The Middle Grades Principal: A Research Agenda

Advocates for middle grades education suggest that principals are critical to the implementation of curriculum, instruction, assessment, and organizational structures that meet young adolescent needs. Yet, there is little evidence associating principal practices outlined by middle grades proponents to outcomes or how principals learn the knowledge and practices middle grades advocates propose. This essay explores the limited research connecting middle grades principal leadership with school and student outcomes, how middle school principals learn the practices outlined by proponents of middle grades education, and proposes a research agenda and questions about middle grades principal learning

Middle Grades Principal Credentialing: A Vanishing Requirement

Limited research explores how school administrators learn the leadership skills, knowledge, and dispositions that will support young adolescents, particularly how administrators are prepared and credentialed to lead middle grades schools. The purpose of this research was to examine which states offered and/or required administrator credentials specific to middle grades and why states do or do not offer or require such credentialing. Analysis of the data indicates that states are moving away from specific credentialing for middle grades school administrators, with only one state still offering such a credential. Although state credentialing officers indicated the value of a specific middle grades principal credential, the need for flexibility for districts and credential candidates was the overarching reason for eliminating or not having a middle grades administrative credential. Moving away from specific middle grades credentialing has a number of implications for students, schools, preparations programs, and advocates of middle grades education

Spanish-speaking Parents\u27 Negotiation of Language and Culture with their Children\u27s Schools

Latinos are now the largest public school minority population in the U.S. Because of a shift in the states, cities, and counties where Latinos are choosing to live, many schools that did not previously serve substantial numbers of Latinos are doing so now. Additionally, many of the Latinos in these new settlement areas are recent immigrants who speak little or no English. This qualitative study examined how immigrant Latino parents who speak little or no English supported their children in the English-speaking school system of the U.S. It specifically examined how 12 Spanish-speaking parents negotiated language and culture with their children\u27s school in a new settlement area in the state of Utah. From the interviews I conducted with the Latino parents and school staff members, along with school observations and the collection of other data such as forms and notices, I examined how the parents negotiated language and culture with the school. I then analyzed the themes that emerged from this collection of data using a theoretical framework consisting of postcolonial theory, social and cultural capital, and the concept of social discourses. Major themes that emerged included the concern the parents had for their children\u27s education, the parents\u27 limited participation in the school discourse, children serving as language brokers, the maintenance and growth of their children\u27s heritage language, the hegemony of the English language, and issues involving social and cultural capital, linking capital, and racism. Recommendations include assuring availability of interpreters, increasing bridging and linking capital, supporting children\u27s heritage language, and being culturally sensitive and proactive to reduce racism. Hopefully, this research will add to the literature that will help educators better serve the growing Latino school population

Spatial organization of active and inactive genes and noncoding DNA within chromosome territories

The position of genes within the nucleus has been correlated with their transcriptional activity. The interchromosome domain model of nuclear organization suggests that genes preferentially locate at the surface of chromosome territories. Conversely, high resolution analysis of chromatin fibers suggests that chromosome territories do not present accessibility barriers to transcription machinery

Understanding Teacher Turnover in Two Charter Schools: Principal Dispositions and Practices

US charter schools experience higher rates of teacher turnover than traditional public schools. The purpose of this study was to examine charter principals’ professional dispositions and practices that might contribute to teacher turnover. Specifically we asked – How do charter school principal professional dispositions and practices affect school working conditions and impact teacher commitment to remain or leave a charter schools? The study design was an embedded three-year case study of principal leadership in two charter schools. Data sources included principal and teacher interviews, school observations, and artifacts. Themes were derived from two constant comparative analyses, one of principal dispositions, a second of principal practices that might impact teacher working conditions. Analysis indicated that principals’ dispositions were related to practices that affected working conditions, which in turn, impacted teacher turnover. Principals’ dispositions – autocratic ‘no excuses’ attitudes and valuing management leadership and accountability results – led to practices that created limited support for teachers, both organizationally and personally

Gene density and transcription influence the localization of chromatin outside of chromosome territories detectable by FISH

Genes can be transcribed from within chromosome territories; however, the major histocompatibilty complex locus has been reported extending away from chromosome territories, and the incidence of this correlates with transcription from the region. A similar result has been seen for the epidermal differentiation complex region of chromosome 1. These data suggested that chromatin decondensation away from the surface of chromosome territories may result from, and/or may facilitate, transcription of densely packed genes subject to coordinate regulation. To investigate whether localization outside of the visible confines of chromosome territories can also occur for regions that are not coordinately regulated, we have examined the spatial organization of human 11p15.5 and the syntenic region on mouse chromosome 7. This region is gene rich but its genes are not coordinately expressed, rather overall high levels of transcription occur in several cell types. We found that chromatin from 11p15.5 frequently extends away from the chromosome 11 territory. Localization outside of territories was also detected for other regions of high gene density and high levels of transcription. This is shown to be partly dependent on ongoing transcription. We suggest that local gene density and transcription, rather than the activity of individual genes, influences the organization of chromosomes in the nucleus

Interphase chromosome positioning in in vitro porcine cells and ex vivo porcine tissues

Copyright @ 2012 The Authors. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and 85 reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. The article was made available through the Brunel University Open Access Publishing Fund.BACKGROUND: In interphase nuclei of a wide range of species chromosomes are organised into their own specific locations termed territories. These chromosome territories are non-randomly positioned in nuclei which is believed to be related to a spatial aspect of regulatory control over gene expression. In this study we have adopted the pig as a model in which to study interphase chromosome positioning and follows on from other studies from our group of using pig cells and tissues to study interphase genome re-positioning during differentiation. The pig is an important model organism both economically and as a closely related species to study human disease models. This is why great efforts have been made to accomplish the full genome sequence in the last decade. RESULTS: This study has positioned most of the porcine chromosomes in in vitro cultured adult and embryonic fibroblasts, early passage stromal derived mesenchymal stem cells and lymphocytes. The study is further expanded to position four chromosomes in ex vivo tissue derived from pig kidney, lung and brain. CONCLUSIONS: It was concluded that porcine chromosomes are also non-randomly positioned within interphase nuclei with few major differences in chromosome position in interphase nuclei between different cell and tissue types. There were also no differences between preferred nuclear location of chromosomes in in vitro cultured cells as compared to cells in tissue sections. Using a number of analyses to ascertain by what criteria porcine chromosomes were positioned in interphase nuclei; we found a correlation with DNA content.This study is partly supported by Sygen International PLC

The radial arrangement of the human chromosome 7 in the lymphocyte cell nucleus is associated with chromosomal band gene density

This is the author's accepted manuscript. The final published article is available from the link below. Copyright @ Springer-Verlag 2008.In the nuclei of human lymphocytes, chromosome territories are distributed according to the average gene density of each chromosome. However, chromosomes are very heterogeneous in size and base composition, and can contain both very gene-dense and very gene-poor regions. Thus, a precise analysis of chromosome organisation in the nuclei should consider also the distribution of DNA belonging to the chromosomal bands in each chromosome. To improve our understanding of the chromatin organisation, we localised chromosome 7 DNA regions, endowed with different gene densities, in the nuclei of human lymphocytes. Our results showed that this chromosome in cell nuclei is arranged radially with the gene-dense/GC-richest regions exposed towards the nuclear interior and the gene-poorest/GC-poorest ones located at the nuclear periphery. Moreover, we found that chromatin fibres from the 7p22.3 and the 7q22.1 bands are not confined to the territory of the bulk of this chromosome, protruding towards the inner part of the nucleus. Overall, our work demonstrates the radial arrangement of the territory of chromosome 7 in the lymphocyte nucleus and confirms that human genes occupy specific radial positions, presumably to enhance intra- and inter-chromosomal interaction among loci displaying a similar expression pattern, and/or similar replication timing

Evaluation of ECA Gesture strategies for robust Human-Computer Interaction

Embodied Conversational Agents (ECAs) offer us the possibility to design pleasant and efficient human-machine interaction. In this paper we present an evaluation scheme to compare dialogue-based speaker authentication and information retrieval systems with and without ECAs on the interface. We used gestures and other visual cues to improve fluency and robustness of interaction with these systems. Our tests results suggest that when an ECA is present users perceive fewer system errors, their frustration levels are lower, turn-changing goes more smoothly, the interaction experience is more enjoyable, and system capabilities are generally perceived more positively than when no ECA is present. However, the ECA seems to intensify the users' privacy concerns