Enriching science trade books with explicit-reflective nature of science instruction: impacting elementary teachers' practice and improving students' learning

The present study investigated the impact of elementary science trade books, which were modified to include explicit-reflective nature of science (NOS) references, on four variables: teachers' views of NOS, changes in teaching practices during a read-aloud of the trade book, students' interaction with the NOS concepts during the read-aloud, and teachers' perceptions of the materials. Including read-alouds during science instruction is a common practice in elementary teaching and draws on both the strengths of the teachers and the interdisciplinary nature of elementary teaching. To investigate these issues, eight participating teachers and their students underwent three hierarchical levels of intervention. Level I served as a control or baseline and consisted of a trade book that remained unmodified. Level II consisted of a trade book that had been modified to include explicit references to NOS. Level III consisted of a trade book that had been modified to include explicit references to NOS plus the inclusion of an educative teacher’s guide. The educative teacher's guide included content aimed at supporting the teachers' development of more informed views of NOS, as well as guiding their pedagogical decisions during the read-aloud (e.g., by including specific reflective questions and potential student responses). Multiple sources of data were examined in this study. To determine changes in teachers' views of NOS, teachers filled out the Views of Nature of Science Questionnaire Form CE (VNOS-CE) pre- and post-intervention. Audio recordings and field notes were obtained during the read-aloud sessions, allowing for the investigation of changes in teaching practice. Additionally, students completed free response tasks after each session to determine what, if any, ideas about NOS they took away from the sessions. Individual interviews of select students were used for a more in-depth analysis of students' views of NOS. Lastly, teachers participated in two interviews that focused on their views of NOS, as well as their perceptions of the curriculum materials. Analyses showed that every participating teacher changed their views from less informed to more informed views on at least one of the NOS aspects. Consequently, they also changed their teaching practices between Level I and Level II, and between Level II and Level III of the intervention such that they included more explicitly references to NOS in the later levels. Additionally, teachers reported that the support from the teacher’s guide in Level III led to them feeling more comfortable and prepared to lead discussions during Level III read-alouds. The students' free response data indicated minimal student involvement with the NOS content, however this may have been an artifact of the measure. In contrast, student interviews indicated every participating student changed from less informed to more informed views on at least one of the targeted aspects of NOS. Finally, teachers perceived the intervention materials in a generally favorable way, indicating that they would be likely to follow a similar intervention on their own. Additionally, this data provides ecological validity to the intervention. Developing informed views of NOS in teachers and students has been a central goal of science education for several decades. Most previous research required lengthy professional development experiences, intensive researcher participation, or highly idealized teaching situations. The present study provides evidence that more minimal interventions that rely on practices that are already common in elementary teaching may be effective in reaching this goal. Such interventions are more easily scaled up to reach a wider number of teachers in a variety of teaching environments

Evidence and rationale for expanding The Views of Nature of Science Questionnaire

In an attempt to understand nature of science (NOS) conceptions held by learners in greater detail, researchers have steadily become more reliant on open-ended measures. The Views of Science Questionnaire (VNOS) is the most frequently used open-ended instrument. Conceptually grounded in many of the same aspects emphasized in the Next Generation Science Standards, the VNOS-C is appropriate for capturing the views of secondary school students and adults along 10 dimensions related to NOS. However, it has been observed that the 10-item VNOS-C seems to have difficulty uncovering some particular NOS aspects, or rather respondents may need additional prompting. Two new items have been developed and administered to expand the VNOS instrument (VNOS-CE). The present study focuses on evaluating whether these items function as intended, soliciting responses for the target NOS aspects, and whether these contributions add value to the instrument as a whole. Data comes from 37 pre- and in-service elementary, middle and secondary teachers. Results suggest one of the items adds considerable breadth, eliciting responses from multiple NOS aspects, while the other adds much needed depth related to one aspect, social NOS. Implications for the field and assessment of NOS are discussed

Magnetic field stabilization for high-accuracy mass measurements on exotic nuclides

The magnetic-field stability of a mass spectrometer plays a crucial role in precision mass measurements. In the case of mass determination of short-lived nuclides with a Penning trap, major causes of instabilities are temperature fluctuations in the vicinity of the trap and pressure fluctuations in the liquid helium cryostat of the superconducting magnet. Thus systems for the temperature and pressure stabilization of the Penning trap mass spectrometer ISOLTRAP at the ISOLDE facility at CERN have been installed. A reduction of the fluctuations by at least one order of magnitude downto dT=+/-5mK and dp=+/-50mtorr has been achieved, which corresponds to a relative frequency change of 2.7x10^{-9} and 1.5x10^{-10}, respectively. With this stabilization the frequency determination with the Penning trap only shows a linear temporal drift over several hours on the 10 ppb level due to the finite resistance of the superconducting magnet coils.Comment: 23 pages, 13 figure

A Solve-RD ClinVar-based reanalysis of 1522 index cases from ERN-ITHACA reveals common pitfalls and misinterpretations in exome sequencing

Purpose Within the Solve-RD project (https://solve-rd.eu/), the European Reference Network for Intellectual disability, TeleHealth, Autism and Congenital Anomalies aimed to investigate whether a reanalysis of exomes from unsolved cases based on ClinVar annotations could establish additional diagnoses. We present the results of the “ClinVar low-hanging fruit” reanalysis, reasons for the failure of previous analyses, and lessons learned. Methods Data from the first 3576 exomes (1522 probands and 2054 relatives) collected from European Reference Network for Intellectual disability, TeleHealth, Autism and Congenital Anomalies was reanalyzed by the Solve-RD consortium by evaluating for the presence of single-nucleotide variant, and small insertions and deletions already reported as (likely) pathogenic in ClinVar. Variants were filtered according to frequency, genotype, and mode of inheritance and reinterpreted. Results We identified causal variants in 59 cases (3.9%), 50 of them also raised by other approaches and 9 leading to new diagnoses, highlighting interpretation challenges: variants in genes not known to be involved in human disease at the time of the first analysis, misleading genotypes, or variants undetected by local pipelines (variants in off-target regions, low quality filters, low allelic balance, or high frequency). Conclusion The “ClinVar low-hanging fruit” analysis represents an effective, fast, and easy approach to recover causal variants from exome sequencing data, herewith contributing to the reduction of the diagnostic deadlock

Étude des facteurs de risque et de la prévalence de l'incontinence urinaire chez les patients atteints de bronchopneumopathie chronique obstructive

La bronchopneumopathie chronique obstructive (BPCO) est caractérisée par une toux chronique provoquant des hyperpressions abdominales répétées qui peuvent affaiblir le plancher pelvien et entraîner l’incontinence urinaire (IU) d’effort. Cette étude transversale a pour but de déterminer la prévalence et les facteurs de risque de l’IU chez les sujets BPCO comparés aux 111 sujets non BPCO à Bruxelles. On constate que 28,7 % des sujets BPCO présentent une IU et ont une qualité de vie altérée. Cependant, il n’est pas possible d’établir de lien direct entre la BPCO et l’incontinence urinaire.Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is characterised by a chronic cough causing repeated abdominal hyperpressures that can weaken the pelvic floor and lead to urinary incontinence. The aim of this cross-sectional study was to determine the pre-valence and risk factors of UI in COPD subjects compared to 111 non-COPD subjects in Brussels. It was found that 28.7% of COPD subjects had urinary incontinence and an impaired quality of life. However, it is not possible to establish a direct link between COPD and urinary incontinence

Deviating glucose results in an international dual-center study. A root cause investigation

During a dual-center study on obese and normal weight children and adolescents, focusing on glucose metabolism, we observed a marked difference in glucose results (N = 16,840) between the two sites, Salzburg, Austria and Uppsala, Sweden (P < 0.001). After excluding differences in patient characteristics between the two populations as cause of this finding, we investigated other preanalytic influences. Finally, only the tubes used for blood collection at the two sites were left to evaluate. While the Vacuette FC-Mix tube (Greiner Bio-One, Kremsmunster, Austria) was used in Uppsala, in Salzburg blood collections were performed with a lithium heparin tube (LH-Monovette, Sarstedt, Germany). To prove our hypothesis, we collected two blood samples in either of these tubes from 51 children (Salzburg N = 27, Uppsala N = 24) and compared the measured glucose results. Indeed, we found the suspected bias and calculated a correction formula, which significantly diminished the differences of glucose results between the two sites (P = 0.023). Our finding is in line with those of other studies and although this issue should be widely known, we feel that it is widely neglected, especially when comparing glucose concentrations across Europe, using large databases without any information on preanalytic sample handling

Selective silencing of individual dendritic branches by an mGlu2-activated potassium conductance in dentate gyrus granule cells

Group II metabotropic glutamate receptors (mGlu-IIs) modulate hippocampal information processing through several presynaptic actions. We describe a novel postsynaptic inhibitory mechanism mediated by the mGlu2 subtype that activates an inwardly rectifying potassium conductance in the dendrites of DG granule cells of rats and mice. Data from glutamate-uncaging experiments and simulations indicate that mGlu2-activated potassium conductance uniformly reduces the peak amplitude of synaptic inputs arriving in the distal two-thirds of dendrites, with only minor effects on proximal inputs. This unique shunting profile is consistent with a peak expression of the mGlu2-activated conductance at the transition between the proximal and middle third of the dendrites. Further simulations under various physiologically relevant conditions showed that when a shunting conductance was activated in the proximal third of a single dendrite, it effectively modulated input to this specific branch while leaving inputs in neighboring dendrites relatively unaffected. Therefore, the restricted expression of the mGlu2-activated potassium conductance in the proximal third of DG granule cell dendrites represents an optimal localization for achieving the opposing biophysical requirements for uniform yet selective modulation of individual dendritic branches