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Mindsets are crucial factors for individuals' adaptive behavior in educational contexts. In meaning systems, these associations between mindsets and behavior are mediated through motivational aspects. It is generally assumed that students should also benefit if teachers adopt a growth mindset. Even though many studies have investigated mindset processes of students, analyses of teachers' meaning systems are lacking. This study, therefore, examines relationships between teachers' mindsets, self-efficacy, achievement goals (mastery, performance-avoidance), and instructional practices (goal structure dimensions of task, autonomy, recognition, grouping, evaluation, time). The sample of the questionnaire study comprises 650 Austrian in-service teachers (69.6% female; mean age 45.1 years; SD = 11.3) with an average of 19 years of teaching experience. Data was analyzed using latent mediation modeling with fixed mindset as a predictor, self-efficacy, mastery goals, performance-avoidance goals as mediators, and six mastery classroom goal structure dimensions as outcomes. The results indicated positive relations between a fixed mindset with performance-avoidance goals and negative relations with self-efficacy and mastery goals. Mastery goals and self-efficacy negatively fully mediated the effects of fixed mindsets on five of six mastery goal structure dimensions. No mediation was found for performance-avoidance goals except for the fixed mindset-autonomy and fixed mindset-grouping links. To conclude, the study's findings support that a meaning system approach is also valid for teachers and provide insights into the associations between mindset, self-efficacy beliefs, achievement goals, and classroom practices.

Bullying by peers remains a serious problem facing adolescents. A key social support for adolescents is their parents. The unique contributions of specific dimensions comprising authoritative parenting, and adolescents' involvement in bullying situations was investigated. Self-report data were collected from 125 grade 7 students and 100 grade 8 students (60% female; mean age = 12.74 years). Model testing indicated a positive relationship between parent support, beliefs against aggression, high levels of communication, and low levels of bullying and victimization, both in self-reports, and in effectiveness of problem-solving in hypothetical bullying situations. Results indicate that warm, supportive parenting influences the way adolescents consult with their parents about how to manage conflict, deal with bullying issues, and identify solutions to interpersonal problems. The implications of these findings may influence the comprehensiveness of prevention and intervention models that focus on the aspects of parental education.

Most Americans consume diets at odds with nutrition recommendations, contributing to our ongoing epidemics of noncommunicable diseases. One strategy for accelerating progress toward healthier diets involves formal agreements between companies and nongovernmental organizations to develop new products, reformulate existing products, and implement new marketing strategies. Although the general intention for industry agreements is to generate public health benefits, their goals and activities may not align with this intention. Based on a literature review and technical assistance we provided to organizations engaged in industry agreements, we believe that increasing scientific scope and rigor in evaluations of voluntary food and beverage industry agreements could improve potential public health benefits and understanding of their actual effects. We provide recommendations for external, unconflicted funding that permits comprehensive, independent, and rigorous evaluation of voluntary industry agreements.

This paper aims to demonstrate the implications of health mobility on language practices in the medical tourism industry in India and on the ways, language workers become entrepreneurs. Drawing from ethnographic fieldwork that traces the trajectories of three former students of Russian, we highlight their future aspirations as language learners and entrepreneurs and show, how they attempt to capitalize on language skills and respond to changing conditions and patient movements within the structures, constraints and uncertainties of the linguistic market. Here, it is our aim to illustrate what it takes to become an enterprising and successful language worker and at the same time highlight their current positioning as emblematic yet subordinate figures within a fast-growing service industry in an emerging economy. We further demonstrate, how language skills not only become commodities to serve existing or future markets, but instead are recast as tools that can be strategically employed to secure recognition and access to prestigious and lucrative professional networks. In doing so, this paper illustrates how linguistic value is produced in a service industry that to date only received little attention in sociolinguistic research.

Based on multiple sources, this article concludes that, when learner-centered instructional strategies are used with doctoral students, these adult learners take charge of their individual and collective learning, become accountable for both, and enhance their ability to transfer learning to practice. The students studied skills of developed teams in advance of their group-conducted dissertation research first by engaging in team-development activities, then by conducting group-constructed pilot studies, and finally by collaboratively authoring related conference papers. These student-centered activities sought to ensure that the doctoral students could work together to conduct and complete their degree ending, team-conducted dissertation research.

It is the aim of this paper to examine the management of multilingualism in the Swiss healthcare industry and the negotiation of the oftentimes fluctuating and unstable value of linguistic resources in the care for medical tourists; on the other hand highlighting how international healthcare and medical tourism emerge as sites emblematic of the global new economy and the exploitation of those linguistic resources. Insights will be drawn from two research sites that are currently engaged in the care of international patients, a private medical clinic and spa I call Mountain Medical Resort as well as a public general hospital I call Lakeside Hospital. While both institutions offer to provide assistance and translation in a number of languages, this research primarily focuses on Russian as the language spoken by the largest share of medical tourists at both sites and in Switzerland as a whole. In particular, it is my aim to highlight how Russian as a linguistic resource is managed at Mountain Medical Resort and Lakeside Hospital to attend to visiting international patients. This will illustrate, which specific linguistic proficiencies are deemed valuable and how changes in market conditions and patient numbers have an impact on the commodity value of languages and that of Russian in particular. Here, it is the aim of this research to examine how, in which instances and under which conditions languages gain and may again lose a marketable value and how institutional policies react to that. Based on the two research sites that are exemplary for the current rise in numbers of medical tourists seeking treatment in Switzerland as much as they represent the transformation towards health as a consumable product, this also implies to examine how the neoliberal transformation of healthcare is connected to the re-imagination of language as a commodified skill under current political-economic conditions (Park in "J Multiling Multicult Dev" 37(5):453-466, 2016). Exemplified by medical tourism as a key site of the global new economy and Russian as a potentially commodifiable linguistic resource, this will also leave us with broader implications on the changing regimes of value of languages and on the role of language in the neoliberal economy.

Far too often, educational leadership doctoral programs fail to develop competent researchers and ensure that they graduate with a doctoral degree. Using the conceptualization of the ideal practitioner-scholar, this article describes how action research and cohort structures can help to develop school leaders who are competent, confident, and capable researchers. Specific examples of existing action research and collaborative cohort strategies are provided as well as recommendations for how doctoral programs can be organized better to measure their success in developing practitioner-scholars. (Contains 1 figure and 2 tables.)

Middle school teachers have been encouraged to view themselves as lifelong learners engaged in a collaborative process of improving their teaching practices and content knowledge. In this article, the authors describe how to use actual events, or dilemmas, for case-based discussions in order to facilitate the professional development of middle school teachers. The authors begin by describing cases and the important role they can play in the professional development of middle school teachers. They also discuss guidelines for using dilemmas to write cases and share them with colleagues. In addition, the authors present a dilemma involving plagiarism by a middle school student and describe how it can be used to promote professional development. (Contains 4 figures.)

Schools, and especially principals, are challenged constantly to improve learning outcomes for students. We advance five ideas that should help principals address these challenges: (a) student learning "plus," (b) school accomplishments, (c) organizational context and depth of repertoire, (d) social and political context, and (e) leadership as an annual cycle. (Contains 6 figures.)

An annual-case process that examines principal leadership over the course of a year can provide extensive opportunities for practitioners and professors to collect, examine, and disseminate knowledge in, of, and about practice. Such cases can support professional development and pre-service preparation and become bases for research across multiple sites. (Contains 4 figures.)

The goal of this comparative study was to explore the online interactions among members of two learning communities. The two cases examined two different cohorts in the same professional preparation program for school principals and administrators: a distance-learning cohort and an onsite university-district partnership cohort in which online activities supported face-to-face instructional delivery. Of interest here was how students wrestled together to interpret, understand, and support their learning process within the online environment. Because the content and instructor remained consistent in both sample cohorts, the differing modes of instructional delivery offered a unique opportunity for a comparative study. This paper reports preliminary analyses of the content of online exchanges among cohort members of the two learning communities, generated during the first semester (leadership domain) of the program. (Contains 2 tables.)

Cohorts are increasingly popular management tools for recruiting students into professional education programs, for organizing their learning experiences, for promoting performance-based outcomes, and for developing and using innovative teaching-learning practices. This article explores the role of a cohort leader in ensuring that the curriculum is integrated throughout the life of the cohort, that program coherence is developed and maintained, and that students, faculty, and the program assume appropriate responsibilities for learning. Reviews of literature about learning in cohorts and designing programs serve as the basis for defining three cohort leader responsibilities: curriculum integration, program coherence, and shared responsibility. The article closes with recommendations from the authors who are experienced cohort instructors and cohort leaders.

In many states, teacher candidates are required to complete the Education Teacher Performance Assessment (edTPA). Faculty at a Midwestern university recently piloted implementing edTPA completion prior to student teaching and revealed (a) an easing of tensions associated with edTPA completion, (b) a positive impact on the student teaching experience, and (c) the ability to use edTPA to formatively support candidate growth. Candidates successfully completed the edTPA prior to student teaching, which provided the opportunity to apply the knowledge and skills learned from the assessment, set goals for continued growth, and maintain the focus on the intended goals of the student teaching experience.

This is Part II of a two-part report on an assessment strategy used with incarcerated literacy learners. As described in Part I, the strategy employed a traditional set of reading tests as well as open-ended interviews. Two stances--increasingly reconciled in the reading community--framed this assessment: (a) a post-positivist stance that promotes a normed, component-level assessment of reading; and (b) a socialconstructivist one that attends to incarcerated learners' beliefs that anchor instruction. This framework respected the value commitments of each worldview. The study reports two sets of findings--about learners' reading patterns and beliefs--and then discusses two methods, pragmatic and dialectical, used to juxtapose and relate the findings across paradigms. Though time consuming, the study found this approach provided a way to (a) transcend normative-personal dualisms, (b) provide a check on over reliance of pet theories, and (c) cultivate a critical stance toward prison education. Due to length, the study is reported in two parts. Part II, presented here, includes the qualitative findings and a discussion on the ways, and merits, of juxtaposing two ways of knowing about incarcerated literacy learners. [For Part I, "Performance and Beliefs: Two Assessments of Literacy Learners in Prison, Part I," see EJ1185220.]

This study examines an assessment strategy used with incarcerated literacy learners. The strategy employed a traditional set of reading tests as well as open-ended interviews. Two stances--increasingly reconciled in the reading community--framed this assessment: (a) a post-positivist stance that promotes a normed, component-level assessment of reading; and (b) a social-constructivist one that attends to incarcerated learners' beliefs that anchor instruction. This framework respected the value commitments of each worldview. The study reports two sets of findings--about learners' reading patterns and beliefs--and then discusses two methods, pragmatic and dialectical, used to juxtapose and relate the findings across paradigms. Though time consuming, the study found this approach provided a way to (a) transcend normative-personal dualisms, (b) provide a check on over reliance of pet theories, and (c) cultivate a critical stance toward prison education. Due to length, the study is reported in two parts. Part I, presented here, includes the quantitative findings. [For Part II, "Performance and Beliefs: Two Assessments of Literacy Learners in Prison, Part II," see EJ1185222.]

The focus of this paper is on Lithuania, where government policies continue to limit the use of Russian in education, the public space and the media, while the local economy has recognized proficiency in Russian as a commodity. This is particularly salient in the healthcare industry that grew significantly in the past years with patients from post-Soviet countries seeking treatment at local hospitals and private clinics. Marketed for their "European" standards and competitive prices, promotional discourses refer to proficiency in Russian and familiarity with Russian culture and customs among medical staff. This commodification of Russian challenges perceptions on the value of language in the formation of political and cultural identities, pointing towards a paradigmatic shift and renegotiation of language attitudes in countries of the former USSR.

This study explores the lived experiences of incarcerated fathers "being-in-text" with their children. It draws on Husserlian and Heideggerian notions of intentionality that are partly deconstructed by Derrida and further "posted" by Vagle's notion of post-intentionality and Barad's posthumanism. Of particular interest is a week-long prison-based mural project--framed in terms of multimodal, existential, identity work--that provided material support for fathers' ontological shifts from being prisoners to being fathers in phenomenal time and space. The study revealed that being-in-text was lived as a contingent and suspenseful "being-in" time and space, oriented in a "being for" children, even as other forces of being-in-prison discouraged fathers from looking up toward horizons beyond prison walls. These dehumanizing forces of prison were a form of blind loyalty--a looking down and away from life outside prison and narratives of belonging. The study further revealed a possibility for becoming fathers as prisoners looked up into the eyes of (present and imagined) family members. Literacy events provide contexts for prisoners to be answerable to their children. But being-in-text and being-in-prison are lived as a singular and constant tension of "staging" that raises ethical concerns about the risks and costs of these ontological shifts. From this, an appeal is made for a nuanced valuing of prisoners as subjects rather than objects, and for further exploring a "posted" phenomenology's role in literacy research and social justice work.

Unavoidable sample size issues beset psychological research that involves scarce populations or costly laboratory procedures. When incorporating longitudinal designs these samples are further reduced by traditional modeling techniques, which perform listwise deletion for any instance of missing data. Moreover, these techniques are limited in their capacity to accommodate alternative correlation structures that are common in repeated measures studies. Researchers require sound quantitative methods to work with limited but valuable measures without degrading their data sets. This article provides a brief tutorial and exploration of two alternative longitudinal modeling techniques, linear mixed effects models and generalized estimating equations, as applied to a repeated measures study (n = 12) of pairmate attachment and social stress in primates. Both techniques provide comparable results, but each model offers unique information that can be helpful when deciding the right analytic tool.

This article reports on the results of an exploratory qualitative study of the collective memories of Secession held by a diverse group of university students (n = 54) at a large southern research institution. Participants completed a survey that asked them to produce a narrative of Secession as well as to rank a selection of heroes and provide an explanation for their ranking. We found that the majority of responses contained elements from different, and even opposing, collective-memory traditions, including the Lost Cause and freedom-quest narratives of the Civil War. The article explores the responses using a theoretical framework based on the socio-cultural theories of language and narrative developed by Bakhtin and Wertsch in light of historical work done on collective memory of the Civil War.

Visuo-spatial skills are believed to be enhanced in autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). This meta-analysis tests the current state of evidence for Figure Disembedding, Block Design, Mental Rotation and Navon tasks in ASD and neurotypicals. Block Design (d = 0.32) and Figure Disembedding (d = 0.26) showed superior performance for ASD with large heterogeneity that is unaccounted for. No clear differences were found for Mental Rotation. ASD samples showed a stronger local processing preference for Navon tasks (d = 0.35); less clear evidence for performance differences of a similar magnitude emerged. We discuss the meta-analysis results together with other findings relating to visuo-spatial processing and three cognitive theories of ASD: Weak Central Coherence, Enhanced Perceptual Functioning and Extreme Male Brain theory.

In criminal justice terms, time is a commodity used to punish transgressors. However, we examine time from the perspective of the prisoner's lived experiences--not how time is done to prisoners but what prisoners do with time--and describe ways time serves as both a constructive resource and an obstacle to growth and learning. Our project applies Bergson's Duree and Barbara Adam's Timescape theories to the problem of understanding what time means to incarcerated adults. As literacy workers we ask: How do prisoners do time? Are there qualitative differences in the ways time is experienced? Which experiences are conducive to learning? Our findings suggest that the lived experience of time is fundamental to growth and learning. Prisoners' abilities to access past experiences and imagine future ones are key to building new knowledge, maintaining relationships, and constructing new identities. We reflect on the value that prison education policies place on prisoners' experiences--including prisoners' temporal experiences--and consider the implications of these insights for correctional literacy programs.

This is a brief reply to Malewski's response to our article, "Disciplined Judgment: Toward a Reasonably Constrained Constructivism." There are several essential problems with the arguments presented in his article: (a) first, the intentions ascribed to our project in Dr. Malewski's response are inaccurate; (b) the response is supported by a false dichotomy between access to canonical knowledge and social justice; and (c) some examples used to support claims in the response are hyperbolic. We believe that this sort of interaction is a good model of scholarly discourse and we hope that this sustained discussion of our disagreements will produce the sort of discourse that can increase understandings across theoretical and political divides and eventually contribute to efforts to bring about positive social change.

Transformative learning can lead to great awareness of one's own and others' personal perspectives and result in changes in how participants understand important social issues and how they choose to take action or not. Three examples of Extension teaching that embrace transformative learning are presented: a phenomenological approach to interaction with landowners; forest story cards; and scenario planning. These tools have been shown to be useful in forestry and may be useful in many Extension disciplines.

Untold numbers of professional educators hold administrative certificates or licenses but do not use them, never taking formal administrative roles in schools. Why do so many of the graduates of our principal-preparation programs forego taking school-leadership positions and simply stick with teaching or assume other, nonadministrative-leadership positions in schools? Is the time and effort spent preparing potential administrators with such small success and great cost worth it? Informal discussions with those who pursue formal leadership positions--and with some who do not--suggest that some graduates who start their program with school-leadership experience were more likely to seek and accept formal leadership obligations. To examine this anecdotal evidence more rigorously, we undertook a three-university analysis of past graduates' preprogram school-leadership activities. Through exploratory, secondary analyses of existing data at three institutions as well as postprogram-position information, we generally found that program participants who (1) expressed commitment to becoming formal leaders, (2) had already held responsible leadership roles in their schools working with adults, or (3) had earned an advanced degree before entering a preparation program were more likely to take administrative posts. These tentative findings have implications for the recruitment and selection of participants for principal-preparation programs, potential for raising the quality of these programs, and possibilities for decreasing costs while increasing benefits of preparation programs.

Teachers wishing to apply constructivist theories to P-12 pedagogy must skillfully move between student knowledge constructions and powerful disciplinary knowledge and discourses. Although the gulf between these two ways of knowing varies markedly by discipline, constructivist methods are often taught as if they can be applied uniformly across all subjects. This paper provides a critique of overly-simplified applications of constructivism in P-12 pre-service programs by illustrating the way constructivist methods are constrained to differing degrees in the classrooms of three disciplines: literacy, history and mathematics. Building on recent arguments for the need to foreground disciplinary differences in P-12 instruction, the authors draw on published accounts of teaching from the scholarly literature to discuss ways in which pedagogy and discipline interact in praxis. By citing published classroom accounts across three subject areas, the authors illustrate differences in the ways judgment may play out across the disciplines and suggest a framework for future exploration of their method.

Research on leadership preparation programs in our field typically focuses on program design and delivery mode (e.g., closed cohorts, internships, distance learning, partnerships), curriculum and pedagogy (e.g., learning theories, syllabi content, learning outcomes), and occasionally program faculty. A critically missing component of research is about those actively engaged in learning--the candidates--and their lived and learned experiences. This call for research on program participants emerged from a review of research literature conducted by the authors. (Contains 2 tables.)

Reduced corporate training budgets require cost efficiencies in professional development. Distance learning, with its lower intrinsic costs, will likely become more prevalent. Therefore, the educational experience will change for many professionals. The objective of this study was to examine the perceptions of adult learners attending a drug development conference. One group participated in the live presentation while a second group joined via a simultaneous webcast. Following the presentations, both groups were asked nearly identical questions concerning their perceptions of their learning environment, course content, and utility to their work. Analysis of the data showed that both the distance and local groups were demographically similar, both groups were satisfied with the presentation method, audio and visual quality, and both felt that they would be able to apply what they learned in their work. The distance group felt more disconnected from the audience and speaker while the participants physically attending the presentations felt more part of a group. Distance learning does provide a viable and lower cost method for professional development but does not replace the traditional learning environment. (Contains 4 tables.)

This study addresses the age-old problem of integrating personal and disciplinary purposes for learning. Two groups of educators participated in online professional development in which each participant assessed an adult literacy learner. The assignment required participants to synthesize assessment data representing social-humanist and cognitive ways of knowing, develop instructional strategies, and reflect on the experience. Seventeen of the 24 participants created strategies and explicitly categorized them. In 37 of the 50 strategies, they attempted to integrate cognitive and social-humanist approaches. First, I present preliminary patterns in the way integration was achieved and participants' beliefs about the project. Then I discuss implications for professional development and for its role in facilitating pedagogical and dispositional shifts toward integrated practices.

Literacy and parenting programmes in US prisons tend to be generic and skills-oriented, insensitive to pressing personal needs of parents and their distant children. This study reports on a prison-based family/art/literacy programme that attended to the local needs and interests of participants through a mural project. The article describes some of the social-cultural purposes that buttressed family engagement. It further explains how the project attended to idiosyncratic needs within a carefully structured, yet flexible, programme design. Six principles for contextualised, family/art/literacy programmes in prison are suggested. (Contains 1 note and 6 figures.)

One problem with the literature of correctional education (CE) and prison reform is that the contributions of African Americans have been generally neglected. This is the first of three essays that will begin to fill that gap. Janie Porter Barrett was an important Virginia leader in the period before and after the turn of the 20th century. She mobilized funds through the Virginia State Federation of Colored Women's Clubs to establish an institution for African American girls outside Richmond, and then became its first superintendent. Throughout her tenure there, Barrett articulated and applied many of the principles that define the modern CE movement. The article includes a context for the work of African American reformers as they are (are are not) represented in the literature of our field, a background biographical sketch on Barrett, some of the themes of her influential career in CE and prison reform, and a summary. The authors learned that the records from Barrett's institution became sealed for 100 years in an effort to protect the reputations of persons who had been confined there during their lifetimes, and they were concerned that this might make information about Barrett's contributions even more inaccessible. They hope the material they were able to access will attract attention to this exemplary correctional educator, and that others will carry on with the traditions Barrett stood for throughout her career.

In many U.S. prisons an overuse of individualized instruction silences literacy learners and reinforces oppressive notions about what knowledge is and whose knowledge counts. In these classrooms, methods that invite learners to tap their background knowledge, reflect on their worlds, and dialogue with others to construct meaning--commonplace in K-12 education and even corporate HRD practices--seem radically at odds with top-down prison cultures and output-based programs. Interviews with six prisoners and on-line discussions with 25 American educators shed light on this national problem, and on the possibility of engaging U.S. prisoners in classroom activities that center on their views, interpretations of life-experiences, and day-to-day literacy needs. In Part One of this report (Author, in press), the case for social-constructivist methods was made, and prisoners' dispositional barriers and funds of knowledge were discussed. Part Two of this report makes additional theoretical arguments based on the work of Lev Vygotsky and presents views of select U.S. correctional educators. By attending to the ideas of correctional educators and prisoners, the authors strive to model social-constructivist methods in our study just as we advocate for them in prison classrooms. [For Part 1, see EJ814392.]

For the past 40 years adult learning theory has stressed the need for adults to share in the planning of their own learning and socially construct new knowledge by building on their background knowledge and life experiences. Despite growing acceptance of social-constructivist pedagogies in community-based literacy programs and even corporate settings, much literacy instruction in U.S. prisons remains individualized, and prison classrooms are not perceived as safe places for conversations about life experiences and personal literacy needs. This two-part report explores reasons for this silencing and the potential for change. In Part One, the case for social-constructivist methods is made. Part One also attempts to answer the question, "Why are mainstream adult learning methods perceived as radical in prison?" by looking at barriers to social learning from the ABE learner's and teacher's perspective. Part Two provides practical suggestions for engaging ABE students in the interesting and identity changing process of socially constructing meaning. (Contains 6 endnotes.)

Drawing activities in science can help students conceptualize and reflect on their experiences. In this article, the authors share their experiences incorporating drawing into science lessons for third- and fourth-grade students. While these examples pertain to life science lessons, drawing strategically is appropriate for any topic and is an effective method for the motivation, instruction, and assessment of students of "all" abilities and levels, including students who are learning English and students with other special needs. (Contains 4 figures, 4 resources and 1 online resource.)

As part of an effort to infuse our physical chemistry laboratory with biologically relevant, investigative experiments, we detail four integrated thermodynamic experiments that characterize the denaturation (or unfolding) and self-interaction of hen egg white lysozyme as a function of pH and ionic strength. Students first use Protein Explorer to examine the structure of lysozyme and its charge dependence on pH. Student groups are then assigned one of four 45 mM sodium acetate buffers: pH 3.6 with either 0 or 60 mM NaCl or pH 4.6 with either 0 or 60 mM NaCl. Using their assigned buffers, student groups determine the second virial coefficient of lysozyme using laser light scattering and gel permeation chromatography. Student groups also determine the van't Hoff enthalpy of unfolding by UV absorbance thermal denaturation and compare their results to the van't Hoff enthalpy and calorimetric enthalpy of unfolding determined by differential scanning calorimetry. We stress the use of complementary techniques to determine these thermodynamic variables for student validation of experimental results. Students present their results in a peer reviewed, journal-style report and, using the data from the entire class, must determine the dependence of the lysozyme second virial coefficient and unfolding enthalpies on pH and ionic strength. Upon completion of these experiments, students are anticipated to appreciate the pH dependence of protein charge and screening of protein electrostatic repulsion with ionic strength. (Contains 4 figures and 2 tables.)

Site-directed mutagenesis and other molecular biology techniques, including plasmid manipulation and restriction analysis, are commonly used tools in the biochemistry research laboratory. In redesigning our biochemistry lab curricula, we sought to integrate these techniques into a term-long, project-based course. In the module presented here, students use structural data to design a site-directed mutant and make the mutation using the Kunkel method. A second, silent mutant, that creates or removes a restriction site, is simultaneously introduced. Restriction digestion and agarose gel electrophoresis are used to assess the success of mutagenesis. Placing these procedures in the context of continuous, student-driven project serves to create a "research style" laboratory environment. (Contains 5 figures.)

Many middle school teachers are not prepared to develop units and lesson plans on controversial topics. In addition, many are not prepared to respond effectively when controversial topics arise unexpectedly during routine lessons. This is a significant problem because controversial topics are arising with increasing frequency in middle school classrooms. In this article, the authors describe the case method, which centers around narratives about a significant event that leads to a dilemma and may involve teachers, students, parents, and administrators. The case method is designed to facilitate the sharing of strategies, experience, and middle school philosophy, and is ideally suited to help preservice and inservice middle school teachers grapple with the controversial topics that confront them daily. Middle school teachers can use this method to effectively prepare themselves for controversial topics such as the origin of the universe, the evolution of life, the best form of government, and constitutional rights, to name a few. By means of the case method, middle school teachers can turn controversial topics into teaching opportunities. (Contains 4 figures.)

The Emory-Obed Watershed in Tennessee, like many other rural areas throughout the United States, is experiencing changes in economic activities and social values associated with natural resources. Informed by the interactional approach to community development, this effort strove to build community capacity so community members could more fully govern their life according to their values and interests. We utilized key informant and focus group interviews to gain information about the watershed and to obtain different perspectives on resource-related issues. Data from key informant interviews led to the selection of a geographic community in which a community of interest was nurtured throughout a year involving monthly meetings, a community assessment and submission of a development grant application. It was found that gaining entry into the community and building trust among participants, and between participants and researchers, were critical in this in-place participatory community research. Lessons drawn from this experience applicable to similar efforts are discussed. (Contains 1 figure and 1 table.)

Leadership mentoring and situated learning are important components in the effective preparation of candidates for school principalships. This study examined this assertion through responses to reflective writing prompts and to interview questions by students enrolled in three different closed cohorts in the same university-based preparation program. Readiness to assume a principalship appears to be linked to an individual's (a) encouragement and support from leadership mentors; (b) opportunities to engage in authentic leadership activities; and (c) perceptions of personal competence to assume school-leadership responsibilities. To develop these elements, especially as pools of principals shrink, preparers should carefully select leadership mentors for aspiring administrators and organize authentic problems of practice in schools, which expand opportunities for aspirants to apply knowledge in practice. In this vein, three models of leadership mentoring during full-time authentic school-leadership practice are described. (Contains 4 tables.)

This article describes the establishment in fall 2002 of a School of Education Research Center designed to support faculty in increasing productivity and quality in research. Details are provided about center goals, services, staffing, space, resources, and logistics during the first year of operation. In addition, data are shared about faculty usage of the Center, the level of faculty satisfaction with center services in the first year, and initial increases in faculty productivity. The article concludes with plans for continued data collection to monitor the impact of the Center, a discussion of lessons learned at this point in the Center's development, and possibilities for the evolution of the Center.

This article features the workshop titled Exploring New Environments, developed by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's DESTINY Traveling Science Learning Program. Exploring New Environments is a teacher professional development model based on the idea that teachers are also learners who thrive when given the means and encouragement to explore fresh intellectual worlds. Teachers can creatively use what they learn to increase their students' interest in and understanding of science. The author also features DESTINY, a pre-college program that promotes equity of access to high-quality science education for all students. Science teachers are DESTINY's primary focus. The program sought to involve teachers of other disciplines in the process of science education. It initiated its interdisciplinary approach with Frankenstein's Fingerprints, a module that deals with genetics, scientific discovery and ethics, and students' critical-thinking skills. Workshops such as Exploring New Environments have the potential to garner nonscience collaborators for science teachers and also can encourage and prepare nonscience teachers to independently reinforce scientific content in their classrooms.

Objectives: To determine the incidence of and risk factors associated with infant (less than 1 year of age) physical abuse in Alaska. Methods: A population-based retrospective cohort study for the 1994-2000 resident birth cohort was conducted by linking data from birth certificates, Child Protective Services, a statewide hospital-based trauma registry, hospital discharge data, and the Alaska Infant Mortality Review (including death certificates). The main outcome measures were the incidences of overall physical abuse and abuse resulting in hospitalization or death. A case of child abuse was defined as an instance of substantiated physical abuse to an infant identified in the Child Protective Services database or an infant death with homicide identified on the death certificate as the manner of death. Results: During the 7-year study period, there were 70,842 births and 325 cases of physical abuse including 72 that led to hospitalization (n=58), death (n=4), or both (n=10); respective incidences for all abuse and abuse leading to hospitalization or death were 4.6 and 1.0 per 1000 live births. Following multivariate analyses, the risk factors with the highest population attributable risks were maternal or paternal education is less than or equal to 12 years, unmarried mother, and maternal prenatal substance use. To determine if the study methodology was likely to have missed cases of severe abuse, we examined information for all 216 infants hospitalized for trauma during the study period who did not have identification of abuse in one of the study databases; of these, at least 39 had injuries inconsistent with the reported mechanism (a long bone or skull fracture that reportedly resulted from a fall of less than 3 feet or from a caretaker's arms or for which the caretaker denied a history of trauma). Conclusions: Alaska has one of the highest documented infant physical abuse incidences reported in the literature and abuse is associated with potentially modifiable--primarily social--risk factors. Despite this high incidence, substantial under-reporting of hospitalized cases likely occurs.