How teaching world religions brought a truce to the culture wars in Modesto,California

Despite a growing consensus among scholars and activists about the importance of religion, proposals for teaching about it have often been a source of division rather than unity in American public school districts. Faced with familiar cultural conflicts, Modesto, California, chose to become the first public school district in the USA to require all high school students to take an extended and independent course in world religions. The results of the first, large‐scale empirical research on the effects of teaching about religion in USA public schools provides evidence that Modesto’s bold approach was worth the risk. Surveys and interviews administered to students show statistically significant increases in students’ knowledge about other religions, and levels of passive tolerance – willingness to refrain from discrimination – and active tolerance – willingness to act to counter discrimination. The course has not been the subject of lawsuits or complaints by parents and has gained acceptance among all of Modesto’s religious groups.     

Thinking about television science: How students understand the nature of science from different program genres

Student views on the nature of science are shaped by a variety of out‐of‐school forces and television‐mediated science is a significant force. To attempt to achieve a science for all, we need to recognize and understand the diverse messages about science that students access and think about on a regular basis. In this work I examine how high school students think about science that is mediated by four different program genres on television: documentary, magazine‐format programming, network news, and dramatic or fictional programming. The following categories of findings are discussed: the ethics and validity of science, final form science, science as portrayed by its practitioners, and school science and television science. Student perceptions of the nature of science depicted on the program sample used in this study ranged from seeing science as comprising tentative knowledge claims to seeing science as a fixed body of facts. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 40: 234–256, 2003     

Ways to prepare future teachers to teach science in multicultural classrooms

Roussel De Carvalho uses the notion of superdiversity to draw attention to some of the pedagogical implications of teaching science in multicultural schools in cosmopolitan cities such as London. De Carvalho makes the case that if superdiverse classrooms exist then Science Initial Teacher Education has a role to play in helping future science teachers to become more knowledgeable and reflective about how to teach school students with a range of worldviews and religious beliefs. The aim of this paper is to take that proposition a step further by considering what the aims and content of a session in teacher education might be. The focus is on helping future teachers develop strategies to teach school students to think critically about the nature of science and what it means to have a scientific worldview. The paper draws on data gathered during an interview study with 28 students at five secondary schools in England. The data was analysed to discover students’ perceptions of science and their perceptions of the way that science responds to big questions about being human. The findings are used to inform a set of three strategies that teachers could use to help young people progress in their understanding of the nature of science. These strategies together with the conceptual framework that underpins them are used to develop a perspective on what kinds of pedagogical content knowledge teacher education might usefully provide.     

高职院校“互动式”化学教学模式的构建与实施

阐述了高职院校"互动式"化学教学模式构建的"五原则、三策略",以及实施过程的"五步骤".强调教师要善于引导学生积极参与动眼、动手、动脑、动口的学习活动,让学生学会学习、学会合作、学会做人,在获得知识的同时发展探索思维能力.     

Never Again: The Impact of Learning About the Holocaust on Civic Outcomes

Abstract

Preparing students to be effective citizens is a longstanding goal of public education. Historical content provides illustrative opportunities for civic learning. Teaching about the Holocaust exemplifies this approach. Employing an experimental research design with 865 secondary school students, we analyze effects on civic outcomes from learning about the Holocaust through a school-sponsored trip to a Holocaust museum. We find that lessons about the Holocaust increase students’ support for civil liberties and deepen historical content knowledge, but decrease religious tolerance. High school students and those from college-educated households drive increases in support for civil liberties, and these students are more likely to donate to human rights causes as a result of the intervention. Middle school students and those from less-educated households drive the negative religious tolerance effect. These findings suggest that history lessons can produce meaningful impacts on civic educational outcomes. However, a stronger educational foundation that comes with engaging with challenging political issues may be a vital prerequisite to avoid undesirable consequences.     

大学生和中学生对肿瘤早期检查认知状况的比较分析

目的:对比分析大中学生对肿瘤早期检查的认知和需求。方法:选取金华市1所中学和1所大学学生共568名进行调查与分析。结果:中学生对肿瘤相关的健康生活方式水平认知程度比大学生的认知程度低,中学生在对肿瘤可防可治和肿瘤早期筛查项目的认识程度低,大学生对肿瘤早期检查的态度比中学生更积极。结论:大中学生对肿瘤早期检查的认知程度较低,有关学校尤其是中学应重视开展肿瘤早期发现的健康教育工作。     

关于马克思主义哲学教学中的“问题意识”

在马克思主义哲学教学中，可以贯穿一些“问题”．以便启发学生去“思”、去思考。如哲学的基本问题，实事求是的人文关怀问题，辩证法的人文情意问题，认识论的“转识成智”问题，人的存在和本质问题，马克思主义和中国文化的关系问题，马克思主义和西方哲学的关系问题，“三个代表”的意义等。哲学的本质作用是教人去“思”。如果说在教学中学生和老师能一道去“思”、去思考一些问题，那么学生就会感觉到哲学距离他们并不很远，而和他们的存在、他们的生活密切相关。     

Children's Theory of God's Mind: Theory-of-Mind Studies and Why They Matter to Religious Education

Theory-of-mind research has been carried out for over three decades, examining the ways children understand the minds of others—their perspectives, intentions, desires, and knowledge. Since the early 21st century, theory-of-mind studies have begun exploring the ways in which children think and reason about the minds—not only of ordinary, visible figures such as humans or animals—but of invisible figures such as spirits, angels, imaginary friends, and God. This growing body of research provides insight into children's cognitive development generally, but also into what could be called a “theory of religious mind.”     

Study Abroad and Developing Reflective Research Practice Through Blogs: A Preliminary Study from the United Kingdom

Blogs are seen as an important strand of social networking and a significant way of disseminating research ideas and sharing knowledge and perceptions with new audiences via digital platforms. The use of blogs within off-campus activities, such as study abroad field visits, have the potential to enhance students’ social media skills and confidence about becoming active researchers in public through communicating field research experiences and reflections on what they see, learn, hear, and do. Via a semi-structured questionnaire administered to UK-based university students participating in a recent Criminology program field visit to Slovenia in Europe, we assess the extent to which blogging facilitates student reflective practice on their lived experiences of undertaking research in culturally unfamiliar environments. We show that blogging combined with the whole experience of international fieldwork has a “learning gain” for students exemplified through a willingness to engage in reflective practice, self-awareness, and transferable skills.     

The Demand for Standardized Student Testing

What does the American public think about standardized testing? D o Americans test too much? Does the public believe that tests are a good way to learn about how well students are doing and to encourage them to d o better? What d o students, teachers, and administrators think?     

The Power of the Pen: Writing Mentorship and Chicana/o M.A. Students

This article draws on my experience as an adjunct professor in the Master's program of the Department of Mexican-American Studies at a large public university in California. Seeing my students’ struggles with writing, I conceived of a set of practices of writing mentorship anchored by a series of writing workshops held in Summer 2012. In this article, I document the pedagogy and content of these writing workshops in order to think about the unique struggles and opportunities Chicana/o Master's students face in the writing process and to provide an outline for other instructors interested in developing a practice of writing mentorship.     

Creating Pathways to College for Migrant Students: Assessing a Migrant Outreach Program

Migrant students are among the most disadvantaged of any groups in the United States, yet little is understood about factors that facilitate their college access. College access outreach programs rarely collect data on whether and where their students go to college. This longitudinal study tracked the college-going behaviors of migrant students who participated in the Migrant Student Leadership Institute (MSLI), a program whose goals include increasing migrant students' 4-year college access. The program emphasizes developing students' capacity for critical thinking about sociopolitical conditions, as well as their academic preparation for, and knowledge about, college. Results from analyses using an equivalent comparison group suggest that the program positively affected participants' application rates to, and enrollment rates in, more selective California public higher education institutions, including campuses of the University of California (UC) system. This article addresses factors that potentially accounted for these outcomes.     

Privatisation of religious public education in Israel: enhancing parents’ educational goals or fostering segregation?

Privatisation of the state religious education in Israel raises controversy within Israeli society. It is argued that privatisation leads to the abolishing of equality between students, and accusations are heard about the use of religious arguments to create elitist and selective schools. Questions regarding privatisation, the extent and importance of religious versus science studies were examined. Two of the major findings were that almost one‐third of the students who comprise the religious educational system in Israel came from non‐religious households and a gap was found between parents’ demands for privatisation and their educational goals. Social economic status rather than religious demands were found as enhancing school segregation. The need for reorganisation of the religious public education in Israel is discussed.     

Marketing of services in secondary schools in the Republic of Croatia

The goals of the research were to determine the quantity, variety and quality of service, the extent to which certain marketing activities are applied in Croatian high schools, to explore the attitudes of teachers in respect to the need for marketing activity application in secondary schools in Croatia, and the knowledge teachers have about the marketing of services. In order to achieve these goals, we conducted a survey including 271 teachers of public, private and religious high schools. Even though the research confirmed that all schools apply numerous marketing activities, teachers in religious (85%) and public (72%) high schools believe these activities are not present at all. Teachers in public (26%) and religious (48%) high schools share the opinion that marketing activities should not be applied since they work in non-profit institutions. This opinion indicates a lack of knowledge about marketing and even a wrong attitude toward it.     

问题教学法在高中生物教学中的应用

新课程改革要求在教学中要将学生作为教学的主体,而在高中阶段生物教学内容难度较大,需要学生理解记忆的内容较多,传统的讲授法难以满足学生全面发展的需求。疑问是学生思考的主要动力,有了对知识的疑问学生才会主动去思考问题,才能真正做到理解生物知识,准确掌握生物知识,以此提升生物教学质量。为了达到理想的教学效果,教师可以将问题教学法应用在高中生物教学中,充分活跃学生的思维。     

Teachers' Opinions about Inclusion: A pilot study in a Palestinian context

The present study explored teachers' opinions about the inclusion of students with disabilities and special needs in regular primary schools in a Palestinian context, and factors that influenced such opinions. The sample consisted of 90 teachers at six schools. Eighty-seven (97%) of them had students with disabilities or special needs in their classes. Fifty-four (60%) of the teachers were of the opinion that students with disabilities and special needs should have an opportunity to attend public schools. Opinion-related factors were identified and compared to results of previous studies. Eighty-one (90%) of the teachers expressed a need for changes in the public schools in order to meet the needs of students with disabilities and special needs. Their focus of interest for building their own competence was on knowledge and skills that could empower them as teachers, not on knowledge about the students' disabling impairments.     

Student‐generated assignments about electrical circuits in a computer simulation

In this study we investigated the design of assignments by students as a knowledge‐generating activity. Students were required to design assignments for ‘other students’ in a computer simulation environment about electrical circuits. Assignments consisted of a question, alternatives, and feedback on those alternatives. In this way, subjects were encouraged to engage in processes such as ‘generating questions’, ‘discriminating between examples and non‐examples’, and ‘generating feedback’. The resulting assignments were analysed and different types of assignments were identified. Information on the design process was collected from think‐aloud protocol data. Results showed that students not only designed assignments about facts or procedures, but also about observations made with the simulation. During the design process, subjects actively used their prior knowledge. Students seemed to strengthen their domain knowledge by retrieving and explaining problem‐solving steps, and focus on the dynamic characteristics of the simulated circuits.     

Cultivating a Religiously Literate Society: Challenges and Possibilities for America's Public Schools

This article presents a rationale as well as a proposal for a religious literacy curriculum in U.S. public high schools. Relying on the Religious Education curriculum currently in use in the United Kingdom, the authors sketch a religious literacy curriculum designed to help students thrive in a pluralistic and democratic society. In order to help young citizens develop the skills, dispositions, and knowledge to thrive in an increasingly global, pluralistic, and democratic society, they need to become religiously literate. For students to be religiously literate they must learn to respect the religious other as well as understand the role of religions in contributing to civic life.     

The Inter-relationship of Science and Religion: A typology of engagement

This study explores whether the religious background of students affects their opinions about and attitudes to engaging with scientific explanations of the origins of the universe and of life. The study took place in four English secondary schools representing three different contexts (Christian faith-based; non-faith with majority Muslim catchment; and non-faith, mixed catchment). It comprised questionnaires and focus groups with over 200 students aged 14–16, supplemented by teacher interviews. The analysis approach was informed by grounded theory and resulted in the development of an engagement typology, which has been set in the context of the cross-cultural border crossing literature. It divides students into categories depending on both the nature and amount of engagement they were prepared to have with the relationship between science and religion. The model takes into account where students sit on four dimensions. These assess whether a student's preferred knowledge base is belief-based or fact-based; their tolerance of uncertainty (do they have a need for resolution?); their open mindedness (are they unquestioning or inquiring?); and whether they conceptualise science and religion as being in conflict or harmony. Many Muslim students resisted engagement because of conflicting religious beliefs. Teachers did not always appreciate the extent to which this topic troubled some students who needed help to accommodate clashes between science and their religious beliefs. It is suggested that increased appreciation of the complexity represented by their students can guide a teacher towards an appropriate approach when covering potentially sensitive topics such as the theory of evolution.     

The trend of body donation for education based on Korean social and religious culture

Until a century ago, Korean medicine was based mainly on Oriental philosophies and ideas. From a religious perspective, Chinese Confucianism was prevalent in Korea at that time. Since Confucianists believe that it is against one's filial duty to harm his or her body, given to them by their parents, most Koreans did not donate their bodies or organs for education in the past. However, by the end of the 20th century, a unique fusion of Western and Oriental medicines were produced on the Korean Peninsula, revolutionizing traditional perspectives on the human body, mortality, and the relationship of medical science to society. Koreans began to think about others' lives as well as their own by realizing the importance of donating one's organs and bodies for scientific purposes. Since then, the number of people donating their bodies to Korean medical and dental schools for the purpose of improving academic learning has increased dramatically. In response, Korean medical schools have begun to hold various types of funeral ceremonies to honor body donors. We have compared such ceremonies performed in Korea with those performed in the United States of America and Taiwan. These ceremonies are viewed as a suitable way to pay proper respect to the dead and to promote knowledge about body donation programs in Korea. Overall, the transition of religions and social ethics in Korea has greatly facilitated body bequeathal programs, benefiting both medical education and the Korean public health administration.