Remedial-Math Workshop: Opening Doors to Graduation

About half of students attending community colleges leave school before finishing their intended goals. To increase students’ retention and to prevent the multiple-repeater problem, Queensborough Community College (QCC) offered a short-term workshop for remedial-mathematics students. This was another chance to exit remediation instead of repeating a semester-long course. During the winter session of 2015 at QCC, 96% of the students enrolled in the remedial-mathematics workshop had successfully completed the remedial-mathematics requirement. The workshop consisted of group-centered activities that involved an intense problem solving approach. Students worked in small groups of multiple-repeater students (failed the remedial-mathematics course two or more times) and first-time-repeater students (failed once the remedial-mathematics course and scored at least 52 on the CUNY Elementary Algebra Final Examination) to master important algebraic concepts taught in the remedial-mathematics course. We will discuss the outcomes of the remedial-mathematics workshop pilot and evaluate the effectiveness of the workshop on student’s success and retention in remedial mathematics.     

Are the social workers prepared to assist a changing population of dysfunctional parents in Sweden?

What kind of support can an affluent society as the Swedish offer dysfunctional parents in order to give the infants an optimal start in life? The purpose of the present study was to analyze the social situation in families precipitating the admission of infants to institutional care in 1970. 1975 and 1980. The results show that in 1980 more complex forms of parental dysfunction were common including mental disorders, criminality, abuse of alcohol and drug addiction. The reported incidence of domestic violence had increased significantly from 1970 to 1980 as well as the number of maltreated infants. The social welfare agencies had greater difficulties and to a larger extent lacked adequate methods of providing assistance to the dysfunctional parents in 1980 than in 1970.     

Science teaching in science education

Reading the interesting article Discerning selective traditions in science education by Per Sund, which is published in this issue of CSSE, allows us to open the discussion on procedures for teaching science today. Clearly there is overlap between the teaching of science and other areas of knowledge. However, we must constantly develop new methods to teach and differentiate between science education and teaching science in response to the changing needs of our students, and we must analyze what role teachers and teacher educators play in both. We must continually examine the methods and concepts involved in developing pedagogical content knowledge in science teachers. Otherwise, the possibility that these routines, based on subjective traditions, prevent emerging processes of educational innovation. Modern science is an enormous field of knowledge in its own right, which is made more expansive when examined within the context of its place in society. We propose the need to design educative interactions around situations that involve science and society. Science education must provide students with all four dimensions of the cognitive process: factual knowledge, conceptual knowledge, procedural knowledge, and metacognitive knowledge. We can observe in classrooms at all levels of education that students understand the concepts better when they have the opportunity to apply the scientific knowledge in a personally relevant way. When students find value in practical exercises and they are provided opportunities to reinterpret their experiences, greater learning gains are achieved. In this sense, a key aspect of educational innovation is the change in teaching methodology. We need new tools to respond to new problems. A shift in teacher education is needed to realize the rewards of situating science questions in a societal context and opening classroom doors to active methodologies in science education to promote meaningful learning through meaningful teaching.     

Impacts of Learning Standards and Testing on Gifted Learners in STEM Schools: A Multilevel Analytic Induction

This article shares findings from a multilevel analytic induction of administrators, teachers, and gifted students within specialized science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) schools about their beliefs regarding the role of standards and standardized tests in the education of gifted learners. Sharing results from a cross-case analysis of six schools, we explore the ways in which student experiences of standards-based learning differ from the perceptions of their teachers and school administrators. We found that there is no consensus across administrators, teachers, and students regarding the impact that standards have in the educational process or on outcomes within specialized STEM schools, though all community members value and seek to create deep learning opportunities for students.     

Academic motivation in children with dyslexia

The authors' purpose was to determine which form of therapeutic aid may influence academic approach and avoidance motivation in children with dyslexia. There were 165 children with dyslexia assessed with the use of ”I and my school” questionnaire. The authors considered the children's previous therapeutic experience and on its basis they were divided into three groups. Children receiving systematic therapeutic treatment display a significantly higher level of academic approach motivation as compared to those from the two other groups. Those children also manifest a lower level of academic avoidance motivation compared to those receiving no form of specialist treatment. Girls, regardless of their therapeutic experience, demonstrate a higher level of approach motivation; boys, on the other hand, display a higher level of avoidance motivation. The study shows that the quality of provided therapeutic aid affects emotional-motivational sphere of children with dyslexia. Systematic therapeutic aid increases academic approach motivation and reduces avoidance motivation.     

Variations in methods of calculating reliability of duration data

The traditional percentage and correlational methods of estimating reliability of duration recording were compared to the reliability obtained with an event-by-event examination of observers' records in which the actual percentage of time that the observers were in agreement was calculated. While observing standardized videotapes, eight volunteer undergraduate students recorded “studying” using a specific definition and “not eating” using a nonspecific definition. The order of persentation and level of definition specificity were reversed for eight additional volunteer observers. Recordings were done on an event recorder. It was found that the traditional percentage reliability scores were significantly higher than actual (event-by-event) observer agreement for both behaviors, at both levels of definition specificity. Correlational reliability coefficients were significantly greater than event-by-event scores for specific definitions only. Implications of the findings include the possibility that duration recording, which does not involve a permanent product (e.g., when using a stopwatch), may be periodically checked for reliability with an event recorder, or that interval recording may be used.     

Implementing State Standards for Science Education: What District Policy Makers Make of the Hoopla

Premised on the assumption that school districts play an important role in the implementation of state and federal policy, this article explores the districts' response to state science standards. Adopting a cognitive perspective on the implementation process, the authors examine the ideas about science education that district policy makers construct from science standards. Our analysis illuminates how the ideas about reforming science education that district policy makers come to understand from new science standards contribute to these standards being adapted at the district level in ways that miss or misrepresent their core intent. The article identifies prominent patterns in district policy makers' understandings of the science reforms. Based on this analysis, the authors argue that a cause of implementation failure, rarely examined in the literature, concerns the ways in which local implementers miss or misconstrue the intent of policy proposals. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach: 37: 401–425, 2000     

Culture,Technology, Communication: Towards an Intercultural Global Village,edited by Charles Ess with Fay Sudweeks. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001. 355 pp. $26.95. ISBN 0-7914-5016-3

Abstract

The evolution into the age of information has produced a number of consequences that were never considered during the move into this new era. Among them is a phenomenon called the electronic immigrant. The worldwide telecommunications infrastructure has made it possible to telecommute from any location where the worker can link up with the network. Thus, new potentials and problems have evolved along with the electronic technology. This article examines this new worker and identifies the chief problems and promises created by the concept of the electronic immigrant.     

负载型Pd基双金属催化剂的设计及其在环境领域的应用（英文）

负载型双金属催化剂在很多催化反应中都有着十分重要的意义,包括选择性氧化、加氢/氢解、重整、生物质转化等反应。这一类催化剂的活性、选择性和稳定性取决于颗粒尺寸、组成和形貌等结构特性。针对Pd基负载型双金属催化剂体系,本文讨论了其结构特性,并探讨了不同合成方法对结构性质的调控机制。同时,本文阐述了Pd基催化剂在环境催化反应中的应用,包括CO氧化、烃类氧化、加氢脱氯和NO_x分解等反应。尽管在这些领域的研究取得了一定的进展,然而还需要更先进的催化技术来应对一些重大的挑战,如环境修复等。最近,在材料、光谱、显微、催化化学以及工程领域的研究人员的共同努力下,通过先进表征方法、机理研究手段的采用以及构效关系的研究,针对双金属催化剂设计的研究取得了一些新的进展。本篇综述旨在激励相关领域科学家设计合理的新型催化剂体系,以用于未来的绿色及可持续发展。