The Impact of Teacher Education Writing-Intensive Courses On Preservice Teachers’ Self-Efficacy for Writing and Writing Instruction

In the United States, changes to policy as well as practice are negatively affecting writing instruction for K-12 students. While workforce demands continue to require more writing competence, public schools are shying away from including more writing instruction as they struggle to meet increasing testing demands. Additionally, teachers consistently report that they feel inadequately prepared to teach writing and feel low self-efficacy for their own writing abilities. In this multiple-article dissertation, a mixed methods quasi-experimental research design was used to compare the self-efficacy of preservice teachers taking writing-intensive education courses to those in non-writing-intensive courses. Systematic classroom observations, instructor interviews, and preservice teacher surveys were utilized to collect data. Results of the first study show that the Preservice Teacher Self-Efficacy for Writing Inventory (PT-SWI) provides reliable and valid scores for measuring preservice teacher self-efficacy for writing, preservice teacher self-efficacy for writing instruction, and the effectiveness of the teacher preparation program for teaching writing. The second study shows that preservice teachers enrolled in writing-intensive courses do not differ from preservice teachers enrolled in non-writing-intensive courses in their self-efficacy toward writing and writing instruction. However, preservice teachers who write more often do show higher levels of self-efficacy for writing instruction than preservice teachers who write less than three times per week. Finally, study three shows that the beliefs of the instructor have a direct impact on the preservice teachers. Instructors who feel they are themselves writers and can teach writing, generally have preservice teachers with more positive views of writing. Combined, the results of these three studies show that writing beliefs influence how confident preservice teachers feel about teaching writing

Differentiating Reading Profiles of Children with Specific Comprehension Deficits from Skilled Readers: A Systematic Review

The primary goal of the present systematic review was to examine the criteria and measures used for assessing students with specific comprehension deficit (SCD), who have adequate decoding skills, but still perform poorly on reading comprehension assessments. From a systematic review of 32 studies, we found four predominant selection approaches for classifying students with SCD and a wide range of measurements of reading skills used to distinguish students with SCD from skilled readers. In addition, to develop a reading profile for students with SCD, we performed a meta-analysis to quantify the characteristics of SCD by comparing their reading skills to those of skilled readers. Results revealed that students with SCD demonstrated deficits in oral language (i.e., vocabulary and listening comprehension) and reading comprehension, despite adequate decoding and fluency skills. Their reading comprehension deficits (Hedges’s g = −3.28) were also more severe than their oral language deficits (Hedges’s g = −0.95). We provide recommendations and implications for future researchers and classroom teachers

Teacher Education in the Time of COVID-19: Creating Digital Networks as University-School-Family Partnerships

As COVID-19 has suddenly transformed the landscape of learning in the United States, teachers are doing what they do best: figuring out how to effectively respond to support their students on their own. However, by creating digital networks that include university-school-family partnerships, the reach of teachers and teacher educators can increase. Teacher educators can provide support, systems, and strategies to maneuver the additional stressors and challenges posed by teaching during COVID-19. In this essay, we discuss how university-school-family partnerships mitigate the impacts of trauma, augment digital learning, and provide support for a variety of instructional scenarios happening in homes. Our focus on middle grade learners provides promise for meeting the needs of diverse students while capitalizing on the resources and expertise of universities, schools, teachers, and families

The Preservice Teacher Self-Efficacy for Writing Inventory (PTSWI): A Tool for Measuring Beliefs About Writing

Teachers are often underprepared to teach writing, which can negatively impact the performance and attitudes of their students. In teacher preparation programs, one goal should be to specifically develop future teachers of writing. Focusing on self-efficacy beliefs, increasing preservice teachers’ confidence and preparedness for teaching writing could yield positive impacts on classroom writing instructional practices. Currently, tools to quantitatively measure self-efficacy for writing and writing instruction in preservice teachers are sparse, thus limiting teacher educators’ ability to understand the efficacy of writing instruction. Therefore, the purpose of the present study is to gather evidence of score validity and reliability of a newly developed, theoretically-grounded survey for measuring preservice teacher self-efficacy for writing and writing instruction. The Preservice Teacher Self-Efficacy for Writing Inventory (PTSWI) provides a pragmatic tool designed for use by teacher educators. Results indicate that the PTSWI produces valid and reliable scores that are aligned with current theories from writing research and psychology

Writing-to-Learn in Secondary Science Classes: For Whom is It Effective?

Although many agree that writing can make a unique contribution to learning, harnessing that contribution is difficult, particularly in the middle grades. The purpose of this study was to measure the efficacy of a feasible writing-to-learn intervention in Grade 6–11 science classes. We focused on middle school students because this group has been least responsive to writing interventions in previous research. We conducted an 8-week intervention in which students completed short metacognitive and longer argumentative writing tasks. Our results indicated that overall students’ ability to engage in scientific rhetoric improved, and we identified minimal difference in the growth of middle and high school students. We therefore conducted a cluster analysis to examine how learner-level variables impacted the effectiveness of the intervention. Most notable was that students with low writing motivation and science knowledge showed the largest response to the intervention. These findings suggest that writing-to-learn can be implemented in secondary science to support scientific literacy development

Developing and Examining Validity Evidence for the Writing Rubric to Inform Teacher Educators (WRITE)

Assessment is an under-researched challenge of writing development, instruction, and teacher preparation. One reason for the lack of research on writing assessment in teacher preparation is that writing achievement is multi-faceted and difficult to measure consistently. Additionally, research has reported that teacher educators and preservice teaches may have limited assessment literacy knowledge. In previous studies, researchers have struggled to provide strong evidence of validity, reliability, and fairness across raters, writing samples, and rubric items. In the present study, we fill several gaps in the research literature by developing a rubric, the Writing Rubric to Inform Teacher Educators (WRITE), which utilizes a structure that promotes assessment literacy while raters score samples. Furthermore, using modern measurement theory, we strengthen the field’s understanding of writing assessment by providing evidence of validity, reliability, and fairness of scores to support the interpretation and use of the WRITE

Lessons from the Pivot: Higher Education\u27s Response to the Pandemic

This text includes chapters from instructional designers, university faculty and staff, and undergraduate and graduate students, and the text has been divided into three sections to reflect these varied perspectives. Each section begins with research-based perspectives, but also contains more personal narratives at the end. While the context of most of the chapters is the United States, there are also chapters with a Canadian context. It is also important to note that, as of the first half of 2021, the pandemic rages on, and mentions of COVID-19 in the following chapters will be reflective of the state of affairs in North America in the spring and fall of 2020.https://scholar.umw.edu/education_books/1000/thumbnail.jp

Improved annotation of the insect vector of citrus greening disease: Biocuration by a diverse genomics community

The Asian citrus psyllid (Diaphorina citri Kuwayama) is the insect vector of the bacterium Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus (CLas), the pathogen associated with citrus Huanglongbing (HLB, citrus greening). HLB threatens citrus production worldwide. Suppression or reduction of the insect vector using chemical insecticides has been the primary method to inhibit the spread of citrus greening disease. Accurate structural and functional annotation of the Asian citrus psyllid genome, as well as a clear understanding of the interactions between the insect and CLas, are required for development of new molecular-based HLB control methods. A draft assembly of the D. citri genome has been generated and annotated with automated pipelines. However, knowledge transfer from well-curated reference genomes such as that of Drosophila melanogaster to newly sequenced ones is challenging due to the complexity and diversity of insect genomes. To identify and improve gene models as potential targets for pest control, we manually curated several gene families with a focus on genes that have key functional roles in D. citri biology and CLas interactions. This community effort produced 530 manually curated gene models across developmental, physiological, RNAi regulatory and immunity-related pathways. As previously shown in the pea aphid, RNAi machinery genes putatively involved in the microRNA pathway have been specifically duplicated. A comprehensive transcriptome enabled us to identify a number of gene families that are either missing or misassembled in the draft genome. In order to develop biocuration as a training experience, we included undergraduate and graduate students from multiple institutions, as well as experienced annotators from the insect genomics research community. The resulting gene set (OGS v1.0) combines both automatically predicted and manually curated gene models.Peer reviewedBiochemistry and Molecular BiologyEntomology and Plant Patholog