Features and strategies of supervisor professional community as a means of improving the supervision of preservice teachers

This article explores whether features associated with effective professional communities among K-12 teachers are relevant and sufficient for improving the practice of supervisors in teacher education programs. Interview and observational data from nineteen supervisors in one teacher education program illuminate what supervisors want in order to improve their professional practices and how their needs could be met through ongoing collaboration. The article proposes five features of professional communities that can help supervisors improve their work: norms promoting collaboration; trust and familiarity; activities deprivatizing practices; access to logistical information and shared expectations about the role of supervisors; and time for collaboration.     

Cognitive functioning in learning-disabled and nonlearning-disabled secondary level students

A study was conducted to compare on a number of specialized cognitive procedures the performance of high school students designated as learning disabled (LD) with the performance of nonlearning-disabled students experiencing learning difficulties (nonLD). Both groups were then compared with a control group of typical learners. Results indicate that when taken as a group LD and nonLD students differed significantly from a control group of typical learners on 6 of 16 variables. LD students differed from nonLD students with learning difficulties on 5 of 16 variables. The performance of LD and nonLD students with learning difficulties indicates patterns of cognitive functioning that differ from those of typical learners. The possibility of the development of compensatory cognitive styles in LD and nonLD students and their implications are discussed.     

Software for calculating blood lactate endurance markers

Blood lactate markers are used as summary measures of the underlying model of an athlete's blood lactate response to increasing work rate. Exercise physiologists use these endurance markers, typically corresponding to a work rate in the region of high curvature in the lactate curve, to predict and compare endurance ability. A short theoretical background of the commonly used markers is given and algorithms provided for their calculation. To date, no free software exists that allows the sports scientist to calculate these markers. In this paper, software is introduced for precisely this purpose that will calculate a variety of lactate markers for an individual athlete, an athlete at different instants (e.g. across a season), and simultaneously for a squad.     

The Effects of Word‐Learning Biases on Children's Concept of Angle

Despite evidence that young children are sensitive to differences in angle measure, older students frequently struggle to grasp this important mathematical concept. When making judgments about the size of angles, children often rely on erroneous dimensions such as the length of the angles' sides. The present study tested the possibility that this misconception stems from the whole‐object word‐learning bias by providing a subset of children with a separate label to refer to the whole angle figure. Thirty preschoolers (M = 4.86 years, SD = .53) were tested with a pretest–training–posttest design. At pretest, children showed evidence of the whole‐object misconception. After training, children who were given a novel‐word label for the whole object improved significantly more than those trained on the meaning of “angle” alone.     

Parents’ Talk About Letters With Their Young Children

A literacy‐related activity that occurs in children's homes—talk about letters in everyday conversations—was examined using data from 50 children who were visited every 4 months between 14 and 50 months. Parents talked about some letters, including those that are common in English words and the first letter of their children's names, especially often. Parents’ focus on the child's initial was especially strong in families of higher socioeconomic status, and the extent to which parents talked about the child's initial during the later sessions of the study was related to the children's kindergarten reading skill. Conversations that included the child's initial were longer than those that did not, and parents presented a variety of information about this letter.     

Bullying Among Young Children: Strategies for Prevention

Bullying is an increasing problem within childcare facilities, preschool programs, and public schools. As a result, many districts are instituting anti-bullying intervention programs. This article defines bullying and explains the direct and indirect forms it can take. First, it examines research on bullying during the beginning years of school. Next, it explains how relational aggression occurs and the importance of positive peer support systems within their schools. The article concludes by examining the effects of consistent anti-bullying initiatives (e.g. conflict resolution strategies, daily check-ins, journals, and peacemaking activities) that address bullying behaviors among young children. Through consistent and clear interventions, students can build positive peer relationships that promote a safe and healthy school climate and culture.     

Are effective or meritorious schools meretricious?

Data on student achievement gain in a large urban school district during the 1984–85 school year were analyzed to identify schools with achievement consistently higher or lower than schools with similar student and school characteristics. Before calculating gain scores, students were grouped with others of the same sex, ethnicity, initial grade level, and initial achievement level. After residuals for students who were above or below similar students were summed and averaged for reading and math at each grade, school-level regression analysis was used to further control for student and school characteristics. Results indicated that schools with reading gains one standard deviation above the mean had average raw scores less than two items higher than the district average on the sixty-item reading test, while schools with math gains this large had raw scores little more than one item higher than the average on the 44-item math test. In addition, examination of data on schools with residual (combined) reading and math gain scores 1.5 or more standard deviations above the average showed that after taking account of student background information and salient school characteristics, only one elementary school among 173 and no secondary school among 71 had unusually high achievement scores. Implications are discussed regarding efforts to identify and reward meritorious schools which allegedly have improved achievement more than other similar schools.