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Despite its importance in promoting student academic achievement and career development, writing pedagogy has received little emphasis in research and professional development efforts. The purpose of this study was to examine teacher perceptions and practices of writing in the middle grades from a cross-cultural perspective. 16 middle-grade teachers from South Korea and one state within the United States were recruited for a semi-structured interview. Transcripts of the interview responses were analyzed, using a constant comparison method. The findings showed that teachers' instructional practices in writing were contextualized with their personal and professional knowledge and experiences. Country specific patterns were found in teacher perceptions of best practices in writing instruction while cross-cultural patterns were observed in the ways that teachers differentiated instruction for struggling writers and motivated them to write.

Sharing teacher authority with students is a common pillar of these progressive pedagogies. This paper takes up the issue of authority in establishing credibility in knowledge claims by examining the dynamics of class discussions over race relations. Using pedagogy of positionality (Maher & Tetreault, 2001), the study pays attention to how authority is exercised and challenged in negotiating differences among participants. The primary data for this study draws from in-depth interviews with seven college professors who teach Racial and Ethnic Relations in a predominantly white institution. The findings of this study suggest that knowledge claims and meaning-making is mediated by relationships among members. That is, authority comes not from professors' personal (racial) experience, nor from professors' disciplinary (professional) expertise, but from a mutual construction based on trust, compassion, and empathy between the teacher and students. In order to establish a truly inclusive classroom in race discussions, it is crucially important for professors to care about multiple positionings that students occupy, beyond the student-self and racial self.

This paper discusses the nature and characteristics of doctoral dissertation learning and the role of mentor in the dissertation stage. Doctoral level education requires a considerable degree of learner's independent thinking. While independence has been discussed as a personal trait or in relation to the socialization of doctoral education, independence has rarely been discussed as a higher level of cognitive development necessary to create new knowledge. When students transition from a consumer of knowledge to a creator/owner of knowledge, they are required to adopt a new epistemology, i.e., a new way of knowing. How do doctoral advisors/mentors successfully open students to a new way of knowing? This paper addresses the pedagogical foundations of doctoral advising. Drawing on theories of student-centered pedagogy and self-directed learning, this paper attempts to conceptualize the doctoral supervisor's role in the case of doctoral supervision.

Background: This study aimed to investigate the factors associated with the time that community-dwelling stroke survivors spent walking. Methods: We analyzed the cross-sectional data of 1534 community-dwelling stroke survivors from the Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Complex-sample logistic regression analyses were performed to determine the factors associated with insufficient walking time (<90 min/wk). The mean time spent walking was examined according to age, sex, resistance exercise level, and self-reported disability using complex-sample general linear models. Results: Women (odds ratio [OR] 1.5; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.0–2.3), current smokers (OR 1.7; 95% CI, 1.1–2.8), insufficient resistance exercise (OR 2.3; 95% CI, 1.5–3.5), and those with rural residences (OR 1.4; 95% CI, 1.0–1.9) were independently associated with insufficient walking time. The mean time spent walking was significantly lower in older adults aged ≥65 years than in young adults aged <65 years (200.0 ± 42.0 min/wk vs 287.2 ± 36.6 min/wk, P =.002), in women than in men (200.9 ± 44.9 vs 286.2 ± 37.7 min/wk, P =.027), and in individuals engaging in insufficient resistance exercise compared with those engaging in sufficient resistance exercise (203.2 ± 36.2 vs 283.9 ± 43.0 min/wk, P =.008). The mean walking time did not vary according to the presence of self-reported disabilities. Conclusions: Environmental and personal factors are associated with insufficient walking time in community-dwelling stroke survivors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Autophagy is a catabolic process through which cytoplasmic components are degraded and recycled in response to various stresses including starvation. Recently, transcriptional and epigenetic regulations of autophagy have emerged as essential mechanisms for maintaining homeostasis. Here, we identify that coactivator-associated arginine methyltransferase 1 (CARM1) methylates Pontin chromatin-remodeling factor under glucose starvation, and methylated Pontin binds Forkhead Box O 3a (FOXO3a). Genome-wide analyses and biochemical studies reveal that methylated Pontin functions as a platform for recruiting Tip60 histone acetyltransferase with increased H4 acetylation and subsequent activation of autophagy genes regulated by FOXO3a. Surprisingly, CARM1-Pontin-FOXO3a signaling axis can work in the distal regions and activate autophagy genes through enhancer activation. Together, our findings provide a signaling axis of CARM1-Pontin-FOXO3a and further expand the role of CARM1 in nuclear regulation of autophagy.

Water utilities incentivize turf replacement to promote water conservation, but the effects of such programs have received limited evaluations. In 2014, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (MWD) undertook an unprecedented investment to incentive turf replacement throughout Southern California in response to a serious Statewide drought. MWD devoted $350 million to the program, resulting in more than 46,000 rebate payments (25,000 in Los Angeles County) to remove 15.3 million square meters of turf. The program implementation provided a unique opportunity to address research gaps on turf replacement implementation. We analyzed socioeconomic and spatial trends of program participants and assessed landscape changes from turf replacement using a random sample of properties (4% of LA County participants in 2014–16). Specifically, we used a novel and cost-effective approach Google Earth Street View to characterize landscapes in front yards and created a typology of land cover types. Results showed: post-replacement landscapes had a diversity of land cover types – diverse yards with several land cover types, as well as more homogenous yards with a single land cover such as woodchips, bare soil, gravel, and artificial turf. Analysis also indicated some evidence of “neighborhood adoption” effects. We describe the need for longitudinal studies to understand long-term effects of turf replacement and associated water use, and suggest that water utilities should also evaluate results in backyards, which requires site visits. This study provides a novel contribution that can be replicated over space and time to further knowledge of turf replacement program implementations and evaluation.

This paper is a self-reflective narrative of our teaching experience as two immigrant Asian female professors who teach Multicultural Education. Employing collaborative autoethnography (CAE), the study addresses the issues of authority, positionality, and legitimacy of knowledge claims in critical feminist pedagogy. Two research questions guided our inquiry: 1. How does a teacher's racial positionality play out in exercising professional knowledge, and conversely, 2. How does seemingly neutral professional knowledge become racialized in the discussions of race? Major findings demonstrate the double-edged contradictions in the body/knowledge nexus manifested in our everyday teaching contexts. On the one hand, the bodily dimension of teacher knowledge is de-racialized because of institutional norms and cultures. On the other hand, there are times professional knowledge becomes racialized through the teacher's body. Understanding the body/knowledge nexus that invites precarious power dynamics in racial discussions and even blatantly dismisses our professional knowledge, we, as an immigrant faculty of color, find it impossible to create a safe environment for participatory, critical discourse. Acknowledging our triple marginality, we put forth the concept of "pedagogy of fear" (Leonardo, Z., & Porter, R. K. (2010). Pedagogy of fear: Toward a Fanonian theory of 'safety' in race dialogue. "Race, Ethnicity and Education," 13(2), 139-157) which squarely disrupts the idea of a safe environment in race dialog and urges teachers to confront their own/their students' fear and create a space of teaching vulnerably.