1. Experimental and Quasi-Experimental Studies of Inquiry-Based Science Teaching: A Meta-Analysis
Author: Erin Marie Furtak, Tina Seidel, Heidi Iverson, and Derek C. Briggs
Source: Review of Educational Research, 2012, 82(3):300-329
Abstract: Although previous meta-analyses have indicated a connection between inquiry-based teaching and improved student learning, the type of instruction characterized as inquiry based has varied greatly, and few have focused on the extent to which activities are led by the teacher or student. This meta-analysis introduces a framework for inquiry-based teaching that distinguishes between cognitive features of the activity and degree of guidance given to students. This framework is used to code 37 experimental and quasi-experimental studies published between 1996 and 2006, a decade during which inquiry was the main focus of science education reform. The overall mean effect size is .50. Studies that contrasted epistemic activities or the combination of procedural, epistemic, and social activities had the highest mean effect sizes. Furthermore, studies involving teacher-led activities had mean effect sizes about .40 larger than those with student-led conditions. The importance of establishing the validity of the treatment construct in meta-analyses is also discussed.
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2. Does Raising the Bar Level the Playing Field?: Mathematics Curricular Intensification and Inequality in American High Schools, 1982–2004
Author: Thurston Domina and Joshua Saldana
Source: American Educational Research Journal, 2012, 49 (4): 685-708
Abstract: Over the past three decades, American high school students’ course taking has rapidly intensified. Between 1982 and 2004, for example, the proportion of high school graduates who earned credit in precalculus or calculus more than tripled. In this article, the authors investigate the consequences of mathematics curricular intensification for social stratification in American high schools. Using representative data from U.S. high school graduates in 1982, 1992, and 2004, the authors estimate changes in race-, class-, and skills-based inequality in advanced math course credit completion. Their analyses indicate that race, class, and skills gaps in geometry, Algebra II, and trigonometry completion have narrowed considerably over the study period. However, consistent with the theory of maximally maintained inequality, inequalities in calculus completion remain pronounced.
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3. "Alone in the Classroom" as Limit-Case: Reading the Circulation of Emotions in Education as Provocative Psychic Interruption
Author: Lewkowich, David
Source: Curriculum Inquiry, 2012, 42(4): 454-471
Abstract: As the boundaries of the body, the vicissitudes of psychic life, and the bonds of social existence can hardly themselves be regarded as straightforward facts, the everyday movements of teaching and learning likewise defy and resist understanding. There is always that which interferes, that which makes of education a problem of affect and human relation, rather than one of simple correspondence. Though we might wish it otherwise, "learning" is often not a matter of moving from ignorance to enlightenment, but something that proceeds instead through sometimes-unruly gaps and detours. In this article, I use a particular pedagogical limit-case, taken from Elizabeth Hay's (2011) "Alone in the Classroom," as a framing device for provoking a discussion on the emotional and psychic dynamics of teaching and learning. In the short episode that I look at from this novel, we are presented with the portrait of a young teacher who violently and gratuitously disciplines one of her students. In considering the place of emotion and affect in psychoanalytically oriented pedagogical discourse, and allowing that what we exclude necessarily returns in distorted form, I look at the potential uses of emotions as productive obstacles to learning, the presence of love and hate in the classroom, and the ways that moments of crises can sometimes allow for a creative reimagining of the world that we inhabit.
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4. Diversity in Teacher Education and Special Education:
The Issues That Divide
Author: Marilyn Cochran-Smith and Curt Dudley-Marling
Source: Journal of Teacher Education, 2012, 63(4):237-244
Abstract: This article explores the enduring fissure between general and special teacher education by focusing directly on the issues that divide these two fields. In the first part of the article, the authors describe their individual and shared positionalities as scholars and practitioners. Then the article examines differences in the disciplinary traditions that influence the work of general teacher educators and special teacher educators as well as issues related to deficit perspectives and access to the general curriculum. The authors suggest that the lack of a common underpinning is the central cross-cutting reason for the continued deep division between the diversity communities in the two fields. Despite this deep divide, the article argues that it is imperative to find collaborative spaces that have the potential to unite the diversity communities and build new synergies in general teacher education and special teacher education
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5. Complex Relationships Between Multicultural Education and Special Education: An African American Perspective
Author: Jacqueline Jordan Irvine
Source: Journal of Teacher Education, 2012, 63(4): 268-274
Abstract: Multicultural education and special education share historical roots, philosophies, theories, and pedagogies that provide unique opportunities to address the many challenges of underserved K-12 students. Without a more refined and critical analysis, however, the shared similarities could possibly mask the tensions and the complexities inherent in a relationship that directly confronts thorny and nuanced intersections of race, social class, gender, disability, and culture. This article focuses on the complexity of the relationship between multicultural education and special education from an African American perspective by exploring areas of divergence and conflict between special and multicultural education, specifically issues of disproportionate representation, cultural misunderstandings, tensions between home and school, and competition for limited resources. Finally, recommendations are offered that can more effectively prepare K-12 special education teachers who serve students who are culturally diverse and disabled.
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6. The Nature and Effects of Transformational School Leadership: A Meta-Analytic Review of Unpublished Research
Author: Kenneth Leithwood and Jingping Sun
Source: Educational Administration Quarterly, 2012, 48(3): 387-423
Abstract: Background: Using meta-analytic review techniques, this study synthesized the results of 79 unpublished studies about the nature of transformational school leadership (TSL) and its impact on the school organization, teachers, and students. This corpus of research associates TSL with 11 specific leadership practices. These practices, as a whole, have moderate positive effects on a wide range of consequential school conditions. They also have moderately strong and positive effects on individual teachers’ internal states, followed by their influence on teacher behaviors and collective teachers’ internal states. TSL has small but significant positive effects on student achievement.
Research Design: This synthesis of unpublished research results is accomplished by a systematic series of meta-correlations and is compared with the results of earlier systematic reviews of published TSL research.
Findings: Among the conclusions arising from the study is that several of the most widely advocated models of effective educational leadership actually include many of the same practices.
Conclusions: More attention by researchers, practitioners, and researchers needs to be devoted to the impact of specific leadership practices and less to leadership models.
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7. The effects of features of examination questions on the performance of students with dyslexia
Author: Victoria Crisp, Martin Johnson & Nadežda Novaković
Source: British Educational Research Journal, 2012, 38(5): 813-839
Abstract: This research investigated whether features of examination questions influence students with dyslexia differently to others, potentially affecting whether they have a fair opportunity to show their knowledge, understanding and skills. A number of science examination questions were chosen. For some questions two slightly different versions were created. A total of 54 students considered by their teachers to have dyslexia and a matched control group of 51 students took the test under exam conditions. A dyslexia screening assessment was administered where possible and some students were interviewed. Facility values and Rasch analysis were used to compare performance between the versions of the same question and between those with and without dyslexia. Chi-square statistics found no statistically significant differences in performance between groups or between question versions. However, some tentative implications for good practice can be inferred (e.g. avoiding ambiguous pronouns, using bullet points).
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8. What Do the California Standards Test Results Reveal about the Movement toward Eighth-Grade Algebra for All?
Author: Liang, Jian-Hua; Heckman, Paul E.; Abedi, Jamal
Source: Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 2012, 34(3): 328-343
Abstract: In California, an increasing number of 8th graders have taken algebra courses since 2003. This study examines students' California Standards Test (CST) results in grades 7 through 11, aiming to reveal who took the CST for Algebra I in 8th grade and whether the increase has led to a rise in students' taking higher-level mathematics CSTs and an improved performance in following years. Results show that the pipeline of 8th-grade algebra and following years' higher-level mathematics CSTs has a significant leak in it. Furthermore, the longitudinal analysis reveals that 9th-grade students have a 69% greater chance of succeeding in algebra if they passed the CST for General Mathematics in 8th grade compared to those who failed the CST for Algebra I.
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9. Neuroscience and Education: Issues and Challenges for Curriculum
Author: Clement, Neville D.; Lovat, Terence
Source: Curriculum Inquiry, 2012, 42(4): 534-557
Abstract: The burgeoning knowledge of the human brain generated by the proliferation of new brain imaging technology from in recent decades has posed questions about the potential for this new knowledge of neural processing to be translated into "usable knowledge" that teachers can employ in their practical curriculum work. The application of the findings of neuroscience to education has met a mixed reception, with some questioning its relevance for educational practice. Simplistic generalizations about neuroscience's application to education have been dubbed as neuromyths, and regarded as being at best irrelevant to or at worst counterproductive in bringing about good educational practice. In recent times, expansive literature generated in the area of educational neuroscience has drawn attention to a range of epistemological and conceptual issues pertinent to the attempt to translate neuroscientific research findings into usable knowledge that has the potential to improve curriculum practice. Issues involved in such a process include the place of neuroscience among the corpus of disciplines constituting the educational foundations; the conceptual framework required to translate knowledge between neuroscience and education; and, whether usable knowledge can be generated from neuroscientific information, so to be applied in curriculum work. These curriculum questions have direct bearing on curriculum work as the issue of usable knowledge relates directly to the teacher's role in the curriculum process. This article will consider the expectations and constraints in relation to the contribution of neuroscience to the production of usable knowledge for curriculum work.
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10. "Tongshi" Education Reform in a Chinese University: Knowledge, Values, and Organizational Changes
Author: Zhang, Donghui
Source: Comparative Education Review, 2012, 56(3): 448-473
Abstract: Derived from the Confucian educational tradition, the term "Tongshi" reflects a contemporary Chinese effort to break away from the former Soviet legacy and forge undergraduate curricula on the basis of a US general education model. In recent years, "Tongshi" education reform has entered the spotlight in Chinese universities as they have sought international recognition. This article examines the cultural dynamics underlying "Tongshi" education reform in Chinese universities, using Renmin University of China (RUC), a well-known university in China, as a case. By exploring curriculum changes before and after the reform and investigating faculty and student attitudes toward "Tongshi" education at RUC, this article shows that although "Tongshi" education exhibits features in common with both a Chinese educational tradition and the Western notion of general education, it is, nonetheless, a created rhetoric in the contemporary discourse of "building world-class universities."
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