“I Needed to Rediscover who I Really Was”: An Inquiry into the Impacts of one Graduate Teacher Education Program for Early Elementary Teachers

This paper reports on the impacts on teachers of a new Masters in Education program developed for early elementary teachers at one small Canadian university. Central to the program are concepts of the child as competent and capable, and a view of professional learning as democratic, critically reflective and a way to enhance teacher agency. Our findings are based on interviews and focus group conversations with several members of one of the cohorts who completed the program. In our thematic analysis we determined that teachers reported changes in their practices including slowing down and listening to children as well as increased flexibility and ability to relinquish control. Additionally, teachers spoke of increased confidence in themselves and the children in their classrooms as a result of participating in this program.Keywords: early elementary grades, graduate teacher education, early elementary pedagogy, democratic professional learning, teachers’ agencyCet article fait état des impacts sur les enseignants d’un nouveau programme de maitrise en éducation développé par une petite université canadienne pour les enseignants du primaire. Le programme est centré sur le concept selon lequel l’enfant est compétent et capable, et sur une perspective de l’apprentissage professionnel comme étant un processus de réflexion critique qui est démocratique et susceptible d’augmenter chez les enseignants le sentiment de pouvoir agir. Nos résultats découlent d’entrevues et de conversations avec des groupes de discussion impliquant plusieurs membres d’une cohorte ayant complété le programme. Notre analyse thématique révèle que les enseignants ont signalé des changements dans leurs pratiques; entre autres, ils ont indiqué qu’ils ralentissaient et écoutaient les élèves, étaient plus souples et se sentaient en mesure de céder le contrôle. De plus, les enseignants ont reconnu que leur participation au programme avait entrainé une augmentation de leur confiance en soi et en les élèves.Mots clés : premières années du primaire, études supérieures en enseignement, pédagogie des premières années du primaire, sentiment chez les enseignants de pouvoir agir

Making the Invisible of Learning Visible: Pre-service Teachers Identify Connections between the Use of Literacy Strategies and their Content Area Assessment Practices

In this paper we describe four ways secondary pre-service teachers appeared to be developing assessment practices during field experience, after taking a content area literacy course. This paper arises from a multi-year study exploring pre-service and beginning content area teachers’ use of literacy strategies in teaching mathematics, science, and other content areas. Pre-service teachers’ descriptions of their teaching revealed how they understood assessment and literacy practices during field experience as intertwined and symbiotic. Pre-service teachers discussed the use of literacy strategies as multi-faceted and serving multiple assessment purposes in their classrooms, enabling them to better understand student learning by making the invisible processes of thinking visible. Dans cet article, nous décrivons quatre façons dont les enseignants en formation semblaient développer des pratiques d’évaluation pendant une expérience sur le terrain et après avoir suivi un cours en alphabétisation aux contenus adaptés. Les résultats découlent d’une étude pluriannuelle portant sur l’emploi de stratégies en alphabétisation par des enseignants en formation et des enseignants débutants offrant des cours de maths, de sciences et d’autres disciplines.  Les descriptions par les enseignants en formation de leur enseignement ont révélé que pendant l’expérience sur le terrain, ils ont compris le lien serré et symbiotique entre l’évaluation et les pratiques en alphabétisation. Les enseignants en formation ont également décrit leurs stratégies en matière d’alphabétisation comme étant multidimensionnelles et aptes à satisfaire à plusieurs objectifs d’évaluation dans leurs classes, ce qui rendait visibles les processus invisibles de réflexion et leur permettait ainsi de mieux comprendre l’apprentissage par leurs élèves. 

Inquiring into Pre-service Content Area Teachers’ Development of Literacy Practices and Pedagogical Content Knowledge

The focus of this qualitative multi-year case study is on pre-service teachers’ experiences related to the development of their literacy practices in teaching high school science, math, social studies and other content area courses during their final field placement in a teacher education program. Results indicate tangible indicators of overall growth in participants’ developing pedagogical content knowledge as well differences in the depth of their learning. All participants willingly supported the idea of integrating literacy in content area courses, but their successes were somewhat uneven, and reflective of their evolving pedagogical content knowledge, as they attempted to make literacy practices a regular part of their teaching practices. Our findings should be of interest to teacher education programs and school districts in supporting pre-service and beginning teachers as they develop their practices as teachers of literacy in content areas

Problematizing Complexities and Pedagogy in Teacher Education Programs: Enacting Knowledge in a Narrative Inquiry Teacher Education Discourse Community

This article describes how a cross-Canada cohort of teacher educators identified the benefits of participating in a narrative inquiry teacher education discourse community. The community enables conscious dialogue regarding the legitimacy of teacher knowledge, identification of personal and professional issues within educational contexts, and connections between local issues and global trends. Three themes are explored: (1) development of a non-hierarchical community, (2) unravelling of complexities in light of external pressures, and (3) personal ethical responses to current challenges. Teacher educator knowledge is deepened by providing a relational venue to attend to educational reform and programmatic complexity by grounding practices in collaborative experience

Swirls of FIRE: spatially resolved gas velocity dispersions and star formation rates in FIRE-2 disc environments

We study the spatially resolved (sub-kpc) gas velocity dispersion (σ)–star formation rate (SFR) relation in the FIRE-2 (Feedback in Realistic Environments) cosmological simulations. We specifically focus on Milky Way-mass disc galaxies at late times (z ≈ 0). In agreement with observations, we find a relatively flat relationship, with σ ≈ 15–30 km s⁻¹ in neutral gas across 3 dex in SFRs. We show that higher dense gas fractions (ratios of dense gas to neutral gas) and SFRs are correlated at constant σ. Similarly, lower gas fractions (ratios of gas to stellar mass) are correlated with higher σ at constant SFR. The limits of the σ–Σ_(SFR) relation correspond to the onset of strong outflows. We see evidence of ‘on-off’ cycles of star formation in the simulations, corresponding to feedback injection time-scales of 10–100 Myr, where SFRs oscillate about equilibrium SFR predictions. Finally, SFRs and velocity dispersions in the simulations agree well with feedback-regulated and marginally stable gas disc (Toomre’s Q = 1) model predictions, and the simulation data effectively rule out models assuming that gas turns into stars at (low) constant efficiency (i.e. 1 per cent per free-fall time). And although the simulation data do not entirely exclude gas accretion/gravitationally powered turbulence as a driver of σ, it appears to be subdominant to stellar feedback in the simulated galaxy discs at z ≈ 0

Swirls of FIRE: spatially resolved gas velocity dispersions and star formation rates in FIRE-2 disc environments

We study the spatially resolved (sub-kpc) gas velocity dispersion (sigma)-star formation rate (SFR) relation in the FIRE-2 (Feedback in Realistic Environments) cosmological simulations. We specifically focus on Milky Way-mass disc galaxies at late times (z approximate to 0). In agreement with observations, we find a relatively flat relationship, with sigma approximate to N 15-30 km s(-1) in neutral gas across 3 dex in SFRs. We show that higher dense gas fractions (ratios of dense gas to neutral gas) and SFRs arc correlated at constant sigma. Similarly, lower gas fractions (ratios of gas to stellar mass) are correlated with higher sigma at constant SFR. The limits of the sigma-Sigma(SFR) relation correspond to the onset of strong outflows. We see evidence of 'on-off' cycles of star formation in the simulations, corresponding to feedback injection time-scales of 10-100 Myr, where SFRs oscillate about equilibrium SFR predictions. Finally, SFRs and velocity dispersions in the simulations agree well with feedback-regulated and marginally stable gas disc (Toomre's Q = 1) model predictions, and the simulation data effectively rule out models assuming that gas turns into stars at (low) constant efficiency (i.e. 1 per cent per free-fall time). And although the simulation data do not entirely exclude gas accretion/gravitationally powered turbulence as a driver of sigma, it appears to be subdominant to stellar feedback in the simulated galaxy discs at z approximate to 0.MEO is grateful for the encouragement of his late father, SRO, in studying astrophysics, and is supported by the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship under grant no. 1144469. The authors are grateful to the referee for their comments and providing useful suggestions. The Flatiron Institute is supported by the Simons Foundation. Support for AMM is provided by NASA through Hubble Fellowship grant #HST-HF2-51377 awarded by the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., for NASA, under contract NAS5-26555. Support for PFH was provided by an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Research Fellowship, NASA ATP grant NNX14AH35G, and NSF Collaborative Research grant #1411920 and CAREER grant #1455342. CAFG was supported by NSF through grants AST-1517491, AST-1715216, and CAREER award AST-1652522, by 0:funding-source 3:href="http://dx.doi.o rg/10.13039/100000104" NASA /0:funding-source through grant 17-ATP17-0067, and by a Cottrell Scholar Award from the Research Corporation for Science Advancement. DK acknowledges support from the NSF Grant AST-1412153 and Cottrell Scholar Award from the Research Corporation for Science Advancement. EQ was supported by NASA ATP grant 12-ATP12-0183, a Simons Investigator award from the Simons Foundation, and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. AW received support from NASA, through ATP grant 80NSSC18K1097 and HST grants GO-14734 and AR-15057 from STScI, the Heising-Simons Foundation, and a Hellman Foundation Fellowship

SUMO Pathway Dependent Recruitment of Cellular Repressors to Herpes Simplex Virus Type 1 Genomes

Components of promyelocytic leukaemia (PML) nuclear bodies (ND10) are recruited to sites associated with herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) genomes soon after they enter the nucleus. This cellular response is linked to intrinsic antiviral resistance and is counteracted by viral regulatory protein ICP0. We report that the SUMO interaction motifs of PML, Sp100 and hDaxx are required for recruitment of these repressive proteins to HSV-1 induced foci, which also contain SUMO conjugates and PIAS2β, a SUMO E3 ligase. SUMO modification of PML and elements of its tripartite motif (TRIM) are also required for recruitment in cells lacking endogenous PML. Mutants of PML isoform I and hDaxx that are not recruited to virus induced foci are unable to reproduce the repression of ICP0 null mutant HSV-1 infection mediated by their wild type counterparts. We conclude that recruitment of ND10 components to sites associated with HSV-1 genomes reflects a cellular defence against invading pathogen DNA that is regulated through the SUMO modification pathway

A genome-wide association study of early menopause and the combined impact of identified variants

Early menopause (EM) affects up to 10% of the female population, reducing reproductive lifespan considerably. Currently, it constitutes the leading cause of infertility in the western world, affecting mainly those women who postpone their first pregnancy beyond the age of 30 years. The genetic aetiology of EM is largely unknown in the majority of cases. We have undertaken a meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies (GWASs) in 3493 EM cases and 13 598 controls from 10 independent studies. No novel genetic variants were discovered, but the 17 variants previously associated with normal age at natural menopause as a quantitative trait (QT) were also associated with EM and primary ovarian insufficiency (POI). Thus, EM has a genetic aetiology which overlaps variation in normal age at menopause and is at least partly explained by the additive effects of the same polygenic variants. The combined effect of the common variants captured by the single nucleotide polymorphism arrays was estimated to account for ∼30% of the variance in EM. The association between the combined 17 variants and the risk of EM was greater than the best validated non-genetic risk factor, smokin