Middle Grades Students as Teacher Educators: Consulting with Students in Professional Development

Many teachers of young adolescents face compelling pressures to dramatically change their practice. The rapid adoption of 1:1 computing, whereby each student has nearly constant access to an Internet-connected laptop, netbook or tablet, poses unique challenges to established practices in curriculum, instruction and classroom management. A growing number of teachers also confront a movement to provide students more personalized and flexible pathways to high school graduation, including experiential, blended and online learning, and allow students to apply knowledge and skills to tasks of personal interest. How teachers cope in this dynamic period may hinge on their ongoing professional development. In recent decades, a general consensus has emerged that promotes teaching as a learning profession in which teachers work together in learning communities and seek expertise not just from outside experts, but also from colleagues attuned to local circumstances. At the same time, the student voice movement encouraged schools to empower students as key collaborators in school improvement. In spite of common themes in the narratives on teacher learning and student voice—collaboration, empowerment and effective change—they seldom intersect in traditional professional development settings or in teachers\u27 collegial learning. This dissertation proposes student consultation as a link between students and teachers in collaborative school improvement and suggests next steps toward more sustainable efforts to involve students in the preparation and ongoing learning of teachers. Three studies are presented. The first study described a weeklong summer professional development institute in which students have played a central role for more than two decades. It outlined the conditions conducive to the collaborative culture among teachers and consulting students and summarizes participants\u27 perspectives on student consultation. The second study applied a qualitative case study design involving observations, interviews, focus groups and surveys with 72 teachers and 20 students to delve more deeply into consultations at the summer institute. Most teachers and students perceived the consultations as enjoyable and beneficial, willingly embraced shifts in authority during consultations, and noted the benefits of strategies employed to support the culture and practices of student consultations. The third study explored how teachers engaged with students as consultants in classroom action research projects initiated at the summer institute and in professional development contexts. The multi-site, collective case study examined six projects involving twelve teachers and 241 students. Interviews and focus groups with nine teachers and 22 students were coded by stages of the action research cycle and characteristics of student involvement in order to examine at which stages in the action research and in what capacities teachers involved their students. The study confirmed teachers\u27 and students\u27 general appreciation of consultation and suggests that parsing the subtleties of when and how students are consulted can contribute to deeper understand of student involvement and better facilitation of action research in teacher professional development. Together, this collection of studies has implications for the design and evaluation of student consultation in teacher professional development

Tapping the Experts in Effective Practices: Students as Educators in Middle Grades Professional Development

Although middle grades proponents call for specialist teacher preparation, and often herald student voice as critical to successful middle grades programs, young adolescents are rarely provided a role in teacher education. In this article, we explore the potential of student involvement in middle grades teacher education. We first briefly examine the benefits of student involvement in teacher education in general. Next, we describe the context of a summer professional development institute in which young adolescents assist and support the development of teachers, outlining the methods we used to examine our practices. Then, we share teachers’ and students’ perceptions of the model, highlighting specific approaches and promising practices. Finally, we offer recommendations and remaining questions for integrating students into middle grades teacher education

Professional Learning with Action Research in Innovative Middle Schools

This article illustrates how action research can be used as a model for professional development with middle grades educators in rapidly changing and technology-intensive schools. Drawing upon ten years of using this model, the authors present three examples of educator action research to highlight five characteristics of effective projects: (1) appropriate scope, (2) a collaborative approach, (3) accountability, (4) various data sources, and (5) a clear link to practice. Action research with these characteristics can help middle grades educators address emergent problems in 21st-century class- rooms and respond to the evolving needs of young adolescents

Collaborative Action Research for Middle Grades Improvement

Technology’s rapid evolution applies constant pressure to educational organizations, suggesting a need to continually re-envision schools for the digital age. Yet educators often struggle to understand the growing chasm between students’ out-of-school and in-school technology lives. This gap is particularly noticeable during the middle grades years, when home technology use increases dramatically. The purpose of this research was to examine the experiences of teachers and students engaged in collaborative action research for middle school improvement in technology-rich settings. We begin by outlining our theoretical framework, emphasizing Fletcher’s Ladder of Student Involvement. We then describe our case-study design and methods. Findings are organized by action research components and a discussion of key themes follows. Finally, we consider the implications of this stud

Teacher Roles in Personalized Learning Environments.

As school districts, major cities, and entire states in the United States adopt personalized learning as a reform strategy focused on the co-construction of learning opportunities between teachers and students, educators face shifting roles. This study examined the roles of teachers in personalized learning environments within a policy context of statewide legislation of personalized learning plans, flexible educational pathways, and proficiency-based assessment. The study used data from interviews with a purposefully selected group of 20 elementary and middle school teachers from 11 schools. Findings revealed teachers’ perceptions of their roles as (a) empowerers, (b) scouts, (c) scaffolders, and (d) assessors, as well as associated strategies within each role that participants perceived to be constructive. The use of role theory illuminated the potential for intrarole conflict and role strain between and among these roles along with the cultural dimensions of the shift to personalized learning

Mass Flows in Cometary UCHII Regions

High spectral and spatial resolution, mid-infrared fine structure line observations toward two ultracompact HII (UCHII) regions (G29.96 -0.02 and Mon R2) allow us to study the structure and kinematics of cometary UCHII regions. In our earlier study of Mon R2, we showed that highly organized mass motions accounted for most of the velocity structure in that UCHII region. In this work, we show that the kinematics in both Mon R2 and G29.96 are consistent with motion along an approximately paraboloidal shell. We model the velocity structure seen in our mapping data and test the stellar wind bow shock model for such paraboloidal like flows. The observations and the simulation indicate that the ram pressures of the stellar wind and ambient interstellar medium cause the accumulated mass in the bow shock to flow along the surface of the shock. A relaxation code reproduces the mass flow's velocity structure as derived by the analytical solution. It further predicts that the pressure gradient along the flow can accelerate ionized gas to a speed higher than that of the moving star. In the original bow shock model, the star speed relative to the ambient medium was considered to be the exit speed of ionized gas in the shell.Comment: 34 pages, including 14 figures and 1 table, to be published in ApJ, September 200

The cryomechanical design of MUSIC: a novel imaging instrument for millimeter-wave astrophysics at the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory

MUSIC (Multicolor Submillimeter kinetic Inductance Camera) is a new facility instrument for the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory (Mauna Kea, Hawaii) developed as a collaborative effect of Caltech, JPL, the University of Colorado at Boulder and UC Santa Barbara, and is due for initial commissioning in early 2011. MUSIC utilizes a new class of superconducting photon detectors known as microwave kinetic inductance detectors (MKIDs), an emergent technology that offers considerable advantages over current types of detectors for submillimeter and millimeter direct detection. MUSIC will operate a focal plane of 576 spatial pixels, where each pixel is a slot line antenna coupled to multiple detectors through on-chip, lumped-element filters, allowing simultaneously imaging in four bands at 0.86, 1.02, 1.33 and 2.00 mm. The MUSIC instrument is designed for closed-cycle operation, combining a pulse tube cooler with a two-stage Helium-3 adsorption refrigerator, providing a focal plane temperature of 0.25 K with intermediate temperature stages at approximately 50, 4 and 0.4 K for buffering heat loads and heat sinking of optical filters. Detector readout is achieved using semi-rigid coaxial cables from room temperature to the focal plane, with cryogenic HEMT amplifiers operating at 4 K. Several hundred detectors may be multiplexed in frequency space through one signal line and amplifier. This paper discusses the design of the instrument cryogenic hardware, including a number of features unique to the implementation of superconducting detectors. Predicted performance data for the instrument system will also be presented and discussed

MKID multicolor array status and results from DemoCam

We present the results of the latest multicolor Microwave Kinetic Inductance Detector (MKID) focal plane arrays in the submillimeter. The new detectors on the arrays are superconducting resonators which combine a coplanar waveguide section with an interdigitated capacitor, or IDC. To avoid out-of-band pickup by the capacitor, a stepped-impedance filter is used to prevent radiation from reaching the absorptive aluminum section of the resonator. These arrays are tested in the preliminary demonstration instrument, DemoCam, a precursor to the Multicolor Submillimeter Inductance Camera, MUSIC. We present laboratory results of the responsivity to light both in the laboratory and at the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory. We assess the performance of the detectors in filtering out-of-band radiation, and find the level of excess load and its effect on detector performance. We also look at the array design characteristics, and the implications for the optimization of sensitivities expected by MUSIC

Reduced Expression of IFIH1 Is Protective for Type 1 Diabetes

IFIH1 (interferon induced with helicase C domain 1), also known as MDA5 (melanoma differentiation-associated protein 5), is one of a family of intracellular proteins known to recognise viral RNA and mediate the innate immune response. IFIH1 is causal in type 1 diabetes based on the protective associations of four rare variants, where the derived alleles are predicted to reduce gene expression or function. Originally, however, T1D protection was mapped to the common IFIH1 nsSNP, rs1990760 or Thr946Ala. This common amino acid substitution does not cause a loss of function and evidence suggests the protective allele, Ala946, may mark a haplotype with reduced expression of IFIH1 in line with the protection conferred by the four rare loss of function alleles. We have performed allele specific expression analysis that supports this hypothesis: the T1D protective haplotype correlates with reduced IFIH1 transcription in interferon-β stimulated peripheral blood mononuclear cells (overall p = 0.012). In addition, we have used multiflow cytometry analysis and quantitative PCR assays to prove reduced expression of IFIH1 in individuals heterozygous for three of the T1D-associated rare alleles: a premature stop codon, rs35744605 (Glu627X) and predicted splice variants, rs35337543 (IVS8+1) and rs35732034 (IVS14+1). We also show that the nsSNP, Ile923V, does not alter pre-mRNA levels of IFIH1. These results confirm and extend the new autoimmune disease pathway of reduced IFIH1 expression and protein function protecting from T1D