No abstract

In teacher education, electronic portfolios provide an authentic form of assessment documenting students' personal and professional growth. Using the engineered-based system, College LiveText, and an off-the-shelf general tool, HyperStudio, pre-service teachers constructed e-portfolios as part of their teacher preparation requirements. This case study revealed that preservice teachers favored the high efficacy of HyperStudio applications when compared to College LiveText portal, because of its flexibility that matched their creativity, vision, and style. The style and vision of the pre-service teachers were in keeping with constructivism and facilitated the learning paradigm shift that characterizes the quality of pre-service teachers' preparation for licensure in a mid-south university in the U.S.

While the process and practices of retail product development in developed countries have been documented, avoid exists in descriptive analysis regarding retail product development in an international setting. The primary purpose of this study was to explore small business apparel retailing, and specifically the retail product development process and practices in Jamaica. Using the case study approach, five apparel retailers in Jamaica who engaged in retail product development are profiled. In- depth interviews, observations, and documents were used to collect data and results were presented after analysis. The findings revealed that the process of product exclusivity, training of workers, modern technological devices, networking, and product quality were of major concern to apparel retailers in Jamaica, which is shown to be very similar to the retail product development process carried out in the U.S.A.

Reflective practice is an integral part of preparing for doctoral candidacy and the successful completion of one's dissertation. In this article, reflective practice was utilized as a useful tool in documenting the dissertation process of 'taming the beast'. Reflecting-on and reflection-in-action were vital to designing and defending the dissertation successfully. The purpose of this article is to present a personal narrative of a rigorous, coherent and credible qualitative dissertation research through the eyes of a doctoral candidate. The author found that reflective practice required deliberate, consistent and purposeful action by the reflective practitioner. To sustain reflective practice contextual anchors were used to build and scaffold meanings. Meanings researchers and participants attach to the collection, analysis, interpretation and the data presentations are important to qualitative research. The author concludes that successful dissertations are original, accurately researched, well-documented, thought provoking and show depth of reflective practice.

The past two decades have ushered changes regarding the national science curriculum for K-12 students. Focusing on gifted and talented (GT) students, the literature reveals they clamor for unique experiences in constructing their knowledge in science education. This chapter explores science instruction for GT in this digital age using a Makerspace learning environment. Guided by the tenets of the Next Generation Science Standards, this chapter is supported by outlined standards and objectives connecting science content to GT learners' unique needs. The theory of socialization, specifically cognitive development coupled with the theory of constructivism, was used to ground this chapter. Results show Makerspace learning environments where GT students are exposed to inductive strategies and yield a greater return on student learning investments compared to the traditional deductive science classroom environment.