Teaching Content Methods in a High School PDS: Navigating Curricular Tensions

As secondary methods instructors, we seek to integrate our courses within the context of our partner high school and to engage its staff in helping prepare our students. State and district mandates, however, often conflict with the pedagogy and content that guides our methods courses. In short, these mandates, whose ultimate goals are to increase student scores on high-stakes tests (especially at Title I schools), frequently do not align with the best practices described in contemporary educational research. In this article, we examine a highly rated unit plan developed by one teacher education candidate within a PDS-based methods course in regards to four theoretical frameworks: The National Council for the Social Studies A Vision of Powerful Teaching and Learning in the Social Studies position statement, Frey and Fisher’s Gradual Release of Learning model, the school district’s curriculum guide, and the PDS site principal’s explicit instructional messaging). The unit plan well supported assumptions posited by the NCSS position statement and the gradual release model, but offered less support for those required in the district curriculum guide or the principal’s message. Our findings illustrate a marked tension between the conflicting frameworks emphasized in our partner PDS site with that offered in our site-based methods courses

River Report. State of the Lower St. Johns River Basin, Florida: Water Quality, Fisheries, Aquatic Life, Contaminants, 2022.

https://digitalcommons.unf.edu/sotr/1012/thumbnail.jp

River Report. State of Lower St. JOhns River Basin, Florida: Water Quality, Fisheries, Aquatic Life, Contaminants, 2023

https://digitalcommons.unf.edu/sotr/1013/thumbnail.jp

The relation between cognitive and metacognitive strategic processing during a science simulation

Background: This investigation was designed to uncover the relations between students’ cognitive and metacognitive strategies used during a complex climate simulation. While cognitive strategy use during science inquiry has been studied, the factors related to this strategy use, such as concurrent metacognition, prior knowledge, and prior interest, have not been investigated in a multidimensional fashion. Aims: This study addressed current issues in strategy research by examining not only how metacognitive, surface-level, and deep-level strategies influence performance, but also how these strategies related to each other during a contextually relevant science simulation. Sample: The sample for this study consisted of 70 undergraduates from a mid-sized Southeastern university in the United States. These participants were recruited from both physical and life science (e.g., biology) and education majors to obtain a sample with variance in terms of their prior knowledge, interest, and strategy use. Methods: Participants completed measures of prior knowledge and interest about global climate change. Then, they were asked to engage in an online climate simulator for up to 30 min while thinking aloud. Finally, participants were asked to answer three outcome questions about global climate change. Results: Results indicated a poor fit for the statistical model of the frequency and level of processing predicting performance. However, a statistical model that independently examined the influence of metacognitive monitoring and control of cognitive strategies showed a very strong relation between the metacognitive and cognitive strategies. Finally, smallest space analysis results provided evidence that strategy use may be better captured in a multidimensional fashion, particularly with attention paid towards the combination of strategies employed. Conclusions: Conclusions drawn from the evidence point to the need for more dynamic, multidimensional models of strategic processing that account for the patterns of optimal and non-optimal strategy use. Additionally, analyses that can capture these complex patterns need to be further explored

But aren\u27t diesel engines just for big, smelly trucks? An interdisciplinary curriculum project for high school chemistry students

In a collaboration between the University of North Florida College of Education and Human Services and Sandalwood High School in Duval County, Florida, social studies and science education professors and a science teacher worked together to develop student understanding about the limited use of diesel-fueled cars in the United States when compared to the countries of Europe. On the basis of discussions with a Sandalwood science faculty member and calls for subject matter integration from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the National Research Council, the National Science Teachers Association, and the National Council on the Social Studies, we developed a collaborative teaching experience to both enhance high school science instruction and build stronger professional connections between college and high school faculty. Through this instruction, high school chemistry students examined the costs and benefits of using diesel vehicles and used this analysis to explain the differences between countries. This article illustrates conceptual planning processes used in developing inquiry-based classroom activities within a standards-based curriculum. © 2014 The American Chemical Society and Division of Chemical Education, Inc

Do We Do Dewey? Using a Dispositional Framework to Examine Reflection Within Internship Professional Development Plans

Our revised secondary teacher education professional development plan (PDP) project required preservice teachers to identify their teaching beliefs, use these beliefs to analyze practice, and create an action plan centered on a research question from this analysis. We predicted these plans would show evidence of Dewey\u27s (1964) reflective dispositions (open-mindedness, whole-heartedness, responsibility). We had two research questions to examine this assertion: 1) To what degree did our pre-service teachers\u27 PDPs show evidence of Dewey\u27s dispositions toward reflective practice? 2) What were the trends for each of these dispositions? Overall, the PDPs showed evidence of all reflective dispositions; however, the dispositions were unevenly represented. From this study, we recommend a more longitudinal and personalized approach to the PDP to make it more integral to the development of preservice teachers

Deconstructing meritocracy in the college classroom

The purpose of this article is to discuss meritocracy as it impacts our undergraduate college teaching. As college educators, we have come to realize how little students have been challenged to critically examine the notion of meritocracy. Seeking to understand why this is so and what we can do to engender a more nuanced understanding of how social class is structured and perpetuated across generations, we present an assessment of why the majority of students believe we live in a meritocratic society and how college educators can use specific activities to complicate this view. As we do this we include evidence of how social class and social mobility are structured and why an adherence to meritocracy is, we believe, an anathema to teaching for social justice

The effects of different types of text and individual differences on view complexity about genetically modified organisms

View change about socio-scientific issues has been well studied in the literature, but the change in the complexity of those views has not. In the current study, the change in the complexity of views about a specific scientific topic (i.e. genetically modified organisms; GMOs) and use of evidence in explaining those views was examined in relation to individual factors and type of text (informational, persuasive, or narrative). Undergraduate students completed measures of their prior views about GMOs their epistemic beliefs about the nature of science, and activities related to food consumption. Participants then read either an informational, persuasive, or narrative passage about GMOs and again answered a question related to their views about GMOs. Participants who read the persuasive passage decreased in the complexity of their views, while those who read the narrative and expository passage increased in the complexity of their views. Additionally, while cultural activities related to the complexity of individuals’ views during the pretest, these significant differences were not evident at posttest after the text intervention. These findings can be used to help scientists and teachers better understand how to communicate information critical to understanding complex science and environmental issues to the public and their students

landscapes of energies, a perspective on the energy transition

internationalInternational audienceThis chapter discusses the way in which cross-national comparison shall be approached. We assume that energy landscapes emerge at the crossroad of RE technology development and changes in current landscapes. We successively discuss different frameworks for approaching technology development and landscape change, before turning to the recent literature about landscape and renewable energy development. We conclude that cross-national comparison of landscapes of energies should be attentive to the type of landscape tradition at work in each country and account for the fact that the development of renewable energy endows these traditions with a renewed existence. Depending on the extent and the focus of the conflicts or controversies raised around RE projects, the method and focus of the analysis shall differ. © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015

Chromosome Xq23 is associated with lower atherogenic lipid concentrations and favorable cardiometabolic indices

Abstract Autosomal genetic analyses of blood lipids have yielded key insights for coronary heart disease (CHD). However, X chromosome genetic variation is understudied for blood lipids in large sample sizes. We now analyze genetic and blood lipid data in a high-coverage whole X chromosome sequencing study of 65,322 multi-ancestry participants and perform replication among 456,893 European participants. Common alleles on chromosome Xq23 are strongly associated with reduced total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, and triglycerides (min P = 8.5 × 10−72), with similar effects for males and females. Chromosome Xq23 lipid-lowering alleles are associated with reduced odds for CHD among 42,545 cases and 591,247 controls (P = 1.7 × 10−4), and reduced odds for diabetes mellitus type 2 among 54,095 cases and 573,885 controls (P = 1.4 × 10−5). Although we observe an association with increased BMI, waist-to-hip ratio adjusted for BMI is reduced, bioimpedance analyses indicate increased gluteofemoral fat, and abdominal MRI analyses indicate reduced visceral adiposity. Co-localization analyses strongly correlate increased CHRDL1 gene expression, particularly in adipose tissue, with reduced concentrations of blood lipids