School Portfolios, Critical Collegiality, and Comprehensive School Reform

Maine’s deployment of the Comprehensive School Reform Demonstration (CSRD) program has been substantially different from that of other states. It has included the addition of several parameters and operating requirements that have made the school change process that was prompted by CSRD in that state particularly promising and worthy of study (Hamann et al., 2001). Maine’s adaptation of the CSRD framework has led to the adoption of school portfolios at 11 high schools. The state urged schools to adopt this measure in addition to focusing all of its comparatively modest CSRD allocation at the high school level and assuring further overlap in each school’s change process by tying funding to several practices recommended in the state’s otherwise voluntary high school reform framework known as Promising Futures (Maine Commission on Secondary Education 1998). Schools prepare the portfolios annually and use them to document and reflect upon the change process upon which they have formally embarked. External reviewers evaluate the portfolios and schools can use them as sources of “collective generativity” (Lord 1994, p. 193), or sources of ideas that help school personnel decide how to proceed. It is in this last capacity that we see a tie-in between the practice of school portfolio drafting and the incubation of ‘critical collegiality’. As with others in this panel, we see critical collegiality as a needed condition for the intrastaff communication and coordination that enables schools to cultivate an ongoing capacity to self-critique and self-improve, particularly in the contemporary high-standards-emphasizing environment. Based on our familiarity with all 11 of Maine’s CSRD high schools and from our further inquiry at seven of those schools, we found that school portfolios can be a mechanism for promoting the elements of Lord’s (1994) Model of Critical Colleagueship. Put briefly, critical collegiality refers to school professionals’ use of observation, formative feedback, and adjusted practice as tools of self-critique and improvement. Though external advice should figure significantly in this type of a system, peer-to-peer professional commentary is the defining feature. Even though several professionals at a school collaborate to produce the portfolio, insertion of a portfolio requirement does not assure an outcome of critical collegiality. Indeed, the ‘top-down’ mandate to produce school portfolios, if not co-opted at the school level into a tool of self-monitoring and analysis and an internally-controlled tool of professional development, can be a source of problematic, contrived teacher collaboration rather than the constructive, voluntary type (Hargreaves 1991). The key variable here is not the origin of the portfolio policy, but rather whether it is or is not ‘owned’ at the school level. Of course, buy-in to the concept of portfolio creation does not necessarily mean buy-in to each of the change steps that the portfolio process is supposed to document. Portfolios may occasion critically collegial conversation without always supporting each of the changes urged by federal CSRD requirements and Maine’s Promising Futures framework. At the 11 schools, contributing to either critical collegiality or contrived (and minimal) teacher collaboration was the most common (and dramatically simplified) outcome of the introduction of the school portfolio requirement. But there was a third scenario. We did find in one instance that a school had taken ownership of the portfolio process, but the portfolio still had a negligible effect on promoting collegiality. That school had enough other professional development mechanisms in play to promote collegial introspection and consensual decision making, and people at the school viewed the portfolio’s contribution to that end as redundant

School Portfolios, Critical Collegiality, and Comprehensive School Reform

Maine’s deployment of the Comprehensive School Reform Demonstration (CSRD) program has been substantially different from that of other states. It has included the addition of several parameters and operating requirements that have made the school change process that was prompted by CSRD in that state particularly promising and worthy of study (Hamann et al., 2001). Maine’s adaptation of the CSRD framework has led to the adoption of school portfolios at 11 high schools. The state urged schools to adopt this measure in addition to focusing all of its comparatively modest CSRD allocation at the high school level and assuring further overlap in each school’s change process by tying funding to several practices recommended in the state’s otherwise voluntary high school reform framework known as Promising Futures (Maine Commission on Secondary Education 1998). Schools prepare the portfolios annually and use them to document and reflect upon the change process upon which they have formally embarked. External reviewers evaluate the portfolios and schools can use them as sources of “collective generativity” (Lord 1994, p. 193), or sources of ideas that help school personnel decide how to proceed. It is in this last capacity that we see a tie-in between the practice of school portfolio drafting and the incubation of ‘critical collegiality’. As with others in this panel, we see critical collegiality as a needed condition for the intrastaff communication and coordination that enables schools to cultivate an ongoing capacity to self-critique and self-improve, particularly in the contemporary high-standards-emphasizing environment. Based on our familiarity with all 11 of Maine’s CSRD high schools and from our further inquiry at seven of those schools, we found that school portfolios can be a mechanism for promoting the elements of Lord’s (1994) Model of Critical Colleagueship. Put briefly, critical collegiality refers to school professionals’ use of observation, formative feedback, and adjusted practice as tools of self-critique and improvement. Though external advice should figure significantly in this type of a system, peer-to-peer professional commentary is the defining feature. Even though several professionals at a school collaborate to produce the portfolio, insertion of a portfolio requirement does not assure an outcome of critical collegiality. Indeed, the ‘top-down’ mandate to produce school portfolios, if not co-opted at the school level into a tool of self-monitoring and analysis and an internally-controlled tool of professional development, can be a source of problematic, contrived teacher collaboration rather than the constructive, voluntary type (Hargreaves 1991). The key variable here is not the origin of the portfolio policy, but rather whether it is or is not ‘owned’ at the school level. Of course, buy-in to the concept of portfolio creation does not necessarily mean buy-in to each of the change steps that the portfolio process is supposed to document. Portfolios may occasion critically collegial conversation without always supporting each of the changes urged by federal CSRD requirements and Maine’s Promising Futures framework. At the 11 schools, contributing to either critical collegiality or contrived (and minimal) teacher collaboration was the most common (and dramatically simplified) outcome of the introduction of the school portfolio requirement. But there was a third scenario. We did find in one instance that a school had taken ownership of the portfolio process, but the portfolio still had a negligible effect on promoting collegiality. That school had enough other professional development mechanisms in play to promote collegial introspection and consensual decision making, and people at the school viewed the portfolio’s contribution to that end as redundant

771-3 Direct Characterization of F1ecalnide Binding Rates from Use-Dependent Conduction Delay In Canine Purkinje Fibers

To quantitatively characterize flecainide-induced channel blockade from usedependent conduction delay (CD), 12 canine purkinje fibers were studied using a dual microelectrode technique. During 60 sec of pacing at interstimulus intervals (ISI) of 1.25–0.4 sec with 2μM flecainide (FLEC), incremental CD followed a monoexponential time course, the rates of which were linearly related to the interpulse recovery interval (tr=ISI — action potential duration). Steady state block was an exponential function of the recovery rates. Use-dependent block derived from incremental CD and decremental squared conduction velocity (θ2) was characterized by the forward (k) and reverse (I) rate constants for the activated (a) and resting (r) states:ka (× 106) (mol-1 s-1)la (s-1)kr (× 102) (mol-1 s-1)Ir (s-1)CD7.0±2.612.0±4.40.6±1.74.01±1.63θ210.0±3.414.7±2.52.8±5.73.66±1.40Vmax(prox)6.8±2.315.9±5.05.1±10.34.22±1.11These rates reflect marked open state Na+ channel block and closed channel trapping at resting membrane potentials with FLEC. The addition of 1μM isoproterenol (ISO) to FLEC-superfused fibers reversed the FLEC-induced reduction of θ2 from 1.79±0.7 to 1.89±0.89 (m/s)2 (p=0.017) without changing V˙max. The rate constants for FLEC binding and unbinding were not altered by ISO. Thus FLEC's apparent binding rates can be quantified from its use-{jependent effects on conduction. Both ISO's selective reversal of FLEC effect on θ2 but not V˙max and the absence of changes in the rate constants suggest that the modulation of FLEC effect is due to an alteration in passive membrane properties. These characterizations will facilitate subsequent comparisons of FLEC interactions in pathologic and hyperadrenergic states in vivo

Assessment of knowledge and attitudes toward determinants of infant mortality in Head Start teachers, teacher aides, caregivers, and family support workers

IMR (11.9 infant deaths per 1,000 live births) almost twice the rate observed in (6.2 infant deaths per 1,000 live births). Objectives. The purpose of this project was to assess Head Start teachers’, teacher aides’, caregivers’, and family support workers’ perceptions, knowledge, attitudes, values and beliefs on topics (nutrition, exercise, breastfeeding, safe sleep, smoking, stress, postpartum depression, and mental health) related to infant mortality prevention in a Mississippi Gulf Coast Head Start consortium. Methods. A 47-item questionnaire was developed that focused on areas associated with primary prevention of infant mortality. Results. Participants (n=82) ages were 25 to 44 years of age and African American (80.8%). Most were teachers (43%) and had Associate’s degrees (48.8%). Participant knowledge and comfort level with providing information to families varied widely across the content areas. Conclusion. Head Start workers provide direct support for families at risk for experiencing the loss of an infant within the first year of life. Evaluating perceptions, knowledge, attitudes, values and beliefs related to infant mortality prevention can inform the development of strategies, prevention programs, and continuing education opportunities for Head Start workers

Next Generation Advanced Video Guidance Sensor: Low Risk Rendezvous and Docking Sensor

The Next Generation Advanced Video Guidance Sensor (NGAVGS) is being built and tested at MSFC. This paper provides an overview of current work on the NGAVGS, a summary of the video guidance heritage, and the AVGS performance on the Orbital Express mission. This paper also provides a discussion of applications to ISS cargo delivery vehicles, CEV, and future lunar applications