Smart RTI: A Next-Generation Approach to Multilevel Prevention

During the past decade, responsiveness to intervention (RTI) has become popular among many practitioners as a means of transforming schooling into a multilevel prevention system. Popularity aside, its successful implementation requires ambitious intent, a comprehensive structure, and coordinated service delivery. An effective RTI also depends on building-based personnel with specialized expertise at all levels of the prevention system. Most agree on both its potential for strengthening schooling and its heavy demand on practitioners. In this article, we describe Smart RTI, which we define as making efficient use of school resources while maximizing students' opportunities for success. In light of findings from recent research, we discuss three important features of Smart RTI: (a) multistage screening to identify risk, (b) multistage assessment to determine appropriate levels of instruction, and (c) a role for special education that supports prevention.     

From Science Studies to Scientific Literacy: A View from the Classroom

The prospective virtues of using history and philosophy of science in science teaching have been pronounced for decades. Recently, a role for nature of science in supporting scientific literacy has become widely institutionalized in curriculum standards internationally. This short review addresses these current needs, highlighting the concrete views of teachers in the classroom, eschewing ideological ideals and abstract theory. A practical perspective highlights further the roles of history and philosophy—and of sociology, too—and even broadens their importance. It also indicates the relevance of a wide range of topics and work in Science Studies now generally absent from science educational discourse. An extensive reference list is provided.     

A Summer Academic Research Experience for Disadvantaged Youth

Internships are an effective way of connecting high school students in a meaningful manner to the sciences. Disadvantaged minorities have fewer opportunities to participate in internships, and are underrepresented in both science, technology, engineering, and mathematics majors and careers. We have developed a Summer Academic Research Experience (SARE) program that provides an enriching academic internship to underrepresented youth. Our program has shown that to have a successful internship for these disadvantaged youth, several issues need to be addressed in addition to scientific mentoring. We have found that it is necessary to remediate and/or fortify basic academic skills for students to be successful. In addition, students need to be actively coached in the development of professional skills, habits, and attitudes necessary for success in the workplace. With all these factors in place, these youths can become better students, compete on a more level playing field in their internships, and increase their potential of participating actively in the sciences in the future.     

On inferences of the “fourth class”

This article explores a type of inference which, instead of resting on logical, semantical, or institutional rules, rests upon rules asserted to be constitutive of the act of communicating. The logical and pragmatic status of these “fourth class” inferences is explored and their implications for the concept of “serious speech” are suggested.     

Motion Pictures

Richard Bunce's Television in the Corporate Interest (New York: Praeger Special Studies, 1976—price not given, but about $15.00).

Ralph M. Jennings and Veronica M. Jefferson's Television Station Employment Practices, 1975: The Status of Minorities and Women (New York: Office of Communication, United Church of Christ, 1976—price not given, but about $10.00, paper)

Horace Newcomb's Television: The Critical View (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976—$4.00, paper)

Asa Berger's The TV-Guided American (New York: Walker, 1976—$8.95)

Vincent Mosco's The Regulation of Innovations in the Broadcasting Market (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Program on Information Technologies and Public Policy, 1975—$3.00, paper)

James D. Scott's Cable Television: Strategy for Penetrating Key Urban Markets (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Graduate School of Business Administration, 1976—$5.50, paper)

R.W. Chandler's Sparks at Sea: The Experiences of a Ship's Radio Officer (North Pomfret, Vt.: David and Charles, 1973, but only recently released in the U.S.—$9.50)     

Community Structure and Social Protest: Influences on Newspaper Coverage

Research on news coverage of social protest has yielded evidence of a “protest paradigm,” a framework of common news attributes that contribute to the marginalizing of protesters as social deviants. Analysis here investigates whether adherence to the protest paradigm varies by structural characteristics of the communities in which news organizations originate. More specifically, news organizations in less pluralistic communities may exhibit lower tolerance for social conflict than news organizations in more pluralistic communities. This research compares newspaper coverage of social protest from communities with varied levels of pluralism. Results showed that newspapers in less pluralistic communities were more critical of protesters when local government was the target and were less likely to quote protesters in stories. Further, newspapers in less pluralistic communities were more critical of protesters when stories were on the front page than those appearing elsewhere in the newspaper. Implications for understanding the protest paradigm and influences of community structure on news coverage patterns were explored.     

Collection Development Trip to Moscow,Tallinn, Riga,and Vilnius,May 3–23, 2013

The author traveled to Moscow, Tallinn, Riga, and Vilnius in May 2013. The primary purpose of the trip was to acquire materials written by former participants in the University of Iowa’s (UI) International Writing Program (IWP). The UI Libraries has an approval plan for works written by IWP authors from selected countries, including those she visited, but this trip was an opportunity to locate harder to identify materials and to learn from the writers themselves about their current projects.