Peer Coaching: Professional Development for Experienced Faculty

The professoriate, as a whole, is growing older and more experienced; yet institutions often overlook the professional development needs of mid-career and senior faculty. This article, based on a review of the literature and the development of a peer coaching project, examines peer coaching as a professional development opportunity for experienced faculty that meets many of their immediate needs and offers a variety of longer-term benefits to their institution. Six recommendations for creating a peer coaching program emerge from the literature and the authors’ experience.

Effects of prior social experience on agonistic responding by Siamese fighting fish (Betta splendens)

The role of prior social experience in maleBetta agonistic behavior was investigated in two experiments. Fish were either paired with an opponent until dominance was established naturally (Experiment 1) or given prior combat experience with a known aggressive or nonaggressive opponent (Experiment 2). The effects of prior social experience were then observed both in additional paired encounters and in some noncombat agonistic situations. The paired-encounter data indicate thatBetta attack aggressive opponents more than nonaggressive ones and rarely attack opponents once they have submitted. In contrast to attacking, these fish do not show a significant decrease in displays once their opponent has submitted, nor do they display differentially to aggressive and nonaggressive opponents. The noncombat agonistic-situation data indicate that prior social experience affects both the preference of fish for viewing other conspecifics and the waning of display behaviors. These results suggest that submissive and nonaggressive behaviors can inhibit attacks but not displays byBetta, and they emphasize the necessity of controlling for prior social experience when studying aggressive behavior.     

Re-thinking America's Teacher Education Programs

More than ever before, our nation needs teachers who are not only motivated to teach but who are also properly educated, trained, and prepared for the many challenges that are facing our nation's K-12 public schools. The education departments and schools at our colleges and universities cannot continue to do business as usual—they need to adjust their teacher preparation programs to effectively support the changing times, and to provide our future teachers with a realistic and rigorous education. There is little or no disagreement among educators, social scientists, or anyone else for that matter, that great schools are the product of great teachers. It makes sense, therefore, to create a world-class teacher education and training program.     

Sleep disturbances in adolescents with symptoms of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder

We evaluated 32 nonmedicated male adolescents diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in childhood, 35 male adolescents similarly diagnosed who were receiving methylphenidate (MPH), and 77 control boys. Both ADHD groups completed self-report questionnaires assessing sleep disturbances; weekday and holiday sleep duration; and symptoms of ADHD, anxiety, and depression. Parents and teachers rated the severity of the participants' ADHD. The control group completed self-report questionnaires assessing sleep disturbances. We found that nonmedicated participants and controls did not differ in the severity of sleep disturbance. In contrast, the medicated participants demonstrated a significantly greater severity of sleep disturbance compared with the nonmedicated participants and reported elevated levels of symptoms of ADHD, anxiety, and depression. Specific analyses showed that depressive symptoms contributed significantly to the degree of sleep disturbance when controlling for ADHD diagnosis and MPH treatment. These findings suggest that among adolescents with ADHD symptoms, the severity of symptoms of depression may contribute to the degree of sleep disturbance in addition to the effect of their primary disorder and MPH treatment.     

Legitimating TV journalism in 60 Minutes : the ramifications of subordinating the visual to the primacy of the word

–The television news magazine genre carries with it an implicit bias that began in an earlier stage of television's dissemination when TV journalism sought to be legitimized by using standards of objectivity handed down from newspapers and magazines. This article contends that this legitimation was attempted by valorizing the rhetorical power of the spoken word and effectively ignoring that visual images carry independent persuasive power–persuasive power, moreover, that often contradicts the verbal and escapes the containment of the objective word. In support of this contention, the essay examines several episodes of 60 Minutes programming. Particular attention is paid to verbal and visual juxtapositions in which the visual imagery and editing choices subvert the stated intentions of the verbal elements. The aim is two-fold: to contribute to critical rhetorical analyses that seek to comprehend the impact of the visual in verbal or print-oriented contexts; and to uncover some of 60 Minutes' ideological underpinnings by casting light on the particular version of reality it constructs, and the beliefs, attitudes, and values it shapes.     

Where to go: Computational and visual what-if analyses in soccer

ABSTRACT

To prepare their teams for upcoming matches, analysts in professional soccer watch and manually annotate up to three matches a day. When annotating matches, domain experts try to identify and improve suboptimal movements based on intuition and professional experience. The high amount of matches needing to be analysed manually result in a tedious and time-consuming process, and results may be subjective. We propose an automatic approach for the realisation of effective region-based what-if analyses in soccer. Our system covers the automatic detection of region-based faulty movement behaviour, as well as the automatic suggestion of possible improved alternative movements. As we show, our approach effectively supports analysts and coaches investigating matches by speeding up previously time-consuming work. We enable domain experts to include their domain knowledge in the analysis process by allowing to interactively adjust suggested improved movement, as well as its implications on region control. We demonstrate the usefulness of our proposed approach via an expert study with three invited domain experts, one being head coach from the first Austrian soccer league. As our results show that experts most often agree with the suggested player movement (83%), our proposed approach enhances the analytical capabilities in soccer and supports a more efficient analysis.     

Negotiating reassurance: parents’ narratives on follow-up after cochlear implantation

This study presents an analysis of parental experiences on follow-up after cochlear implantation. Data were constructed in semi-structured, individual interviews with the parents of 14 children who use cochlear implants. Drawing on narrative analysis, the study explores parental responses to insecurity concerning children’s learning and development, as well as the meaning professional support holds for parents. In their response to insecurity, the parents handle the ‘trouble’ of insecurity through constructing two narratives of self: the parent-as-learner and the parent-as-teacher. The parents use these narrative constructions to negotiate reassurance, holding themselves responsible for future outcomes. The parents’ stories reflect a language of instrumentality, inducing a burden of responsibility. The study addresses the need to question to which extent parents should act as teachers and cautions that, while acknowledging the importance of parents’ involvement for children’s learning and development, this should not reduce the relationship to a functional, pedagogical one. The contribution of the study is to bring into conversation how the language of instrumentality affects the parents and how this invokes a need for rethinking parent support. Suggestions for further research are given.     

On Establishing Norms in a Large City System

This article reports a study using the Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire (16 PF) and grade point average as predictors of performance in a performance-based teacher education course. While the results of the study established statistical significance for the use of the developed regression model, practical significance is limited. These results are consistent with other research and lead to suggestions for using a different technique in predicting performance of candidates.