Work at the Boundary: A Research-Practice Partnership to Integrate Computer Science into Middle School Science

The Maine Center for Research in STEM Education (RiSE Center) is currently developing a partnership between university education researchers, computer science faculty, and middle school science teachers throughout the state. The goal of this partnership is to develop a set of lessons that integrate computer science concepts and practices into existing science curricular materials. This STEM+C partnership brings together individuals who have a wide range of experience and comfort with computer science and teaching middle school. This study focuses on the partnership’s early stages through its initial summer collaborations. We designed and administered interviews prior to the module design process to gather information about participants’ initial impressions of collaboration, computer science, the overall project, and their role in the partnership. Using grounded theory techniques (Charmaz, 2006), we categorized these preliminary responses and used information about the respondents to predict where boundaries might arise during collaboration of the larger partnership. Preliminary analysis of interview transcripts revealed differences in how individuals in the partnership spoke about aspects of the project including science teaching and computer science. We examined these potential misalignments in communication among members of different subgroups in the partnership. Such misalignments constituted group boundaries (Akkerman and Bakker, 2011), where communication may be difficult or misconstrued by either party and where strategies may be needed to facilitate communication. Based on prior research, we predicted boundaries between university researchers and K-12 practitioners (Robinson and Darling-Hammond, 1994). In addition, we anticipated that participants who were computer science novices might have conflicting definitions of computer science, as suggested by Winitzky, Stoddart, and O’Keefe (1992) and Barr and Stephenson (2011). We anticipated that school district affiliates who served on planning committees for the project may act as boundary spanners who ease communication across the researcher-practitioner boundary, because they work more closely with university affiliates than the participants not involved in the planning process. Differences in interview responses, as well as changes in computer science definitions, revealed that a boundary may exist between participants who were involved in planning the collaboration, regardless of affiliation, and those who were not. The difference may be based on access to information about the project as a whole as well as details of the planning team’s efforts to define computer science for themselves before bringing the concept to the summer collaboration process. These findings suggest the need for clear communication protocols throughout the formation process of any such partnership, as well as explicit role definition for those designated to communicate information across a boundary

Special Libraries, September 1978

Volume 69, Issue 9https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/sla_sl_1978/1007/thumbnail.jp

The IALLT Language Center Evaluation Toolkit: Context, Development, and Usage

In the summer of 2014, a committee composed of members of the International Association for Language Learning Technology (IALLT) began discussions toward accomplishing the following charge: Design a tool that internal evaluation committees can use to evaluate and make recommendations for the improvement of their institution\u27s language center. We emphasize the fact that it is the university appointed evaluation committee that will use this evaluation toolkit, not the language center directors themselves (although the LC Director should have input on how the toolkit should be deployed). Such evaluation committees might be composed of language department Chairs, TA/Language coordinators, Dean or Assistant Deans. We need to keep in mind that those put in charge of evaluation language centers might not know much about language centers in general. (excerpt

Librarians as Members of Integrated Institutional Information Programs: Management and Organizational Issues

published or submitted for publicatio

ACM Curriculum Reports: A Pedagogic Perspective

In this paper, we illuminate themes that emerged in interviews with participants in the major curriculum recommendation efforts: we characterize the way the computing community interacts with and influences these reports and introduce the term “pedagogic projection” to describe implicit assumptions of how these reports will be used in practice. We then illuminate how this perceived use has changed over time and may affect future reports

Associated Students Annual Report 2013-2014

https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/associatedstudents/1007/thumbnail.jp

Coping with Layoffs: Current State Strategies for Better Rapid Response

This issue brief from the Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University examines the issue of state rapid response practices that are designed to coordinate the delivery of a wide array of services to displaced workers. It summarizes the efforts of several states, identified by national experts as having promising practices, in the service delivery,organization, and evaluation of rapid response activities. It particularly highlights those states that combine post-layoff activities with strong proactive layoff aversion and worker transition assistance

Special Libraries, September 1967

Volume 58, Issue 7https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/sla_sl_1967/1006/thumbnail.jp