Infusion of Multicultural Issues in Curricula: A Student Perspective

To explore perceptions of the impact of a multicultural infusion project, current and former university students described classroom incidents that had strengthened their understanding of multiculturalism. They discussed why these incidents increased their multicultural awareness and how their interactions with others were changed. Participants described 155 incidents. These were sorted into 18 categories of pedagogical techniques and classroom composition or dynamics that promoted multicultural awareness. Former students reported that addressing multicultural issues in courses had a long-term impact on knowledge, attitudes, and professional skills. However, such benefits were not specific to classes that had been targeted for curriculum revision.     

Student teacher challenges: using the cognitive load theory as an explanatory lens

Cognitive load theory (CLT) can explain the challenges faced by student teachers. This study, guided by the CLT, included 26 pre-service teachers. Participants completed a cognitive load self-report questionnaire and were interviewed at two points during their student teaching. Results revealed that student teachers decreased mental effort related to monitoring their students’ level of attention, meeting needs of diverse learners, and managing internal and external distractions. Qualitative analysis revealed: (1) student teachers became aware of limited cognitive resources; (2) lesson planning imposes cognitive load during student teaching; and (3) cognitive overload limits the ability to make modifications during teaching.     

Current Developments in Community College Performance Funding

Since the initiation of performance funding in Tennessee in the late 1970s, approximately 30 states have, at some point, attempted a funding model that includes performance on a set of indicators. The purpose of the present study was to capture the current status of performance funding in public statewide community college systems and to assess which performance indicators were collected at the state level. Data were obtained through the 2012 Survey of Finance and Access Issues conducted by the Education Policy Center at the University of Alabama. The survey was administered to the National Council of State Directors of Community Colleges, and 50 responses were obtained from 49 states. Not every survey respondent answered each survey item. Findings showed that 19 states used performance funding for community colleges, with six of those states allocating at least 10% of state funds based on performance. An analysis of indicators captured at the state level (not exclusively for performance funding) showed a decline of emphasis on process indicators and greater emphasis on outputs. The performance-based distribution of base funding and the inclusion of output measures that capture intermediate indicators of success are consistent with the principles of Performance Funding 2.0, a new form of performance funding recently discussed in the literature. Future research should include tracking the current findings over time and expanding the existing literature on whether performance funding influences outcomes.     

The “Hand-off” as a Flawed Approach to Disseminating Innovation: Lessons from Chemistry

Drawing on studies of active learning methods in an undergraduate chemistry course at a research institution, we first present two case studies exploring the change processes and outcomes of the faculty member who designed the course and the one who adapted it. We then explore the nature of the problems experienced during the adaptation process. We conclude with recommendations for successfully diffusing innovations: adapting faculty members should choose innovations that genuinely interest them and are aligned with their goals, should experiment with innovations in a gradual way, and should receive support throughout the process.     

Our Language: (Re)Imagining Communities in Ukrainian Language Classrooms

Drawing upon video recordings from two fifth-grade Ukrainian classrooms and interviews with children four years later, this paper examines these classrooms as sites for socializing learners into an imagined community of Ukrainian speakers, the extent to which children took up identities as members of this community, and the potential effect of this identification on willingness to learn and use Ukrainian. Microanalysis of classroom interaction illustrates how teachers drew upon prevailing discourses of language and nation in ways that both presupposed and sought to create children’s membership in an imagined national community whose core practices included affiliation with Ukrainian as “our language.” However, interview data reveal that while children readily aligned with this imagined community and voiced its language ideologies, they positioned themselves as peripheral members or alternatively reimagined an alternative, multilingual Ukrainian community.