Teacher Candidates as Writers: What is the Relationship Between Writing Experiences and Pedagogical Practice

Both teacher candidates (TCs) and practicing teachers are asked to engage in personal writing experiences as means of learning about writing instruction. Yet, research on the relationship between writing and teaching writing provides variable, sometimes contradictory, results. This study investigated the relationship between TCs’ experiences writing a personal narrative in an undergraduate teacher education course and how they read and respond to a second grader’s personal narrative. Results indicate that, initially, many TCs did not draw on their writing experiences to inform how they analyzed, interpreted, and responded to the student’s composition. However, when specifically prompted to think about their writing experiences in the course, 89% were able to notice features in the child’s writing that they had learned to include in their own writing. The authors offer a theoretical framework to explain the results and argue that the framework could be used to guide writing teacher educators as they design writing experiences for teacher candidates. This study provides insights into teachers as writers and how writing experiences impact teachers candidates’ writing pedagogy

Microfluidic integration of photonic crystal fibers for online photochemical reaction analysis

Liquid-filled hollow-core photonic crystal fibers (HC-PCFs) are perfect optofluidic channels, uniquely providing low-loss optical guidance in a liquid medium. As a result, the overlap of the dissolved specimen and the intense light field in the micronsized core is increased manyfold compared to conventional bioanalytical techniques, facilitating highly-efficient photoactivation processes. Here we introduce a novel integrated analytical technology for photochemistry by microfluidic coupling of a HC-PCF nanoflow reactor to supplementary detection devices. Applying a continuous flow through the fiber, we deliver photochemical reaction products to a mass spectrometer in an online and hence rapid fashion, which is highly advantageous over conventional cuvette-based approaches

Identity change and the human dissection experience over the first year of medical training

The aim of this study is to explore identity change in medical students over their first year of medical training, particularly in relation to their experience of human dissection. Each of our four participants completed two repertory grids at the end of term one and, again, towards the end of term three. One grid tapped their identity construction, and the other, their experience of human dissection. Our participants were optimistic about becoming similar to a doctor they admired and, towards the end of term three, began to develop a stable identity as a medical student. Their identity constructs involved three common themes: dedication, competence, and responsibility. However, the data also revealed negative reactions to the demands of training, such as feeling driven and stressed. Three major themes were apparent in their experience of human dissection: involvement, emotional coping, and ability. Our participants’ dedication to their studies was reflected in their appreciation of the need to become involved actively in the process of dissection but some experienced an erosion of their self-confidence and perceived some of their colleagues to have lost much of their enthusiasm for learning. Emotional coping could be an additional challenge within this context and their reaction tended to reflect distancing processes previously identified in the literature. In all, we see a development of a vulnerable sense of professionalism alongside a frustration of losing out potentially on wider aspects of personal development due to the high work demands

Lesson Study: Developing a Knowledge Base for Elementary Writing Instruction

Concern about students\u27 writing skills has led to recommendations that elementary teachers receive more professional development in how to teach writing (National Commission on Writing, 2006). However, there is currently little evidence about the knowledge teachers need to teach writing well, and it is therefore difficult for teacher educators to design effective professional development experiences. What is needed is a better understanding of the knowledge base that informs teaching writing to elementary children. One possible means of gathering evidence about this knowledge base is through a collaborative teacher research process known as lesson study (Hiebert, Gallimore, & Stigler, 2002; Lewis, Perry, & Murata, 2006). Lesson study engages teachers in planning, evaluating, and improving lessons, so the process generates knowledge teachers find useful for their practice and may provide a mechanism for identifying some of the knowledge needed to teach writing. The goal of this study was to explore that possibility by describing the knowledge about writing instruction that elementary teachers generated through the lesson study process. This qualitative case study drew on complexity theory (Davis & Sumara, 2006), to conceptualize lesson study as a knowledge producing process and the lesson study groups who participated as knowledge producing systems. It addressed two main questions: (1) How did the lesson study systems enable and constrain the knowledge about writing instruction that emerged through them? and (2) What was the nature and content of the knowledge about writing instruction that emerged through the lesson study systems? Four lesson study groups, two in each of two elementary schools, participated. Data was collected through videotaping the lesson study sessions, collecting the documents the groups created during the lesson study process, and interviewing the participants after the lesson study cycle ended. The findings indicated that instances of over constraint, under constraint, and enabling constraint occurred in each lesson study group and that the groups produced knowledge that varied in content and nature. In general, instances of enabling constraint produced knowledge that fit the criteria for professional knowledge outlined by lesson study proponents (Hiebert, Gallimore, & Stigler, 2002). Instances of over constraint and under constraint produced knowledge that did not fit the professional knowledge criteria. This knowledge may therefore be less useful for teachers outside the lesson study groups than for the teachers who generated it. The findings suggests that lesson study can, but does not always, produce knowledge suitable for the professional knowledge base for teaching writing. The implication is that, if lesson study groups are to generate knowledge for the knowledge base, they must be organized is such a way that they prompt enabling constraint within themselves

Performance Anxiety in the Young Child

The purpose of this study was to examine the interrelationships among state and trait anxiety, physiological changes, and performance in school-aged children. It was predicted that older children would have higher trait anxiety scores. High state anxiety was expected to raise pulse rates and lower performance for both age levels. Twenty-one kindergarten students and seventeen third-grade students served as subjects. The children completed the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory for Children. They learned an age appropriate song and performed this song at home and at a concert. Pulse rates were measured both at home and the concert. Statistical analysis showed that the older children did not have higher T-anxiety scores. State anxiety was related to lower performance for the older children only. Even though pulse rates at performances increased over resting rates, pulse rates were not related to state anxiety. However, state anxiety was related to setting. The results from this study confirmed the complex relationship between anxiety and performance. This complexity must be kept in mind when considering the effects of educational practices on anxiety levels

Bayesian hierarchical clustering for studying cancer gene expression data with unknown statistics

Clustering analysis is an important tool in studying gene expression data. The Bayesian hierarchical clustering (BHC) algorithm can automatically infer the number of clusters and uses Bayesian model selection to improve clustering quality. In this paper, we present an extension of the BHC algorithm. Our Gaussian BHC (GBHC) algorithm represents data as a mixture of Gaussian distributions. It uses normal-gamma distribution as a conjugate prior on the mean and precision of each of the Gaussian components. We tested GBHC over 11 cancer and 3 synthetic datasets. The results on cancer datasets show that in sample clustering, GBHC on average produces a clustering partition that is more concordant with the ground truth than those obtained from other commonly used algorithms. Furthermore, GBHC frequently infers the number of clusters that is often close to the ground truth. In gene clustering, GBHC also produces a clustering partition that is more biologically plausible than several other state-of-the-art methods. This suggests GBHC as an alternative tool for studying gene expression data. The implementation of GBHC is available at https://sites. google.com/site/gaussianbhc

Identifying Coalitions

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/68781/2/10.1177_104649647901000304.pd

Teacher Professional Learning in a Writing-as-Making MOOC

Teaching students to compose multimodal, digital writing is imperative in today’s world. Yet, few teachers feel prepared to effectively teach writing, particularly digital composing. This study investigated the design and implementation of an online professional development, Writing-as-Making Massive Open Online Collaboration(wmMOOC). In its design, wmMOOC drew upon elements of the maker movement, principles of connected learning, and the social practices of the National Writing Project. Results indicate that participants took ownership over their writing/making and learning processes and engaged in risk-taking—two necessary stances for creating effective digital compositions. However, they did not critically evaluate the traditional writing in their curriculum, indicate that writing-as-making changed their views of writing instruction, or implement writing-as-making with their students. This study provides insights into how to design effective online professional development for supporting teachers’ learning about digital composing and writing-as-making