Doctoral conceptual thresholds in cellular and molecular biology

ABSTRACT

In the biological sciences, very little is known about the mechanisms by which doctoral students acquire the skills they need to become independent scientists. In the postsecondary biology education literature, identification of specific skills and effective methods for helping students to acquire them are limited to undergraduate education. To establish a foundation from which to investigate the developmental trajectory of biologists’ research skills, it is necessary to identify those skills which are integral to doctoral study and distinct from skills acquired earlier in students’ educational pathways. In this context, the current study engages the framework of threshold concepts to identify candidate skills that are both obstacles and significant opportunities for developing proficiency in conducting research. Such threshold concepts are typically characterised as transformative, integrative, irreversible, and challenging. The results from interviews and focus groups with current and former doctoral students in cellular and molecular biology suggest two such threshold concepts relevant to their subfield: the first is an ability to effectively engage primary research literature from the biological sciences in a way that is critical without dismissing the value of its contributions. The second is the ability to conceptualise appropriate control conditions necessary to design and interpret the results of experiments in an efficient and effective manner for research in the biological sciences as a discipline. Implications for prioritising and sequencing graduate training experiences are discussed on the basis of the identified thresholds.     

‘Does it answer the question or is it French fries?’: an exploration of language supports for scientific argumentation

ABSTRACT

Reform initiatives around the world are reconceptualising science education by stressing student engagement in science practices. Yet, science practices are language-intensive, requiring students to have strong receptive and productive language proficiencies. It is critical to address these rigorous language demands to ensure equitable learning opportunities for all students, including English language learners (ELLs). Little research has examined how to specifically support ELL students’ engagement in science practices, such as argumentation. Using case-study methodology, we examined one middle school science teacher's instructional strategies as she taught an argumentation-focused curriculum in a self-contained ELL classroom. Findings revealed that three trends characterized the teacher’s language supports for the structural and dialogic components of argumentation: (1) more language supports focused on argument structure, (2) dialogic interactions were most often facilitated by productive language supports, and (3) some language supports offered a rationale for argumentation. Findings suggest a need to identify and develop supports for the dialogic aspects of argumentation. Furthermore, engaging students in argumentation through productive language functions could be leveraged to support dialogic interactions. Lastly, our work points to the need for language supports that make the rationale for argumentation explicit since such transparency could further increase access for all students.     

学生信息管理系统的设计与实现

学生信息管理系统软件主要针对高校学生处、教务处等部门的大量业务处理工作而开发的管理软件,主要用于学校学生信息管理。其主要功能是利用计算机对学生各种信息进行日常管理,如查询、修改、增加、删除等;另外还考虑到了学生选课的需求。针对这些要求设计了学生信息管理系统,本系统采用C/S开发模式,前台采用Delphi 7.0,后台采用SQL server 2000的开发模式。     

“A moving target”: a critical race analysis of Latina/o faculty experiences,perspectives, and reflections on the tenure and promotion process

This article examines how Latina/o professors perceive, experience, and reflect on the tenure and promotion process. Findings for this longitudinal study are drawn from a purposive sample of nine female and seven male, Latina/o tenure-track faculty participants. Using a Critical Race Theory, Latino Critical (LatCrit) Race Theory, and Chicana Feminist framework, this article documents fundamental inequities in the tenure and promotion policies and practices that affected the Latina/o faculty in this study. Using narrative data, educational biographies, in-depth semi-structured interviews, and unstructured ethnographic interviews, this study found four common themes: (1) tenure and promotion processes functioned as a “tool of fear,” (2) the tenure and promotion process was like a “moving target,” (3) tenure provided limited forms of respect but not full membership, and (4) Latina/o supervivencia enabled the professors to thrive despite unsupportive and sometimes hostile campus and departmental climates.     

Personal narratives of loss and the exhumation of missing persons in the aftermath of war: in search of public and school pedagogies of mourning

This paper is grounded in a phenomenological‐interpretive exploration of how mourning is experienced and understood by the victim’s nuclear family – the victims are Greek‐Cypriot missing persons whose remains have been recovered, identified and properly buried, after exhumations of mass graves in the aftermath of war. Particularly, the focus is on the pedagogical openings that are created for educators and students who seek to engage in learning about mourning and/or how to mourn in schools. Two in‐depth mourning narratives are analyzed and the pedagogical implications of the nationalization of mourning are discussed. A careful critique of the nationalization of mourning formulates a critical discourse from which it becomes possible to launch a renewal of an affective community, that is, a restructuring of affective spaces in schools and the public arena so that new affective connections with the Other are created. The analysis shows the complexities involved in attempts to formulate public and school pedagogies of mourning.     

CHICANA/O STUDENT JOURNALISTS MAP OUT A CHICANA/O JOURNALISM PRACTICE

Research documenting the media under-representation of people of color indicates that unless journalists re-imagine the way they report on communities of color, those growing segments may be left without a stake in the “public imaginary.” In this paper, I suggest that journalism educators turn their attention to Chicano/a student journalists in order to begin the process of re-envisioning newsgathering and writing in ways that more accurately depict and inform Latino/a communities. Driven by a collaboration between myself and undergraduate student producers of Venceremos, a bilingual Chicano/a student publication at a western state university, this paper builds a case for why these student journalists are an important source of knowledge and inspiration for journalism educators concerned with improving mainstream coverage of diverse communities. The essay also summarizes my association with the Venceremos staff in order to model how journalism educators can team up with alternative student journalists and it demarcates traits that typify their evolving Chicano/a journalism practice.     

Theorizing the implementation of the HIV/AIDS curriculum in Zimbabwe

A growing need for utilizing school-based HIV/AIDS interventions the world over has been acknowledged as the most cost-effective means for arresting the spread of the HIV/AIDS pandemic among the vulnerable youth. However, the question on how teachers as educational change agents and cognitive sense-makers of HIV/AIDS curricula situated in a complex web of systemic social interactions are faring in mediating these interventions has not received much attention in curriculum theorization. There seems to be an underrepresentation in the literature, of post-modernistic approaches to the problematizing and explanation of teacher enactment of such complicated yet important curricula. This article sought to highlight the Adaptation Approach to education and Honig’s model and teacher cognition as an example of a post-modernistic approach to analysing teachers’ enactment of school HIV/AIDS curricula. It sought to enhance our understanding of the interplay of a myriad of factors endogenous and exogenous to teachers in shaping and framing teachers’ individual responses to the HIV/AIDS curriculum policy. We thus contend that one of the major reasons why teachers’ efforts to effectuate purposive mediations are so elusive is the failure by theoreticians and policy-makers alike, to consider the myriad of human-generated antecedents in different venues and how these impact teachers’ adaptation of HIV/AIDS interventions.     

Analysis of the Effect upon the Reliability Coefficient of Changes in Variables Involved in the Estimation of Test Reliability

First-year algebra high school students of various ability levels were presented lessons concerning the application of geometry theorems. The lessons varied in terms of the complexity of the examples that were shown. After the lessons, students completed a questionnaire concerning their perceptions of the lessons, and then they were tested over the material covered in the lessons. With test scores as the dependent variable, the main effect due to lesson complexity was not significant. With student perception as the dependent variable, significant main effects due to lesson complexity were identified. Significant interactions between lesson complexity and student ability level were identified also. These results are discussed in terms of teaching secondary school mathematics.     

An Examination of the Effects of Mediated Intragroup and Intergroup Interactions among Latino/a Characters

Content analytic work has consistently shown that Latinas are consistently found to be one of the most sexualized social groups in the media. In this study we experimentally examined the implications of exposure to the sexualized depiction of Latinas (among non-Latino viewers), when presented in the media in a within group context (Latina-Latino portrayal) and an intergroup context (Latina-White male portrayal). Findings suggest that when in an intergroup interaction, sexualized Latinas are evaluated more favorably and elicit less negative emotion than sexualized Latinas in an intragroup interaction. Implications are discussed within the context of mediated intergroup contact and intergroup emotion.