Integrating Community-based Research into a Criminal Justice Capstone Course

There have been a number of themes influencing teaching approaches in undergraduate education in recent years. These include experiential learning and an emphasis on providing research opportunities to students. Couple these themes with the current emphasis in the criminal justice field for researcher–practitioner collaboration and the confluence points toward a community-based research (CBR) approach. This study discusses CBR pedagogy and provides a specific example of its implementation in a criminal justice capstone course. Student outcomes indicate that CBR is a positive way to integrate collaborative, experiential research opportunities for undergraduate students.     

Fostering a community of practice through a professional development program to improve elementary teachers' views of nature of science and teaching practice

This study explored the development of a community of learners through a professional development program to improve teachers' views of nature of science (NOS) and teaching practice. The Views of Nature of Science questionnaire and interviews were used to assess teachers' conceptions of NOS three times over the course of the study. Notes and videotapes taken during workshops and classroom observations were used to track influence of the community of learners on classroom practice. The community of practice (CoP) was fostered through an intensive summer workshop, monthly school site workshops, and classroom support to aid teachers in incorporating new techniques and reflecting upon their learning and practice. We found that teachers became aware of their changes in views about NOS once they struggled with the concepts in their own teaching and discussed their struggles within the professional development community. The CoP on its own was not sufficient to change teacher's practice or knowledge, but it created a well‐supported environment that facilitated teacher change when paired with NOS modeling and explicit reflection. Cases of three teachers are used to illustrate changes in views and teaching practice common to the teachers in this study. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 46: 1090–1113, 2009     

Personality of Women Athletes in Intercollegiate Competition

Abstract

This study described and compared the personality and background of women participating in intercollegiate sports competition. Personal feelings about competition and faculty adviser estimation of personality were also described. The Cattell 16 PF test of personality and a personal information questionnaire were administered. This investigation involved four groups of junior or senior college women athletes: 15 individual, 16 subjectively-judged, 28 team, and 18 team-individual sports participants. Each subject was required to have competed in her sport for at least two seasons. A group of 42 nonparticipants was also studied. The subjects were selected from the five largest state universities in Ohio. Results indicated groups were similar on 14 dimensions of personality and significantly different on 9. The individual and subjectively-judged were more alike and also more similar to the nonparticipants than to the other two groups. The team and team-individual groups tended to be alike and dissimilar to the other three groups. Faculty advisers significantly misjudged the personality of their participants, with the team sports advisers being the most inaccurate. Questionnaire information indicated differences in socioeconomic background as well as personal feelings about competition.     

Consulting with groups of teachers. Evaluation of a pilot project in Ireland

This article reports on a two year project in which educational psychologists offered consultation to groups of teachers, to help them find solutions to school-based problems. Teachers were drawn from within individual schools and from across a number of schools. Typically, teachers were trained by educational psychologists in group consultation processes. Group consultation sessions were usually offered on a termly basis (three times per year). The group consultation sessions were facilitated by two psychologists. A formal process was followed, using a problem-solving structure. A pilot project ran for two years and was evaluated using quantitative and qualitative methods. Data were collected from teachers, school principals and psychologists. Findings indicate that group consultation is an effective method of service delivery, particularly for clusters of small, rural schools. The evaluation considers aspects of group consultation that could be further developed and new directions for this model of working.     

A capstone mathematics course for prospective secondary mathematics teachers

This article describes an innovative capstone mathematics course that links college mathematics with school mathematics and pedagogy. It describes how college juniors in a secondary mathematics teacher preparation program engage in leadership experiences that enable them to learn mathematics for teaching while developing student-centered pedagogical and assessment strategies. Examples show how students teach the class, complemented by excerpts from student journals containing students?? perceptions of their learning. Preliminary research indicates the effectiveness of this course for preparing future mathematics teachers.     

Interagency public access conference: Summary report

The article analyzes the third in a series of interagency workshops whose purpose has been to develop a policy framework for improving public access to agency information. The agencies are clearly demonstrating a determination to assume a leadership role on information policy issues.     

Extended Visual Fixation in Young Infants: Look Distributions, Heart Rate Changes, and Attention

Visual fixation in in ants from 3 to 6 months of age was examined for its fit to the theory of "attentional inertia." This theory posits that during the progression of a look there is increasing attention toward the stimulus and an "inertia" to continue looking. An extended audiovisual stimulus was presented for 20 min to infants while fixation was videotaped and heart rate (HR) was recorded. Consistent with the attentional inertia theory, look duration toward the stimulus had a lognormal distribution. Hazard functions describing these distributions showed a decreasing conditional probability of looking away with increases in look duration. Look onset and stimulus changes that occurred within a look were accompanied by HR deceleration. The average HR level continued to decrease over the duration of a look and returned to prestimuls level immediately look and returned to prestimulus level immediately prior to the fixation offset. Infant fixation has characteristics similar to fixation in children and adults, and attention appears to increase over to the course of a look in young infants.