Collaboration in a culturally responsive literacy pedagogy: educating teachers and Latino children

This article is an analysis of collaboration in a community center’s summer literacy tutoring program for 6–8 year old children, the majority of whom were Puerto Rican, Spanish–English bilinguals. The goal of the program was to increase the children’s motivation to read through engaging literacy activities with high quality, culturally relevant children’s literature. Reflecting a sociocultural perspective, the activities built on the children’s experiences at home with literacy as a collaborative practice. The program as a whole provided for multiple levels of collaboration among the participating adults and between the children and tutors, university students in a teacher preparation program. The focus of the article is on the ways the tutors collaborated and the benefits and challenges of that process. Implications for teacher education are shared, emphasizing the need for explicitly including collaboration as one important element of a literacy pedagogy for teachers of linguistically and culturally diverse children.     

Online learning experiences of new versus continuing learners: a large-scale replication study

A vast body of research has indicated the importance of distinguishing new vs. continuing students’ learning experiences in blended and online environments. Continuing learners may have developed learning and coping mechanisms for ‘surviving’ in such learning environments, while new learners might still need to adjust their learning approaches to the new learning context. In this large-scale replication study, we investigated whether and how the learning satisfaction experiences of 16,670 new vs. 99,976 continuing students were different. Using logistical regression modelling of learner satisfaction scores of 422 undergraduate blended and online modules (including 232 learner and module learning design variables), our findings indicated that new learners indeed differed subtly in their learning and teaching experiences across two consecutive academic years. The minor differences in key drivers between the 2014 and 2015 cohorts also indicate that institutions need to continuously monitor and act upon changing learning needs.     

Widening access to educational opportunities through teaching children how to reason together

This paper reports on a project to explore the impact of promoting exploratory talk as the medium of teaching across the curriculum for 6‐ and 7‐year‐old pupils in three primary schools in the UK. We found that this focus on teaching through exploratory talk (which we call the Thinking Together approach) enabled the children to work together more inclusively and more effectively, improving their social skills and, at the same time, their use of language for reasoning and learning.     

Appraisal and Distancing Responses to Hurtful Messages II: A Diary Study of Dating Partners and Friends

This study examined the interaction between perceived cancer risk and self-efficacy related to cancer screening on cancer-related information seeking and scanning behaviors (SSB) among the general population. Individuals completed a cross-sectional survey, were classified into 1 of 4 clusters based on their relative risk and self-efficacy belief scores (i.e., high relative risk and high self-efficacy, high relative risk and low self-efficacy, low relative risk and high self-efficacy, and low relative risk and low self-efficacy), and asked about their information SSB related to the colonoscopy, prostate-specific antigen test, or mammogram. A national probability sample of 2,489 adults aged 40 to 70 took part in this study. Individuals who perceived themselves to be at high relative risk for cancer and had high self-efficacy beliefs in performing cancer-screening behaviors generally reported the highest amounts of SSB for cancer-screening information, compared to the others.     

Electronic mail,privacy, and the electronic communications privacy act of 1986: Technology in search of law

This article is an examination of electronic privacy, specifically as it relates to e‐mail and related communication issues in the computer environment. Since the passage of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 (U.S. C. 18, §§ 2510–2711), there have been questions raised as to whether the Act goes far enough in protecting privacy.

The article attempts to clarify the status of e‐mail privacy under the ECPA. It examines current law and the paucity of definitive case law that until now has left the ECPA untested. A review of cases and literature suggests there is a gap in the existing ECPA that allows for potentially abusive electronic monitoring and interception of e‐mail, particularly in the workplace. “Electronic Mail, Privacy, and the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986: Technology in Search of Law.”;     

Employee mistreatment and muted voices in the culturally diverse workplace

This study examines mistreatment through the perspectives of employees with different cultural backgrounds and positions in order to understand the ways in which some voices are muted and others are privileged. Mistreatment is interactional, distributive, procedural, or systemic abuse of employees taking place at both interpersonal and institutional levels on the basis of cultural diversity. Narrative analysis of semi‐structured interviews with employees of a large research and development organization revealed three types of muted narratives used to respond to mistreatment (muted‐but‐engaged, angrily disengaged, and resigned) as well as one type of privileged response. The narratives provided evidence of two processes by which voices became muted: repeated silencing over time and silencing through ambiguity of policies.     

More Than a Number: Unexpected Benefits of Return on Investment Analysis

In 2010–2011, University of Colorado (CU) librarians implemented a multi-campus pilot study to measure the institutional value of library resources used by faculty in their research. The study incorporated quantitative methods including return on investment (ROI), cost benefit analysis (CBA), and citation analysis of journal articles published by faculty; and qualitative methodologies such as in-person interviews with faculty. The study resulted in a CU ROI model that can be used to measure faculty perceptions of value and the economic benefits of electronic journal collections for faculty research in terms of ROI. The CU ROI methodology provides outcomes beyond a single ROI number and led to unexpected benefits for informing collection development decisions and strategies.     

Elaborated metaphors support viable inferences about difficult science concepts

Instructional metaphors scaffold learning better when accompanied by an elaboration. Applying structure mapping theory, we developed and used an elaborated instructional metaphor (text and illustrations) for introductory chemistry concepts. In two studies (N ₁ = 44, N ₂ = 57), college students with little chemistry background read either the elaborated metaphor, sub‐concept metaphor statements (e.g. an atom is like a tile) only or (Study 2) sub‐concept labels (e.g. atom) only. When asked to write what they knew about the sub‐concept, those in the elaborated metaphor condition wrote more sophisticated domain inferences than those in the other condition(s), p < .05. The elaborated metaphor helped participants construct accurate pre‐conceptual mental models that could prepare them for future learning (i.e. acquisition of new knowledge). The results also suggested that acquisition of high‐level concepts may require active learner transactions with the analogue, as can be had in interactive instructional game worlds.