Evaluating educational support personnel: A conceptual and legal framework

Summary The evaluation of professional educational support personnel has not received the same attention nor generated the same efforts as the evaluation of classroom teachers. There is not yet a system for professional support personnel comparable to effective teaching behaviors, an omission that unsettles both specialized support staff and the generalist supervisors responsible for evaluating them.What we have presented here is a comprehensive approach applicable to professional support personnel. It begins with identifying district (student and community) needs, describing job responsibilities based on the goals of programs (clarified through the needs assessment), identifying staff behaviors as indicators of job performance, setting standards by which to measure staff performance, documenting the job performance, and using sound evaluation practices that incorporate all the necessary due process requirements for fairness. By involving the professional support personnel in each of these steps, evaluators will maximize the potential for growth as well as protect themselves and the evaluatees throughout the evaluation process.     

Visual recognition memory in squirrel monkeys

Squirrel monkeys (Saimiri sciureus) were trained on visual recognition memory tasks in a Wisconsin General Testing Apparatus with a trial-unique procedure that used 250 objects as stimuli. In Experiment 1, acquisition of a trial-unique delayed non-match-to-sample task (DNMS) was compared with acquisition of a trial-unique delayed match-to-sample (DMS) task. The DNMS task was learned in significantly fewer trials and with significantly fewer errors. Two animals in the DNMS group demonstrated highly accurate retention of the DNMS strategy despite an 11-month hiatus in experimental testing. In Experiment 2, the same procedures were used to study the learning of lists of 3, 5, 10, or 20 serially presented items. Although the animals were able to accurately remember lists of up to 20 items, there was no evidence of serial position effects.     

Effects of Instruction on Preservice Elementary Teachers' Conceptions of the Causes of Night and Day and the Seasons

Journal of Science Teacher Education -     

The Concept of Readiness in the Academic Department: A Case Study of Undergraduate Education Reform

While there has been emphasis on the institution and individual classroom as loci of learning and reform, less attention has been paid to the academic department. However, precisely because its structure is so endemic to institutions of higher education, the academic department may be the most logical and potent site for change. Using a case study approach, this paper examines the conditions under which change in undergraduate education takes hold and flourishes in the academic department, advances the concept of readiness, and explores its implications for those who wish to promote change in the department. Virginia S. Lee  is managing member and consultant, Virginia S. Lee & Associates, LLC, a consulting firm specializing in teaching, learning, and assessment in higher education. She received her B.A. from Smith College, her M.B.A. from New York University, and her Ph.D. from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Special interests include the design and implementation of institution-wide curriculum reform efforts, course and curriculum design, inquiry-guided learning, intensive learning, outcomes-based assessment, and the scholarship of teaching and learning. Michael R. Hyman  is Director of Graduate Programs and Associate Professor in the Department of Microbiology at North Carolina State University. He received his B.S. from University College, London, his M.B.A. from Oregon State University, and his Ph.D. from Bristol University. His major research interest is the biodegradation of environmental pollutants. Geraldine Luginbuhl  is Interim Department Head and Professor in the Department of Microbiology at North Carolina State University. She received her B.S. from Stanford University and her Ph.D. from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She has a longstanding interest in undergraduate education and, recently, inquiry-guided learning.     

Controversy versus concurrence seeking in multi-grade and single-grade learning groups

The effects of controversy and concurrence seeking and participation is age-homogeneous and age-heterogeneous cooperative learning groups were compared on achievement, achievement motivation, perspective-taking accuracy, and interpersonal attraction. In addition, the interaction among students within the cooperative learning groups was observed. One-hundred-twelve 4th-, 5th-, and 6th-grade students were assigned to conditions on a stratified random basis controlling for age, sex, reading ability, and homerooms. In all conditions, students studied two controversial issues with materials representing both pro and con views. In the controversy condition each small group was divided into two halves representing the pro and con sides. In the concurrence-seeking condition each small group studied pro and con materials on alternating days and were told to learn the material without arguing or disagreeing with one another. In the multi-age conditions 4th-, 5th, and 6th-graders were placed in the same learning groups, while in the single-age conditions students were placed in small groups with peers of the same age. The results indicate that controversy promoted higher achievement, greater achievement motivation, and more accurate perspective taking than did concurrence seeking. Multi-age learning groups had greater achievement motivation than did the single-age groups.     

Peter rabbit hops into the twenty-first century

Summary Adults have tried to identify and to seek complex explanations for Potter's success. She explained it simply: “It is much more satisfactory to address a real live child. I often think that was the secret of the success of Peter Rabbit; it was written to a child—not made to order” (Lane, 1976, p. 183). She felt the more spontaneous the pleasure, the better the result. You are encouraged to heed Potter's advice. Address the real live child as you enjoy the pleasure of this adventure into the life and times of Beatrix Potter and all her animal friends.     

Assessing Science Teaching Explanations in Initial Teacher Education: How Is This Teaching Practice Transferred Across Different Chemistry Topics?

Research in Science Education - One of the core practices of science teachers is the construction of science teaching explanations. These explanations serve to clarify concepts, procedures, facts,...     

Students’ understanding of the number line / Estudiantes pensando en la recta numérica

We studied the conceptions of students coming from secondary education and university regarding the number line as a representation of real numbers. In the context of a wider questionnaire, 307 students were presented with a task consisting of two verbal items and one graphic item related to the number line. The students were all at different levels in their study of mathematics (in the third, fourth or fifth year of secondary education, or at the beginning or advanced stage of a university degree in mathematics, biology or physical education). A gradient in the depth of the students’ conceptions, associated with the level of their studies in mathematics, was found. This gradient extends from the estrangement of facing the problem or a conception of a drawn or physical matter line, which was associated with students with a lower level of mathematical studies, passing through a vision centred around potential numeric density or a line containing points (discrete), up to an instrumental conception of the line as supportive of magnitudes in advanced students of biology and focusing on continuity sustained by advanced students of mathematics.     

Restructuring a traditional student teacher supervision model: Fostering enhanced professional development and mentoring within a professional development school context

The purpose of this study was to pilot an alternative student teaching supervision model at a college of education in a US context. In the study, the collaborators used multiple paired dyads to supervise student teachers with multiple supports from college faculty. This study examined how teachers and university faculty planned the use of paired dyads and how participants responded to the innovation. The findings suggest teachers and junior faculty can undertake bottom-up reform within larger systemic constraints.     

Lexical- and sentence-level processes in comprehension of written sentences

Two experiments and three measures of lexical skills (word finding, rapid automatized naming, receptive vocabulary) were administered to 24 third and 24 fifth graders. Each experiment included two between-subject variables (grade and sex) and four within-subject variables (mode of sentence presentation – one word and one-sentence-at-a-time; word type – orthographic, phonological and semantic foils; position of foil in sentence – beginning, middle, and end; and sentence type – meaningful and nonsense). The experiments contrasted on reading comprehension task: receptive sentence acceptability (Experiment 1) or expressive sentence reproduction (Experiment 2). One-word-at-a-time presentation, which highlights the lexical unit, resulted in better accuracy on the expressive task that required verbatim reproduction than on the forced choice receptive task. Word finding and rapid automatized naming that require active production of phonologically-referenced name codes, but not receptive vocabulary, were correlated with measures of word recognition and reading comprehension in the experiments and on the psychometric tests. These results are consistent with Perfetti's contention that a phonologically-based name code is the heart of lexical access.