Targeting Performance Dimensions in Sequence According to the Instructional Hierarchy: Effects on Children’s Math Work Within a Self-Monitoring Program

Four fifth-grade students were presented with frustration-level math probes while three performance dimensions were measured (i.e., percent intervals on-task, percent correct digits, and digits correct per minute (DCM)). Using a multiple baseline design across participants, students were trained to self-monitor time on-task, accuracy, and productivity in sequence and were given their choice of preferred rewards for increases in each performance dimension. The effects of self-monitoring productivity plus rewards prior to and after reaching on-task and accuracy criteria were also evaluated on a probe basis using an embedded multielement design. Results showed that three of the four students increased DCM when self-monitoring productivity plus rewards, but only after meeting on-task and accuracy criteria. Effects of self monitoring accuracy were mixed, and all students showed high levels of on-task behavior throughout the study. The implications of these results for increasing the effectiveness of self-monitoring through a sequenced approach to academic skill training are discussed.     

The WebQuest: An Illustration of Instructional Technology Implementation in MFT Training

This teaching case illustrates the innovative application of an instructional technology modality, the WebQuest, in family therapy training. It describes what a WebQuest involves, and how it can be used as a tool for developing critical thinking and application of contemporary marriage and family therapy (MFT) theory to social and global issues. The authors discuss the results of the survey and focus groups conducted to assess the value of this assignment from the students’ perspectives. Results indicate that its application in a family therapy theories course fostered students’ awareness of global issues impacting family life, integration of family therapy theories to serve children and families, creativity in developing their own intervention models, and ability to discuss and integrate knowledge from different knowledge bases and perspectives.     

Promoting Generalization of Oral Reading Fluency: Providing Drill versus Practice Opportunities

Extensive evidence exists demonstrating the benefits of repeated readings (RR) interventions at increasing students’ fluency on intervention passages. Few studies however have examined the extent to which repeatedly reading one passage improves students’ reading fluency on similar passages. Using an alternating treatment design, we examined the extent to which two interventions resulted in improvements in students’ fluency on generalization passages. While both interventions incorporated RR, one intervention involved students reading one passage four times and the other involved students reading two similar passages each twice. Intervention effects were evaluated by having students read a generalization passage prior to and following intervention implementation. Results indicate that both interventions were effective in increasing students reading fluency on generalization passages. For 3 participants the RR intervention produced greater gains in fluency on the generalization passages, while data for the remaining 3 participants are inconclusive. Implications of these findings for practice and for better understanding application of the instructional hierarchy to the development of reading interventions are discussed.

City under the Ice: The Closed World of Camp Century in Cold War Culture

Located on the beeline between the two nuclear superpowers, Greenland took on vital strategic importance during the early phases of the Cold War. As part of its polar strategy, the USA constructed several bases in Greenland. Camp Century, known as ‘City under the Ice’, was an experimental-military American city built entirely inside the ice sheet in 1959–1960. A 225-person, nuclear-powered army base, Century was the precursor for a much larger installation of intercontinental ballistic missiles (which never materialized), but was also used to project popular images of techno-scientific control, nuclear containment, and American values into Cold War American culture. Applying Paul Edward's closed-world metaphor to photos, film, books, and articles about Camp Century enables us to see both the strengths and the fragility of public discourses about the camp. Century was depicted as an outstanding example of man's never-ceasing quest for knowledge, as the epic conquest of the harsh Arctic environment by US Army engineers, as an Arctic sword and shield against the Soviet aggressor, and as a friendly collaboration between the USA and Denmark (in 1953, the former colony of Greenland became part of the Danish Realm). In the end, Camp Century had to be abandoned due to the glaciological forces of the moving ice sheet which crushed the tunnels, but also due to changes in Cold War politics and the political difficulties underscoring nuclear installations on Danish territory.     

To Play or Not to Play: Diverse Motives for Latino and Euro‐American Parent–Child Play in a Children's Museum

A popular social discourse in the United States is that play is important for children's learning and that parental involvement maximizes play's learning potential. Past research has concluded that parents who hold this view of play are more likely to play with their children than those who do not. This study investigated the prevalence of this view among Euro‐American and immigrant Latino parents of young children in order to illuminate the extent to which it uniquely and uniformly motivates parent–child play. Parents' models of play were assessed through interviews and naturalistic observations in a children's museum. Analysis revealed ethnic group differences in parent–child play that corresponded with parental beliefs about play. Within‐group analysis, however, revealed diversity in the ways that these play behaviours and beliefs came together to comprise parents' models of play. Discussion focuses on the social nature of play, the dynamic nature of culture, and the issue of individual subject validity. Implications for the interpretation of parent–child play in early childhood settings are considered. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The knowledge-learning-instruction framework: bridging the science-practice chasm to enhance robust student learning

Despite the accumulation of substantial cognitive science research relevant to education, there remains confusion and controversy in the application of research to educational practice. In support of a more systematic approach, we describe the Knowledge-Learning-Instruction (KLI) framework. KLI promotes the emergence of instructional principles of high potential for generality, while explicitly identifying constraints of and opportunities for detailed analysis of the knowledge students may acquire in courses. Drawing on research across domains of science, math, and language learning, we illustrate the analyses of knowledge, learning, and instructional events that the KLI framework affords. We present a set of three coordinated taxonomies of knowledge, learning, and instruction. For example, we identify three broad classes of learning events (LEs): (a) memory and fluency processes, (b) induction and refinement processes, and (c) understanding and sense-making processes, and we show how these can lead to different knowledge changes and constraints on optimal instructional choices.     

Revisiting interreligious relations: The convergence of global context and ecclesial developments

Following the important work of the 1980s and 1990s by the US churches and ecumenical bodies in developing interfaith statements and policies, significant events in both the US and international arenas were coincidental and motivational for US Christians to reconsider their interreligious engagement in a new context. This article examines the major contextual factors, as well as ecumenical developments with particular attention to the United Church of Christ and the National Council of Churches, which also will consider new statements in 2019.     

Happiness,Faith, Friends,and Fortune—Empirical Evidence from the 1998 US Survey Data

This paper studies both pecuniary and non-pecuniary factors affecting happiness—an issue that has sparked a great deal of interest in the economic literature. Using an ordered Probit model and the 1998 general social survey (GSS) data, the paper empirically demonstrates the extent to which socioeconomic and demographic variables along with faith and emotionally based factors may determine happiness. The 1998 survey was conducted nearly at the conclusion of one of the longest economic expansion—a high income low inflation era in the US history. However, the findings tend to suggest that the absolute value of nominal income insignificantly, but non-pecuniary elements (faith and emotionally based factors including financial security) significantly determine happiness.

Swimming-induced taste aversion and its prevention by a prior history of swimming

In two experiments, the evidence showed that 20 min of forced swimming by rats caused aversion to a taste solution consumed before swimming. When one of two taste solutions (sodium saccharin or sodium chloride, counterbalanced across rats) was paired with swimming and the other was not, the rats’ intakes of these two solutions showed less consumption of the former than the latter solution. Furthermore, a post-training two-bottle choice test clearly demonstrated long-lasting avoidance of the swimming-paired solution. These results imply that forced swimming acts as an unconditioned stimulus for establishing taste aversion. Preexposure to swimming opportunities before conditioning disrupts such conditioned taste aversion induced by forced swimming.