Our Stories about Teaching and Learning: A Pedagogy of Consequence for Yukon First Nation Settings

In this study, First Nation community members in Canada’s Yukon Territory share their stories about teaching and learning, both in informal and formal settings, in an effort to identify practices that might serve teachers to be more responsive to their First Nation students. In all, 52 community members between the ages of 15 and 82 shared their stories and assisted in identifying eight categories of practice and thought associated with effective teaching practices for this First Nation. Based upon these categories of thought and practice, we present a pedagogical framework for teachers and, finally, illustrate how this profile and the stories about teaching and learning are being used for adjusting and improving teaching practice in this First Nation.     

Supporting Vocabulary Teaching and Learning in Prekindergarten: The Role of Educative Curriculum Materials

The purpose of this study was to support teachers' child-directed language and student outcomes by enhancing the educative features of an intervention targeted to vocabulary, conceptual development and comprehension. Using a set of design heuristics (Davis &; Krajcik, 2005 Davis, E. A., &; Krajcik, J. S. (2005). Designing educative curriculum materials to promote teacher learning. Educational Researcher, 34, 3–14.[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]), our goal was to support teachers’ professional development within the curriculum materials. Ten pre-K classrooms with a total of 143 children were randomly selected into treatment and control groups. Observations of teacher talk, including characteristics of lexically-rich and cognitively demanding language were conducted before and during the intervention. Measures of child outcomes, pre- and post-intervention included both standardized and curriculum-based assessments. Results indicated significant improvements in the quality of teachers’ talk in the treatment compared to the control group, and significant gains for child outcomes. These results suggest that educative curriculum may be a promising approach to facilitate both teacher and student learning.     

The Virtual Naval Hospital: the digital library as knowledge management tool for nomadic patrons.

OBJECTIVE: To meet the information needs of isolated primary care providers and their patients in the US Navy, a digital health sciences library, the Virtual Naval Hospital, was created through a unique partnership between academia and government. METHODS: The creation of the digital library was heavily influenced by the principles of user-centered design and made allowances for the nomadic nature of the digital library's patrons and the heterogeneous access they have to Internet bandwidth. RESULTS: The result is a digital library that has been in operation since 1997, continues to expand in size, is heavily used, and is highly regarded by its patrons. CONCLUSIONS: The digital library is dedicated to delivering the right information at the right time to the right person so the right decision can be made, and therefore the Virtual Naval Hospital functions as a knowledge-management system for the US Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery.     

On the Street: A Content Analysis of Body Imagery in Streetstyle Fashion Blogs

This study investigated whether streetstyle blogs provide an alternative to the thin-ideal found in traditional media. We analyzed images of 481 individuals from 5 streetstyle blogs. The majority of women (72%) and men (62%) were coded as below-average weight. Most women (60%) positioned themselves in accordance with Goffman’s gender-role stereotypes. Further, men were portrayed as more facially prominent than women, indicating that men are valued for their intellect whereas women are valued for their bodies. Although these Web sites have been celebrated for their use of “ordinary people,” the results suggest that they promote the same body ideals found in mainstream media     

Communicating Library Impact on Retention: A Framework for Developing Reciprocal Value Propositions

This article explores the trends identified in a survey of library directors on efforts to document and communicate library contributions to student retention. Library deans/directors have little in the way of communication methods for sharing library impact on retention. Methods that are used tend to be unidirectional in nature. Based on these results, this article also presents a framework of stakeholder markets and examples of reciprocal value propositions library leaders could develop around library contributions to retention efforts. This in turn can assist with advocacy and the communication of academic library value to university leaders and other higher education stakeholders.     

“I’ll see you in Mystic Falls”: intimacy,feelings, and public issues in Ian Somerhalder’s celebrity activism

Critics of celebrity activism often assume that fans blindly follow celebrities who invite them to support celebrity activism and charity. These fans are often imagined as participating in celebrity activism only because their beloved celebrity asked them to — not out of any kind of rational understanding of a political issue, awareness of a public problem, or commitment to a public issue. We contest this view of celebrity activism. Drawing on scholars like Bennett, Ellcessor, and Chouliaraki, we argue that the case of Ian Somerhalder demonstrates that a commitment to a celebrity may actually be connected to a commitment to a public issue. We trace the ways in which Somerhalder plays with the slippage between television celebrity and his character, arguing that such slippage merges the intimacy fans feel for Damon with the intimacy fans feel for Somerhalder and imbues Somerhalder’s environmental appeals with the values his on-screen character comes to represent in The Vampire Diaries. We argue that Somerhalder deploys themes and ideals from The Vampire Diaries in his communication with fans and in his activist appeals. Ultimately, Somerhalder’s celebrity activism demonstrates how intimacy with celebrities might function to connect fans to public issues in powerful ways.     

“You Just Gotta Watch What You Say in Those Situations”: A Normative Approach to Confidant Communication Surrounding Sexual Assault Disclosure

Although less than a third of sexual assaults are reported to authorities, survivors often disclose to family, friends, or romantic partners. However, survivor-confidant communication during and following disclosure may be challenging. Research has offered little insight into the theoretical bases for such difficulty or the ways confidants effectively address the challenges they perceive. Through qualitative interviews with 26 confidants, we develop normative theory of confidants’ experiences of and responses to sexual assault disclosure. Disclosure sets the stage for challenges in communicating support and respecting survivor privacy. Confidants respond via an array of behaviors, each with relative advantages and disadvantages.     

Bringing the Science of Team Training to School-Based Teams

Teams are ubiquitous in schools in the 21st Century; yet training for effective teaming within these settings has lagged behind. The authors of this article developed 5 modules, grounded in the science of team training and adapted from an evidence-based curriculum used in medical settings called TeamSTEPPS®, to prepare instructional and administrative personnel for teamwork and to enhance their teamwork skills. The resulting 5 modules, available for download on the American Psychological Association website, are collectively called Teach Teamwork and include: Introduction to Teams and Teamwork, Communication, Mutual Support, Situation Monitoring, and Leadership. In this article, the modules and supplemental materials are described, along with recommendations for implementation.     

The relative relationship between education and workplace task discretion: an international comparative perspective

Through analyses of Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) data, the following study considers the direct and indirect association between education and workplace task discretion in 30 countries. By focusing on cross-national comparison, it considers the ways in which these findings are dependent on both the overall level and the range of task discretion across occupational sectors within a country. Theoretically, individual-agency and critical-institutional hypotheses are compared, two perspectives that provide divergent explanations for the indirect association between education and task discretion. The findings partially support both perspectives and there is strong evidence of a relative relationship between education and task discretion. That is, in country contexts where overall levels of task discretion are higher and more equal, education operates less strongly as a stratifying force. The originality of this approach showcases empirically how the association between education and task discretion is context dependent and theoretically how individual-agency and critical-institutional perspectives both contribute to understanding this relationship.