The Elusive Search for Teacher Collaboration

Collaboration is a well-used term in the field of education, identified as promising practice for student learning and teaching learning alike. However, collaboration comes in different shapes and sizes, leading to radically different ends. The authors examine teachers’ own understandings and practices of collaboration with teacher colleagues within their school contexts and within a professional development model designed to allow for collaborative conversation between teachers. Implications for teacher education are then considered.     

Differences in Child Care Quality for Children With and Without Disabilities

Research Findings: Federal, state, and local agencies legislate and support inclusive settings for the education of young children with disabilities. Recommended practices outline critical elements for meeting the educational and developmental needs of children with and without disabilities in inclusive settings, and minimal and essential quality characteristics have been articulated. Research has suggested that inclusive and non-inclusive settings may offer different levels of care as measured against best practices and essential quality characteristics. Therefore, the purpose of the current study was to examine program quality in inclusive and non-inclusive preschool classrooms using observational, interview, and survey data. Results showed that inclusive classrooms earned higher scores on an observational measure of global quality and higher scores on an observational measure of language and literacy. Results also suggested that teachers with higher levels of education tend to have classrooms of higher quality. Practice or Policy: Implications for future research and practice are discussed.     

Does the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills Next Assessment Take a “Simple View” of Reading?

This study involved examination of the validity evidence of the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills–Next Edition (DIBELS Next) for a sample of 85 third- and fifth-grade students, in reference to the “simple view” of reading. Tests administered included DIBELS Next, Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test–IV (PPVT–IV), Group Reading Assessment and Diagnostic Evaluation (GRADE), and the New York State English Language Arts (NYSELA) test. DIBELS Next Oral Reading Fluency (ORF) and Daze scores were significantly correlated with GRADE and NYSELA scores. Daze scores also explained significant variance in GRADE scores beyond ORF only at third grade and not NYSELA scores at either grade. PPVT–IV scores explained significant variance in GRADE scores beyond ORF at both grades but only NYSELA at third grade. GRADE Vocabulary explained variance in both measures of comprehension and at both grade levels. Research and educational implications of these findings are discussed.     

Sensation Seeking and Narrative Transportation: High Sensation Seeking Children's Interest in Reading Outside of School

High sensation seekers (HSS) prefer messages that allow them to maintain an optimal level of arousal (i.e., highly arousing messages). Transportation theory suggests that narrative immersion in a story may moderate reader arousal, and thus HSS message selection. To test this idea, a survey was administered to 120 fourth and fifth graders. In addition to measuring sensation seeking and transportation, the survey assessed interest in reading outside of school (i.e., leisure reading). HSS were found to be less likely to engage in leisure reading. Consistent with the activation model of information exposure, a moderated mediation analysis revealed that whether HSS engaged in leisure reading hinged on their level of narrative transportation (moderator) and subsequent reader boredom (mediator). HSS who successfully transported while reading were no different than their low sensation seeking peers. From a genre standpoint, high sensation seeking children with high narrative transportation scores were found to be especially interested in science fiction/fantasy books. Strategies for increasing leisure reading as well as constructing narratives that are engaging to high sensation seeking children are discussed.     

Learning to use information: Informed learning in the undergraduate classroom

Informed learning is a pedagogy that focuses on learning subject content through engaging with academic or professional information practices. Adopting the position that more powerful learning is achieved where students are taught how to use information and subject content simultaneously, the research reported here investigated an informed learning lesson. Using phenomenographic methods, students' experiences of the lesson were compared with observations of how the lesson was enacted in the classroom. Based on an analysis of student interviews using variation theory, different ways of experiencing the informed learning lesson emerged. Some students understood the lesson to be about learning to use information, i.e., researching and writing an academic paper, while others understood it as focusing on understanding both subject content and information use simultaneously. Although the results of this study are highly contextualized, the findings suggest criteria to consider when designing informed learning lessons.     

When is Fiction as Good as Fact? Comparing the Influence of Documentary and Historical Reenactment Films on Engagement,Affect, Issue Interest,and Learning

This study advances documentary film effects research by comparing the influence of a political documentary with a historical reenactment film on narrative engagement, affect, learning, and interest. Using the Rwandan genocide as a context of study, a documentary film, The Triumph of Evil, and the historical reenactment fictional film, Hotel Rwanda, were examined. Results revealed significant differences between documentary and historical reenactment film exposure for affective responses and issue knowledge gain. However, increased issue interest and narrative engagement were not significantly different for the two stimulus groups, suggesting that dramatic fictional reenactments of socio-political events lead to increased issue interest as much or more than the live footage and factual account of events offered in a documentary. The results of this study are discussed in terms of their importance for key democratic outcome variables (e.g., knowledge and participation), along with suggestions for future documentary film research.     

The Bibliophile Andrei Avinoff: Additional Information Regarding Soviet Book Sales of the Interwar Period (1917–1937)

This article concludes work started for a presentation on bibliophile Andrei Avinoff made at a symposium on Russian art and Russian studies in America in 2008 and for the 2009 book Treasures into Tractors. A member of the pre-Revolutionary Russian aristocracy, Andrei Avinoff, emigrated to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and managed to collect imperial association books and books on Russian art from some of the same dealers—Simeon Bolan and Israel Perlstein—who were supplying large research institutions such as the New York Public Library, the Library of Congress, and Harvard University Library with the same material.     

Pageant of the Tsars: The Romanov Coronation Albums

This essay and checklist document the exhibition Pageant of the Tsars: The Romanov Coronation Albums, held at Hillwood Estate, Museum & Gardens February 16–June 8, 2013. The exhibition focused on the history of the Romanovs through the lens of the coronation albums of the tsars. Based on the collection of five of the seven coronation albums held in the Hillwood library, the exhibition was supplemented with objects from the museum and library collections, loans from other institutions, and electronic versions of the albums available on iPads in the exhibition and via the iBooks store. The show marked the 400th anniversary of the founding of the Romanov dynasty in 1613.