Learning in the Finnish outdoor classroom: Pupils’ views

ABSTRACT

Finnish nature schools are environmental education organisations offering outdoor programmes for classes in natural environments. They are intended to contribute to the aims of the national curriculum in various subjects. This qualitative study examines how students describe their learning in a nature school context and how they describe differences between learning in nature and learning in the classroom. After a nature school day, 30 10–11-year-old pupils participated in focus groups interviews. The data were analysed through inductive content analysis. Nature school learning was described as cognitive, affective, social and as providing practical skills learning, although some pupils claimed that they had not learned anything. The differences between the learning environments were described as differences in learning activities, concreteness, external conditions, learning topics, perceived ability to concentrate and differences in motivation. We stress the importance of reflection on learning in order to raise pupils’ awareness of their outdoor learning.     

THE SURVIVORS,THE EMERGENCE OF A NEW COMMUNITY AND A SYSTEM OF ZIONIST EDUCATION IN GERMANY 1945–1950

I — Reminiscences Deuteronomy 32:7

Back in 1925, upon graduation from the Teachers Institute of Yeshiva University, I started my career as teacher in the first and oldest Talmud Torah in the United States, the Machzikey TT on East Broadway in Manhattan. I recall with pleasure how boys and girls spent ten hours a week in Jewish studies: giving the 12-13 year olds intensive instruction in Torah, Neviim, Mishnah, Hebrew Grammar, Hebrew Literature and Yiddish. For many years the Machzikey TT had a school enrollment of one thousand students and more. When the '30s came and the enrollment fell considerably, it became necessary to consolidate the school with the National Hebrew School, especially when the Downtown TT closed it doors.     

Superheroes and supervillains: reconstructing the mad-scientist stereotype in school science

Reform recommendations around the world call for an understanding about the nature of science and the work of scientists. However, related research findings provide evidence that students hold stereotypical views of scientists and the nature of their work.

Purpose

The aim of this case study was to examine the impact of an intervention on 15 elementary school students’ views of scientists.

Sample

An urban, fifth-grade, European elementary school classroom defined the context of this study.

Design and method

The intervention was an 11-week-long investigation of a local problem concerning water quality. In carrying out this investigation the students collaborated with a young metrology scientist to collect and analyse authentic data that would help them to construct a claim about the quality of the water. The students’ initial views of scientists were investigated through a drawing activity, classroom discussions and interviews.

Results

Analysis of these data indicated that all students but one girl held very stereotypical views on scientists and the nature of their work. Analysis of interviews with each student and classroom discussions after the intervention illustrated that they reconstructed their stereotypical views of scientists and the nature of their work owing to their personal engagement in the investigation and their collaboration with the scientist.

Conclusions

The findings of this study suggest that more in-depth study into project-based approaches, out-of-school learning and school–scientist partnerships is warranted, for the purpose of determining appropriate pedagogies that support students in developing up-to-date understanding about scientists and the nature of their work.     

From Day School to High School: An Exploratory Study on Jewish Adolescent Girls’ Identity Development

ABSTRACT

What does it mean to be a Jewish girl today and how do Jewish adolescent girls navigate their identity? The study that I undertook is exploratory and designed to understand how three girls, who are recent day school graduates, experience the process of identity development as they begin high school. While the sample is small, the study reveals new directions for looking at Jewish girls and questions that need to be asked when researching their lives. It concludes with a few suggestions for thinking about how to conduct future research with Jewish girls.     

"בגיל ורעדה "הוראת ישראל ותהליך השלום

The Challenge

Jewish day and overnight camps are fertile settings for inculcating a positive attitude toward Jewish knowledge and identity. The number of activity hours available in a single summer exceeds by far the number of hours spent in three years of supplementary Hebrew school studies and a full year of Jewish studies in a Jewish day school.     

Education for national identity: Arab schools principals and teachers dilemmas and coping strategies

Abstract

This article discusses strategies used by Arab principals and teachers in Israel to cope with dilemmas involved in education for national identity stemming from conflict between two national narratives. While the Israeli Ministry of Education expects the Arab education system to educate students according to the Jewish State’s values, Palestinian Arab society expects its schools to educate its children according to Palestinian Arab national-cultural values. A qualitative research employed a semi-structured interview to elicit views on this issue from 7 principals and 14 teachers in the Arab education system in Israel. The findings indicate a conflictual reality. Interviewees expressed fear, humiliation and affront when required to obey Ministry of Education instructions in contradiction to attitudes prevalent in their society. They therefore developed coping strategies to foster students’ national identity without disrupting the necessary balance; primarily the construction of a covert learning program through manipulations in the official overt learning program. This study contributes to our understanding of minority education in a reality of conflict between the state and its national minority.     

Integrating mathematics,science, and technology: effects on students

Few studies have examined the student learning effects of integrating science with mathematics and technology. We compared a school that integrated mathematics, science and technology in grade 9 to a school in the same district that taught the three courses separately. The distinguishing feature of the integrating school was the reorganization of instruction in the three subjects to prepare students for seven group projects (involving a total of 25 h) that required the application of knowledge and skill that were shared by the three subjects, as well as learning outcomes that were unique to each. The study detected benefits for students in the integrated setting in terms of their ability to apply shared learning outcomes, student motivation, ability to work together and attitudes to appraisal of group work. Female students in the integrated school had a better understanding of selected science learning outcomes. Attitudes toward mid‐term exams were higher in the control school.

     

Kadimah: The Pursuit of Scholastic Excellence and Religious Commitment

This study uses phenomenological analysis to examine the perceptions of students attending a supplementary Hebrew school in a New England suburb. These students have ambivalent feelings about being Jewish. They equate being Jewish with being different, and they believe being Jewish has only a minor effect on their lives. They perceive the goals of Hebrew school on three levels: 1) The immediate level of learning prayers, learning about their religion, and learning Hebrew; 2) The long term goal of Bar/Bat Mitzvah; and 3) The ultimate goal of transmitting Jewish traditions to future generations. Their perceptions about Hebrew school differ markedly and range from boring to fun. Positive aspects of Hebrew school mentioned by all students include socializing and informality of classes. A negative aspect was the inconvenience of the Hebrew school schedule. Implications drawn from this study are that the Hebrew school ought to strive to maintain practical goals and a flexible curriculum, classroom environment, and school schedule.     

Context-based learning and metacognitive prompts for enhancing scientific text comprehension

ABSTRACT

Context-based learning (CBL), promoting students' scientific text comprehension, and fostering metacognitive skills, plays an important role in science education. Our study involves CBL through comprehension and analysis of adapted scientific articles. We developed a module which integrates metacognitive prompts for guiding students to monitor their understanding and improve their scientific text comprehension. We investigated the effect of these metacognitive prompts on scientific text comprehension as part of CBL in chemistry. About 670 high school chemistry students were randomly divided into three groups exposed to high- and low-intensity CBL. One of the high-intensity groups was also exposed to metacognitive prompts. Research tools included pre- and post-questionnaires aimed at measuring students' conceptual chemistry understanding and metacognitive knowledge in the context of reading strategies, before and after exposure to the CBL. Chemistry understanding was reflected by students' ability to identify the main subject of the adapted article and by explaining concepts both textually and visually. We found that high-intensity CBL combined with metacognitive prompts improved students' chemistry understanding of the adapted scientific articles and the ability to regulate their learning. Our study establishes that reading context-based adapted scientific articles advances students' conceptual chemistry understanding. These gains are strongly amplified by domain-specific metacognitive prompts.     

Applying Montessori Principles in China: The Impact of Being a Situational Minority in a Particularistic Jewish Heritage School

ABSTRACT

The aim of the research is to investigate a Montessori pedagogic approach, enabling a Jewish school to be part of the Chinese international-school system, while fostering Jewish identity. We conducted semistructured interviews with principals (2), teachers (8), parents (12), and students (10) and recorded class observations (8) over two visits. The analysis employed a grounded theory approach using a constant comparative method. The main result was that Montessori principles enabled the school to foster a strong particularistic Jewish identity for this situational minority while also developing a broad understanding of the host (Chinese) culture.     

Jewish Ethnic Needs in Multicultural Social Work Education

ABSTRACT

CSWE established a variety of standards regarding minority populations and diversity (CSWE, 1992). Some minority groups, although covered by CSWE standards, in practice are not dealt with in social work education. One in particular, Jewish students, is recommended for attention. This article focuses on what students of all backgrounds need for working effectively with Jewish clients, coverage of Jewish topics in the curriculum, and students' level of comfort in expressing their religion within the context of social work education.     

The relationship between staff maltreatment of students and bully-victim group membership

ObjectivesThe current study presents the prevalence of students’ reports of physical and emotional maltreatment by school staff and examines the differences between these reports according to the students’ category of involvement in school bullying (only bullies, only victims, bully-victims, and neither bullies nor victims).MethodThis study is based on a large, nationally representative sample of 16,604 students in grades 7–11 in 324 schools across Israel, who completed questionnaires during class. Using Multivariate Analyses of Variance (MANOVA), the study explores the differences between bully-victim group memberships on their reports of staff maltreatment. It also examines the interaction of students’ gender, nation (Jewish vs. Arab students) and school level (junior high vs. high school student) with physical and emotional maltreatment.ResultsSignificant MANOVA results were found for gender (boys more than girls), nation (Arabs more than Jews) and bully-victim group membership for both emotional and physical maltreatment. Post hoc follow-up analyses revealed that bully-victims reported significantly more staff maltreatment than other students, followed by bullies and victims. Students who were not involved in bullying reported the lowest levels of staff maltreatment. In addition, the interaction analysis revealed that differences in bully-victim subgroup membership vary by gender, nations and school level in both physical and emotional maltreatment.ConclusionThe findings showed that levels of staff maltreatment toward students vary according to the category of students’ involvement in bullying, with bully-victims boys being at the highest risk. These findings mirror past research suggesting that bully-victims present multiple challenges for school staff and they are in need for special attention.Practice implicationThe findings emphasize the need to invest more efforts in helping bully-victims that were found at highest risk for staff maltreatment in both Jewish and Arab schools. Furthermore, it is essential to support teachers to help them cope effectively with difficult situations without resorting to aggression. To achieve this goal, training opportunities for teachers in Israel and other countries need to be expanded. This intervention should be designed and implemented from a “whole school” approach that includes students, school staff, and parents.     

School‐based restructuring and curriculum change: teachers’ and students’ contrasting perspectives

Abstract

This article is set within the context of a school‐based change initiative, where we studied a number of teachers and students in order to understand the ways in which they understood and experienced the complexities of the change process, and to add their voices to the ongoing discussions around restructuring and school‐based change. We found that although there were some commonalties between how teachers and students experienced the changes being implemented, there were also some profound differences between the curriculum as planned by teachers and the curriculum as experienced by students. For the teachers, the themes of caring for students’ lives, recasting themselves as classroom practitioners and of working as collaborative colleagues were identified; for students, the themes were those of getting used to the place, and of re‐establishing their preferred way of working in this new setting. In our discussion and analysis of these themes we look at the implications for future school‐based change initiatives, and at some of the complexities and difficulties which present themselves as schools take on increased authority and responsibility for self‐management and for the creation of improved learning environments for students and teachers. We suggest that future change efforts should give more importance to the perspectives of teachers and students, and to the interactive and programmatic exchanges of teachers and students. We suggest also that changed school structures should originate in a focus on the improvement of teaching and learning, and on the facilitation of teachers’ and students’ collaborative efforts to create a curriculum for the classroom and a learning community which is both enabling and transformative for both.     

A jigsaw cooperative learning application in elementary science and technology lessons: physical and chemical changes

Cooperative learning is an active learning approach in which students work together in small groups to complete an assigned task. Students commonly find the subject of ‘physical and chemical changes’ difficult and abstract, and thus they generally have many misconceptions about it.

Purpose

This study aimed to investigate the effects of jigsaw cooperative learning activities developed by the researchers on sixth grade students’ understanding of physical and chemical changes.

Sample

Participants in the study were 61 sixth grade students in a public elementary school in Izmir, Turkey.

Design and methods

A pre-test and post-test experimental design with a control group was used, and students were randomly assigned to the experimental and control groups. Instruction of the subject was conducted via jigsaw cooperative learning in the experimental group and via teacher-centered instruction in the control group. During the jigsaw process, experimental group students studied the subjects of changes of state, changes in shape and molecular solubility from physical changes, and acid–base reactions, combustion reactions and changes depending on heating from chemical changes in their jigsaw groups.

Results

The concept test results showed that jigsaw cooperative learning instruction yielded significantly better acquisition of scientific concepts related to physical and chemical changes, compared to traditional learning. Students in the experimental group had a lower proportion of misconceptions than those in the control group, and some misconceptions in the control group were identified for the first time in this study.

Conclusions

Jigsaw cooperative learning is an effective teaching technique for challenging sixth grade students’ misconceptions in the context of physical and chemical changes, and enhancing their motivation, learning achievements, self-confidence and willingness in the science and technology lesson. This technique could be applied to other chemistry subjects and other grade levels.     

Czech students and mitigation of global warming: beliefs and willingness to take action

Abstract

The future life-styles and pro-environmental behaviour of today’s younger students will be a cardinal factor in mitigating the severity of projected climate change. In this study, Czech students at upper-primary and secondary-school levels responded to a set of covertly paired statements designed to assess their beliefs concerning the usefulness of actions that might ameliorate global warming and the degree to which they are willing to act. Relations between their beliefs and willingness to act were assessed by means of an index of Potential Effectiveness of Education (PEE). The results show that Czech students are generally sceptical about the usefulness of the actions suggested and are among the less willing, in a wider international context, to participate in actual processes that might ameliorate global warming. However, Czech secondary-school students, particularly females, are significantly more willing to act than upper-primary students. Although relatively high PEE values were observed, Czech students tend to underestimate the role of personal consumption and male students in particular are not willing to take actions that involve no immediate personal benefit. Our results thus emphasize the importance of adjusting school curricula by promoting insight into the topic of global warming, and extending that understanding into practical measures.     

‘Marching at the Speed of the Slowest Man’: The Facilitation and Regulation of Student Autonomy in a Pluralist Jewish Day School

ABSTRACT

Faith schools are often perceived as restricting students’ autonomy through inculcating a single religious ideology and compelling participation in collective worship. Based on interviews and focus groups with parents, students and senior staff, this article investigates how England’s one pluralist Jewish secondary school has, in contrast, attempted to accommodate various forms of Jewish practice and facilitate students’ agency to determine their Jewish identities as desired. It reveals that students enjoy opportunities to actively negotiate Judaism, but that their autonomy is not without limits, and issues inherent to pluralism exist in executing an ethos accommodative of diverse, personalized expressions of Jewishness.     

Personal meaning maps as an assessment tool for a Planetarium session: a study with primary school children

ABSTRACT

This study aims to analyse the potentialities of using Personal Meaning Maps to assess school children’s learning in a visit to a Planetarium. A total of 123 primary students were involved. They were asked to create a PMM, and a drawing, before and after the visit. The results suggest that the visit enhanced the degree to which students generate words and conceptual categories to describe their understanding of the suggested concepts. PMMs seemed to be a good tool to evaluate the impact of the activities on students’ ideas about the thematic explored. Drawings helped to understand the main misconceptions.     

Fast Kids,Slow Kids,Lazy Kids: Framing the Mismatch Problem in Mathematics Teachers' Conversations

Abstract

This article examines the social nature of teachers' conceptions by showing how teachers frame the “mismatch” of students' perceived abilities and the intended school curriculum through conversational category systems. This study compares the conversations of 2 groups of high school mathematics teachers addressing the Mismatch Problem when implementing equity-geared reforms. Although East High teachers challenged conceptions that were not aligned with a reform, South High teachers reworked a reform mandate to align with their existing conceptions. This research found that the teachers' conversational category systems modeled problems of practice; communicated assumptions about students, subject, and teaching; and were ultimately reflected in the curriculum. Because East High teachers supported greater numbers of students' success in advanced mathematics, this study considers the relation between teachers' understandings of student learning and the success of equity-geared math reforms. In addition, this study contributes to the understanding of how teacher conceptions of students are negotiated and reified in context, specifically through interactions with colleagues and experiences with school reform.     

Project work in the graduate classroom: Teachers as students apply skills beyond the classroom

Abstract

Through the use of a long‐term project in a graduate teacher education course on the importance of play, students learned skills beyond those usually required in a graduate classroom. Students used their understanding and knowledge of play, constructive practice, and project work to develop a family play day at the university lab school. As part of the project, students helped to develop a play‐style instrument that served as a self‐study for their own classrooms as they observed the play among their own students. The project culminated with the students hosting the families of the lab school at a fun day and preparing a brochure that gave families information about the importance of play.