Search results

Despite the benefits of historical thinking pedagogy, many teachers continue to require students to read textbooks. Contained within textbook narratives are particular types of implied causation, asyndetic constructions, which may limit students’ abilities to fully comprehend certain textbook passages. This study examines how asyndetic constructions influence students’ comprehension of causal events. Twelve middle school readers were asked to read a US History textbook passage and answer questions related to the asyndetic construction. They also were asked to reason about their answers. Findings suggest that good middle school readers do not identify asyndetic constructions as problematic to their comprehension even though they often incorrectly answer questions related to these constructions. Findings also indicate that, when middle school readers recognize the asyndetic sentences as causally related, they often disregard and/or overlook the mental processes in the text that provide clues for explaining that relationship. Based on these findings, teachers need to recognize the complexity of textbook language and structure when assigning such readings, taking special care with poor readers who have fewer linguistic resources for making meaning of asyndetic constructions than good readers.

In such a diverse society, some have suggested that teachers use primary source documents to increase history knowledge and build historical thinking skills. These calls come from a myriad of works that have been critical of textbooks. While these concerns may be appropriate, textbooks are still frequently used in the classroom. In an attempt to better use textbooks in light of such criticism, I propose that teachers and students analyze their textbooks as if they were primary sources. Discussion about how this analysis might be accomplished as well as a sample classroom handout is provided.

In order to teach science effectively, teachers need a strong background in science content as well as an understanding of productive methods of teaching. This includes inquiry-based learning that will cultivate conceptual development of science concepts with their students. Furthermore, it is imperative to use student-focused activities in high-needs schools to engage all students, particularly students of color, in the learning process. As a result, faculty from the teachHOUSTON Program and the Department of Physics at the University of Houston produced a Physics by Inquiry course to engage middle school and high school preservice teachers in interactive, inquiry-based teaching pedagogies for physics. This chapter provides an overview of the course. It also highlights the benefits of including such a course in a STEM teacher education program.

The purpose of this paper is to illuminate for social studies teachers and teacher educators the ways in which students' disciplinary writing is scaffolded within the context of the inquiry design model; trends in such scaffolding are called “the learner's pathway,” since it leads students to more abstract levels of historical argumentation. The author argues that engaging historical writing genres is a necessary component of historical thinking and that understanding the ways that teachers support students' historical writing capacities can help them to make more intentional choices when building inquiries.

To study genre-related scaffolding across inquiries, this study draws on systemic functional linguistics (SFL)-based genre theory as an analytical structure and seventy-four history-focused secondary social studies inquiries to determine any patterns in the ways that teachers scaffold students' writing genres through an inquiry.

Findings suggest that there is a learner's pathway that teachers use to develop students' argumentative writing capacities; however, there is also evidence to suggest that notetaking and source synthesis are not valued instructional products, limiting the potential impact of historical thinking work within the inquiry process.

The existence of this learner's pathway has implications for the ways that teachers and preservice teachers can be professionally developed to leverage this pathway. Rather than the often-used methods of support students' generic writing capacities, professional development should focus on the ways social studies teachers can guide students to more abstract reasoning through their writing. This study's findings also have implications for the ways that social studies teachers assess students' summative arguments. Assessment practices should focus on the genre-features of “argument” rather than just the stages of the argumentative essay.

This piece is original because genre-based research is missing from much of the social studies education research. This study's findings present an additional paradigm through which social studies teachers and teacher leaders can explore the purposes of historical writing tasks and assessment.

Purpose — This paper describes what the authors believe to be the first GPS-only full-scale household travel survey.

Design/methodology — The survey commenced in early 2009 with the conduct of a pilot survey to help establish various parameters and procedures for the main survey. The main survey commenced in August 2009 and was completed in August 2010. It was designed as a household travel survey to be collected steadily over a 12 month period. The target sample size was originally set at over 3500 households, although this target was reduced downwards during the course of the survey. Each household member over the age of 12 was asked to carry a GPS device with them everywhere they went for a period of 3 days. After the 3-day collection period was completed, GPS devices were retrieved from households, the data were downloaded and processing of the data commenced. The study also involved a PR survey performed on the Internet.

Findings — The paper concludes with lessons learnt from this GPS-only survey and suggestions for how future GPS-only surveys might be conducted.

Originality/value of the paper — The paper describes the first GPS-only household travel survey and concludes that it is now feasible to conduct household travel surveys by GPS.

Purpose – Based on auto/biographical and ethnographic narratives and conceptual theories, this chapter explores the Global African Diaspora as a racialized space of belonging for African diasporas in the United States, the United Kingdom and – more recently – the clandestine migration zones from Africa to southern Europe

Methodology/Approach – Both auto/biographical as well as conceptual theoretical approaches are used to illustrate the author’s roots, routes and detours interpretive paradigm highlighting the interconnectedness across time and space of differential African diasporas. This methodology also illuminates shifting conceptions of blackness as forms of transnational kinship and solidarity.

Findings – This analysis reveals the messiness of complex racialized conceptualizations of belonging in the specific diasporic spaces of England, the United States and the clandestine migration zones of southern Europe. At the same time, the chapter highlights transnational modalities of black and Global African Diasporic kinship, consciousness and solidarity engendered by shared lived experiences of institutionalized racism, structural inequalities and violence.

Originality/Value – Using the author’s interpretive framework entitled roots/routes/detours, this chapter moves away from prior theoretical simplifications of the Global African Diaspora towards an engagement with its conceptual complexities. In particular, this chapter critically explores social, political and historical formations of African diasporas in the United States, the United Kingdom and the more recent clandestine migration zones between continental Africa and southern Europe as their formulations collide with shifting conceptions of blackness as forms of transnational kinship and solidarity.

The purpose of this paper is to understand how experienced copreneurs of small family business (SFB), as the smallest unit and heart of their family business (FB), may create work-life balance (WLB). Copreneurs evince highly intertwined life-domains and often struggle to respite while managing their high business demands.

In this couple interview study with 18 experienced copreneurial couples of SFBs (N = 36), we investigated strategies copreneurs use to create their WLB by merging a resource perspective (Hobfoll, 1989) with the concept of WLB crafting (Sturges, 2012).

A key strategy in copreneurial couples was the structural establishment of microdomains, such as periods of personal resource recreation within a macrodomain (e.g. work) via individual physical and cognitive WLB crafting. Copreneurs used relational WLB crafting with a strong emphasis on seeking support and mainly to protect their microdomains by relying on their spouses as boundary keepers. Women more often expressed the importance of health and time for respite, as cognitive WLB crafting, and they were more active in creating (joint) recovery opportunities. Dyadic WLB crafting strategies were used when goal congruency for work or private activities was high.

This research applies WLB crafting research to the smallest unit of SFBs, namely copreneurs. The study provides in-depth insights into the strategies copreneurs of SFB use to create a satisfying WLB.

During the Coronavirus crisis (COVID-19) that started in 2019 and at the extensive quarantine regulations, educational institutions, companies, and individuals have reacted by shifting their teaching and learning activities to virtual spaces. Yet, although the use of online learning has increased, it has not been able to achieve the long-promised transformative effect. The COVID-19 crisis has the potential to boost online education overall or at least enable better preparation of the system for the next crisis. Ultimately, to make a digital transformation sustainable, appropriate skills are required. In this study, we adapt the dynamic capabilities foundations creating a theoretical approach to explain how educational institutions have responded to the changing environmental conditions during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Tiered systems may hold particular benefit for students with intensive intervention needs, as this continuum of supports is ideally comprised of evidence-based practices. In this chapter, we explore three intensive interventions: functional assessment-based interventions (FABI), First Step to Success, and Read 180 as they feature a range of practices and programs to meet students' academic, behavioral, and social needs. We define and describe each intervention, including information on essential features necessary for drawing valid inferences: treatment integrity, social validity, as well as student performance. We also provide examples of supporting evidence, featuring treatment-outcome studies documenting intervention effectiveness. We close with clarifications and considerations for meeting the multiple needs of students requiring intensive intervention efforts.