Teacher education programs in the United States face a variety of new accountability policies at both the federal and the state level. Many of these policies carry high-stakes implications for ...students and programs and involve some of the same challenges for implementation as they have in the P-12 arena. Serious dilemmas for teacher educators arise in these contexts, as compliance with prescriptive state mandates is often interpreted by faculty to signify a demoralizing loss of program autonomy and integrity, whereas noncompliance may result in loss of program accreditation. The authors describe how one teacher education program negotiated these dilemmas in a fashion responsive to local values and concerns while also meeting state requirements. Results are discussed in terms of tensions between (a) policy goals seeking alignment and coherence across institutions of higher education and (b) motivational conditions likely to engage faculty in the difficult work of programmatic renewal and change in teacher education.
Background/Context: Contemporary accountability policies in teacher education often require that programs systematically use data for program improvement (Council for the Accreditation of Educator ...Preparation, 2013). However, social science research from multiple fields of human service suggests that the challenges of using data involve much more than creating policies and related information technologies to support collection, archival, and analysis of information about program outcomes. In this study we investigated organizational policies and practices implemented within ten high data-use teacher education programs to support faculty and staff engagement with opportunities to use a variety of data for the purposes of program improvement. Purpose/Objective/Research Question: What organizational tools, policies, and practices are associated with systematic use of data for program improvement in high data-use teacher education programs? Research Design: We used qualitative field research methods to study a set of teacher preparation programs situated in institutions that varied considerably in size, mission, and organizational structure. Using a comparative case-study approach (Ragin, 2007), we hoped to identify a set of practices that were robust across variations in institutional setting and that therefore might be useful to other teacher educators as they attempt to navigate the pressures of current accountability mandates in ways that are consonant with their aspirations for program improvement. Conclusions/Recommendations: Organizational practices associated with high levels of data use in the programs we studied included the allocation of specific times and places to allow thoughtful engagement with opportunities to use data in deliberation of program actions, as well as the integration of these activities into regular organizational routines. Consistent with earlier studies, we found that faculty in these programs more readily and vigorously engaged data-use work organized around local inquiry goals, rather than compliance with external policy mandates or grant expectations. Leadership actions related to establishing local inquiry and program improvement as the primary goal of data-use work appeared to be crucial to motivating faculty and staff to take up opportunities to use data as a resource for learning and program decision-making.
This book offers concrete examples of how data can be used by faculty, staff, and program leaders to improve their collective work as teacher educators. Strong external accountability mandates often ...lead to tensions that undermine local morale and motivation. This volume focuses on the practical work of navigating these tensions so that valuable programmatic change can happen. It describes policies and practices drawn from a study of "high data use" teacher education programs from around the country that have strategically engaged the challenges of learning to use data for program improvement. Readers will see how the data-use work carried out in these programs strengthened local program identity and coherence. Representing a collaborative effort between researchers and practitioners, this volume presents lessons learned to assist teacher educators who are engaged daily with the challenges of making data useful and used in their programs. Book features include: (1) Examples of how tensions between external mandates for accountability and program improvement can be navigated in ways that are grounded in local program values; (2) Detailed case study portraits of individual programs that offer a full and action-oriented sense of data use work; (3) Strategies for ensuring that data systems are responsive to multiple stakeholders, such as faculty, administrators, students, and policymakers; and (4) A diversity of perspectives and experiences from small liberal arts colleges, large teacher preparation institutions, and research-intensive universities. Foreword by G. Williamson McDiarmid.
The acreage planted in corn and soybean crops is vast, and these crops contribute substantially to the world economy. The agricultural practices employed for farming these crops have major effects on ...ecosystem health at a worldwide scale. The microbial communities living in agricultural soils significantly contribute to nutrient uptake and cycling and can have both positive and negative impacts on the crops growing with them. In this study, we examined the impact of the crop planted and soil tillage on nutrient levels, microbial communities, and the biochemical pathways present in the soil. We found that farming practice, that is conventional tillage versus no‐till, had a much greater impact on nearly everything measured compared to the crop planted. No‐till fields tended to have higher nutrient levels and distinct microbial communities. Moreover, no‐till fields had more DNA sequences associated with key nitrogen cycle processes, suggesting that the microbial communities were more active in cycling nitrogen. Our results indicate that tilling of agricultural soil may magnify the degree of nutrient waste and runoff by altering nutrient cycles through changes to microbial communities. Currently, a minority of acreage is maintained without tillage despite clear benefits to soil nutrient levels, and a decrease in nutrient runoff—both of which have ecosystem‐level effects and both direct and indirect effects on humans and other organisms.
Microbial communities are essential for nutrient cycling in ecosystems. Disturbance, such as tilling, alters the composition of microbial communities in corn and soy agroecosystems. The changes in these communities affect their composition and function, thus changing the ecosystem services they perform, such as cycling nitrogen.
Infection with Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) has been associated with an increased risk of multiple sclerosis (MS), but the temporal relationship remains unclear.
To determine whether antibodies to EBV ...are elevated before the onset of MS.
Nested case-control study conducted among more than 3 million US military personnel with blood samples collected between 1988 and 2000 and stored in the Department of Defense Serum Repository. Cases were identified as individuals granted temporary or permanent disability because of MS. For each case (n = 83), 2 controls matched by age, sex, race/ethnicity, and dates of blood sample collection were selected. Serial samples collected before the onset of symptoms were available for 69 matched case-control sets.
Antibodies including IgA against EBV viral capsid antigen (VCA), and IgG against VCA, nuclear antigens (EBNA complex, EBNA-1, and EBNA-2), diffuse and restricted early antigens, and cytomegalovirus.
The average time between blood collection and MS onset was 4 years (range, <1-11 years). The strongest predictors of MS were serum levels of IgG antibodies to EBNA complex or EBNA-1. Among individuals who developed MS, serum antibody titers to EBNA complex were similar to those of controls before the age of 20 years (geometric mean titers: cases = 245, controls = 265), but 2- to 3-fold higher at age 25 years and older (cases = 684, controls = 282; P<.001). The risk of MS increased with these antibody titers; the relative risk (RR) in persons with EBNA complex titers of at least 1280 compared with those with titers less than 80 was 9.4 (95% confidence interval CI, 2.5-35.4; P for trend <.001). In longitudinal analyses, a 4-fold increase in anti-EBNA complex or anti-EBNA-1 titers during the follow-up was associated with a 3-fold increase in MS risk (EBNA complex: RR , 3.0; 95% CI, 1.3-6.5; EBNA-1: RR, 3.0; 95% CI, 1.2-7.3). No association was found between cytomegalovirus antibodies and MS.
These results suggest an age-dependent relationship between EBV infection and development of MS.
Background/Context: Contemporary state and national policy rhetoric reflects increased press for "evidence-based" decision making within programs of teacher education, including admonitions that ...programs develop a "culture of evidence" in making decisions regarding policy and practice. Recent case study reports suggest that evidence-based decision making in teacher education involves far more than access to data--including a complex interplay of motivational, technical, and organizational factors. Purpose: In this paper we use a framework derived from Cultural Historical Activity Theory to describe changes in organizational practice within two teacher education programs as they began to use new sources of outcome data to make decisions about program design, curriculum and instruction. Research Design: We use a retrospective case study approach, drawing on interviews, observations and documents collected in two university programs undergoing evidence-based renewal. Conclusions: We argue for the value of a CHAT perspective as a tool for clarifying linkages between the highly abstract and rhetorically charged concept of a "culture of evidence" and concrete organizational practices in teacher education. We conclude that the meaning of a "culture of evidence" depends in large measure on the motivations underlying its development.
Pressures for change in the field of teacher education are escalating significantly as part of systemic education reform initiatives in a broad spectrum of economically developed and developing ...nations. Considering these pressures, it is surprising that relatively little theoretical or empirical analysis of learning and change processes within teacher education programs has been undertaken. In this paper, we illustrate some ways in which contemporary socio-cultural learning theory may be used as a lens for addressing these issues. Using a theoretical framework developed by Harré Harré, R. (1984).
Personal being: A theory for individual psychology. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, we show how processes of individual and collective learning led to changes in a teacher education program observed over an eighteen month period of time. Important innovations in program practice were generally found to have their sources in the creative work of individual faculty. However program level changes required negotiation of new ideas and practices within small groups of faculty, and with the larger collective of the program. We conclude that the Harré model, and the socio-cultural learning theories from which it is derived, may offer a useful theoretical framework for interpreting complex social processes underlying organizational renewal, innovation, and change.
One of the important rationales for the development and implementation of a rigorous classroom-based measure of preservice teacher quality is that such a tool will provide new sources of data that ...are highly relevant to the task of improving programs of teacher preparation. However, research on data utilization within organizations from a variety of disciplines makes it clear that even when relevant and useful data are available, they are often not used for decision making. We studied three "high-data-use" programs from among the 32 California institutions implementing the Performance Assessment for California Teachers (PACT) to identify organizational practices associated with the use of PACT data for program improvement. We describe practices within and across these programs that were identified by informants as important to their success in using teacher performance outcome data to make decisions about program renewal and improvement.
Despite the central role “evidence-based practice” (EBP) plays in special education agendas for both research and policy, it is widely recognized that achieving implementation of EBPs remains an ...elusive goal. In an effort to better understand this problem, we interviewed special education practitioners in four school districts, inquiring about the role evidence and EBP played in their work. Our data suggest that practitioners’ responses to policies that press for increased use of EBP are mediated by a variety of factors, including their interpretations of the EBP construct itself, as well as the organizational conditions of their work, and their access to relevant knowledge and related tools to support implementation. We interpret these findings in terms of their implications for understanding the problem of implementation through a more contextual and ecological lens than has been reflected in much of the literature to date.
Multiple sclerosis and Epstein-Barr virus Levin, Lynn I; Munger, Kassandra L; Rubertone, Mark V ...
JAMA : the journal of the American Medical Association,
03/2003, Letnik:
289, Številka:
12
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Infection with Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) has been associated with an increased risk of multiple sclerosis (MS), but the temporal relationship remains unclear.
To determine whether antibodies to EBV ...are elevated before the onset of MS.
Nested case-control study conducted among more than 3 million US military personnel with blood samples collected between 1988 and 2000 and stored in the Department of Defense Serum Repository. Cases were identified as individuals granted temporary or permanent disability because of MS. For each case (n = 83), 2 controls matched by age, sex, race/ethnicity, and dates of blood sample collection were selected.
Antibodies including IgA against EBV viral capsid antigen (VCA) and IgG against VCA, nuclear antigens (EBNA complex, EBNA-1, and EBNA-2), diffuse and restricted early antigens, and cytomegalovirus.
The average time between blood collection and MS onset was 4 years. The strongest predictors of MS were serum levels of IgG antibodies to VCA or EBNA complex. The risk of MS increased monotonically with these antibody titers; relative risk (RR) in persons in the highest category of VCA (> or =2560) compared with those in the lowest (< or =160) was 19.7 (95% confidence interval CI, 2.2-174; P for trend =.004). For EBNA complex titers, the RR for those in the highest category (> or =1280) was 33.9 (95% CI, 4.1-283; P for trend <.001) vs those in the lowest category (< or =40). Similarly strong positive associations between EBV antibodies and risk of MS were already present in samples collected 5 or more years before MS onset. No association was found between cytomegalovirus antibodies and MS.
These results suggest a relationship between EBV infection and development of MS.
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