Deconstructing Social Media: An Analysis of Twitter and Facebook Use in the Publishing Industry

The article analyses the social media activity around two genre fiction titles published in the UK. The research is focused on the platforms Twitter and Facebook as they are the sites currently most used as marketing tools by the publishing industry. Over 10,000 social media posts were collected and categorised to create a timeline of social media activity for two case studies. The findings were then compared to sales data from Nielsen BookScan to give an understanding to the value of social media marketing in the publishing industry. The findings show that social media is most effective as a marketing platform when there is already an established community, allowing publishers to converse with readers. While social media is less effective at marketing new books written by debut authors with no existing readership, it is none the less an important tool in the marketing plan as it provides a platform to engage with readers around significant events.     

Activity Structures and the Unfolding of Problem-Solving Actions in High-School Chemistry Classrooms

In this paper, we argue for a more systematic approach for studying the relationship between classroom practices and scientific practices—an approach that will likely better support the systemic reforms being promoted in the Next Generation Science Standards in the USA and similar efforts in other countries. One component of that approach is looking at how the nature of the activity structure may influence the relative alignment between classroom and scientific practices. To that end, we build on previously published research related to the practices utilized by five high-school chemistry teachers as they enacted problem-solving activities in which students were likely to generate proposals that were not aligned with normative scientific understandings. In that prior work, our analysis had emphasized micro-level features of the talk interactions and how they related to the way students’ ideas were explored; in the current paper, the analysis zooms out to consider the macro-level nature of the enactments associated with the activity structure of each lesson examined. Our data show that there were two general patterns to the activity structure across the 14 lessons scrutinized, and that each pattern had associated with it a constellation of features that impinged on the way the problem space was navigated. A key finding is that both activity structures (the expansive and the open) had features that aligned with scientific practices espoused in the Next Generation Science Standards—and both had features that were not aligned with those practices. We discuss the nature of these two structures, evidence of the relationship of each structure to key features of how the lessons unfolded, and the implications of these findings for both future research and the training of teachers.     

A Clearer Vision: Creating and Evolving a Model to Support the Development of Science Teacher Leaders

This paper describes a professional development model for developing science teacher leaders that has evolved and been refined through working with 16 high school chemistry and physics teachers in high-needs schools over the past 3 years. The theoretical framework draws upon Goodwin’s notion of professional vision and Dempsey’s four metaphors to inform an understanding of professional identity consistent with innovation and empowerment in (a) the classroom setting with students and (b) with teachers in collegial environments. Thus, leadership practices and purposes are discussed at two distinct levels and contexts, which interact reflexively. Sociolinguistic discourse analysis of multiple data sources enabled us to identify the professional development features that promoted or hindered the teachers’ growth toward a leadership perspective and disposition. Implications for science teacher renewal and retention as well as limitations of the study and proposed leadership model are also shared and discussed.     

Exploring the Form and the Function: a Review of Science Discourse Frameworks in the Service of Research and Practice

Research in Science Education - The importance of how classroom discourse can be used to support science learning has gained national attention with respect to both science teaching and research...