Leveraging science teachers’ identities to support meaningful and actionable professional learning

Cultural Studies of Science Education - This review explores Lucy Avraamidou’s “Stories we live, identities we build: how are elementary teachers’ science identities shaped by...     

Investigating the impact of automated feedback on students’ scientific argumentation

ABSTRACT

This study investigates the role of automated scoring and feedback in supporting students’ construction of written scientific arguments while learning about factors that affect climate change in the classroom. The automated scoring and feedback technology was integrated into an online module. Students’ written scientific argumentation occurred when they responded to structured argumentation prompts. After submitting the open-ended responses, students received scores generated by a scoring engine and written feedback associated with the scores in real-time. Using the log data that recorded argumentation scores as well as argument submission and revisions activities, we answer three research questions. First, how students behaved after receiving the feedback; second, whether and how students’ revisions improved their argumentation scores; and third, did item difficulties shift with the availability of the automated feedback. Results showed that the majority of students (77%) made revisions after receiving the feedback, and students with higher initial scores were more likely to revise their responses. Students who revised had significantly higher final scores than those who did not, and each revision was associated with an average increase of 0.55 on the final scores. Analysis on item difficulty shifts showed that written scientific argumentation became easier after students used the automated feedback.     

Nomadic political ontology and transnational academic mobility

ABSTRACT

Transnational academic mobility is often characterized in relation to terms such as ‘brain drain’, ‘brain gain’, or ‘brain circulation’ – terms that isolate researchers’ minds from their bodies, while saying nothing about their political identities as foreign nationals. In this paper, I explore the possibilities of a more ‘nomadic political ontology’, where the body is ‘multifunctional and complex, a transformer of flows and energies, affects, desires and imaginings’ (p. 25). In this sense, academic mobility is not only the outcome of national innovation and economic competitiveness strategies, but also sets the conditions for epistemic and ontological change at the level of the individual. In this paper, I explore a personal account of the nomadic political ontology of academic mobility to exemplify the interrelationships between nationalism, academic belonging and transnationalism. My experiences as a transnational subject affect the stability and scope of my work as a policy-oriented researcher who studies the academic profession and the internationalization of higher education. My positionality in relation to my research focus is likely not unique to the field of higher education studies or educational research more broadly, which permits a wider applicability of this exploration beyond personal narrative and a particular national context. This personal reflection, guided by nomadic theory and post-structural possibilities, offers a viewpoint of the academic profession beyond the standard mobility discourse.     

A group randomized controlled trial evaluating parent involvement in whole-school actions to reduce bullying

Parents can significantly affect children's peer relationships, including their involvement in bullying. The authors developed and evaluated ways to enhance parents’ knowledge, self-efficacy, attitudes, and skills related to parent–child communication about bullying. The 3-year Friendly Schools Friendly Families whole-school intervention included a family component, which provided training and resources to support school teams to engage families in awareness-raising and skill-building activities. Over 3,200 parents of the Grade 2, 4, and 6 cohorts were recruited. For the Grade 2 and 4 cohorts at both 10 and 22 months postintervention, the family component increased parents’ self-efficacy to talk about bullying with their children and their frequency of doing so. Grade 4 parents reported more provictim attitudes at 22 months. No differences were found for the Grade 6 cohort. These data suggest a whole-school capacity-building intervention in early and middle childhood can improve the likelihood and frequency of positive parent–child communication about bullying.     

Innovative activities for teaching anatomy of speech production

Courses in anatomy have traditionally relied on lectures and cadaver dissection laboratories. In speech and hearing sciences, there tends to be less access to cadavers than in medical schools and other allied health professions. It is more typical to use anatomical models, diagrams and lecture slides. Regardless of the resources available, anatomy is a subject that lends itself to hands‐on learning. This article briefly reviews teaching methods and describes a variety of innovative activities to enhance learning of anatomical concepts and clinical relevance of anatomy for speech production. Teaching strategies and activities were developed to capitalize on students' multimodal learning preferences as revealed by responses to a survey administered to 49 undergraduates in the beginning of an anatomy of speech production course. At the end of the semester, students completed a second survey. A five‐point Likert scale was used to assess the usefulness of each activity as a learning tool or level of clinical relevance and the level of enjoyability. The responses were overwhelmingly positive with level of usefulness and level of clinical relevance rated higher on average than the level of enjoyment. Anat Sci Educ 3:234–243, 2010. © 2010 American Association of Anatomists.