The science,technologies and society (STS) movement and the teaching of science

Ph.D. in theoretical physics from the University of Maryland (United States), graduate in philosophy from the Collège St Albert in Louvain and in mathematics from the Catholic University in Louvain. At present, he is a professor in the Department of Science, Philosophy and Society at the University of Namur. He has published several books, includingLa construction des sciences: introduction à la philosophie et à l'éthique des sciences (1988 and 1992), andAlphabétisation scientifique et technique: essai sur les finalités de l'enseignement scientifique (1994). His research interests are concerned with the relationship between ‘science and society’ and particularly between ‘science teaching and society’.     

Community and inquiry: journey of a science teacher

In this case study, we examine a teacher’s journey, including reflections on teaching science, everyday classroom interaction, and their intertwined relationship. The teacher’s reflections include an awareness of being “a White middle-class born and raised teacher teaching other peoples’ children.” This awareness was enacted in the science classroom and emerges through approaches to inquiry. Our interest in Ms. Cook’s journey grew out of discussions, including both informal and semi-structured interviews, in two research projects over a three-year period. Our interest was further piqued as we analyzed videotaped classroom interaction during science lessons and discovered connections between Ms. Cook’s reflections and classroom interaction. In this article, we illustrate ways that her journey emerges as a conscientization. This, at least in part, shapes classroom interaction, which then again shapes her conscientization in a recursive, dynamic relationship. We examine her reflections on her “hegemonic (cultural and socio–economic) practices” and consider how these reflections help her reconsider such practices through analysis of classroom interaction. Analyses lead us to considering the importance of inquiry within this classroom community.

Dynamics of the Sun-Earth-Moon system

The dynamics of the Sun-Earth-Moon system is discussed with special attention to the effects of Sun’s perturbations on the Moon’s orbit around the Earth. Important secular effects are the regression of the nodes, the advance of the perigee and the increase in the Moon’s mean longitude. We discuss the relationship of the first with the occurrence of eclipses, the second with the fluctuations in the moon’s synodic period, and the third with the slowing down of the Earth’s rotation due to tidal friction. The Sun-Earth-Moon system is compared with other triple celestial systems with regard to the intensity of tidal effects. S M Alladin is a retired professor of Astronomy, Osmania University, Hyderabad. He specialized in dynamical astronomy and did research on the dynamics of colliding and merging galaxies. He is interested in the interaction between religion and science. G M Ballabh is a retired professor of Astronomy, Osmania University, Hyderabad. His field of research includes dynamical astronomy and positional astronomy. At present he is the Chairman of the Standing Advisory Committee for the Positional Astronomy Centre, Kolkata     

A Conversation with Posy Simmonds

In this article David Lewis talks to Posy Simmonds about her career in illustration, cartooning and the writing and illustration of picturebooks. Together they discuss her early experience of working as an illustrator for newspapers and magazines; her first attempt at creating a weekly adult cartoon strip and her subsequent career as a regular contributor to the Guardian newspaper. They consider her approach to writing and drawing picturebooks; the balance of realism and fantasy in her work; her mastery of colour effects; her liking for drawing cats and her attempts to capture the truth of a situation in pictures and words. David Lewis has been a teacher in primary and secondary schools, an educational researcher, and lecturer in education at Goldsmiths’ College, London and the University of Exeter. He has written a number of articles about children’s picturebooks and is the author of Reading Contemporary Picturebooks: Picturing Text. He is a member of the UK editorial committee of Children’s Literature in Education.     

Reconsidering conceptual change from a socio-cultural perspective: analyzing students’ meaning making in genetics in collaborative learning activities

In the learning sciences, students’ understanding of scientific concepts has often been approached in terms of conceptual change. These studies are grounded in a cognitive or a socio-cognitive approach to students’ understanding and imply a focus on the individuals’ mental representations of scientific concepts and ideas. We approach students’ conceptual change from a socio-cultural perspective as they make new meaning in genetics. Adhering to a socio-cultural perspective, we emphasize the discursive and interactional aspects of human learning and understanding. This perspective implies that the focus is on students’ meaning making processes in collaborative learning activities. In the study, we conduct an analysis of a group of students’ who interact while working to solve problems in genetics. In our analyses we emphasize four analytical aspects of the students’ meaning making: (a) the students’ use of resources in problematizing, (b) teacher interventions, (c) changes in interactional accomplishments, and (d) the institutional aspect of meaning making. Our findings suggest that students’ meaning making surrounding genetics concepts relates not only to an epistemic concern but also to an interactional and an institutional concern.

Engaging Undergraduate Students in Research Activities: Are Research Universities Doing a Better Job?

Engaging undergraduate students in research activities has been advocated as an innovative strategy to improve American higher education (Boyer Commission, Reinventing undergraduate education: A blueprint for America’s research universities. The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Stony Brook, NY, 1998). This study compared the frequency of undergraduate student research experiences at different types of colleges and universities from the early 1990s through 2004. The results indicate that the frequency of student research experiences increased since 1998 at all types of institutions and that students at research universities were not more likely than their counterparts elsewhere to have such experiences. The findings were consistent across major fields. To live up to their claims, research universities must find additional ways to involve undergraduates in research with faculty members. Shouping Hu is Associate Professor of Higher Education at Florida State University. He received his M.S. degree in Economics and Ph.D. in Higher Education from Indiana University. His research and scholarship focuses on postsecondary access and persistence, college student experience, and higher education finance. George D. Kuh is Chancellor’s Professor of Higher Education and Director of the Center for Postsecondary Research at Indiana University Bloomington. He received his Ph.D. degree from the University of Iowa. His research focuses on the quality of undergraduate education. Joy Gaston Gayles is Associate Professor in Adult and Higher Education at North Carolina State University. She received her Bachelor’s degree from Shaw University, Master’s degree from Auburn University, and Ph.D. in Higher Education from The Ohio State University. Her research focuses on college student learning and development.     

An Easy and Well-Ordered Way to Learn: Schooling at Home in Louisa May Alcott’s <Emphasis Type="Italic">Eight Cousins</Emphasis> and <Emphasis Type="Italic">Jack and Jill</Emphasis>

Louisa May Alcott’s juvenile fiction is often focused on aspects of children’s lives that were also topics of reform in nineteenth century America. In Jack and Jill and Eight Cousins, Alcott presents an idealized picture of child-centered learning, building on three central principals: (1) Good teachers are sympathetic and understanding of children; (2) Every child needs to be healthy in order to learn; and (3) Children should be allowed to explore their world through self-directed, active learning. The ideal educational environment that she describes has much in common with the theories of John Dewey that would emerge some years later; using Dewey’s writings can give further insight into Alcott’s fiction. In this article, I argue that Alcott sees the world from the perspective of her young characters, and describes it in a way that simultaneously connects to her young readers and gives adults insight into the child’s world.     

The errors of Feynman and Hibbs

In 1965, Richard Feynman and his former graduate student Albert Hibbs published a textbook on Quantum Mechanics and Path Integrals. This text — based on Feynman’s teaching of graduate-level quantum mechanics courses at CalTech — is full of remarkable insight and excruciating errors. The errors have been corrected through an emended edition. This article investigates the source of those errors.     

Authentic Science Research in Elementary School After-School Science Clubs

In this paper we report on teachers’ and students’ participation in authentic science research in out of school time science clubs at elementary schools. In the program four to five teachers worked alongside practicing scientists as part of their research groups. Each teacher facilitated a club with 10–15 students who, by extension, were members of the scientists’ research groups. Over the 3 years of the project nearly 30 teachers and over 500 children participated in the clubs. In this paper we present a case study of teachers and children who worked with an analytic chemist at a major university whose field of research is environmental arsenic. We illustrate how the professor mentored the teachers and how they in turn mentored the children. We show how the elementary school teachers who had very little formal science education gained the expertise needed to mentor the children. We found that in less than one academic year the teachers were able to gain the knowledge and skills to facilitate the children’s legitimate participation in authentic scientific research; and that the children gained the methodological and intellectual proficiency needed to contribute useful data and findings to the scientist’s research program.     

Is it dichotomy or tension: I am a scientist. No, wait! I am a teacher!

This study explores through a naturalistic inquiry the tensions between a science professor’s two enacted identities. More specifically, this study looks at how a biology professor’s identity-in-practice shifts and evolves over time through collaborations with a science education professor. These shifts were marked by an emphasis on teaching, rather than solely a focus on science. Data were collected through formal interviews and notes taken during planning sessions that took place between the biology professor and the science educator. Findings reveal that although the biology professor is able to reconcile both his science and teacher identity, structural elements of his workplace do not encourage him to enact his teacher identity. Recommendations for college science teaching are discussed.     

Counter-storying the grand narrative of science (teacher) education: towards culturally responsive teaching

John Settlage’s article—Counterstories from White Mainstream Preservice Teachers: Resisting the Master Narrative of Deficit by Default—outlines his endeavour to enable pre-service teachers to develop culturally responsive science teaching identities for resisting the master narrative of deficit thinking when confronted by the culturally different ‘other.’ Case study results are presented of the role of counterstories in enabling five pre-service teachers to overcome deficit thinking. In this forum, Philip Moore, a cultural anthropologist and university professor, deepens our understanding of the power and significance of counterstories as an educational tool for enabling students to deconstruct oppressive master narratives. Jill Slay, dean of a science faculty, examines her own master narrative about the compatibility of culturally similar academics and graduate students, and finds it lacking. But first, I introduce this scholarship with background notes on the critical paradigm and its adversary, the grand narrative of science education, following which I give an appreciative understanding of John’s pedagogical use of counterstories as a transformative strategy for multi-worldview science teacher education.     

Some elementary examples from Newton’sPrincipia

This article is aimed at undergraduate students to give them a taste of thePrincipia, Newton’s famous book. I have selected some examples and results in mechanics; most of them are a part of the undergraduate curriculum. His research interests are in high energy phenomenology. He is also interested in teaching graduate and undergraduate courses.     

Identity Production in Figured Worlds: How some Mexican Americans become Chicana/o Activist Educators

Using Holland, Lachicotte, Skinner, and Cain’s (1998) theory of identity and their concept of figured worlds, this article provides an overview of how twenty-four Mexican Americans came to produce Chicana/o Activist Educator identities. The desire to raise consciousness (teach for social justice pero con ganas) and “give back to the [their] community” became a very important part of this identity. Using an ethnographic interview as well as a life history interview methodology, this article specifically focuses on the participants’ conceptual and procedural identity production in local Chicana/o activist figured worlds (usually in colleges and universities). In these local figured worlds, the participants produced a more complex process of identity production that was both conceptual and procedural. The article concludes with broad implications for urban teacher education. Luis Urrieta, Jr. is assistant professor of cultural studies and education and Fellow in the Lee Hage Jamail Regents Chair in Education at the University of Texas at Austin. His research interests are in identity, agency, and social movements in education with a focus on Chicana/o and Indígena (P’urhépecha) education, citizenship and social studies education. 1 University Station D5700, Austin, TX 78712, USA.     

What Can the Teacher Learn in the Classroom?

Our research is concerned with teacher’s knowledge, and especially with teacher’s processes of learning, in the classroom, from observing and interacting with students’ work. In the first part of the paper, we outline the theoretical framework of our study and distinguish it from some other perspectives. We argue for the importance of distinguishing a kind of teacher’s knowledge, which we call didactic knowledge. In this paper, we concentrate on a subcategory of this knowledge, namely observational didactic knowledge, which grows from teacher’s observation and reflection upon students’ mathematical activity in the classroom. In modeling the processes of evolution of this particular knowledge in teachers, we are inspired, among others, by some general aspects of the theory of didactic situations. In the second part of the paper, the model is applied in two case studies of teachers conducting ordinary lessons. In conclusion, we will discuss what seems to be taken into account by teachers as they observe students’ activity, and how in-service teacher training can play a role in modifying their knowledge about students’ ways of dealing with mathematical problems.     

Teaching-for-Learning (TFL): A Model for Faculty to Advance Student Learning

In light of the widespread recognition of the enduring challenge of enhancing the learning of all students—including a growing number of students representing diverse racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds—there has been an explosion of literature on teaching, learning, and assessment in higher education. Notwithstanding scores of promising new ideas, individual faculty in higher education need a dynamic and inclusive model to help them engage in a systematic and continuous process of exploring and testing various teaching and assessment practices to ensure the learning of their students. This paper introduces a model—Teaching-for-Learning (TFL)—developed to meet this need. Clifton F. Conrad received his bachelor’s degree in History and his master’s degree in Political Science from the University of Kansas and his Ph.D. in Higher Education from the University of Michigan. He is Professor of Higher Education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison; and his research focus is on college and university curricula with particular emphases on program quality, liberal education, and teaching and learning. Jason Johnson received his bachelor’s degree in Comparative History of Ideas and his master’s degree in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at the University of Washington. He is nearing completion of his Ph.D. and working as a Teaching Assistant in Higher Education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and his research focuses on rhetoric in higher education. Divya Malik Gupta received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Human Development and Family Studies from Maharaja Sayajirao University in Gujarat, India. She is currently a Ph.D. student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.     

An Ethic of Caring: The Fuel for High Teacher Efficacy

In this article I discuss ways of increasing teacher efficacy identified as a key belief system in the enhancement of teacher effectiveness. Teacher efficacy is defined and its impact on teacher effectiveness explored. The need to increase teacher efficacy to enhance the design, implementation and outcomes of instruction is discussed with special focus on caring and its potential as a catalyst for expanding teachers’ perception of their power to make a difference in the lives and performance of their students. Dr. Marta D. Collier is a tenured associate professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction in the College of Education and Health Professions at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. Dr. Collier earned her undergraduate degree in elementary education from Earlham College, Richmond, Indiana and her masters and Ph.D. degrees in elementary education from the University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa. Her research interests include the impact of caring on teaching and learning, the incorporation of culturally relevant children and youth literature into literacy instruction, and the design of preschool, primary and elementary classrooms that promote active teaching and learning. Dr. Collier’s teaching interests include early childhood pedagogy and program development, classroom learning theory and children’s literature.     

Social constructivism and the <Emphasis Type="Italic">Believing Game</Emphasis>: a mathematics teacher’s practice and its implications

The study reported here is the third in a series of research articles (Harkness, S. S., D’Ambrosio, B., & Morrone, A. S.,in Educational Studies in Mathematics 65:235–254, 2007; Morrone, A. S., Harkness, S. S., D’Ambrosio, B., & Caulfield, R. in Educational Studies in Mathematics 56:19–38, 2004) about the teaching practices of the same university professor and the mathematics course, Problem Solving, she taught for preservice elementary teachers. The preservice teachers in Problem Solving reported that they were motivated and that Sheila made learning goals salient. For the present study, additional data were collected and analyzed within a qualitative methodology and emergent conceptual framework, not within a motivation goal theory framework as in the two previous studies. This paper explores how Sheila’s “trying to believe,” rather than a focus on “doubting” (Elbow, P., Embracing contraries, Oxford University Press, New York, 1986), played out in her practice and the implications it had for both classroom conversations about mathematics and her own mathematical thinking.     

Françoise Dolto (1908–88)

Conclusion Her brief experience of paediatrics and her subsequent discovery of psychoanalysis gave Fran?oise Dolto access to a therapeutic practice enabling her to apply ethical principles that were in conformity with her view of the human person. This path led her to develop a prophylaxis, put to the test in various institutional projects, with a ‘socializing’ or ‘educational’ value. Psychoanalysis thus not only enabled her to bring the light of ethics stemming from it to bear on the therapeutic process, but also stimulated her in her educational and spiritual activity. It was, no doubt, that feature of her thinking that prompted Dolto, in her relations with others, always to use speech for the benefit of the person by calling or recalling each person to his or her archaic desire. This is perhaps the origin of what prompted in her readers and listeners that jubilant enthusiasm so decried thereafter. There is a paradox here between the rejection of any claim to set standards and any imitation, and the power to attract an extensive readership or audience that ‘imitated’ and ‘set standards’, and, above all, was not steeped in the ethical convictions that she alone knew to be essential to any application of her ‘advice’. The very inner distinctiveness of her therapeutic, educational and spiritual action no doubt explains the absence, as Dolto saw it, of pupils to whom she might have taught the essence of her practice, since her subjectivity—the sense of her genius, her faith—is not something that can be taught. Original language: French éric Binet (France) Clinical psychologist in the public child welfare department of the département of Hauts-de-Seine, Paris, and mother and child welfare service for the City of Paris. He is also an instructor at the National Childhood and Family Institute, Centre d'Innovation et de Recherche dans le Champ Social, Paris. He is at present working for a doctorate in the educational sciences at the Université Lyon II, under Professor Guy Avanzini, and completing a thesis on the educational thinking of Fran?oise Dolto. I wish to thank Colette Parcheminier, who is in charge of the association ‘Archives et documentation Fran?oise Dolto’ [Fran?oise Dolto: records and documents], for her invaluable assistance in this work.     

Unit ball in high dimensions

In this article, we compute the volume V _n of the unit ball in an n-dimensional space. For n = 1, 2, 3, the volumes are respectively 2, π 4π /3, which are the length of interval [−1,1], area of a unit circle and volume of the unit sphere. The numbers V _n ‘appear’ to increase. But in fact this not so. In fact V _n tends to zero as n tends to infinity! K B Athreya is a Visiting Professor at IMI, Mathematics Department, IISc, Bangalore. He is a professor in the Mathematics Department of the Iowa State University, USA. His research interests include mathematical analysis, probability theory and its applications and statistics. His spare time is spent listening to Indian classical music.     

Brownian motion problem: Random walk and beyond

A brief account of developments in the experimental and theoretical investigations of Brownian motion is presented. Interestingly, Einstein who did not like God’s game of playing dice for electrons in an atom himself put forward a theory of Brownian movement allowing God to play the dice. The vital role played by his random walk model in the evolution of non-equilibrium statistical mechanics and multitude of its applications is highlighted. Also included are the basics of Langevin’s theory for Brownian motion. Shama Sharma is currently working as lecturer at DAV College, Punjab. She is working on some problems in nonequilibrium statistical mechanics. Vishwamittar is professor in physics at Panjab University, Chandigarh and his present research activities are in nonequilibrium statistical mechanics. He has written articles on teaching of physics, history and philosophy of physics.