Transformational practice: critical teacher research in pre-service teacher education

This article traces the experiences of three pre-service teachers as they engaged in teacher research as part of their teacher education program and considers how teacher research might disrupt dominant paradigms that aim to de-contextualize teaching and offer one-size-fits-all solutions to address inequities. In particular, the article examines: the role of the teacher’s personal and academic history in the design of their teacher research projects; how their research worked to disrupt and complicate classroom cultures and practices; and the ways in which the pre-service teachers interpreted their research in light of new contexts during their first year of teaching. This work has critical implications in an era when teacher education programs are under attack, including: the value of drawing on pre-service teachers' lived experiences as an entry point into inquiry; creating highly localized inquiries; and positioning novice teachers as knowledgeable practitioners who are able to share research with colleagues.     

Intertrial unconditioned stimuli differentially impact trace conditioning

Three experiments assessed how appetitive conditioning in rats changes over the duration of a trace conditioned stimulus (CS) when unsignaled unconditioned stimuli (USs) are introduced into the intertrial interval. In Experiment 1, a target US occurred at a fixed time either shortly before (embedded), shortly after (trace), or at the same time (delay) as the offset of a 120-s CS. During the CS, responding was most suppressed by intertrial USs in the trace group, less so in the delay group, and least in the embedded group. Unreinforced probe trials revealed a bell-shaped curve centered on the normal US arrival time during the trace interval, suggesting that temporally specific learning occurred both with and without intertrial USs. Experiments 2a and 2b confirmed that the bulk of the trace CS became inhibitory when intertrial USs were scheduled, as measured by summation and retardation tests, even though CS offset evoked a temporally precise conditioned response. Thus, an inhibitory CS may give rise to new stimuli specifically linked to its termination, which are excitatory. A modification to the microstimulus temporal difference model is offered to account for the data.     

Best practices for preschool programs: an update on inclusive settings

The trend in the curriculum design of programs for young children with developmental disabilities has been toward an approach which emphasizes everyday skills taught in regular routine activities. With the enactment of Public Law 99-457, the Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA), states were mandated to provide services for three-to five-year-old preschoolers with developmental disabilities.     

Fierce Urgency of Now: Building Movements to End the Prison Industrial Complex in Our Schools

This article argues that prison abolition and education must be thought and practiced together, now more than ever. Drawing on a forum, Without Walls: Abolition & Rethinking Education in Oakland, CA to dialogue about strategies to challenge carceral logics in classrooms and communities, this article contextualizes the intensification of policing and the criminalization of young people and communities that continues to reach into and beyond all levels of K-12 schools. We share a number of suggestions and starting places based on the ways many educators and youth advocates are building the capacity to challenge the prison industrial complex.