reasoning, moral sentiments, heuristics, intuitions, or a moral grammar, in the making of moral decisions. However, assembling a system from the bottom-up which is capable of accommodating moral considerations draws attention to the importance of a much wider array of mechanisms in honing moral intelligence. Moral machines need not emulate human cognitive faculties in order to function satisfactorily in responding to morally significant situations. But working through methods for building AMAs will have a profound effect in deepening an appreciation for the many mechanisms that contribute to a moral acumen, and the manner in which these mechanisms work together. Building AMAs highlights the need for a comprehensive model of how humans arrive at satisfactory moral judgments.     

Artificial Morality: Top-down,Bottom-up,and Hybrid Approaches

A principal goal of the discipline of artificial morality is to design artificial agents to act as if they are moral agents. Intermediate goals of artificial morality are directed at building into AI systems sensitivity to the values, ethics, and legality of activities. The development of an effective foundation for the field of artificial morality involves exploring the technological and philosophical issues involved in making computers into explicit moral reasoners. The goal of this paper is to discuss strategies for implementing artificial morality and the differing criteria for success that are appropriate to different strategies.     

Changes in Handedness Associated with Onset or Disappearance of Stuttering

The relationships between scores on the Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire (16 PF), the Brown Personal Beliefs and Teaching Practices Inventories, and the Rokeach Dogmatism Scale for 191 female, beginning teacher education students were investigated using canonical and simple correlation analyses. A significant canonical correlation of .51 was established between these measures, with factors M (Practical vs. Imaginative), and Q1 (Conservative vs. Experimenting) of the 16 PF and total scores on the Brown inventories accounting for the multivariate correlation. Teacher education students who indicate high agreement with Dewey’s philosophy on the Brown instruments appear to also score high on the imagination and experimentation factors of the 16 PF. An additional finding of importance was the absence of significant relationships between the 16 PF and the Rokeach Dogmatism Scale.     

Help-Seeking Experiences and Attitudes among African American, Asian American, and European American College Students

The study examined African American, Asian American, and European American college students’ previous direct and indirect experiences of seeking professional psychological services and related attitudes. Survey data were collected from 254 European American, 182 African American and 82 Asian American college students. Results revealed that fewer African American and Asian American college students had sought professional psychological services, knew someone who had sought psychological services, and knew a close person who was diagnosed with a psychological disorder, relative to European American students. Furthermore, African American and Asian American participants showed less favorable attitudes on a variety of help-seeking attitudes, compared to the European American group.