The #acadv Community: Networked Practices, Professional Development, and Ongoing Knowledge Sharing in Advising

Orginal Published in NACADA JournalThe #acadv Twitter chat is an organic, online community of higher education academic advising professionals. Using a longitudinal study, we explored the way a self-directed learning network sustains ongoing professional development and knowledge sharing by examining the archives of 203 structured online discussions. In mapping the chat topics to published core competencies, we discovered that this advising community scaffolds on-demand learning for discussion of advising approaches and strategies, distribution of resources for supporting student success, collective sharing of personal advising philosophies, and encouragement to engage in reflective assessment about advising practice. Community members are motivated to contribute to networked practice to enhance professional development activities, share open educational practices, and support advising competency development in an occupational community of practice.Educatio

[Review] Social Media for Educators: Strategies and Best Practices

This article reviews the book "Social Media for Educators: Strategies and Best Practices," by Tanya Joosten and published in 2012

Leadership, Training, Mentoring, and Instructional Design

Editorial article for the second issue of Learning and Performance Quarterly. In this piece, the author describes the second issue and the overall focus on leadership, training, mentoring and instructional design

Building of Causality: A Future for School Librarianship Research and Practice

The article discusses the future trends in school librarianship and its impact on professional practice. Topics discussed include the research study conducted by Colorado Study and funded by the American Association of School Librarians, along with how to respond to the changes technology has brought in engaging learners

Paving the way for adequate myelination: The contribution of galectin-3, transferrin and iron

AbstractConsidering the worldwide incidence of well characterized demyelinating disorders such as Multiple Sclerosis (MS) and the increasing number of pathologies recently found to involve hypomyelinating factors such as micronutrient deficits, elucidating the molecular basis of central nervous system (CNS) demyelination, remyelination and hypomyelination becomes essential to the development of future neuroregenerative therapies. In this context, this review discusses novel findings on the contribution of galectin-3 (Gal-3), transferrin (Tf) and iron to the processes of myelination and remyelination and their potentially positive regulation of oligodendroglial precursor cell (OPC) differentiation. Studies were conducted in cuprizone (CPZ)-induced demyelination and iron deficiency (ID)-induced hypomyelination, and the participation of glial and neural stem cells (NSC) in the remyelination process was evaluated by means of both in vivo and in vitro assays on primary cell cultures

The Subject of Learning and Performance

This editorial article discusses the inaugural issue of the Learning and Performance Quarterly (LPQ) open access journal. This editorial offers a welcome and introduction to the first issue

We Need To Talk: Digital Practices & Ethics in Our Profession

As Student Affairs educators leverage technology for professional practice, we have failed to discuss how our digital lives intersect with our work lives. This competency-based, case study guide is designed to facilitate conversations about expectations and realities of what it means to be a professional online. To help you discuss ways to support digital-ethical professional practice in higher education, we have identified a few scenarios to discuss and develop a positive culture online. We encourage your to start an open dialogue on these issues and identify potential solutions to address unwanted interactions and inappropriate behaviors in professional online networks. Please feel free to bring these case studies back to your campus and/or graduate programs to continue the conversations. This resource is shared with the following Creative Commons license: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0Graduate Students and New Professionals Community of PracticeEducatio

Evidence, Standards, and School Librarianship: Prevailing Policies, Promising Methods, and Progress on a Research Agenda

Guided by the question, What are the implications of national educational evidence standards for school librarianship research?, prevailing U.S. evidence-driven educational policies are examined to identify implications for school librarianship research; promising methods to contribute to building this evidence base are explored; and finally, progress on a long-term research agenda designed to enable school librarianship researchers to contribute evidence to educational policy is reviewed. As promising methods are explored, an actionable agenda is proposed that school library researchers can undertake to participate in a causal research environment

Apotransferrin-induced recovery after hypoxic/ischaemic injury on myelination

We have previously demonstrated that aTf (apotransferrin) accelerates maturation of OLs (oligodendrocytes) in vitro as well as in vivo. The purpose of this study is to determine whether aTf plays a functional role in a model of H/I (hypoxia/ischaemia) in the neonatal brain. Twenty-four hours after H/I insult, neonatal rats were intracranially injected with aTf and the effects of this treatment were evaluated in the CC (corpus callosum) as well as the SVZ (subventricular zone) at different time points. Similar to previous studies, the H/I event produced severe demyelination in the CC. Demyelination was accompanied by microglial activation, astrogliosis and iron deposition. Ferritin levels increased together with lipid peroxidation and apoptotic cell death. Histological examination after the H/I event in brain tissue of aTf-treated animals (H/I aTF) revealed a great number of mature OLs repopulating the CC compared with saline-treated animals (H/I S). ApoTf treatment induced a gradual increase in MBP (myelin basic protein) and myelin lipid staining in the CC reaching normal levels after 15 days. Furthermore, significant increase in the number of OPCs (oligodendroglial progenitor cells) was found in the SVZ of aTf-treated brains compared with H/I S. Specifically, there was a rise in cells positive for OPC markers, i.e. PDGFRα and SHH+ cells, with a decrease in cleaved-caspase-3+ cells compared with H/I S. Additionally, neurospheres from aTf-treated rats were bigger in size and produced more O4/MBP+ cells. Our findings indicate a role for aTf as a potential inducer of OLs in neonatal rat brain in acute demyelination caused by H/I and a contribution to the differentiation/maturation of OLs and survival/migration of SVZ progenitors after demyelination in vivo

The Preparation and Certification of School Librarians: Using Causal Educational Research About Teacher Characteristics to Probe Facets of Effectiveness

How do we define a high-quality school librarian? Decades of educational researchers have attempted to link teacher characteristics—such as how teachers are prepared, which credentials they carry, and years of experience—to student outcomes. These researchers have contended that individual educator attributes may have a direct effect on what and how much their students learn. School librarians are also teachers who have direct student contact, and although numerous studies have indicated that school librarian preparation, licensure, and other background characteristics are promising areas for further direct exploration, researchers have yet to examine if, how, and why school librarians’ certification or preparation positively impacts students’ learning outcomes. The purpose of this paper is to compare findings from causal educational research to findings from descriptive school librarianship research to discern possible areas of causal alignment that warrant further investigation. In this study, we present a subset of a larger mixed research synthesis of causal educational research related to student achievement, contextualized with existing school librarianship research, to draw relationships between classroom teacher and school librarian preparation and characteristics and to shape researchable conjectures about school librarians’ effects on learner outcomes