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The purpose of this conceptual paper is to make the case for the value of fostering collaborative sensemaking in responding to literature. Drawing on examples of classroom interactions in 6th-, 8th-, 11th- and 12th-grade classrooms, it proposes methods for teachers to foster collaborative sensemaking.

Drawing on theories of “participatory sensemaking” (Fuchs and De Jaegher, 2009), transactional literary response (Rosenblatt, 1994) and “comprehension-as-sensemaking” pedagogy (Aukerman, 2013), this paper conceptualizes collaborative sensemaking to illustrate how teachers foster making sense of texts through sharing responses based on lived-world experiences, understanding the use of literary techniques and understanding events in students’ own lives.

Given that this is not an empirical study, there are no findings. The discussion of students’ sensemaking practices in responding to classroom texts, suggests the importance of teachers creating open-ended response events in which students collaboratively support each other in making sense of characters’ actions and events, as opposed to having to conform to teachers’ predetermined agendas.

Analysis of the classroom discussions suggests the importance of building students’ trust in the process of sensemaking itself, fostering adoption of alternative perspectives as central to sensemaking and using activities for students’ translating or rewriting events in texts to co-create texts with authors.

This paper explores the importance of teachers engaging students in open-ended, sensemaking response events based on attending to “in-between,” dialogic meanings through sharing emotions, alternative perspectives and related experiences to enhance students’ engagement in responding to literature.

Unlike formalist and functional approaches to literacy and teaching writing, a languaging theory approach centers on the dynamic and interpersonal nature of writing. The purpose of this study was to determine students’ ability to engage in explicit reflection about their languaging actions in response to their personal narrative writing to determine those types of actions they were most versus less likely to focus on for enacting relations with others, as well as how they applied their reflections to subsequent interactions with others.

In this qualitative study, thirty seven 12th grade students were asked to write personal narratives and then reflect in writing on their use of languaging actions in their narratives based on specific prompts. Students’ explicit reflections about their narratives were coded based on their reference to seven different types of languaging actions for enacting relations with others.

Students were most likely to focus their reflections on making connections, understandings, collaboration and support by and for others as well as expression of emotions, getting feelings out, sharing issues; followed by references to conflicts, arguing, stress, negative perceptions or exclusion; references to ideas or impressions about ethics, respect, values, morals; use of “insider language;” slang, jargon, dialects; use of humor, joking, parody; and references to adult and authorities’ perceptions or influences.

This research was limited to students’ portrayals of their languaging actions through writing as opposed to observations of their lived-world interactions with others.

These results suggest the value of having students engage in explicit reflections about their languaging actions portrayed in narratives as contributing to their growth in use of languaging actions for enacting relations with others.

Students’ ability to reflect on their language actions enhances their ability to enact social relations.

A languaging perspective provides an alternative approach for analyzing reflections on types of languaging actions.

This paper aims to discuss rising sea levels at the global, regional, and community scale and illustrate the necessity for public comprehension and involvement. It also aims to demonstrate geographic information systems (GIS) as an efficient tool for modeling and disseminating information with the expectation that coastal communities will benefit by joining in a process to integrate this knowledge into broad‐based decision making.

GIS is capable of creating, analyzing, and displaying sea level rise scenarios enabling local officials to address the negative effects of elevated sea levels by allowing them to identify both built and biotic communities that are at risk, assess the situation, and develop mitigation strategies. The paper makes use of a case study of Daytona Beach, Florida, to examine the impacts of storm surge.

A GIS model, produced for south Florida integrating land use and elevation data to illustrate locations that lie below five feet, reveals that heavily populated urban areas in Miami‐Dade County could be inundated during extreme high tide and storm surge events. The GIS also indicates that much of the Florida Keys has elevations below five feet and is at risk of flooding if sea levels rise at projected rates.

The case study of Daytona Beach, Florida, can be replicated at other coastal locations by using GIS to assimilate spatial data and generate meaningful graphic models to be interpreted by those responsible for minimizing the risks from rising sea levels.

A thematic focus on identity has for years been a mainstay of secondary school literature curricula. Typical curricular units engage students in questions related to what it means to come of age and to develop an integrated sense of individual identity in the face of societal pressures toward conformity. This common thematic focus relies on conventional theories of identity as static, located in the individual, and linked to an autonomous self. Further, this focus positions adolescents as incomplete people, lacking fully formed identities. Current sociocultural theories of identity, however, understand identity as multiple, fluid, performed, and shaped by cultural histories and social contexts. Identity, in this view is always in process. Adolescents are fully formed people with identities that are no more or less complete than those of anyone else. Such a view of identity requires a more complex and nuanced conceptualization of adolescents, their capabilities, and their interactions with texts than does an individual view of identity. In this chapter, we outline a framework for identity focused literature instruction that relies on sociocultural understandings of identity, then draw on illustrations from classroom research to explore three key ways that an identity-focused approach challenges current approaches to pre-service teacher education related to literature instruction. Specifically, we explore challenges to the ways that we teach teachers to select and evaluate literary texts, plan literature instruction, and engage in inquiry and dialogue with students.

This study compared different types of full-time caregiver (e.g., children, older adults, COVID-19 patients) and subgroups (e.g., disability, race/ethnicity, sexual orientation) in the United States during the COVID-19 pandemic for potentially meaningful distinctions.

Data from the 9,854 full-time caregivers identified in Phase 3.2 (July 21–October 11, 2021) of the US Census Household Pulse Survey (HPS) were analyzed in this study using multinomial logistic regression to examine relationships between caregiver types, marginalized subgroups, generation, and vaccination status.

The prevalence of caregiving was low, but the type of full-time caregiving performed varied by demographic group (i.e., disability, race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, generation, and vaccination status). The relative risk of being a COVID-19 caregiver remained significant for being a member of each of the marginalized groups examined after all adjustments.

To date, the HPS has not been analyzed to predict the type of full-time informal caregiving performed during the COVID-19 pandemic or their characteristics. Research limitations of this analysis include the cross-sectional, experimental dataset employed, as well as some variable measurement issues.

Prior informal caregiver research has often focused on the experiences of those caring for older adults or children with special healthcare needs. It may be instructive to learn whether and how informal caregivers excluded from paid employment during infectious disease outbreaks vary in meaningful ways from those engaged in other full-time caregiving. Because COVID-19 magnified equity concerns, examining demographic differences may also facilitate customization of pathways to post-caregiving workforce integration.

Purpose – To describe the use of the software platform, TechScaffold, for use in teacher education to provide pre-service and in-service teachers with decision-making heuristics to select apps based on formulation of their instructional purposes for using those apps; participate in a community designed to foster knowledge and experience about effective, purposeful uses of apps; and share project reports to illustrate the use of apps to achieve certain learning objectives.

Design – The authors draw on research related to decision-making associated with purposeful uses of apps as well as analysis of the limitations of similar instructional design tools to develop features for TechScaffold. They sought to scaffold teachers’ decision-making through users formulating open-ended responses to queries with responses matched against a database of apps identified according to platform, purpose, grade level, difficulty, and cost, as well as ways for users to participate as members of a community to share projects illustrating uses of apps. The authors also obtained feedback regarding the potential usability and value of TechScaffold.

Findings – Given research indicating the importance of scaffolding decision-making processes regarding uses of apps, feedback from users indicated that they perceive TechScaffold as a useful tool within the context of teacher education as well as for professional development in schools to foster effective decision-making associated with purposeful uses of apps.

Practical Implications – Teacher educators can employ scaffolding activities to help pre-service and in-service teachers make decisions regarding productive uses of apps through their open-ended formulation of certain purposes through use of a tool such as TechScaffold.

Healthcare is both the largest (17 + percent) and the most rapidly growing (three plus times the consumer product index (measure of inflation) and half a percent of gross domestic product each year) segment of the US economy. The purpose of this paper is to focus on outcome successes that illustrate application of a previously reported health equation. The health equation allows an organized and more transparent assessment of healthcare outcomes.

The approach includes “end use/least cost” techniques that identifies healthful care as a big unmet need (BUN) and equally attractive business opportunity in identifying health promotion that improves outcome at lower net costs.

Opportunity exists to reduce costs while also reducing adverse events, healthcare morbidity and morality. Transparency is essential to find what works more effectively to yield desired outcomes. Metrics and measures, particularly more precise tools to assess true outcome in promoting health or managing ill health, are given priority as they allow quantified and, often econometric, outcome opportunities in the midst of current uncertainties.

This paper is for consumers and businesses, managers and administrators, professionals and allied health professionals. The successes described herein illustrate fundamental opportunities driving change and innovation within healthcare and in our society.

Attention is called to opportunity areas that can fund out of savings the transition from the authors' current “sickness care” system to a healthful care, proactive prevention approach to delivering care. Novel application of transparency and end use/least cost can help guide choices to achieve healthier outcomes.

This article aims to present an equation of health to allow measurement and more precise comparison of what is more or less effective in promoting health or managing ill health. It builds upon and extends a prior report (JMD, Volume 25 Number 10, 2006, pp. 981‐995).

Applying basic scientific methods and empiric observations, the equation proposed in this article is a state of the current science. Such an equation allows for more systematic and predictive comparison of health initiatives.

The pace of scientific progress is outstripping our institutional adaptive response mechanisms. An approach to the causes of ill health appears more promising than re‐configuration of current disease reactive, symptom treatment care. This paper starts from first principles and builds a model that results in an equation of health.

Refinement of the model and replication by others are needed to fully determine the predictive value of this approach.

The opportunity to reduce costs while also reducing adverse events, healthcare morbidity and morality.

This article calls attention to areas of opportunity to fund out of savings the transition from our current “sick care” system to a health promotion/proactive prevention approach to caring.

Healthcare is an ever‐growing segment of the American economy. Transparency facilitates better decision‐making and better outcomes measures. The purpose of this paper is to present the human and economic results of increasing transparency.

The ASIMP Working Group on Healthcare Transparency represents a diverse yet conscilient group of practitioners, researchers, regulators, economists, and academics. Given the need for re‐envisioning healthcare to include more accountability, evidence of efficacy and transparency, this integrative medicine (ASIMP) working group is suitable to address the above purpose.

Substantial opportunity exists to reduce morbidity and mortality, suffering and excess death, unnecessary costs and risks. Greater transparency facilitates the transition to safer, more effective, more humane healthcare.

This paper starts from a need to improve clinical outcomes and value for resources devoted. Best efforts of a national working group are presented. The implications of the report, when tested, will determine the enduring value of this work.

Consumers and business, administrators and practitioners can improve care at lower cost by increasing transparency. This will accelerate the diffusion of effective approaches that are not yet in widespread use despite replication of efficacy.

This is the first time an integrative approach has been compared with conventional healthcare models, particularly with regard to the role of transparency in healthcare management.