Transforming High School Teaching and Learning: A District-wide Design

High school improvement is one of the most pressing issues facing American education but little attention has been paid to reform strategies that will improve teaching and learning. Drawing on the expertise of teachers, principals, superintendents, policy makers and researchers, a new paper from the Aspen Institute Program on Education, Transforming High School Teaching and Learning: A District-wide Design by Aspen Senior Fellow Judy Wurtzel, offers both a new framework and concrete suggestions for a new approach to high school improvement across an urban school district. The data on high school student performance and graduation rates make clear that significant increases in student achievement are necessary if all students are to graduate from high school fully prepared for post-secondary education, citizenship, and work. Recent high school reform has focused on organizational aspects of high school, particularly creating a wide variety of smaller schools, smaller learning communities, and alternative learning pathways to meet the needs of young people. However, while smaller schools may create the relationships and conditions that make high quality instruction possible, improved instruction and achievement does not flow directly from them. Given this track record, questions facing the high school reform movement include: -- What will it take to get high school instructional improvement that results in demonstrated increases in student learning? -- What supports do high school teachers need to be successful in improving instruction and from where will they get them? -- What changes affecting the professional role, knowledge, and skills of teachers are needed if reforms are to be successful? Though the ideas represented in the paper are not new -- some school districts and states have implemented some of elements described -- what is useful is the attempt to lay out a fairly comprehensive picture of high school instructional reform and to push the conversation about high school instructional improvement into some new territory. First, the paper builds on work done in many urban districts at the K- 8 level to create systems of "managed instruction," that is, deliberate efforts to align common curriculum and instructional materials, formative and benchmark assessments, extensive professional development, and instructional leaders who support a shared set of instructional practices. Second, the paper suggests how these approaches can be developed and implemented in ways that are both consistent with and reinforcing of a robust vision of teacher professionalism. Third, the paper recognizes the urgency of attracting and retaining a teacher workforce that embraces this new job description for high school teachers and can effect improvements in student learning. Finally, it is useful to note that this paper focuses primarily on the district role in improving high school instruction. This is because it seems increasingly clear that school districts are a key unit for instructional improvement. However, much of what is described here could be initiated or supported by states, by consortia of districts, or by networks of managed schools within or across districts

Symmetry For Symmetry’s Sake: Why Bose Does Not Require Independent Review of a Trial Court’s First-Amendment-Favorable Findings of Fact

This Note argues that Bose does not support the symmetrical application of independent review of facts by appellate courts in First Amendment cases, regardless of whether the First Amendment claimant won or lost below. While symmetrical procedures and results may be desirable in most parts of the law, symmetry is not required where that symmetry will inhibit a greater constitutional interest. In the independent review context, symmetrical application of Bose results in the reversal of First Amendment wins that would otherwise be upheld under clear error review. This result is clearly antithetical to Bose’s purpose of enhancing First Amendment protections

Becoming an Artist: Embodying Emergent Art Making Practices

Absract: Written in layers, this creative essay invites the reader to consider the relationship between one’s own becoming and emergent practices in the teaching and making of art. Weaving between a discussion on the theoretical concept of becoming and emergence, along with a personal narrative presented with images, the author tries to demonstrate what emergence might feel like in the body while creating alongside-and-with her own child. From points of disruption to points of harmonizing with material and material bodies, this essay examines emergence through the lens of an embodied relationality and offers up potential ways to experience such practices

Reading the Rain in Rocks: A late deglacial speleothem record from Sumatra, Indonesia

The Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) is a key component of Hadley cell circulation. In the Indo-Pacific Warm Pool (IPWP) region, the seasonal migration of the ITCZ defines much of the precipitation variability over the Maritime Continent. The seasonal migration of the ITCZ in this region is also closely related to the Australasian monsoon, which brings critical rainfall to Asia and Indo-Australia, cumulatively home to approximately 40% of the global population. On interannual timescales, rainfall in the IPWP region is also connected with zonal climate variability of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation and Indian Ocean Dipole systems. Understanding the IPWP’s climate sensitivities is therefore crucial to the improvement of long-term prediction of rainfall and drought. Abrupt changes in Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) are known to have affected the strength of the Asian monsoon during glacial and deglacial climate states. However, there is still much uncertainty around the hydroclimate response of the IPWP region to abrupt climate changes in the North Atlantic. Speleothems are powerful archives for paleoclimatic reconstruction, providing absolute-dated and often highly-resolved records of past climate. Several speleothem oxygen-isotope (δ18O) records from the central IPWP and Asian summer monsoon regions provide decadally-resolved time-series of past rainfall variability since the last glacial period. Many studies have suggested a southward shift in the ITCZ in the IPWP region during phases of reduced AMOC. However, existing IPWP proxies have seasonal biases and conflicting responses, making it difficult to determine the true extent of North Atlantic forcing in this climatically important region. In Chapter 2 of this thesis, I present a precisely-dated, high-resolution record of eastern Indian Ocean hydroclimate variability spanning the last 16 ky (thousand years) from δ18O measurements in an aragonite-calcite speleothem from central Sumatra. This represents the western-most speleothem record from the IPWP region and fills an important spatial gap in terrestrial hydroclimate, facilitating assessment of Warm Pool sensitivity at its lateral extent. Petrographic and geochemical analysis reveals that the sample is principally composed of aragonite but is punctuated by intervals of primary calcite growth. In addition to mineralogical determination by Raman spectroscopy, trace element analysis by laser ablation ICP-MS reveals strongly antiphased behaviour between magnesium and strontium attributed to the strong preference of those elements for the calcite and aragonite lattices, respectively. In Chapter 4, this relationship is utilized to develop a quantitative correction for the stable isotope fractionation offset between the two calcium carbonate polymorphs identified in the speleothem and to quantify partitioning coefficients for those elements into aragonite. The corrected δ18O record demonstrates a clear deglacial structure that includes 18O enrichment during the Younger Dryas (~12.9-11.7 ka; thousand years ago) and 18O depletion during the Bølling-Allerød (~14.7-12.9 ka), similar to the pattern seen in speleothems of the Asian and Indian monsoon realms. In contrast, other speleothem records from the IPWP show slight increases or no change in δ18O during the Younger Dryas. To better interpret the spatial pattern of speleothem δ18O change during the Younger Dryas, Chapter 3 uses back-trajectory air parcel analysis to identify primary moisture source regions and seasonal distributions of moisture to IPWP speleothem sites. This information is evaluated alongside modelled GISS ModelE-R vapour source distributions to evaluate how moisture sources may have changed during simulated hosing events analogous to the Younger Dryas. Chapter 4 considers the environmental controls that could account for the mineralogy of the Sumatran speleothem sample. Shifts between aragonite and calcite phases in the speleothem are partly driven by environmental variability, with aragonite associated with drier phases like the Younger Dryas and calcite generally associated with increased detrital material. However, these changes are more likely to be related to cave hydrology and filtration rates than directly reflective of rainfall amounts. Together, this research establishes a robust basis for interpreting the climatic history retained in the 16 ky speleothem δ18O record for Tangga Cave and provides context relative to other speleothem records from the Indo-Pacific Warm Pool region. This work demonstrates the extended reach of North Atlantic abrupt forcing into the eastern tropical Indian Ocean, supporting this conclusion with systematic analysis of the modern hydroclimate system through use of isotope enabled climate models and back-trajectory air parcel analysis

Planarian Epidermal Stem Cells Respond to Positional Cues to Promote Cell-Type Diversity

Successful regeneration requires that progenitors of different lineages form the appropriate missing cell types. However, simply generating lineages is not enough. Cells produced by a particular lineage often have distinct functions depending on their position within the organism. How this occurs in regeneration is largely unexplored. In planarian regeneration, new cells arise from a proliferative cell population (neoblasts). We used the planarian epidermal lineage to study how the location of adult progenitor cells results in their acquisition of distinct functional identities. Single-cell RNA sequencing of epidermal progenitors revealed the emergence of distinct spatial identities as early in the lineage as the epidermal neoblasts, with further pre-patterning occurring in their post-mitotic migratory progeny. Establishment of dorsal-ventral epidermal identities and functions, in response to BMP signaling, required neoblasts. Our work identified positional signals that activate regionalized transcriptional programs in the stem cell population and subsequently promote cell-type diversity in the epidermis.National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (Grant R01GM080639

Advisement and Collaboration

Describes a collaboration between two Bank Street College advisees who had different strengths and levels of experience within the classroom

Maize Provitamin A Carotenoids, Current Resources, and Future Metabolic Engineering Challenges

Vitamin A deficiency is a serious global health problem that can be alleviated by improved nutrition. Development of cereal crops with increased provitamin A carotenoids can provide a sustainable solution to eliminating vitamin A deficiency worldwide. Maize is a model for cereals and a major staple carbohydrate source. Here, we discuss maize carotenogenesis with regard to pathway regulation, available resources, and current knowledge for improving carotenoid content and levels of provitamin A carotenoids in edible maize endosperm. This knowledge will be applied to improve the nutritional composition of related Poaceae crops. We discuss opportunities and challenges for optimizing provitamin A carotenoid biofortification of cereal food crops

Methods for cell isolation and analysis of the highly regenerative tunicate Polycarpa mytiligera

Background:Polycarpa mytiligera is the only molecularly characterized solitary ascidian capable of regenerating all organs and tissue types. The cellular basis for regeneration in P. mytiligera is largely unknown, and methods for isolating live cells from this species for functional analyses are unavailable.Results: Here, we developed a method for isolating live cells from P. mytiligera, overcoming major experimental challenges, including the dissociation of its thick body wall and native cellular autofluorescence. We demonstrated the applicability of our approach for tissue dissociation and cell analysis using three flow cytometry platforms, and by using broadly used non-species-specific cell labeling reagents. In addition to live cell isolation, proof-of-concept experiments showed that this approach was compatible with gene expression analysis of RNA extracted from the isolated cells, and with ex vivo analysis of phagocytosis.Conclusion: We presented efficient methods for cell purification from a highly regenerative ascidian, which could be transferable to diversity of non-model marine organisms. The ability to purify live cells will promote future studies of cell function in P. mytiligera regeneration

A Risk Worth Taking: Incorporating Visual Culture Into Museum Practices.

As a museum educator who embraces social education and reflects on the postmodern condition, I found working within a traditional museum context to present challenges. As a result, I conducted an action research project focusing on ways to improve my own practice and affect change based on my engagement with visual culture discourse and the docents I teach. Having chosen action research, I implemented various teaching approaches and collected data over the course of several months. These data collection methods included interviews, museum documents, observational notes, recorded teaching practice, and daily journal entries. Narrative analysis was then used to interpret the collected data, specifically focusing how participants, including myself, make sense out of our experiences and how we value them

MECHANISTIC ASPECTS OF CAROTENOID BIOSYNTHESIS

This document is the Accepted Manuscript version of a Published Work that appeared in final form in Chemical Reviews, copyright © American Chemical Society after peer review and technical editing by the publisher. To access the final edited and published work see http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/cr400106