Gender Gaps in Achievement and Participation in Multiple Introductory Biology Classrooms

Although gender gaps have been a major concern in male-dominated science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines such as physics and engineering, the numerical dominance of female students in biology has supported the assumption that gender disparities do not exist at the undergraduate level in life sciences. Using data from 23 large introductory biology classes for majors, we examine two measures of gender disparity in biology: academic achievement and participation in whole-class discussions. We found that females consistently underperform on exams compared with males with similar overall college grade point averages. In addition, although females on average represent 60% of the students in these courses, their voices make up less than 40% of those heard responding to instructor-posed questions to the class, one of the most common ways of engaging students in large lectures. Based on these data, we propose that, despite numerical dominance of females, gender disparities remain an issue in introductory biology classrooms. For student retention and achievement in biology to be truly merit based, we need to develop strategies to equalize the opportunities for students of different genders to practice the skills they need to excel.     

Agency and Interactive Data Displays: Internet Graphics as Co-Created Rhetorical Spaces

Much has been written about how to evaluate static graphics from the perspective of clarity, ethics, efficiency, and power relations. However, when considering interactive graphics, agency must enter the conversation. This article develops a typology to understand the balance of agency between the designers and users of interactive graphics. The authors use this typology to interrogate 2 contemporary theories of rhetorical agency advanced by Miller and by Herndl and Licona.     

“It’s not them,it’s me”: competing discourses in one aspiring teacher’s talk

In this paper, we deploy M.M. Bakhtin’s notions about how language works to understand aspiring teachers’ struggles about the intersecting roles race, class, gender, language background, and sexual orientation play in students’ school lives and learning. Through life-history interviews and document analysis, we investigated the authoritative and internally persuasive discourses one aspiring teacher brought with her and took from a 15-week long course on a predominantly White Midwestern public university campus. Ideas she encountered in the course and its required tutoring component challenged her thinking about how various facets of people’s lives (such as those we list above) and the contexts in which they live, work and are schooled, affect how they are perceived, what they know, and can do.     

Elisabeth Bing Is a Treasure: Personal Reflections on a Life in Birth

Celebrating Elisabeth Bing’s 100th birthday is an honor and a joy. Elisabeth’s life is an inspiration to all who continue her mission of birth and women’s advocacy. Dr. Mary Jo Podgurski strives to capture the indomitable spirit of the founder of American Society for Psychoprophylaxis in Obstetrics (ASPO)/Lamaze (now Lamaze International) through a personal reflection. Elisabeth Bing lived with valor. She is a role model to women everywhere, the mother of childbirth education, and a woman of great courage and wisdom. Thank you, Elisabeth, for the huge gift of your life.     

Using video analysis to support prospective K-8 teachers’ noticing of students’ multiple mathematical knowledge bases

As part of a larger research project aimed at transforming preK-8 mathematics teacher preparation, the purpose of this study was to examine the extent to which prospective teachers notice children’s competencies related to children’s mathematical thinking, and children’s community, cultural, and linguistic funds of knowledge or what we refer to as children’s multiple mathematical knowledge bases. Teachers’ noticing supports students’ learning in deep and meaningful ways. Researchers designed and enacted a video analysis activity with prospective teachers in their mathematics methods course. The activity served as a decomposition of practice in order to support prospective teachers in engaging in an approximation of the practice of noticing. Our findings showed that prospective teachers evidenced noticing of mathematics teaching and learning as early as the mathematics methods course. We also found that the prompts and structure of the activity supported prospective teachers by increasing their depth of noticing and their foci in noticing, moving from attending primarily to teacher moves (and merely describing what they saw) to becoming aware of significant interactions (and interpreting effects of these interactions on learning). Implications for teacher educators interested in designing and enacting activities to support noticing are discussed.     

Short sprint or an endurance test: the perceived impact of the National Award for Special Educational Needs Coordination

This paper evaluates the perceived impact of the National Award (NA) for Special Educational Needs (SEN) Coordination in English mainstream schools. The Award was introduced in 2009 and has been mandatory for all new Special Educational Needs Coordinators (SENCos) since its inception. The framework used for the evaluation is based on the learning outcomes of the NA, which were formulated by the Training and Development Agency and focus on areas related to the pedagogical, managerial and leadership aspects of the SENCo role. Findings suggest that the NA has impacted most significantly on participants’ pedagogy and strategies for removing barriers to learning. Participants’ preparedness for training at post-graduate level is also investigated and consideration is given towards further training and study beyond the completion of the NA. Additionally, the paper investigates areas that are perceived as challenges (e.g. lack of time and leadership status) to the successful implementation of their coordination role and any impact the NA has had in this respect.     

Latino High School Students’ Perceptions of Caring: Keys to Success

This mixed methods investigation specifically examined Latino high school adolescents’ perceptions of teacher behaviors that demonstrate caring. A chi-square test was conducted to analyze the frequency of responses, and focus group interviews were conducted to expand on the results. The data indicated that although Latino male students were as likely to perceive the same behaviors Latina female students perceived as important or very important, a higher percentage of female students rated the same items as important. This investigation situates Latino high school adolescents’ voices as a pivotal agent to inform about the critical nature of caring for all students.     

National qualifications in Scotland: A lightning rod for public concern about equity during the pandemic

Scotland, traditionally, has high levels of confidence in teachers. Fairness and justice are key concepts in policy and practice in Scottish education. For more than 100 years, the high-stakes assessment system in Scotland, with the Scottish Higher qualification at its heart, has been crucial to that sense of opportunity and justice. However, in 2019–2020, public confidence in high-stakes assessment in Scotland, as in other United Kingdom countries, was dented. In Scotland, the Covid-19 pandemic meant that schools were closed, teachers provided online learning opportunities for pupils working at home and, for the first time in 130 years, it was not possible to run national examinations. To ensure that learners were not further disadvantaged, alternative approaches to gathering evidence for qualifications were instigated. However, these results were challenged as socially unjust and the results that had been nationally moderated were replaced by results based on locally moderated teachers' professional judgement. As Scotland looks to qualifications beyond Covid-19, trust must be re-built. This article reports on a participative research project that sought to understand public perceptions of standards and fairness across a range of key communities following this experience. Drawing on both qualitative and quantitative data, we analyse factors which affected trust in National Qualifications under the pandemic. The evidence suggests that when considering what matters for qualifications to be trusted, technocratic solutions are likely to be rejected by stakeholders. Understanding and responding to what led to the mistrust of qualifications in Scotland will be crucial to inform its future qualifications system.     

Dean flow-coupled inertial focusing in curved channels

Passive particle focusing based on inertial microfluidics was recently introduced as a high-throughput alternative to active focusing methods that require an external force field to manipulate particles. In inertial microfluidics, dominant inertial forces cause particles to move across streamlines and occupy equilibrium positions along the faces of walls in flows through straight micro channels. In this study, we systematically analyzed the addition of secondary Dean forces by introducing curvature and show how randomly distributed particles entering a simple u-shaped curved channel are focused to a fixed lateral position exiting the curvature. We found the lateral particle focusing position to be fixed and largely independent of radius of curvature and whether particles entering the curvature are pre-focused (at equilibrium) or randomly distributed. Unlike focusing in straight channels, where focusing typically is limited to channel cross-sections in the range of particle size to create single focusing point, we report here particle focusing in a large cross-section area (channel aspect ratio 1:10). Furthermore, we describe a simple u-shaped curved channel, with single inlet and four outlets, for filtration applications. We demonstrate continuous focusing and filtration of 10 μm particles (with >90% filtration efficiency) from a suspension mixture at throughputs several orders of magnitude higher than flow through straight channels (volume flow rate of 4.25 ml/min). Finally, as an example of high throughput cell processing application, white blood cells were continuously processed with a filtration efficiency of 78% with maintained high viability. We expect the study will aid in the fundamental understanding of flow through curved channels and open the door for the development of a whole set of bio-analytical applications.     

The Impact of NIH Postdoctoral Training Grants on Scientific Productivity

In this paper, we estimate the impact of receiving an NIH postdoctoral training grant on subsequent publications and citations. Our sample consists of all applications for NIH postdoctoral training grants (unsuccessful as well as successful) from 1980 to 2000. Both ordinary least squares and regression discontinuity estimates show that receipt of an NIH postdoctoral fellowship leads to about one additional publication over the next five years, which reflects a 20% increase in research productivity.