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The aim of this study was to investigate an adaptation of the Study Processes Questionnaire for the discipline of physics. A total of 2030 first year physics students at an Australian metropolitan university completed the questionnaire over three different year cohorts. The resultant data has been used to explore whether the adaptation of the questionnaire is justifiable and if meaningful interpretations can be drawn for teaching and learning in the discipline. In extracting scales for deep and surface approaches to learning, we have excised several items, retaining an adequate subset. Reflecting trends in literature, our deep scale is very reliable while the surface scale is not so reliable. Our results show that the behaviour of the mean scale scores for students in different streams in first year physics is in agreement with expectations. Furthermore, different year cohort performance on the scales reflects changes in senior high school syllabus. Our experiences in adaptation, validation and checking for reliability is of potential use for others engaged in contextualising the Study Processes Questionnaire, and adds value to the use of the questionnaire for improving student learning in specific discipline areas. (Contains 2 tables and 2 figures.)

In this self-study, two science educators partnered with two elementary teachers to plan, implement, and reflect on a unit taught in second grade classrooms that integrated science and language arts. The researchers hoped to increase their pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) for elementary science teaching so that they might use their experiences working in an elementary context to modify their practices in their elementary science method instruction. The research question guiding the study was: What aspects of our PCK for elementary science teaching do we as science educators develop by co-planning, co-teaching, and reflecting with second grade teachers? Data include transcripts of planning meetings, oral reflections about the experience, and videos of the unit being enacted. Findings indicate that managing resources for science teaching, organizing students for science learning, and reflecting on science teaching were themes prevalent in the data. These themes were linked to the model of PCK developed by Park and Oliver ("Research in Science Education," 38, 261-284, 2008) and demonstrate that we developed PCK for elementary science teaching in several areas. In our discussion, we include several proposed changes for our elementary science methods course based on the outcomes of the study.

Research on the conceptions of generic graduate attributes has focused on employers and higher education institutions and finds inconsistent conceptions and differing values attributed to them. Little work exists surrounding those charged with advising prospective students. Adopting phenomenographic methodology, this research establishes conceptions of generic graduate attributes held by Australian career advisers in NSW secondary schools: defining and describing two outcome spaces by which generic graduate attributes are understood. Advisers see generic graduate attributes as close to personal qualities, strongly related to employment, or important for self-development. Advisers value generic graduate attributes as "minimal" or "valid". The hierarchical nature of the categories, and dichotomy of views on valuing generic graduate attributes, demonstrate varying conceptions, ranging from simplistic to an advanced understanding surpassing those found in the policies of employers and universities. The variation suggests those charged with advising future generations do not share a common understanding of generic graduate attributes and raises critical implications for research, policy, and practice.

Teacher workload is a growing problem internationally. In this article, we analyse an attempt by the state education bureaucracy of New South Wales (NSW), Australia, to address this through the 'Quality Time Program'. Drawing on labour process theory and Carol Bacchi's framework of 'What's the problem represented to be?', we analyse how the Quality Time policy documents conceptualise and aim to address a particular kind of teacher 'workload problem'. We argue the policy defines the 'problem' as one of efficiency. At the same time, through use of the category of 'administration' the policy proposes the reduction of 'core' work, such as lesson planning, representing a potential deskilling of teachers. We argue that policies such as the Quality Time Program reflect the way in which teachers' work is emerging as a site of contestation in the context of workload reduction efforts, requiring ongoing monitoring and analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Paying attention is a critical first step toward learning. For children in primary school classrooms there can be many things to attend to other than the focus of a lesson, such as visual displays on classroom walls. The aim of this study was to use eye-tracking techniques to explore the impact of visual displays on attention and learning for children. Critically, we explored these issues for children developing typically and for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Both groups of children watched videos of a teacher delivering classroom activities--2 of "story-time" and 2 mini lessons. Half of the videos each child saw contained high levels of classroom visual displays in the background (high visual display [HVD]) and half had none (no visual display [NVD]). Children completed worksheets after the mini lessons to measure learning. During viewing of all videos children's eye movements were recorded. The presence of visual displays had a significant impact on attention for all children, but to a greater extent for children with ASD. Visual displays also had an impact on learning from the mini lessons, whereby children had poorer learning scores in the HVD compared with the NVD lesson. Individual differences in age, verbal, nonverbal, and attention abilities were important predictors of learning, but time spent attending the visual displays in HVD was the most important predictor. This novel and timely investigation has implications for the use of classroom visual displays for all children, but particularly for children with ASD.

In the Drosophila brain, 'compass' neurons track the orientation of the body and head (the fly's heading) during navigation .sup.1,2. In the absence of visual cues, the compass neuron network estimates heading by integrating self-movement signals over time.sup.3,4. When a visual cue is present, the estimate of the network is more accurate.sup.1,3. Visual inputs to compass neurons are thought to originate from inhibitory neurons called R neurons (also known as ring neurons); the receptive fields of R neurons tile visual space.sup.5. The axon of each R neuron overlaps with the dendrites of every compass neuron.sup.6, raising the question of how visual cues are integrated into the compass. Here, using in vivo whole-cell recordings, we show that a visual cue can evoke synaptic inhibition in compass neurons and that R neurons mediate this inhibition. Each compass neuron is inhibited only by specific visual cue positions, indicating that many potential connections from R neurons onto compass neurons are actually weak or silent. We also show that the pattern of visually evoked inhibition can reorganize over minutes as the fly explores an altered virtual-reality environment. Using ensemble calcium imaging, we demonstrate that this reorganization causes persistent changes in the compass coordinate frame. Taken together, our data suggest a model in which correlated pre- and postsynaptic activity triggers associative long-term synaptic depression of visually evoked inhibition in compass neurons. Our findings provide evidence for the theoretical proposal that associative plasticity of sensory inputs, when combined with attractor dynamics, can reconcile self-movement information with changing external cues to generate a coherent sense of direction.sup.7-12. Visual inputs to compass neurons can reorganize over minutes as a fly explores an altered virtual-reality environment., Author(s): Yvette E. Fisher [sup.1] , Jenny Lu [sup.1] , Isabel D'Alessandro [sup.1] , Rachel I. Wilson [sup.1] Author Affiliations: (1) Department of Neurobiology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA Main [...]

In California and other states, air quality management districts are considering using energy efficiency and renewable energy to target both criteria pollutants (to meet air quality standards)and greenhouse gas emissions. This report presents a pilot study, designed to quantitativelymodel the emissions avoided through new energy efficiency/renewable energy programs not already required by state or federal statute. This work used California as a test case, producing an analysis that could theoretically satisfy U.S. Environmental Protection Agency requirements for using energy efficiency/renewable energy in State Implementation Plan compliance.Synapse Energy Economics used a Western Electricity Coordinating Council-scale production-cost simulation model (PROSYM) to examine the impact of incremental energy efficiency/renewable energy on generation and emissions of oxides of nitrogen (NOX), sulfur dioxide (SO2), and carbon dioxide. Sixteen energy efficiency/renewable energy scenarios were tested against a reference “base case,” representing the expected structure of Western Electricity Coordinating Council in 2016 under a full implementation of the California 33 percent renewable electricity standard and other energy statutes. The scenarios were comprised of four energy efficiency/renewable energy programs (solar, wind, and both baseload and peaking energy efficiency) enacted in four different California service territories (San Diego Gas and Electric, Southern California Edison, Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, and Pacific Gas and Electric).It was observed that in many cases, a large fraction of generation was displaced out-of-state, and total NOX and SO2 displaced in California tended to be small. Generation displaced out-of-state included coal resources, and therefore resulted in far larger emissions benefits in Western Electricity Coordinating Council regions other than California. The large range ofcriteria pollutant displacement from energy efficiency/renewable energy programs across California suggests that examining output variance and uncertainty is important, and that both model construct and input assumptions are key.

As ongoing climate change drives suitable habitats to higher elevations, species ranges are predicted to follow. However, observed range shifts have been surprisingly variable, with most species differing in rates of upward shift and others failing to shift at all. Disturbances such as fires could play an important role in accelerating range shifts by facilitating recruitment in newly suitable habitats (leading edges) and removing adults from areas no longer suited for regeneration (trailing edges). To date, empirical evidence that fires interact with climate change to mediate elevational range shifts is scarce. Resurveying historical plots in areas that experienced climate change and fire disturbance between surveys provides an exciting opportunity to fill this gap. To investigate whether species have tended to shift upslope and if shifts depend on fires, we resurveyed historical vegetation plots in North Cascades National Park, Washington, USA, an area that has experienced warming, drying, and multiple fires since the original surveys in 1983. We quantified range shifts by synthesizing across two lines of evidence: (1) displacement at range edges and the median elevation of species occurrences, and (2) support for the inclusion of interactions among time, fire and elevation in models of species presence with elevation. Among species that experienced fire since the original survey, a plurality expanded into new habitats at their upper edge. In contrast, a plurality of species not experiencing fire showed no evidence of shifts, with the remainder exhibiting responses that were variable in magnitude and direction. Our results suggest that fires can facilitate recruitment at leading edges, while species in areas free of disturbance are more likely to experience stasis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Compassionate release is a well-established exception to the Sentencing Reform Act's requirement that a defendant's sentence not be reduced after its final imposition. The Act requires the Sentencing Commission, through policy statement, to describe "extraordinary and compelling reasons" warranting compassionate release. However, the Sentencing Commission's failure to convene as a quorum for nearly four years precluded any policy statement updates. In that time, the COVID-19 pandemic and the Bureau of Prisons' internal issues further complicated the compassionate release process. This Note analyzes the 2023 amendment to the compassionate release policy statement, its potential implications, and suggests additional steps to be taken through effective use of the policy statement Commentary to aid district courts in deciding what constitutes an extraordinary and compelling reason for compassionate release. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The diet of many students consists of on-the-go processed food. As part of a larger school garden project, the authors wanted students to consider the relevance of plants in their own lives, both as food sources for us and for the animals that we eat. In this article, they present a mini-unit they taught in a third-grade classroom that helped students connect their developing ideas about plant parts with the plants we eat. This series of lessons was designed to integrate the use of informational texts into an inquiry-based science unit to meet both the "Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts" and the "Next Generation Science Standards" ("NGSS").

Most plants are able to obtain all of the nutrients that they need from air, water, and soil; however, this is not true of carnivorous plants. Because they tend to live in boggy soils where there are small amounts of nitrogen, carnivorous plants have developed specialized structures that enable them to lure and capture insects and sometimes other small animals (ICPS 2015). Because Venus flytraps, pitcher plants, and sundews are all native to their state (North Carolina) and use different structures to capture their prey, the authors chose those as their focus. Studying the natural world can be fascinating for young learners and can provide an opportunity for teachers to incorporate multiple tools for science communication. In this article, the authors describe an integrated, multimodal unit around the theme of carnivorous plants (CPs) for two first-grade classrooms.

In consideration of the potential of drawing and writing as assessment and learning tools, we explored how early primary students used these modes to communicate their science understandings. The context for this study was a curricular unit that incorporated multiple modes of representation in both the presentation of information and production of student understanding with a focus on the structure and function of carnivorous plants (CPs). Two science teacher educators and two first-grade teachers in the United States co-planned and co-taught a multimodal science unit on CP structure and function that included multiple representations of Venus flytraps (VFTs): physical specimens, photographs, videos, text, and discussions. Pre- and post-assessment student drawings and writings were statistically compared to note significant changes, and pre- and post-assessment writings were qualitatively analysed to note themes in student ideas. Results indicate that students increased their knowledge of VFT structure and function and synthesised information from multiple modes. While students included more structures of the VFT in their drawings, they were better able to describe the functions of structures in their writings. These results suggest the benefits for student learning and assessment of having early primary students represent their science understandings in multiple modes.