(1991). A System for Statewide Sharing of Resources: A Case Study of ACCESS PENNSYLVANIA. School Library Media Quarterly, v20 n1 p19-23 Fall. ACCESS PENNSYLVANIA is a statewide database that combines resources of over 500 academic, public, special, and school libraries in Pennsylvania. This article discusses the program's background and stresses the commitment its members must make to serve the state's population through resource sharing. It focuses in particular on the incentive the program provides for school library media centers to automate. (Author/MAB)…
(1998). High School Renewal in South Carolina: An Angry Response to Abandonment. NASSP Bulletin, v82 n596 p66-73 Mar. Feeling angry and abandoned over losing a cooperative training center, South Carolina high school educators began a series of "what next?" conversations. Following two information-sharing conferences, 17 high schools and the University of South Carolina formed a school-university partnership called the South Carolina High School Renewal Network for Teacher and Administrator Renewal. Success hinges on partners' mutual respect. (MLH)…
(2001). "Dangerous Indians": Evaluating the Depiction of Native Americans in Selected Trade Books. Urban Education, v36 n3 p400-25 May. Examined trade books regarding their accuracy in depicting Native Americans. Criteria embodied an authenticity guideline based on Five Great Values (e.g., generosity and sharing, coexisting with nature, and courage). Over half of the books had at least satisfactory depictions. Bias and stereotyping persisted enough to recommend using the guideline to help educators identify these problems in instructional materials. (SM)…
(2000). A Qualitative Analysis of an Intensive Mentor-Apprentice Collaboration: MAC. Journal of Research and Development in Education, v33 n4 p241-56 Sum. Examined the evolution of a formal mentoring program, Mentor-Apprentice Collaboration, over 1 year, describing what the elementary-level beginning and mentor teachers learned from the experience. Participant interviews highlighted several productive mentoring strategies: sharing concerns and joys; building a sense of team; and establishing trust, dialogue, and affirmation. Both mentors and apprentices felt they benefitted from the experience. (SM)…
(2012). Race to the Top. District of Columbia. State-Reported APR: Year One. US Department of Education This paper describes the District of Columbia's progress in implementing a comprehensive and coherent approach to education reform from the time of application through June 30, 2011. In particular, this report highlights key accomplishments over the reporting period in the four reform areas: standards and assessments, data systems to support instruction, great teachers and leaders, and turning around lowest-achieving schools. Washington, DC has made significant progress in implementing a comprehensive approach to education in the four core reform areas since receiving the Race to the Top grant. Highlights of this report include: (1) Race to the Top has collaborated with the Division of Standards, Assessment and Accountability to create an aggressive Common Core Standards Roll-out Plan for the District. Each LEA (local educational agency) will implement the Common Core Standards beginning in school year 2011-12. During the spring and summer of 2011, OSSE (Office of the State… [PDF]
(1997). Eavesdropping on Change: Listening to Teachers during the First Year of an Extended Block Schedule. NASSP Bulletin, v81 n593 p42-52 Dec. The discussion that transpired in Fremont, Nebraska, over one academic year depicted faculty's struggles and growth as they wrestled with their school's significant change to block scheduling. Conversations demonstrate a staff moving from block-implementation stresses in the first quarter to a focus on teaching and learning in the fourth quarter. Sharing sessions succeeded because teachers participated voluntarily, led discussions, and addressed important themes. (MLH)…
(1998). Not Extinct! School Libraries for Learning and Leadership. Knowledge Quest, v26 n2 p42-47 Jan-Feb. Library Media Center 2000 (LMC2000) focuses on school library media services, technology, training, and advocacy–restructuring information and meeting linguistic, cultural, and multimedia learning needs. Over the last three years, San Francisco, California library media specialists have engaged in a process of professional development, networking and communication; they have supported each other while learning to use new technologies and sharing areas of expertise and resources. (Author)…
(2014). Efficient Representation and Matching of Texts and Images in Scanned Book Collections. ProQuest LLC, Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Massachusetts Amherst. Millions of books from public libraries and private collections have been scanned by various organizations in the last decade. The motivation is to preserve the written human heritage in electronic format for durable storage and efficient access. The information buried in these large book collections has always been of major interest for scholars from various disciplines. Several interesting research problems can be defined over large collections of scanned books given their corresponding optical character recognition (OCR) outputs. At the highest level, one can view the entire collection as a whole and discover interesting contextual relationships or linkages between the books. A more traditional approach is to consider each scanned book separately and perform information search and mining at the book level. Here we also show that one can view each book as a whole composed of chapters, sections, paragraphs, sentences, words or even characters positioned in a particular sequential… [Direct]
(2008). Good Teaching Is a Conversation. Horace, v24 n1 Spr. Teaching is a messy profession, the details of teachers' work are tightly woven into the myriad ways of humans. Even with uncertainty, teachers do improve their practice. In this article, the author describes how she moved her thinking forward over 35 years as an increasingly experienced teacher. Like many CES teachers, the ways that she has increased her knowledge, or learned new things, have come through a wide array of sources, some of which have been book- or research-based, and some of which have been through formal professional development. At the same time, a lot of her growth, especially once she settled in at Fenway High School, came through conversations with others, watching their head of school or another teacher taking risks and analyzing with them afterward. All of them trying to make really good, informed guesses. They are watching for good results, and then figuring out and sharing with others through talk why their efforts did or didn't work. The author contends that… [PDF] [Direct]
(1975). Toward a Theory of Leisure and Marital Interaction: A Test and Reformulation. This paper examines the relationship between the extent of shared participation of husbands and wives in leisure activities and the extent of communication and task sharing in the marriage. Because marriage is an interactional system and leisure activities vary in their interactional requirements, a theory is proposed linking leisure activity patterns to marital interaction. The hypotheses generated by the theory were tested on a random sample of 223 husbands and 228 wives. The results indicate that interaction in leisure activities is related to interaction in marriage but that this relationship varies over the marital career. Also, it was found that the hypothesized relationship was greater when openness of communication was used as the marital interaction indicator compared to household task sharing. The theory is then reformulated in light of the data analysis. (Author)… [PDF]
(1972). Effects of Noise on Small Group Interaction. This study reports an analysis of the effects of moderate levels of noise on task performance of an interacting group. Groups of students first interacted in information-sharing discussions under varying conditions of noise and then responded to an objective test over the shared information and to a series of semantic differential scales designed to measure their subjective responses to noise. Four groups of five subjects each were assigned to each of three experimental conditions and one control condition. Measures were obtained of group task performance and of subjective perceptions of noise under conditions that included 50, 60, and 70 dBC levels. Results showed that performance on information-sharing tasks by small groups was unaffected by moderate levels of outside noise, although there were differences in the subjects' perceptions of the noise. (Author/RN)… [PDF]
(2004). Self-Regulation and Affective Expression during Play in Children with Autism or Down Syndrome: A Short-Term Longitudinal Study. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, v34 n4 p439-448 Aug. Our study examined stability of self-regulation and affective expression in children with autism or Down syndrome over a 2 year period. A behaviorally anchored rating scale was used to assess a self-regulation factor (attention, adaptability, object orientation, and persistence), negative affect factor (hostility, irritability, and compliance), and positive affect factor (positive affect, affective sharing, and dull affect) from videotapes of play sessions involving each child and his or her mother. The patterns of ratings within each group were similar from time 1 to time 2, with the autism group showing more deviant ratings on measures of self regulation and affective sharing. From time 1 to time 2, children with autism showed relatively high stability for the self-regulation factor, but less stability than children with Down syndrome for all three factors…. [Direct]
(2010). Facilitating Case Reuse during Problem Solving in Algebra-Based Physics. ProQuest LLC, Ph.D. Dissertation, Kansas State University. This research project investigates students' development of problem solving schemata while using strategies that facilitate the process of using solved examples to assist with a new problem (case reuse). Focus group learning interviews were used to explore students' perceptions and understanding of several problem solving strategies. Individual clinical interviews were conducted and quantitative examination data were collected to assess students' conceptual understanding, knowledge organization, and problem solving performance on a variety of problem tasks. The study began with a short one-time treatment of two independent, research-based strategies chosen to facilitate case reuse. Exploration of students' perceptions and use of the strategies lead investigators to select one of the two strategies to be implemented over a full semester of focus group interviews. The strategy chosen was structure mapping. Structure maps are defined as visual representations of quantities and… [Direct]
(2010). How Schools Can Effectively Plan to Meet the Goal of Improving Student Learning. ProQuest LLC, D.Ed. Dissertation, University of Minnesota. Purpose. The purpose of the study was to identify the impact on achievement when schools implement a continuous improvement model using Total Quality Management (TQM) principles aligned to strategic planning and the culture of the school. Data collection and analysis. The study combined qualitative and quantitative methods and was conducted in two phases. Three elementary schools within a suburban school district were the units of analysis in this case study. The district was chosen because of the stable commitment to training in TQM and because the researcher had access to data about the district, the schools and the initiative. The sampling intentionally selected schools representing varying levels of socioeconomic and cultural diversity. Phase I involved the administration of the \University of Minnesota School Culture Survey\. The questionnaire addressed the implementation of TQM principles and was administered to a total of 65 teachers in three schools. The surveys were analyzed… [Direct]
(2010). Exploring Educational Material Needs and Resources for Children Living in Poverty. Online Submission, Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association (Denver, CO, Apr 30-May 4, 2010). The purpose of this study was two-fold. It was first to find out what the educational materials needs were for children living in poverty, and second, to learn of the challenges, obstacles, and strengths by the programs already in place that were supplying educational materials to these children. This study used interviews and surveys as data gathering methods. Of the 244 electronic surveys sent to educators around the U.S., 17 survey responses were returned from participants in California, Florida, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Mexico, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. In addition, 15 key informants were chosen because of their personal and professional knowledge about the specific needs for educational materials when dealing with children living in poverty. Results from the 32 educators in this study showed that books were the most needed item in both classrooms and in homes. All of the participants stated that any books or reading materials would be of help to the… [PDF]