A High-Enrollment Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experience Improves Student Conceptions of Scientific Thinking and Ability to Interpret Data

We present an innovative course-based undergraduate research experience curriculum focused on the characterization of single point mutations in p53, a tumor suppressor gene that is mutated in more than 50% of human cancers. This course is required of all introductory biology students, so all biology majors engage in a research project as part of their training. Using a set of open-ended written prompts, we found that the course shifts student conceptions of what it means to think like a scientist from novice to more expert-like. Students at the end of the course identified experimental repetition, data analysis, and collaboration as important elements of thinking like a scientist. Course exams revealed that students showed gains in their ability to analyze and interpret data. These data indicate that this course-embedded research experience has a positive impact on the development of students’ conceptions and practice of scientific thinking.     

Leveraging Librarian Liaison Expertise in a New Consultancy Role

This paper presents a case study of an advisory role that librarians successfully developed with faculty editors to increase the visibility and readership of an open access scholarly publication. The study represents an example of how expertise among liaison librarians and other library service professionals can be leveraged in new consultancy roles in support of evolving library service models. It also depicts local application of a hybrid model for librarianship that combines the functional specialist and subject librarian liaison roles in implementing advisory activities and recommendations. The liaison librarians successfully used their knowledge of scholarly communications and applied innovative bibliometric analysis to help enhance the discoverability and user experience of an online journal publication. The librarians made specific recommendations for optimizing journal website content organization, search functionality, metadata standards and marketing opportunities that were subsequently implemented by the editors and platform managers. The faculty editor places a high value on these recommendations, and the librarian advisory role continues to develop. Our study also outlines many of the essential considerations that scholar-editors and librarian advisors can use to help implement open access scholarly publishing projects successfully.     

Embedded Stem Priming Effects in Prefixed and Suffixed Pseudowords

Previous research has repeatedly revealed evidence for morpho-orthographic priming effects in suffixed words. However, evidence for the morphological chunking of prefixed words is sparse and ambiguous. The goal of the present study was to directly contrast the processing of prefixed and suffixed pseudowords within the same experiment. We carried out a masked primed lexical decision experiment, in which the same target (AMOUR [LOVE]) was preceded by a prefixed (préamour [prelove]), a nonprefixed (brosamour [broslove]), a suffixed (amouresse [lovedom]), and a nonsuffixed (amourugne [lovedel]) prime. The results revealed significant priming across all four conditions. Moreover, priming was modulated by individual differences in reading proficiency. High-proficiency readers showed evidence for embedded stem priming effects, independent of whether stems occurred in combination with a real affix or a nonaffix. This finding is of relevance to recent morphological processing theories, suggesting that embedded stems represent salient activation units during the reading of complex pseudowords.     

Responsiveness to General Education Instruction as the First Gate to Learning Disabilities Identification

Most definitions of learning disabilities (LD) include a qualification that adequate general education instruction was received and the child with LD did not benefit. Rarely is this tenet assessed in either practice or research before a diagnosis is made. We review three studies that investigated children's responsiveness to general education reading instruction as an indicator of need for more intensive interventions. Adequacy of instruction was quantified by children's level and rate of progress, compared to classmates, as measured by curriculum‐based measures of oral reading fluency. We found that the response‐to‐instruction model tested was valid in that (1) children who differ from their peers on level and slope of performance (dual discrepancy) have more severe academic and behavioral problems than children who have IQ‐achievement discrepancies or low achievement; (2) children who demonstrate persistent nonresponsiveness over three years differ from other at‐risk children on reading, reading‐related, and behavioral measures; and (3) at‐risk children who participated in specially designed general education interventions had better outcomes than at‐risk children who did not participate. We conducted additional analyses to assess low achievement definitional variations and found that they lack sensitivity and coverage compared to a dual discrepancy definition.     

Collaborative teaching with learning objects in an international,non‐profit context. The example of the Ariadne Community

The ARIADNE European projects (1996–2000) developed tools and methodologies for producing and managing ‘pedagogical elements’, storing them in knowledge pools and building and supporting training curricula. These tools were in wide use around the world, both in academic and corporate sites, at the end of the projects. The ARIADNE Foundation was therefore created to exploit and further develop these tools and concepts. As a not‐for‐profit‐oriented association, members contribute according to their nature and capacity. The Members' community (75 members from 20 countries in 2002) has to respect a philosophy based on cooperation between educational bodies, with the motto ‘Share and reuse’. Active members create learning objects stored in an internationally distributed knowledge pool system. Indexing with clear and precise metadata helps to retrieve appropriate documents to reuse them.Enseignement collaboratif avec des 'objets p´edagogiques' dans un contexte international et sans but lucratif. L'exemple de la communaut´e d'ARIADNE Les outils et m´ethodologies d´evelopp´es dans le cadre des projets europ´eens ARIADNE (1996-2000) ont pour objectif de cr´eer et g´erer, `a travers un r´eseau de viviers de connaissances, des ´el´ements p´edagogiques multim´edias. Ces outils sont toujours utilis´es `a travers le monde. La Fondation ARIADNE a ´et´e cr´e´ee afin de poursuivre leur d´eveloppement. La Fondation ARIADNE est une association internationale sans but lucratif : les membres payent une contribution annuelle en fonction de leur nature et de leur capacit´e financi`ere. La communaut´e d'utilisateurs (en 2002, 75 membres de 20 pays) doit respecter une philosophie bas´ee sur la coop´eration entre les acteurs de la formation `a travers le principe de 'Partage et R´eutilisation'. L'indexation avec des m´eta-donn´ees claires et pr´ecises aide `a rechercher les documents r´eutilisables.Gemeinsames Lehren mit Lernobjekten in internationalem Rahmen ohne kommerziellen Hintergrund. Das Beispiel der Ariadne-Gemeinschaft Die europ¨aischen Ariadne-Projekte haben Werkzeuge und Methoden entwickelt, um gemeinsame Wissensquellen f¨ur Lernobjekte und Kursunterlagen zu erstellen und zu bewirtschaften. Diese Werkzeuge werden weiterhin weltweit benutzt, sowohl im akademischen wie auch im Wirtschaftsumfeld. Zum Ende des Projekts beschloss die Ariadne-Gemeinschaft, diese Werzeuge und Konzepte weiter zu nutzen und auszubauen. Die Ariadne Gemeinschaft ist nicht gewinnorientiert. Die Mitglieder tragen nach deren Art und finanziellen M¨oglichkeiten einen niedrigen Jahresbeitrag bei. Die Benutzergruppen m¨ussen die auf Kooperation basierende Grundphilosophie einhalten: 'Teilnehmen und Wiederverwenden'. Die Ariadne Plattform basiert auf einer gemeinsamen Wissensquelle (Knowledge Pool), welche die Lernobjekte verwaltet. Indexierung und genaue Meta-Daten helfen, die zur Wiederverwendung geeigneten Dokumente aufzufinden.