Distributed leadership for personalized learning

Abstract

Personalized learning refers to a collection of practices designed to place student interests and needs at the heart of schooling. Schools that implement personalized learning need leaders that support educators and students in redesigning the core practices of teaching and learning in K-12 schools. To answer the question of how leaders support this redesign, we use distributed leadership theory to focus on the macrotasks and microtasks that leaders enact to create the conditions for personalized learning practices. Drawing on a five-year, qualitative study of 11 personalized learning programs in the Midwest, we identify three macrotasks supporting personalized learning: reorganizing learning environments to support student voice and choice, assembling idiosyncratic technology ecosystems to distribute teaching and learning tasks, and redesigning instructional time to prioritize student’s interests, agency, and learning relationships. After we describe a number of microtasks associated with each macrotask, we discuss how a consideration of these kinds of leadership tasks can open the contemporary discussion of personalized learning from a narrow focus on learning technologies to an expansive vision of student-centered school reform.     

Robust estimator design with an emphasis balance between performance and robustness

From a number of ML estimators (typically unbiased) of practical interest which include the variance for a Gaussian distribution, the standard deviation for a Laplace distribution, the variance for a Rayleigh distribution and a “spread parameter” for a Cauchy distribution, we design robust estimators according to an emphasis balance between normalized performance and normalized robustness. We measure performance with inverted MSE and robustness with a differential geometric approach.     

What makes a youth-produced film good? The youth audience perspective

In this article, we explore how youth audiences evaluate the quality of youth-produced films. Our interest stems from a dearth of ways to measure the quality of what youth produce in artistic production processes. As a result, making art in formal learning settings devolves into either romanticized creativity or instrumental work to improve skills in core content areas. We conducted focus groups with 38 youth participants where they viewed four different films produced by the same youth media arts organization that works with young people to produce short-form, autobiographical documentaries. We found that youth focused their evaluations on identifying the films' genre and content and on assessing how well the filmmakers' creative decisions fit with identifications of genre and content. Evaluations were mediated by audiences' expectations and seemed to inform judgments of quality and creativity. We hope that our work can inform the design of formal learning spaces where young people are producing narrative art.     

Creating and Capitalizing on the Town/Gown Relationship: An Academic Library and a Public Library Form a Community Partnership

This article highlights the birth and current benefits of a partnership between Keene State College and Keene Public Library. It is a smaller one-on-one partnership that represents a rarer model than that of consortia and joint-use library partnerships. The authors offer additional ideas for partnering with local community groups in order to strengthen the town/gown relationship.     

Asymptotic memoryless detection of random signals in dependent noise

Design of detectors for strong mixing signals in strong mixing noise is considered, where a large degree of dependency may occur between the signal and noise. Under the criterion of asymptotic relative efficiency, it is shown that this design reduces to determining the solution of an integral equation, where only knowledge of the second order statistics of the randon processes involved is required. In particular, if the signal is independent of the noise and has nonzero mean, the optimal detector is the same as in the known constant signal case. It is also shown that it is possible to delete several regularity conditions which may be difficult to check in practice in the slightly more restrictive case where the maximal correlation coefficients of the signal and noise tend to zero.     

Improving students' understanding of carbohydrate metabolism in first-year biochemistry at tertiary level

Many introductory biochemistry students have problems understanding metabolism and acquiring the skills necessary to study metabolic pathways. In this paper we suggest that this may be largely due to the use of a traditional teaching approach which emphasises memorisation rather than understanding. We present an alternative approach to teaching carbohydrate metabolism which is designed to promote understanding of pathways. The approach also enables regular monitoring of, and reflection on, student progress and the identification of student reasoning and conceptual difficulties through the use of specially designed problems. Preliminary results are presented giving examples of specific student difficulties and the extent to which they were addressed by the alternative instructional approach. A qualitative evaluation of the approach is also presented. Specializations: metal accumulating plants biochemical education. Specializations: physics education, conceptual development, instructional design, improvement of tertiary science education.     

College Students’ Conceptions of Stem Cells, Stem Cell Research, and Cloning

In this study, we examined 96 undergraduate non-science majors’ conceptions of stem cells, stem cell research, and cloning. This study was performed at a large, Midwest, research extensive university. Participants in the study were asked to answer 23 questions relating to stem cells, stem cell research, and cloning in an on-line assessment before and after instruction. Two goals of the instruction were to: (1) help students construct accurate scientific ideas, and (2) enhance their reasoning about socioscientific issues. The course structure included interactive lectures, case discussions, hands-on activities, and independent projects. Overall, students’ understandings of stem cells, stem cell research, and cloning increased from pre-test to post-test. For example, on the post-test, students gained knowledge concerning the age of an organism related to the type of stem cell it possesses. However, we found that some incorrect ideas that were evident on the pre-test persisted after instruction. For example, before and after instruction several students maintained the idea that stem cells can currently be used to produce organs.     

Non-Science Majors’ Critical Evaluation of Websites in a Biotechnology Course

Helping students develop criteria for judgment and apply examination skills is essential for promoting scientific literacy. With the increasing availability of the Internet, it is even more essential that students learn how to evaluate the science they gather from online resources. This is particularly true because publishing information on the web is not restricted to experts, and content quality can vary greatly across websites. The responsibility of evaluating websites falls upon the user. Little research has examined undergraduates’ evaluation of web sites in science classes. The purpose of this study was to investigate on which websites college students selected and how they evaluated the websites used when developing individual positions about stem-cell research. We used a qualitative approach in search of patterns in undergraduates’ website selection and evaluation criteria. We found that students used a variety of web resources from eleven types of websites to complete their independent research report. Students also used eleven evaluation criteria to evaluate these sources, some useful (e.g., credibility) and some not useful (e.g., readability). We found that university students struggled with critically evaluating online resources. Undergraduates need prompts to learn how to critically evaluate the science content provided within websites. This type of scaffold can facilitate useful evaluation and promote critical thinking required for becoming scientifically literate.     

Pre-service teachers' use of problem-solving in primary science

The use of problem-solving in science instruction implies a change in the teacher's role from dispensing content information to encouraging critical reflective thinking in the student. For problem-solving to become an integral part of the science curriculum, teachers must make it the focus of their instruction. This study investigated the extent to which pre-service primary teachers used the problem-solving approach in their science instruction. It also identified the factors affecting their efforts to teach science using this approach. The issues considered are important in whether problem-solving becomes part of the science curriculum, as teaching behaviour influences student learning outcomes. Specializations: science eeducation Specializations: educational measurement, research methodology.