Sociocultural Approaches to Analyzing Cognitive Development in Interdisciplinary Teams

This paper considers whether a sociocultural theory of cognition can supply a suitable perspective for analyzing the nature of interdisciplinary collaboration within groups in the National Institute for Science Education (NISE). We discuss the metaphors of apprenticeship and voice in conversation to identify relevant elements of analysis in group discourse. The NISE group shows evidence of cognitive apprenticeship and of multiple voicedness, but the theories do not fully explain the impact of interdisciplinary interaction on group cognitive development. Although both the apprenticeship metaphor and the voice metaphor provide useful tools for analysis, it would be useful to have a metaphor that deals more directly with interaction among members of equal status from mature communities of practice

Can Middle-School Students Learn to Reason Statistically Through Simulation Activities?

This paper describes the implementation and quasiexperimental evaluation of a three-week instructional project designed in accordance with theories and assumptions of constructivism and socially situated cognition. Our goal was to develop students' ability to reason about real-life problems, where "good reasoning" was conceptualized in terms of a normative thinking model derived from cognitive research in decision making, probabilistic reasoning, and argumentation. In the spring of 1994, students in two middle school classrooms worked in teams that collected evidence, constructed arguments, and prepared presentations while engaged in activities that culminated in a mock legislative hearing. Through instruction and mentoring, students were encouraged to use statistics and probability as tools for reasoning. The effectiveness of the program was evaluated by comparing the written arguments of students from the two treatment classrooms with those of students from eight comparison classrooms. Students' arguments were scored in terms of how well they captured essential features of model reasoning and avoided particular thinking fallacies. That the reasoning abilities of students developed through social negotiation and shared problem solving was s

High-Density SNP Screening of the Major Histocompatibility Complex in Systemic Lupus Erythematosus Demonstrates Strong Evidence for Independent Susceptibility Regions

A substantial genetic contribution to systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) risk is conferred by major histocompatibility complex (MHC) gene(s) on chromosome 6p21. Previous studies in SLE have lacked statistical power and genetic resolution to fully define MHC influences. We characterized 1,610 Caucasian SLE cases and 1,470 parents for 1,974 MHC SNPs, the highly polymorphic HLA-DRB1 locus, and a panel of ancestry informative markers. Single-marker analyses revealed strong signals for SNPs within several MHC regions, as well as with HLA-DRB1 (global p = 9.99×10−16). The most strongly associated DRB1 alleles were: *0301 (odds ratio, OR = 2.21, p = 2.53×10−12), *1401 (OR = 0.50, p = 0.0002), and *1501 (OR = 1.39, p = 0.0032). The MHC region SNP demonstrating the strongest evidence of association with SLE was rs3117103, with OR = 2.44 and p = 2.80×10−13. Conditional haplotype and stepwise logistic regression analyses identified strong evidence for association between SLE and the extended class I, class I, class III, class II, and the extended class II MHC regions. Sequential removal of SLE–associated DRB1 haplotypes revealed independent effects due to variation within OR2H2 (extended class I, rs362521, p = 0.006), CREBL1 (class III, rs8283, p = 0.01), and DQB2 (class II, rs7769979, p = 0.003, and rs10947345, p = 0.0004). Further, conditional haplotype analyses demonstrated that variation within MICB (class I, rs3828903, p = 0.006) also contributes to SLE risk independent of HLA-DRB1*0301. Our results for the first time delineate with high resolution several MHC regions with independent contributions to SLE risk. We provide a list of candidate variants based on biologic and functional considerations that may be causally related to SLE risk and warrant further investigation

Can Gender-Adapted Instruction Improve Mathematics Performance and Attitudes?

This 15-page paper, from the Wisconsin Center for Education, presents the results of a study investigating whether adapting instruction to gender preferences can improve the attitudes of students and their performance in mathematics. The study found that there was no effect on performance based on gender preferences. However, there was improved student performance across all conditions which suggests that "dynamic worked-example mathematics instruction" improves students' performance

Analogical Reasoning in a Natural Working Group

This study analyzed how a working group used an analogy of "education as a pathway" as a tool for conceptual understanding and teamwork. The team's definition of the analogical structure remained consistent over the course of team work, but they applied the analogy to different targets. Ambiguities in the analogy contributed to its limited application as a tool in detailed analysis. Implications are noted with respect to how analogies are evaluated in team work, how the nature of a metaphor influences its applicability in analytical work, and how group process may affect analogy use in team work

Targeting Transfer in a STELLAR PBL Course for Pre-Service Teachers

Helping students in the professions apply conceptual ideas to the problems of practice is a key goal of problem-based learning (PBL). Because PBL is organized around small, collaborative groups, scaling up PBL to large, heterogeneous classes poses significant challenges for implementation. This study presents a hybrid model that mixes online and face-to-face PBL. The STELLAR system was developed to support online and hybrid PBL courses for pre-service teachers. It allows PBL to be implemented in larger classes because its scaffolding capabilities allow a small number of facilitators to distribute their attention among multiple small groups. In a quasi-experimental study, we found that students who participated in a hybrid PBL course using STELLAR (n= 33) learned more about targeted course concepts than students in a traditional comparison course (n=37). In addition, we present qualitative data that helps explain these outcomes by demonstrating how students engaged with these concepts during the hybrid PBL course. These results suggest that a hybrid computer-supported collaborative learning approach can be used to scaffold problem-based learning and foster deep understanding