Search

Study groups and learning circles can offer a systematic way for early childhood teachers to interact about their work and create a culture of professional development. This paper describes how faculty systematically followed a collaborative co-inquiry process in order to improve a new early childhood interdisciplinary teacher preparation program. The team met on a regular basis throughout one academic year, with the stated objective of infusing observation/documentation knowledge and skills in a coherent and systematic way throughout the students' program of studies. The group created a template of the "cycle of inquiry," which could apply to all courses, and analyzed the documentation process along a series of "skill dimensions": (1) "level" that students are expected to achieve (awareness, application, refinement/integration); (2) "focus" of the students' observations (who, what, where, when, how); (3) width of the "lens" of observation (e.g., focused narrowly on one dimension of behavior or widely on a whole classroom environment); (4) "intended audience" of the completed documentation (e.g., children, parents, professional colleagues); and (5) "finished product" of documentation (e.g., project panel, memory book, slide presentation). The co-inquiry process allowed the faculty to improve the ways that the program helps students move from an awareness level toward a practitioner level in using observation and documentation. The students' reflections and finished work suggest how they learned to promote children's learning, partner with parents, and come to think of themselves as "professionals" in their field.

Rapid reviews of research are a key way in which policy makers use research. This paper examines 74 rapid reviews commissioned by health policy agencies through the Sax Institute's Evidence Check programme. We examine what prompted policy makers to commission rapid reviews, their purpose, how and when they intended to use them, and how this varied by agency. Policy makers commissioned rapid reviews primarily as part of planned policy processes and to identify alternative solutions to problems. Government departments responsible for multiple policy domains were more likely to commission rapid reviews for agenda setting and to test new ideas.

The article discusses the ambiguity of the term "spirituality" in contemporary theology. It highlights the relationship with religious traditions and academic research. It reports that scholars express concerns about its fluidity, especially in Christian theology. It mentions that recent scholarship proposes a three-tiered model to understand its semantic development, typology, and interdependence with theology.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, how many words is a whole picture book worth? This was exactly the question Pierce School teachers asked themselves when they began the project of compiling a photo library for creating realistic and relevant short texts by and for students across all grades in their K-8 elementary school. In an effort to motivate young readers, inspire young authors, and use literacy to strengthen the school community, teachers and students compiled photographs to create an image library for creating texts about their school community. Teachers then guided their students to create a variety of texts using photos from the shared library of images as illustrations or prompts for writing in. These student-created texts form a corpus of narrative and informational texts that build on images that are accessible and meaningful to all members of the school community. (Contains 1 table.)

Abstract: The stepwise symmetry-allowed cycloaddition reactions of [[SNS].sup.+] with the dinitriles NC-X-CN (X = C[Cl.sub.2], CO) were investigated. The reaction of [[SNS].sup.+] and dinitrile in 2:1 ratio yielded the dicycloaddition [...]