Teaching reading strategies in history lessons:A micro-level analysis of professional development training and its practical challenges

Reading comprehension is an important skill in secondary education, yet many history teachers find it difficult to provide adequate reading strategy instruction. In this study, we designed a digital learning environment to support teachers’ instruction of reading strategies based on student data. We provided history teachers in the experimental conditions with a visualisation of student performance data. Additionally, these teachers received professional development (PD) training and a guiding manual on how to translate these data into structured, explicit reading strategy instruction. Teachers in the control condition were only provided with basic data. We investigated teachers’ personal experiences through micro-level analysis of qualitative interview data. Our results show that teachers in the experimental condition improved the variation of their strategy instruction and used modelling behaviour more often after the PD training. However, we also identified multiple contextual implementation barriers that provided us with important suggestions for future practice-oriented educational research

Relationships between adolescent students’ reading skills, historical content knowledge and historical reasoning ability

The ability to apply various reading skills is an important prerequisite to comprehend expository texts commonly found in history textbooks, but it is unclear which specific skills contribute to students’ historical content knowledge and historical reasoning abilities. This study used a digital learning environment (DLE) to measure and support lower secondary students’ subject-specific reading skills, and explored the relationships with students’ historical content knowledge and historical reasoning ability. Results showed that subject-specific reading skills, such as explaining historical events, correlated significantly with both historical content knowledge and historical reasoning ability, but not all skills were significant predictors. These findings indicate that to promote the advanced practice of historical reasoning, history teachers should pay attention to students’ reading comprehension skills

Exogenously added GPI-anchored tissue inhibitor of matrix metal loproteinase-1 (TIMP-1) displays enhanced and novel biological activities

The family of tissue inhibitors of metalloproteinases (TIMPs) exhibits diverse physiological/biological functions including the inhibition of active matrix metalloproteinases, regulation of proMMP activation, cell growth, and the modulation of angiogenesis. TIMP-1 is a secreted protein that can be detected on the cell surface through its interaction with surface proteins. The diverse biological functions of TIMP-1 are thought to lie, in part, in the kinetics of TIMP-1/MMP/surface protein interactions. Proteins anchored by glycoinositol phospholipids (GPIs), when purified and added to cells in vitro, are incorporated into their surface membranes. A GPI anchor was fused to TIMP-1 to generate a reagent that could be added directly to cell membranes and thus focus defined concentrations of TIMP-1 protein on any cell surface independent of protein-protein interaction. Unlike native TIMP-1, exogenously added GPI-anchored TIMP-1 protein effectively blocked release of MMP-2 and MMP-9 from osteosarcoma cells. TIMP-1-GP1 was a more effective modulator of migration and proliferation than TIMP-1. While control hTIMP-1 protein did not significantly affect migration of primary microvascular endothelial cells at the concentrations tested, the GPI-anchored TIMP-1 protein showed a pronounced suppression of endothelial cell migration in response to bFGF. In addition, TIMP-1-GPI was more effective at inducing microvascular endothelial proliferation. In contrast, fibroblast proliferation was suppressed by the agent. Reagents based on this method should assist in the dissection of the protease cascades and activities involved in TIMP biology. Membrane-fixed TIMP-1 may represent a more effective version of the protein for use in therapeutic expression

Scaffolding expository history text reading:Effects on adolescents' comprehension, self-regulation, and motivation

Reading comprehension is an important predictor for academic success, yet many adolescents in secondary education face difficulties when reading their textbooks. In this quasi-experimental study, we developed a digital learning environment to scaffold students' expository text reading in seventh-grade history classrooms. Students in the experimental condition could use hints comprised of cognitive and metacognitive reading strategy instruction, whereas students in the control condition received no additional support. A comparison of posttest comprehension between conditions showed no significant differences. However, students in the experimental condition who accessed hints during history text reading performed significantly better on the posttest than students who did not use hints at all. We found no differences between conditions regarding students' self-regulated learning or motivation, but students' awareness of problem-solving reading strategies significantly increased in the experimental condition. Finally, a comparison of students with different reading levels showed that below-average readers benefitted most from digital reading practice