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Over the last several decades, the opioid crisis has had an increasing impact on the educational environment of schools. The role that principals and superintendents have in leading schools that have been affected by opioids has been mostly overlooked in the research. The present study was conducted in Ohio, a state with areas that have some of the highest death rates due to opioid-related incidents in the nation. Purpose: This study collected data on the perspectives and perceptions of school leaders in Ohio to better understand how principals and superintendents frame their decisions regarding the opioid crisis. Design: We analyze data collected from a survey of 217 Ohio school leaders (n = 164 principals and n = 53 superintendents). The survey required principals and superintendents to rate their perception of the opioid crisis in their schools based on their socioeconomic status, school typology as rural or non-rural, and school location within or outside the Appalachian region. Results: Findings emphasize that opioids remain a factor negatively impacting schools of varying typologies, economic levels, and geographical locations.

Effective school leaders develop the capacity to connect with their staff, students, and educational stakeholders to form bonds of respect and trust, and to foster a sense of efficacy in their practice and the practice of others. This phenomenological investigation aims to better understand how school principals interpret the influence of their sociocultural backgrounds and how they make meaning of their lived experiences as school leaders in relation to that influence. Using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, this qualitative study investigates how five rural school leaders consciously perceive and make making of the influence that their sociocultural backgrounds have on their leadership styles and strategies. Findings from this inquiry were organized into four thematic units: the advantages of being local, the context of the community in school-community relations, the leaders' "application of the school" with stakeholders, and the leaders' personal identities. Focusing on their lived experiences, participants provided insights into connections between their local identities as Appalachian leaders and their ability to relate to the diversity of stakeholders in their school communities.

Despite its inherent transformational capacity, day-to-day educational practices have not changed since the late 19th Century, resulting in processes that do not uphold democratic values. (Sizer, 1984; Wood, 2005). This study seeks to answer the following research question: how did an educational leader use the Coalition of Essential School's (CES) model to develop institutional norms to address social inequity? The Coalition's termination in 2017 prompts concern; if a nonprofit organization committed to "student-centered, equity-driven learning" cannot persist, education and democracy are in jeopardy (What We Do, 2017). The Common Principles (2017) and the works of Sizer (1984) and Wood (2005) were used to triangulate the in-depth qualitative interview of Dr. Wood. Three themes emerged from such data: understanding the Common Principles, living the Common Principles, and equity with the Common Principles. These findings ultimately reveal a growing disparity between ideals, implementation, and outcomes. Consequently, active democratic citizen preparation rests with all of us, all facets of education and other societal institutions.

Many students in rural U.S. schools are experiencing trauma and adverse childhood experiences due to circumstances relating to the opioid crisis. A moral imperative presents itself to school principals and other educational leaders to make context-specific decisions that are responsive to the trauma experienced by the students in their schools. This case study investigated the lived experiences of 12 rural school leaders from five school districts in Appalachian Ohio. Specifically, we examined their experiences with?opioid-related issues in their schools. This research recognizes the needs of school principals and assistant principals as they lead in a time of challenges and chaos due to opioid-related issues. As a focus of our analysis, which prioritizes a crisis leadership approach, we examined principals engaging in a practice of bricolage to "make do" in the midst of the ongoing crisis. This collective case study presents critical cases through in vivo themes that emerged from the data: 1) "No Longer Surprised," 2) "Going Down the Rabbit Hole," 3) "I Don't Know What Could Prepare You," and 4) "We Made Decisions We Thought Would Help." The implications consider ways in which practitioners, preparation programs, and policy makers can reconsider professional preparation, ongoing trainings, and funding models to integrate opioid awareness and crisis response capacity.

Creating Active and Reflective Educators (CARE) is a Professional Development School (PDS) partnership between The Patton College of Education at Ohio University and Federal Hocking Local Schools (FHLS) in rural Southeastern Ohio. This partnership, which won the 2018 NAPDS Award for Exemplary Professional Development School Achievement, is one of the oldest in The Patton College of Education. It was founded on Dewey's principles of democratic and experiential education. As a PDS partnership, CARE recruits teacher candidates from Middle Childhood Education (MCE) and Adolescent-to-Young Adult (AYA) programs in the Patton College. These candidates must apply for program admission and then take additional coursework to participate. Candidates matriculate as a cohort, developing strong relationships and learning from others who are working together is similar democratic and pragmatic experiences. In this report, we provide an overview of CARE as an award-winning partnership framed by the National Association of Professional Development Schools nine essentials.

This qualitative study used in-depth interviews to investigate the perceptions of school leaders about developing and maintaining school-university partnerships with a local regional university in rural school districts. The professional development school (PDS) model provides meaningful learning experiences for teacher candidates by providing sustained and embedded field experiences in an authentic teaching environment. Participants were current and/or former administrators in the local/regional school-university partnership. All participants were former teachers who later became principals, superintendents, and/or district directors who were well prepared to inform the research questions. Data collected were categorically aggregated and analyzed using coding that resulted five themes: (1) development and value of early partnerships, (2) rural context, (3) school-community culture, (4) teacher perception and participation, and (5) important considerations of initiating the partnership.

This qualitative study investigates the ability of teachers that have completed their clinical experience--i.e., teacher preparation--in a school grounded in Deweyan theory to maintain a democratic practice. As such, the study focused on educators that were graduates of a school-university partnership program, known as CARE--Creating Active, Reflective Educators. Data were collected to address the following research question: "To what extent can former CARE students practice democratic education in their current public-school teaching environment?" Interviews conducted with current school teachers and leaders that were former CARE program students. Responses were audio-recorded and transcribed, then coded and organized into thematic units to report findings.

Purpose: Public interests and concerns often create dilemmas for school principals. As such moral dilemmas are the case for schools as places marked by social, economic, cultural and political diversity. The purpose of this paper is to look at how Appalachian school leaders use moral literacy to make decisions when facing ethical issues? Design/methodology/approach: The data for this study emerged from interviews conducted with ten principals. The principals interviewed represent a purposeful sample of practitioners within the Appalachian region of Southern Ohio, using group characteristic sampling. Findings: Principals' responses varied in their depth of familiarity and comfort with moral literacy. The abductive analysis yielded several thematic units, classified using both emergent patterns and "a priori" codes. The overarching themes that emerged from this analysis concerned what an ethical dilemma is, what it means to be a morally literate leader, moral dimensions of leadership, and the value integration of doing ethics and being ethical. Research limitations/implications: This study relies strictly on the participants' personal conceptualization of moral literacy and the ethical paradigms it presupposes. As a qualitative study, the findings are based primarily on the participants' perception of and the researcher's interpretation of the complexities and ambiguities in reading ethical dilemmas. Practical implications: To effectively accomplish the moral work of the principalship requires that school leaders be morally literate, understanding the integrated nature of ethical paradigms. Originality/value: The findings of this study continue to disclose the manner in which practicing principals define what an ethical dilemma is and moves us closer to understanding how practitioners frame moral literacy within their practice yet outside of exposure to clearly defined theoretical frameworks.

Organic chemistry students struggle with understanding the energetics of chemical reactions. Reaction coordinate diagrams are one tool that is widely used in organic chemistry classrooms to assist students with visualizing and explaining the energy changes that take place throughout a reaction. Thirty-six students enrolled in organic chemistry II participated in a qualitative study that used semi-structured interviews to investigate the extent to which students meaningfully extract and integrate information encoded in reaction coordinate diagrams. Results show that students have difficulties explaining the meanings of surface features such as peaks, valleys, peak height, and peak width. Analysis of students' explanations resulted in four themes that describe students' challenges with correctly interpreting the features of reaction coordinate diagrams. Students conflated transition states and intermediates, despite being able to recite definitions. Students described the chemical species encoded at points along the x-axis of the reaction coordinate diagrams, while largely ignoring the energies of the species encoded along the y-axis. Implications for teaching organic chemistry are discussed.

This study investigates how students account for a macroscopic temperature change during the dissolution of ionic salts through particulate level explanations. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with general chemistry, physical chemistry, and biophysical chemistry students. During the interviews, students conducted hands-on tasks that included the touching of beakers containing exothermic or endothermic dissolution processes. Data analysis resulted in categorizing students into groups based on their ideas about bond breaking, bond making, and energy changes. Students' particulate understandings of the dissolving process did not appear to impact their explanations of the energy changes they observed. Only two students (one from general chemistry and one from biophysical chemistry) correctly described both the dissolving process and the macroscopic energy changes. No students invoked the concepts of potential energy, lattice energy, or enthalpy of hydration to explain their observations.

The Assimilation Theory of Ausubel and Novak has typically been used in the research literature to describe two extremes to learning chemistry: meaningful learning "versus" rote memorization. It is unlikely, however, that such discrete categories of learning exist. Rote and meaningful learning, rather, are endpoints along a continuum of learning. This paper reports the results of a qualitative investigation of students' experiences in a spiral, organic chemistry curriculum, specifically describing additional positions along the learning continuum between meaningful learning and rote memorization. (Contains 1 figure.)

At Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, the second-semester general chemistry course for chemistry majors is the equivalent of an analytical laboratory course. The experiments in the course are classified as classical, discovery, or instrumental on the basis of their structure and purpose. To investigate students' perceptions of learning through these three categories of experiments, six students were interviewed three times over the course of the semester, both individually and in pairs. The students' descriptions of their learning in the laboratory were analyzed through the lens of Novak's theory of meaningful learning and were compared with the instructor's learning goals for the experiments. Students' prior knowledge and the structure of the experiments influenced whether the students described their learning in the cognitive, psychomotor, and/or affective learning domains. (Contains 5 tables.)

At Miami University, the attrition rate in the year-long organic chemistry sequence for pre-medical majors typically ranges from 30-50%. To decrease attrition, the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry developed an innovative, spiral curriculum. Unlike a traditional organic chemistry course that moves sequentially through the material, the spiral approach provides students with a broad, general overview of organic chemistry during the first semester, followed by exploration of important topics in more detail during the subsequent semester. A qualitative, case-study approach using interviews and reflective essays documented the experiences of eighteen students as they progressed through this spiral curriculum. This paper describes the strengths and weaknesses of the spiral approach, its impact on student attrition, results from ACS exams, and suggestions to improve the model. (Contains 1 table and 1 figure.)

Purpose: Public interests and concerns often create dilemmas for school principals. As such moral dilemmas are the case for schools as places marked by social, economic, cultural and political diversity. The purpose of this paper is to look at how Appalachian school leaders use moral literacy to make decisions when facing ethical issues? Design/methodology/approach: The data for this study emerged from interviews conducted with ten principals. The principals interviewed represent a purposeful sample of practitioners within the Appalachian region of Southern Ohio, using group characteristic sampling. Findings: Principals' responses varied in their depth of familiarity and comfort with moral literacy. The abductive analysis yielded several thematic units, classified using both emergent patterns and a priori codes. The overarching themes that emerged from this analysis concerned what an ethical dilemma is, what it means to be a morally literate leader, moral dimensions of leadership, and the value integration of doing ethics and being ethical. Research limitations/implications: This study relies strictly on the participants' personal conceptualization of moral literacy and the ethical paradigms it presupposes. As a qualitative study, the findings are based primarily on the participants' perception of and the researcher's interpretation of the complexities and ambiguities in reading ethical dilemmas. Practical implications: To effectively accomplish the moral work of the principalship requires that school leaders be morally literate, understanding the integrated nature of ethical paradigms. Originality/value: The findings of this study continue to disclose the manner in which practicing principals define what an ethical dilemma is and moves us closer to understanding how practitioners frame moral literacy within their practice yet outside of exposure to clearly defined theoretical frameworks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the project of introducing symmetry and crystallography in high school chemistry in Miami University. It notes that the project aims to expose students to the essential concepts of symmetry and crystallography through establishing self-contained lessons which can be integrated to a high school chemistry classroom. It adds that the theme introduced and developed over three series such as demonstrations and hands-on activities. It stresses that the approach may be inappropriate for all teachers and classrooms. It encourages teachers to use the work as a staring point in establishing learning experiences for students.