Journal Download

JURNAL DOWNLOAD Vol.1 (Jurnal Pendidikan)

javasindo@gmail.com (java's indo) — Tue, 1 Sep 2009 06:09:00 -0700

Efektivitas Tutorial Tatap Muka Rancangan Khusus Program S1 PGSD

Evaluasi Tutorial Keterampilan Dasar Menulis Program Sarjana PGSD Universitas Terbuka

HASIL BELAJAR MAHASISWA DII PGTK PADA PENDIDIKAN JARAK JAUH

HUBUNGAN KARAKTERISTIK MAHASISWA DENGAN PERSEPSINYA TENTANG TUGAS AKHIR PROGRAM

HUBUNGAN MOTIVASI BELAJAR DENGAN HASIL BELAJAR PADA MAHASISWA

SIMPAN FILE PENTING KAMU DISINI AMAN DAN TERPERCAYA

IMPLEMENTASI PENDEKATAN STRUKTURAL DALAM TUTORIAL TATAP MUKA

Pembelajaran Berbasis Budaya Model Inovasi pembelajaran dan Implementasi Kurikulum Berbasis Kompetensi

PENDEKATAN BELAJAR AKTIF DAN PENINGKATAN PARTISIPASI MAHASISWA DALAM PROSES TUTORIAL TATAP MUKA

PENDIDIKAN ISLAM DI INDONESIA

SIMPAN FILE PENTING KAMU DISINI AMAN DAN TERPERCAYA

Vito Perrone and the Struggle for Democratic Schools

javasindo@gmail.com (java's indo) — Tue, 26 May 2009 04:05:00 -0700

English Version

North Dakota, large in territory and sky, light in population. Grand Forks, a small city on the banks of the Red River (which famously runs north), a university town, located on the far eastern border of the state and, in latitude, some 60 miles to the north of Quebec City, Canada. In the winter, snow crystals glint in the air even on sunny days. The first semester I spent at the university (1982), euphemistically known as the Spring Semester, temperatures were often 20 or more degrees below zero and once dipped to -40º (without factoring in the wind chill). Grand Forks, ND, might not seem to the uninitiated a likely locus for revolutionary thinking about education and social action. Yet, in the period from the late ’60s until well into the ’80s, it was exactly that.

1972

I first met Vito Perrone at what turned out to be the charter meeting of the North Dakota Study Group on Evaluation (NDSG). The year was 1972. I wasn’t previously acquainted with Dean Perrone, though as a resident of Vermont, another rural state, I knew that in the late sixties he upended traditional teacher education to create the New School of Behavioral Studies at the University of North Dakota.

The mission of the New School was comprehensive, including all levels of education. Among its aims was an exchange program that sent master’s interns into rural North Dakota schools as temporary replacements for the many North Dakota teachers lacking four-year diplomas. The teachers, in turn, rotated to the university to take the courses required for a baccalaureate degree, bringing with them their years of classroom experience. Ranked 50th among the states in the educational preparation of teachers, a specific aim of the exchange was to improve North Dakota’s educational standing. Of further reaching consequence, the exchange set in motion a larger aim for which to my knowledge there is no precedent: to establish a reciprocal colleagial relationship between university and schools as co-partners, co-equally responsible for shaping the educational opportunities for all North Dakotans.

Vito’s conviction that “universities and schools can develop meaningful relationships in which each influences the other’s directions” (Perrone, 1983, p. 40) altered at a stroke the top down structure which positions the university at the pinnacle and the schools and classroom teachers on rungs far down the academic ladder. It was in this spirit that the New School matched a novel interdisciplinary program merging liberal arts and professional training at the teacher education level with advocacy for informal schools for children,promoting for students at all levels more intensive learning opportunities and greater learner autonomy Perrone, 1983).

Journals for full download on the link below
<--- Download

Trusting the Possibilities: Giving Voice to Vito’s Ideas

javasindo@gmail.com (java's indo) — Tue, 26 May 2009 04:00:00 -0700

English Version

My work with Vito Perrone and the Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) began in 1979 when I came to the University of North Dakota as his Associate Dean. My work with the person and the place was a turning point in my professional life and critical to the educator I have become. How I was so fortunate to be chosen for the position is one of those mysteries that can only be explained by Vito’s trust in the possibilities he always saw in people.

The work I did with Vito and with the groups he invited me to join led me to refocus the way I attended to schools, teachers, and children. CTL tried to relate to schools in a way that was unusual in my experience. Instead of the distant view cultivated by many in higher education, the importance of working to achieve understandings of schools and teaching and learning from the inside and in partnership was the emphasis. From Vito, this urge to refocus and shift perspective came in at least two forms. History and the story it tells was then and is now ground for much of his thinking and advocacy. He stands as a “reminder that our work as educators is not without a history; that many of the problems we currently struggle with were faced by others before us, sometimes confronted differently, often times more intelligently” (Perrone, 1998, p. 1). He rued the a-historical stance that educators often take, a stance that tends to simplify. As a corrective, he urged teachers and schools to tell their stories and to keep the records that would be needed to write their histories. Directly related to this position are Vito’s ideas about how policy should be developed. As he states in the Introduction of Portraits of High Schools, policy recommendations need to emerge from “adequate descriptions of school practice” that show the everyday life and work of schools as it exists in its variety across the country. To be adequate, these descriptions have to give voice to the local knowledge of the people and communities whose schools are being described. To be adequate, the policy that emerges from knowledge of the particulars of schools should create room for educators to use their best professional judgment in the implementation of practices aimed to support the large human and democratic purposes of education.

Journals for full download on the link below
<--- Download

The Risk of Reflection: Letting Our Students Teach Us What We Don’t Know

javasindo@gmail.com (java's indo) — Tue, 26 May 2009 03:51:00 -0700

English Version

In his introduction to Shrunryu Suzuki’s classic Zen Mind Beginner Mind, Richard Baker says that the purpose of all Zen teaching is to “make you wonder, and answer that wondering with the deepest expression of your own nature” (1970, p. 13). Isn’t this what is going on for us in those moments when we bring ourselves so fully present that we make new discoveries that illuminate our understanding of ourselves and our world? Isn’t this what we long for? What if this is the purpose of all teaching, not just Zen teaching?

If I borrow Baker’s phrase and propose that the purpose of education is to make us wonder, and answer that wondering with the deepest expression of our own natures, then education is a deeply personal process, for the student and for the teacher. We teach, then, to provide the opportunities and conditions through which our students can wonder and answer that wondering with the deepest expression of their natures. The teacher-student relationship becomes a shared process of discovery. The teacher practices “beginner’s mind” along with the student. As Suzuki said, “In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, in the expert’s there are few” (1970, p. 21).

Paulo Freire calls this “problem posing education,” which happens through dialogue in which teacher and students … “develop their power to perceive the way they exist in the world with which and in which they find themselves; they come to see the world not as static reality, but as reality in process, in transformation” (1990, p. 70). Thatis, as the students and teachers explore their questions together they come to new understandings through which they can transform themselves and their world.

Journals for full download on the link below
<--- Download

The Organizer: Some Thoughts for a Future Historian

javasindo@gmail.com (java's indo) — Tue, 26 May 2009 03:41:00 -0700

English Version

I want to point to the significance of organizers—figures who too often are neglected in the history of education. And I want to hail Vito Perrone as a great organizer in a rich U.S. tradition of organizing. We, of course, badly need to document the history of Vito’s work at the New School and the Center for Teaching and Learning at the University of North Dakota, as well as the history of his involvement with the North Dakota Study Group (NDSG or Group), to say nothing of Vito’s work at Harvard and in Boston and some of his special interests, like the peace movement and rural schools. This essay is not that history; it is merely a provisional exercise that may one day help shape the telling of that story.

“Organizers” are men and women (more often men, of course, given the way power functioned in the bad old days) who expound ideas, advance practices, build networks and institutions, and lead and speak for and create constituencies. An organizer is a one-person band whose marching music acts as catalyst and energizer for others. Organizers are distinctive individuals, with their own singular strength, charm, charisma, and persuasiveness—and other teacherly and leaderish traits, to say nothing of faults—but their chief creation always takes a highly social form; they make and lead groups, institutions, movements. Organizers are practitioners—artists, so to speak, in the medium of collective human action: shapers of people who come together in movements and institutions.

Organizers span the political spectrum. The American past offers us many famous conservative or centrist “organizers”—Horace Mann, the founding entrepreneur and systematizer of Massachusetts public education, comes to mind as does William Cody, a once-famous system-building superintendent of schools in Detroit in the progressive era; so does Nicholas Murray Butler, the dictatorial president of Columbia who was the boss of elite higher education in the early twentieth century. Booker T. Washington acted as the boss of African-American politics and educational networks, though politically Washington was a very complex case. He was an open conservative and secret radical. (We now know, for example, that he preached political resignation to Jim Crow publicly, while secretly financing challenges in the courts to Southern white racism.)

Journals for full download on the link below
<--- Download

The Matrix of Privilege: Transformative Curriculum in Context

javasindo@gmail.com (java's indo) — Tue, 26 May 2009 03:31:00 -0700

English Version

We are often challenged to design curriculum that activates new knowledge in ways that might transform society. Yet, the availability of resources, coupled with institutional dynamics, can make curricular decisions toward this end difficult. Designing curriculum is, therefore, a highly politicized act that is not without its consequences. As Mazzei (2004) observed, such pursuits are especially problematic when we pursue knowledge differently from the status quo. In creating new visions for transformation, professors face an often overwhelming and difficult task when responding to issues of what is worthwhile to know and how best to present this knowledge. Do we support prevailing tenets, retain expected norms? Or, do we pursue academic freedom and have the courage to challenge views even when we know they counter those of others in the setting? Do we dare challenge students our colleagues even—to question their reality, to suspend the status quo in order to see their role in the maintenance of knowledge construction? Do we dare re-think, re-imagine all that we thought we knew, to go beyond the conventional wisdom of our peers?

While new approaches to curriculum can yield positive results, choosing this path can be a risky venture with far-reaching implications for both students and faculty involved. The process seems especially dangerous for new and untenured faculty who are often politically vulnerable within their new professorial roles. For example, the decision to pursue pedagogy that may be viewed by some as unorthodox in its design and/or presentation may create animosity among students, as well as peers, and result in institutional pressure to abandon such ideas. Underlying this dynamic are competing philosophies among those involved regarding what is worthwhile to know and possible legacy traditions regarding what it means to be a professor. The legitimacy of knowledge construction is therefore called into question and is a central concern when considering the redesign of curriculum. It seems critical to contemplate possible value clashes and opposing definitions for the meaning of success.

The ideas that personal concepts and generalizations influence curriculum and that success can be defined from a variety of perspectives are not new. Curricular and instructional decisions can (and often do) yield unexpected results, especially when they counter those of people in positions of power and authority. For some faculty, these results can do irrevocable harm, especially to their professional careers, making it difficult to retain jobs and acquire the cultural capital needed for long-term success (Wright & Dinkha, 2002). For example, negative reaction from both students and colleagues often seems to increase in terms of frequency, intensity, and duration when professors are of color and female (Carriuolo, 2003; Turner, 2002; Wright & Dinkha, 2002; Gregory, 2001). Given this, the curricular question becomes: Do we dare teach differently as women and professors of color within a high stakes, politicized environment that does not understand our pedagogical or scholarly concerns?

Journals for full download on the link below
<--- Download

From Thought Police to Thoughtful Practice: The Evolution of Dispositions Assessment in a Teacher Education Program

javasindo@gmail.com (java's indo) — Mon, 25 May 2009 06:15:00 -0700

English Version

The teacher preparation program in this case study started the exploration of dispositions as a means to safeguard schools and students by ensuring that only teacher candidates who were knowledgeable in their content and skilled in and disposed toward creating safe learning environments for all students could obtain redentials. The described journey reveals both the pitfalls and the power of dispositions and has led to unforeseen understandings. The article describes the collaborative development of a set of dispositions and both a rubric and a systematic process by which the dispositions are assessed. The process and the effectiveness of this dispositions assessment system are revealed through candidate stories and assessment data. In addition, Mary Diez’s (2006) five principles to guide effective assessment practice provide a means to measure this assessment process against demonstrated principles for success. Implications include the understanding that teacher educators must first hold themselves accountable to the professional dispositions that they value in their candidates.

We began from a position of helplessness. Like many schools of education, our faculty felt a great responsibility to safeguard schools and students by ensuring that only teacher candidates who were knowledgeable in their content and skilled in and disposed toward creating safe learning environments for all students could obtain teaching credentials. While the vast majority of teacher candidates in our credential programs seemed well suited to the profession, occasionally an individual would surface whose remarks and behaviors would raise strong concerns about their appropriateness for the profession. However, once in the program, dismissing such unsuitable candidates was nearly impossible, in part because the faculty’s judgment of the candidates’ uitability was typically based on the answer to one question: “Would I want this person teaching my child?” While this was certainly a critical question, it lacked the criteria and process needed to gather evidence for candidate evaluation or possible dismissal.

Our first attempt to elaborate on this question led us to focus on the word person and the personality characteristics that make a person a good teacher. Drawing on the work of Haberman (1987) and others, the department’s fledgling attempt to define and measure teacher qualities resulted in a teacher candidate disposition form that listed 36 positive and negative personality characteristics to be measured on a scale from never evident to very evident. The form was to be used to evaluate applicants to this fifth-year credential program in prerequisite course and fieldwork.

Problems quickly arose with the disposition form itself. Teachers in the field expressed concerns with the design of the instrument. They were reluctant to make character judgments based on limited observation, expressing concerns and frustration about the lack of clarity in a number of the characteristics listed. For example, the characteristic “shows commitment to the common good” was deemed vague, difficult to measure, and rather lofty. Teachers pointed out that “separates personal from professional life” could be either a positive or negative characteristic, depending on the context and degree, and that a reserved and thoughtful candidate might unfairly receive a low rating for “confident and comfortable with self.” Of most concern were judgments of personality such as “unpleasant or annoying,” that were susceptible to personal bias and subjectivity.

Journals for full download on the link below
<--- Download

Technology Use Among Interns and Their Partnership Teachers

javasindo@gmail.com (java's indo) — Mon, 25 May 2009 05:52:00 -0700

English Version

Traditional understandings of learning to teach typically involve the placement of a novice teacher with a more experienced mentor whose role is to supervise and guide the mentee. However, many mentees are more knowledgeable and skilled in the use of such technologies than their mentors (Dexter & Reidel, 2003). The purpose of the study was to investigate interns’ and partnership teachers’ (mentors) use of technology, beliefs about technology, and obstacles to technology integration. Interns’ use of technology during their internship was examined both in relation to the mentoring they received as well as to the broader implications for instructional practice. Interns on average rated their skills with using technology higher than that of their partnership teachers. Interns viewed the barriers to technology as being less substantial than their partnership teachers; however there were few differences between partnership teachers and interns in their beliefs about the value of technology integration. The findings of the study raise some important issues about interns’ use of technology in teaching and learning and the problems of providing appropriate mentors.

Overview and Perspectives

Traditional age college seniors who were student teachers this spring have never known a time when there were not personal computers. Born in 1981, they grew up manipulating a mouse, typing term papers with a PC, burning music to compact discs, and surfing the internet. Often these students are more familiar with and knowledgeable about emerging technologies than their parents, teachers, and professors. Classroom teachers often find ways to use the knowledge and skills of their more technologically savvy students to help them keep pace with their own use of technology. This reality raises interesting questions in relation to preservice teachers’ use of new technologies. Specifically, how are preservice teachers guided to use technology in instruction, and does such use offer the potential to change teaching practices?

Traditional understandings of learning to teach typically involve the placement of a novice teacher with a more experienced mentor whose role is to supervise and guide the mentee. However, many mentees are more knowledgeable and skilled in the use of such technologies than their mentors (Dexter & Reidel, 2003). Preservice teachers’ level of comfort and skill in using technology has been seen as leading to an increased use of computers in instruction (U.S.Department of Education, 2000) and, thus, as a possible catalyst for changing instruction (Pedretti, Smith-Mayer, & Woodrow, 1999). However, others have argued that future teachers need to have more experience with technology and receive more guidance in the use of technology (Lemke & Coughlin, 1999).

Journals for full download on the link below
<--- Download

Teacher Candidates’ Critical Thinking in an Education Program Committed to Urban Education

javasindo@gmail.com (java's indo) — Mon, 25 May 2009 05:36:00 -0700

English Version

Introduction

How teachers regard students’ language, race, gender, and socioeconomic status has a profound effect on students’ success in school (Comber & Simpson, 2001). When teachers believe that minority students’ culture and language are deficits, they tend to seek solutions that “fix” the students, without questioning or altering the existing curriculum, teaching methods, or school policies that result in segregated classrooms and exclusion from success in school (Banks, 2002; Hollins & Guzman, 2005; Sleeter & Grant, 1999). Howard (1999) writes that it is impossible to teach what one doesn’t know and that teacher education must help educators to become competent in multicultural contexts. Strategies and responses must be developed that ensure teachers are able to meet the needs of all children (Sharp, 2003). Diversity in the classroom must be viewed as a positive and relevant aspect of education (Cochran-Smith, 2004). Villegas and Lucas (2002) provide six criteria for culturally responsive teachers that are based on a goal of working toward social justice. Villegas and Lucas’ criteria are centered on the notions that culturally responsive teachers are those who:

(1) have sociocultural consciousness; (2) have affirming views of students from diverse backgrounds; (3) have a sense that they are both responsible for and capable of bringing about educational change; (4) embrace constructivist views of teaching and learning; (5) are familiar with their students’ prior knowledge and beliefs, derived from both personal and cultural experiences; (6) design instruction that builds on what students already know while stretching them beyond the familiar. (p.xiv)

The first three criteria focus on attitudes and dispositions that culturally responsive teachers possess, and the last three criteria are focused on the actual teaching and learning practices of culturally responsive teachers. These criteria act as a framework for teacher educators to utilize in a preparation program founded on principles of advocating for diversity, teachers as agents of school change, and the construction of knowledge.

Journals for full download on the link below
<--- Download

One-Liners: Two Case Studies of Flow and Futility

javasindo@gmail.com (java's indo) — Mon, 25 May 2009 05:11:00 -0700

English Version

“I just don’t know what to do!” exclaims one student in a classroom. “I just don’t know what to do!” groans another. These very same words are worlds apart in their tone and, more significantly, their meanings. In this first instance, the student, while uncertain of direction, is primed for action. Alternatively, motivation to accomplish a task is virtually extinguished in the second articulation. More than likely you have heard these words uttered before, or have even spoken them yourself. What prompts such ranging expressions from learners?

As a doctoral student, surely I could summon some factors from my learning theories repertoire and coursework to make sense of what leads to these kinds of expressions from students. Yet, I know that in the past three decades since Gagne (1977) introduced nine essential events of instruction, contemporary analysis now recognizes nine categories of research-based instructional strategies (Marzano, Pickering, & Pollack, 2001) ! The teacher (or one’s teaching) is still at the center, not directing research, but as the object of research. To truly understand the significance of statements such as these leading expressions, I know that when I take that quantum leap beyond education’s defaulting penchant toward teaching, and place students as objects at the center of learning theory, I am establishing a bias (Creswell, 2003) toward the penultimate role of the teacher in learning.

Journals for full download on the link below
<--- Download

Linking Teacher Education Preparation to Assessment of Student Achievement

javasindo@gmail.com (java's indo) — Mon, 25 May 2009 04:37:00 -0700

English Version

Assessing teacher education preparation programs and teacher effectiveness have been the foci of numerous documents and studies in recent years (e.g., Bembry, Jordan, Gomez, Anderson, & Mendro, 1998; Campbell, Kyriakides, Muijs, & Robinson, 2004; Cochran-Smith & Zeichner, 2005; Darling-Hammond & Young, 2002; Wineburg, 2006). Current interest in accountability includes the measurement of K-12 students’ academic achievement, focused in recent years on standardized tests. This issue affects students and educators at all levels. School districts’ levels of funding and accreditation are related to students’ test score achievement as well as other measures (Carlson & Levin, 2005; Greenwald, Hedges, & Laine, 1996), and “all schools, colleges and departments of education ... face increasing pressure to attend to evidence for program legitimacy” (McNergney, 2006, p. 1). With regard to teacher education preparation, the call has been made to measure its quality in terms of the academic success of the pre-K to twelfth grade students taught by those programs’ graduates (Cochran & Zeichner, 2005; Good et al., 2006; McNergney, 2006; Opdenakkera & Van Damme, 2006).

The purpose of this paper is to discuss some of the problematic issues surrounding the assessment of teacher education programs in light of structural and practical variables, particularly in terms of teacher effectiveness and availability of useable data linking K-12 grade student test scores to their classroom teachers’ preparation programs. Although the issues regarding teacher education have been discussed in the education literature, there are many pre-conceived beliefs about what objectives teacher education should identify and accomplish. For example, a commonly described goal is that an effective teacher education program should demonstrate a positive impact on K-12 student achievement. The issues in this paper may help to inform state education policymakers and practitioners in making sensible and realistic decisions about teacher education programs’ value relevant to the K-12 educational system and, fundamentally, to K-12 student achievement. We argue that there exists a need to further clarify these issues in light of verifiable data, more careful study, and definition.

Journals for full download on the link below
<--- Download

Large Purposes in the Classroom: Doing Tai Chi Together

javasindo@gmail.com (java's indo) — Mon, 25 May 2009 04:27:00 -0700

English Version

Without Vito Perrone’s support and advice, my professional life might have been very different. In 1977 when Vito accepted my Pacific Oaks master’s thesis “Children’s Thinking in the Classroom” as a North Dakota Study Group monograph, I was invited to attend the NDSG meetings. In 1986, at Vito’s invitation, I founded and edited Pathways: A Forum for Progressive Educators. Vito included my article “Closed Gates in New York City” (Jervis, 1991), describing citywide testing in Diane Mullins’ classroom, in his volume Expanding Assessment. Those connections shaped the direction of my work, but more importantly, exposed me to Vito’s values. Vito influenced the way I see teachers’ and children’s relationships with each other and the world.

The story I tell below is part of an ethnographic study on “Cultural Interchange” in which my colleagues and I explored the kinds of questions Vito asked: Whose values were accorded respect? Whose values went unrecognized or were unconsciously ignored? Which students and families were included and participated? Which students and families were excluded or denied full participation? Vito influenced my description of Diane Mullins’ classroom as I explored the way she connected practice and the world.

Journals for full download on the link below
<--- Download

Increasing Student Perceptions of Relevance in Introductory Statistics

javasindo@gmail.com (java's indo) — Sat, 23 May 2009 05:40:00 -0700

English Version

An article by George Cobb (1992) is frequently cited as the beginning of a reform in introductory statistics instruction. The main message of this call is for instructors to minimize their emphasis on calculations and rote memorization of formulas and instead focus on helping students develop an understanding of what statistics are all about. This includes understanding concepts (e.g.,what is a correlation?)and relationships among concepts (e.g., how are correlation and variability related?), but instructors are now also encouraged to help students make connections between these statistical concepts and students’ everyday lives. Iddo Gal and Joan Garfield (1997) argue that balancing “doing statistics [e.g., formulae and mechanics] versus being informed consumers of statistics [e.g., understanding the role of statistics in the world]” (p. 5) in the same course is one of the major challenges facing statistics educators today.

Jessica Utts (2002) also argues that one outcome of learning introductory statistics material should be that the student is a more “educated citizen,” especially given a variety of changes in the “world around us” (p. 1)—chiefly, individuals now have more access to more information more quickly than ever before. With this surge of information, much of it statistical in nature, comes the need for individuals to understand what the information does and does not say. Students must also be able to evaluate the quality of this information and discern “good statistics” from “bad statistics” (Best, 2001; Gal & Garfield, 1997).

Journals for full download on the link below
<--- Download

Facilitating Teacher Candidates’ Reflective Development Through the Use of Portfolios, Teacher Work Sample, and Guided Reflections

javasindo@gmail.com (java's indo) — Sat, 23 May 2009 05:33:00 -0700

English Version

Introduction

To meet the challenge of preparing effective classroom teachers,national and state organizations have identified standards for teacher education programs that teacher candidates must meet before they can receive professional certification. The challenge to teacher education programs is not only to develop effective ways to build teacher candidates’ skills and guide them in the effective application of their knowledge, but also to develop their reflective skills so that as teachers they can examine their own teaching and make appropriate decisions to enhance their teaching effectiveness (Rodgers, 2002).

Standards have become the focus of several reform movements. A decade ago the Interstate New Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium (INTASC, 1992) drafted a set of ten standards. Subsequently, the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) adopted standards similar to those of INTASC for teacher candidates. As a result of the acceptance of these standards by state departments of education and teacher education programs throughout the country, theoretical and practical knowledge are no longer considered enough (Ambach, 1996); teacher candidates must now demonstrate how to apply their knowledge and skills to promote student learning (Girod, 2002).

Journals for full download on the link below
<--- Download

Excerpt from Vito Perrone’s “A History of Teacher Education at UND”

javasindo@gmail.com (java's indo) — Sat, 23 May 2009 04:47:00 -0700

English Version

The New School

The New School program—the community it established, the strong commitments it engendered, the educational activities it fostered—was unique in myriad ways, deserving of a careful historical review. Within the context of this Centennial review, such a history would be inappropriate; however, I will attempt to provide sufficient substance to give the New School some significant meaning without turning it into a quasi-memoir. It needs to be acknowledged that this discussion contains considerably more detail in relation to academic and clinical studies than has been the case in the history outlined thus far; in large measure, this is related to my intimacy with it and also because it is a history that is critical to an understanding of the Center for Teaching and Learning, the current entity responsible for teacher education.

When the University of North Dakota made the decision in the fall of 1967 to go forward with the New School, there existed only a limited sense of how to proceed. There was a conception of an exchange program—master’s interns replacing less-than-degree teachers who would join other specially selected undergraduates at the University and an alternative program for doctoral students. There also developed during the February-June 1968 period a conception of advocacy around more informal approaches to education,individualization, greater intensity in learning practices within the schools, and interdisciplinary educational formulations at the teacher training level.

Journals for full download on the link below
<--- Download

THE EFFECTS OF IN-WORK BENEFIT REFORM IN BRITAIN ON COUPLES: THEORY AND EVIDENCE

javasindo@gmail.com (java's indo) — Tue, 12 May 2009 04:21:00 -0700

English Version

In October 1999, the Working Families Tax Credit (WFTC) replaced Family Credit (FC) with the explicit objective to enhance the work incentives of parents in low income households. As illustrated in the Introduction of this Symposium, WFTC was more generous than FC in four salient ways: it had higher credits, particularly for children in the age group 0–10, families could earn more before the beneﬁt began to be withdrawn, the taper rate at which earnings above the threshold are taxed was lowered and it offered a large childcare tax credit (Brewer et al., 2009).

Since its introduction, much research has been undertaken to assess whether WFTC was successful or not. Most of the existing studies, however, focus on labour market outcomes and are primarily concerned with single mothers. Much less is known about the credit’s impact on married women and men. As pointed out by Blundell and Walker (2001), there is a need to broaden the debate from work incentives to wider questions that are raised by in work transfer programmes. These include intrahouse hold distributional effects, analysis of a greater set of socioeconomic outcomes, intertemporal incentive effects and the relationship between child outcomes and parental resources. Our article contributes to this debate by taking on some of these issues. In particular, it looks at married couples and how the WFTC reform has affected their intrahousehold allocations, it assesses a broad array of outcomes other than employment and earnings.

If the introduction of WFTC led married women and men to change their labour supply, these changes could have had an effect on a number of other family domains, such as, the time spent with children, the likelihood of having additional children and the chance of breaking down the partnership. Examination of individuals responses in such domains is important both because it gives us a more complete picture of the consequences of the 1999 in work beneﬁt reform and because it allows us to check for the occurrence of unintended effects, which may be crucial for the longer-term success of the reform itself or its future revisions.

Journals for full download on the link below
<--- Download

COMBATING CORRUPTION: THE VALUE OF ECONOMIC ANALYSIS

javasindo@gmail.com (java's indo) — Tue, 12 May 2009 04:03:00 -0700

English Version

Recent advances in economic analysis have helped to clarify why corruption is so detrimental to economic development and to the efficient functioning of mature economies. More significantly, this research has produced some general guidelines for how to combat corruption. Writing in the November 2003 issue of the Economic Journal, Dr Toke Aidt of the University of Cambridge emphasises the importance of getting incentive structures right and avoiding inefficient policy measures.

Corruption – understood as an act in which the power of public office is used for personal gain in a manner that contravenes the rules – is a persistent feature of societies around the world and throughout history. The sale of parliamentary seats in ‘rotten boroughs’ in England before the Reform Act of 1832 is just one historical example. Contemporary examples also abound – and not just in developing countries like Nigeria, India and the Philippines and transition economies like Russia.

Journals for full download on the link below
<--- Download

THE ECONOMICS OF CLINICAL NEGLIGENCE REFORM IN ENGLAND

javasindo@gmail.com (java's indo) — Tue, 12 May 2009 02:58:00 -0700

English Version

In Britain, the NHS spends millions of pounds a year compensating patients injured during medical treatment. Compensation is paid if the patient can demonstrate that treatment was supplied negligently. However, concern over the cost, effectiveness and administrative efﬁciency of this approach has led jurisdictions like Sweden, New Zealand and some US states to alter the basis for compensation, and the Department of Health has now published proposals for reform in England. We assess the current approach in England and provide costings for some key alternatives to have featured in the latest policy debate. We draw lessons for reform from international experience.

Sustaining an injury related to medical care can have serious economic and health consequences and such injuries are a growing concern in many countries due to a perception that the costs they give rise to are rapidly increasing. Public policy in this area can be regarded as having to address two key objectives: providing compensation to those who have suffered injuries and providing incentives to practitioners to supply an appropriate standard of care. However, different countries have adopted widely varying strategies in pursuit of these objectives, and in particular have adopted very different approaches to the question of liability for injury.

Journals for full download on the link below
<--- Download

SECURITISATION AND FINANCIAL STABILITY

javasindo@gmail.com (java's indo) — Fri, 8 May 2009 05:56:00 -0700

English Version

There are two pieces of received wisdom concerning securitisation – one old and one new. The old view (prevalent before outbreak of the credit crisis of 2007/8) emphasised the positive role played by securitisation in dispersing credit risk, thereby enhancing the resilience of the ﬁnancial system to defaults by borrowers. The subsequent credit crisis has somewhat tarnished this positive image. In its place, there is a new received wisdom which emphasises the distorted incentives that developed at all stages of the securitisation process, and which allowed the hot potato of bad loans to pass through the ﬁnancial system to be held ﬁnally in the hands of unsuspecting ﬁnal investors.

Although both views of securitisation (old and new, positive and negative) are appealing at a superﬁcial level, they both neglect the endogeneity of credit supply. Financial intermediaries manage their balance sheets actively in response to shifts in measured risks. The supply of credit is the outcome of such decisions, and depends sensitively on key attributes of intermediaries balance sheets.

Three attributes merit special mention – equity, leverage and funding source. The equity of a ﬁnancial intermediary is its risk capital that can absorb potential losses. Leverage is the ratio of total assets to equity and is a reﬂection of the constraints placed on the ﬁnancial intermediary by its creditors on the level of exposure for each dollar of its equity. Finally, the funding source matters for the total credit supplied by the ﬁnancial intermediary sector as a whole to the ultimate borrowers.

Journals for full download on the link below
<--- Download

VAGINAL CHANGES AND SEXUALITY IN WOMEN WITH A HISTORY OF CERVICAL CANCER

javasindo@gmail.com (java's indo) — Thu, 7 May 2009 07:51:00 -0700

English Version

ABSTRACT

Background

In women with cervical cancer, treatment causes changes in vaginal anatomy and function. The effect of these changes on sexual function and the extent, if any, to which they distress women are not known.

Methods

In 1996 and 1997, we attempted to contact 332 women with a history of early stage cervical
cancer (age range, 26 to 80 years) who had been treated in 1991 and 1992 at the seven departments of gynecological oncology in Sweden and 489 women without a history of cancer (controls) to ask them to answer an anonymous questionnaire about vaginal changes and sexual function.

Results

We received completed questionnaires from 256 of the women with a history of cervical cancer and 350 of the controls. A total of 167 of 247 women with a history of cancer (68 percent) and 236 of 330 controls (72 percent) reported that they had regular vaginal intercourse. Twenty six percent of the women who had cancer and 11 percent of the controls reported insufficient vaginal lubrication for sexual intercourse, 26 percent of the women who had cancer and 3 percent of the controls reported a short vagina, and 23 percent of the women who had cancer and 4 percent of the controls reported an insufficiently elastic vagina. Twenty-six percent of the women who had cancer reported moderate or much distress due to vaginal changes, as compared with 8 percent of the women in the control group. Dyspareunia was also more common among the women who had cervical cancer. The frequency of orgasms and orgasmic pleasure was similar in the two groups. Among the women who had cervical cancer, the type of treatment received had little if any effect on the prevalence of specific vaginal changes.

Conclusions

Women who have been treated for cervical cancer have persistent vaginal changes that compromise sexual activity and result in considerable distress. (N Engl J Med 1999;340:1383-9.)

Journals for full download on the link below
<--- Download

Two Steps Forward in the Treatment of Colorectal Cancer

javasindo@gmail.com (java's indo) — Thu, 7 May 2009 07:43:00 -0700

English Version

Until recently, fluorouracil was the only effective systemic treatment for colorectal cancer. It acts primarily by inhibiting thymidylate synthase, a key enzyme in DNA synthesis, and because leucovorin (folinic acid) enhances this effect, fluorouracil and leucovorin (FL) are given together. FL has been given in various dose schedules, with a continuous in fusion appearing slightly more effective than a bolus. FL reduces tumor size by 50 percent or more (objective response) in approximately 20 percent of patients with advanced colorectal cancer and prolongs median survival from approximately 6 months (without treatment) to about 11 months. When given as adjuvant therapy after the complete resection of a colon cancer that has spread to regional lymph nodes (stage III disease), FL increases the probability of remaining free of tumor (diseasefree survival) at five years from approximately 42 percent to 58 percent and the likelihood of surviving for five years (overall five-year survival) from about 51 percent to 64 percent. The use of adjuvant FL in patients without involvement of regional lymph nodes (stage II disease) is controversial; for them, the probability of five-year disease-free survival increases from 72 percent to 76 percent after treatment, but the likelihood of overall survival is approximately 80 percent for treated and untreated patients alike.

During the past five years, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved four new treatments for advanced colorectal cancer. Two of them (irinotecan [Camptosar] and oxaliplatin [Eloxatin]) are traditional cytotoxic drugs, whereas the other two (cetuximab [Erbitux] and bevacizumab [Avastin]) are monoclonal antibodies against molecular targets.

Journals for full download on the link below
<--- Download

Tumor Angiogenesis

javasindo@gmail.com (java's indo) — Thu, 7 May 2009 07:13:00 -0700

English Version

The current era of research in antiangiogenic therapy for cancer began in earnest in 1971 with the publication of Folkman’s imaginative hypothesis, but 33 years would elapse before the first drug developed as an inhibitor of angiogenesis was approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). This approval was based on the survival benefit observed in a randomized phase trial of first line treatment of metastatic colorectal cancer; in that trial, bevacizumab, a humanized monoclonal antibody directed against vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), was combined with conventional chemotherapy. Bevacizumab therapy also increased overall survival in the first line treatment of advanced non small cell lung cancer when used in combination with standard chemotherapy. Two other antiangiogenic drugs, sorafenib and sunitinib, have also been approved by the FDA; these are oral small molecule receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitors (RTKIs). They target multiple receptor tyrosine kinases, including VEGF receptors and platelet derived growth factor (PDGF) receptors. Sorafenib and sunitinib have been beneficial in the treatment of metastatic renal cell cancer when used alone. Sorafenib monotherapy is also active in the treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma and was recently approved by the FDA for this indication.

The survival benefits of these treatments are relatively modest (usually measured in months), with the possible exception of the benefits for patients with renal cell carcinoma. These treatments are also costly and have toxic side effects. These concerns raise the following questions with respect to improving antiangiogenic therapy: How do such drugs work, and how does bevacizumab increase the efficacy of chemotherapy? Several theories have been postulated, including the theory that antiangiogenic drugs improve chemotherapy by causing “vessel normalization” in tumors (see Appendix 1 of the Supplementary Appendix, available with the full text of this article at www.nejm.org). How do tumors become resistant to antiangiogenic drugs? Are there clinically useful markers that can predict the efficacy of this class of drug? Are there promising surrogate pharmacodynamic biomarkers that will help to determine the best dose of a particular agent? Will antiangiogenic RTKIs such as sunitinib or sorafenib consistently enhance the efficacy of chemotherapy? What accounts for the side effects of these agents?

Many recent discoveries have the potential not only to answer some of these questions but also to indicate new therapeutic targets and treatment strategies. The purpose of this review is to summarize a number of these discoveries, made mainly over the past 5 years, and to point out their potential clinical impact.

Journals for full download on the link below
<--- Download

Recent Advances in Head and Neck Cancer

javasindo@gmail.com (java's indo) — Thu, 7 May 2009 07:04:00 -0700

English Version

More than half a million patients receive the diagnosis of squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck worldwide each year. In this disease, which primarily affects the oropharynx, oral cavity, hypopharynx, and larynx, smoking and alcohol abuse are major risk factors. Symptomsvary, depending on the site of origin, and can include a sore throat, dysphagia, odynophagia, and hoarseness. On examination, patients of ten have an identifiable primary site and a palpable neck mass. A multidisciplinary approach is important in treating these patients, given the complexity of the treatment and the acute and longterm complications that result from chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and surgery. Appropriate clinical and radiographic staging is crucial for accurate treatment planning and delivery.

Since this topic was last reviewed in the Journal, new findings have emerged, leading to a better understanding of the biologic features of these tumors and, in particular,indicating that human papillomavirus (HPV) is a risk factor for cancer of the oropharynx. More treatment options are available because of the development of new therapeutic agents directed against multiple molecular targets, including the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR). In addition, the roles of chemotherapy have expanded so that such therapy is used as a neoadjuvant for larynx preservation6 and for postoperative care. Irradiation techniques have also improved with the widespread use of intensity modulated radiation therapy. New imaging techniques, such as positron emission tomography, may be helpful in staging, restaging after therapy, and potentially planning radiation therapy. As more patients are cured of their cancers, survivors need help in coping with the longterm complications of therapy.

Journals for full download on the link below
<--- Download

Preservation of Fertility in Patients with Cancer

javasindo@gmail.com (java's indo) — Thu, 7 May 2009 06:57:00 -0700

English Version

The unique duality involved in confronting a life threatening diagnosis while simultaneously considering the deeply human desire to have a child presents a struggle both for patients with cancer and for clinicians. Yet with improved survival rates among young patients with cancer, recent benchto bedside translation of new techniques to preserve fertility, and increased awareness of choices for the preser vat ion of fertility, options for family planning are now being offered to patients who have received a diagnosis of cancer. Concerns about fertility are similar for men and women; however, their opportunities for intervention differ considerably. This review describes current and emerging options for the preservation of fertility in patients with cancer and provides a conceptual framework for managing concerns about fertility at the time of diagnosis.

The biomedical community faces four main challenges related to the preservation of fertility in people with cancer: the improvement of patient specific, life preserving treatments; the identification and reduction of the threat that cancer treatment poses to fertility; the expansion of safe and effective options for fertility treatment; and the creation of symptom-management plans for patients who lose endocrine function from the gonads as a consequence of cancer treatment. Current methods of fertility preservation include hormone stimulation in women and sperm banking in men. New methods for women, such as in vitro follicle maturation and techniques for tissue transplantation, are on the horizon. Decisions about the management of cancer can help to limit the side effects of treatment. Examples include reducing the radiation dosage and eliminating alkylating agents, etoposide, or bleomycin from chemotherapeutic regimens in children with low risk Hodgkin’s disease and using paclitaxel more selectively in patients with breast cancer. Such treatment modifications can help to preserve fertility without compromising cancer care. The goal is to provide and develop methods of fertility preservation that permit a range of options for patients that are linked to a multidisciplinary treatment plan until cancer treatments can be specifically targeted to cancer cells.

Journals for full download on the link below
<--- Download

Pneumocystis Pneumonia

javasindo@gmail.com (java's indo) — Thu, 7 May 2009 02:58:00 -0700

English Version

Pneumocystis pneumonia remains the most prevalent opportunistic infection in patients infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). First identified as a protozoan nearly 100 years ago and reclassified as a fungus in 1988, pneumocystis cannot be propagated in culture. Few treatment options exist for patients with pneumocystis pneumonia. The number of patients who are receiving chronic immunosuppressive medication or who have an altered immune system and are thus at risk for pneumocystis pneumonia is rapidly growing. Although the prevalence of the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) has decreased in the Western hemisphere owing to the routine use of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART), many patients worldwide do not have the resources for HAART. The increased reservoir for infection among such patients leads to concern that resistance to trimethoprimsulfamethoxazole, the most common treatment for pneumocystis pneumonia, will emerge, although this has yet to happen. The application of molecular techniques to the study of pneumocystis has provided new insights into the complex cell biology of this fungus. In this article we summarize advances that have resulted from studies of the cell biology, biochemistry, and genetics of pneumocystis in the past several years and include recommendations for the diagnosis of pneumocystis pneumonia, as well as for prophylaxis and treatment.

Clinical Features of Pneumocystis Pneumonia

Pneumocystis pneumonia is often the AIDS-defining illness in patients infected with HIV, occurring most frequently when the T-helper cell count (CD4+) is less than 200 cells per cubic millimeter. Common symptoms of pneumocystis pneumonia include the subtle onset of progressive dyspnea, nonproductive cough, and low-grade fever. Acute dyspnea with pleuritic chest pain may indicate the development of a pneumothorax. Physical examination typically reveals tachypnea, tachycardia, and normal findingson lung auscultation. Patients with AIDS and pneumocystis pneumonia have a significantly increased number of pneumocystis organisms in their lungs, with fewer neutrophils, than do patients with pneumocystis pneumonia in the absence of AIDS. This greater organism burden results in a higher diagnostic yield of induced sputum and bronchoalveolar lavage fluid to confirm pneumocystis pneumonia in patients with AIDS as compared with other conditions associated with immunosuppression. The smaller number of inflammatory cells in patients with AIDS-related pneumocystis pneumonia also correlates with better oxygenation and survival as compared with pneumocystis pneumonia in patients without AIDS.

Patients with mild symptoms of pneumocystis pneumonia can often be treated as outpatients with the use of oral therapy and close follow up. However, patients with significant hypoxemia should be hospitalized for the administration of intravenous therapy. The development of worsening pneumonia with respiratory failure in these patients is the most common reason for admission to an intensive care unit. Among most patients with AIDS and pneumocystis pneumonia, the mortality rate is 10 to 20 percent during the initial infection, but the rate increases substantially with the need for mechanical ventilation.

Journals for full download on the link below
<--- Download