Time Constraints in the School Environment: What Does a Sleepy Student Tell Us?

ABSTRACT— In this article, we discuss school schedules and their implications in the context of chronobiological contemporary knowledge, arguing for the need to reconsider time planning in the school setting. We present anecdotal observations regarding chronobiological challenges imposed by the school system throughout different ages and discuss the effects of these schedules in terms of sleepiness and its deleterious consequences on learning, memory, and attention. Different settings (including urban vs. rural habitats) influence timing, which also depends on self-selected sleep schedules. Finally, we criticize the traditional view of a necessary strict stability of sleep–wake habits.     

What Can Clients Tell Us about Seeking Counselling and Their Experience of It?

Research on counselling is often unknown to or ignored by counsellors. Research that explores counselling from the client’s perspective is even less familiar to most counsellors, perhaps because there is far less of it compared to the quantity of research investigating the process from the counsellor’s point of view. Nevertheless, research presenting the client’s perspective can be a useful guide to both counsellors and their clients. With this aim in mind, this article summarises some of the research that has been conducted from the client’s point of view and suggests implications for counselling practice.     

What Do Teacher Mentors Tell Student Teachers About Pupil Learning in Infant Schools?

Abstract

Recent emphases on experiential classroom learning in the induction into expertise of student teachers may over‐estimate the learning support that class based practitioners offer students. Current understandings of teachers' thinking and planning suggest that expert practitioners may not be best placed to provide student teachers with frameworks for understanding what Shulman (1987) categorises as general pedagogical knowledge. Data from a sample of 11 UK infant school teacher mentors in the form of 5 hours of taped planning and evaluatory conversations with 20 students have been content analysed. Teacher‐talk related to explanations of how pupils learn forms the focus of the paper. Implications for mentor training and school‐university partnerships are drawn from the analysis of the data. Finally the need to confront the language difference that obtains between schools and universities in order to develop the theoretical base of teacher education is asserted.     

What Does Prone Skateboarding in the Newborn Tell Us About the Ontogeny of Human Locomotion?

The crawling behavior of sixty 2-day-old newborns was studied while they were supported prone on a mini skateboard and on a pediatric mattress without additional support. Analyses of the number and types of limb movements and their characteristics, the coactivation of limb pairs, and the displacement across the surface, revealed that newborns can crawl with locomotor patterns similar to those documented during quadrupedal locomotion in animals and human adults. This was particularly apparent on the skateboard. This discovery suggests that locomotor circuitry underlying quadrupedal locomotion develops during fetal life. Drawing upon other evidence for a quadrupedal organization underlying bipedal gait, we argue that early quadrupedal training may enhance interventions designed to hasten the onset of independent walking.     

What Can Research Tell us about Teacher Education?

If it is true that educational research should not merely offer us better understandings of educational processes, but also offer us suggestions for good practice by ascertaining 'what works' most effectively in diverse contexts, then there are potentially four ways in which such research could be of use to those engaged in teacher education. This paper explores three of them-those which it argues are of most use to teacher educators. From research into the processes of teaching and learning we have learned a great deal about the complex nature of teachers' expertise and the extent to which it is determined by highly specific contexts. In seeking to understand more about the processes involved in learning to teach we have come to recognise the strength of the personal agendas that beginning teachers bring with them and the active role they play in negotiating their own learning. On this basis research offers teacher educators a number of suggestions for good practice: about the ways in which we should expect beginning teachers to make use of research-based generalisations; about how we can help them gain access to the wealth of expertise embedded in the practice of experienced teachers; and about how we can encourage them to subject their own preconceptions to serious critical evaluation.     

Student Learning Groups: Does Group Composition Matter?

There has been a shift in university teaching over the past decades to emphasize student achievement and persistence through high-impact practices and collaborative learning. While research supports the efficacy of these pedagogical strategies, it can be difficult to implement them on large campuses. Yet, many criminal justice professors assign students to work in small groups. This study, conducted at a university with a large underrepresented student population, found that the composition of student groups in one criminal justice class can affect the perceived benefits students receive in that class, in other classes, and in general. We found that students placed in a small group with classmates who shared some criminal justice classes reported more student-initiated collaborative learning, expanded support networks, and improved grades in shared courses compared to students in small groups with classmates who shared no classes. This simple intervention has the potential to mimic learning-communities with similar benefits.     

What Kind of a Girl Does Science? The Construction of School Science Identities

A view of science as a culturally‐mediated way of thinking and knowing suggests that learning can be defined as engagement with scientific practices. How students engage in school science is influenced by whether and how students view themselves and whether or not they are the kind of person who engages in science. It is therefore crucial to understand students' identities and how they do or do not overlap with school science identities. In this paper, we describe four middle school African American girls' engagement with science. They were selected in the 7th grade because they expressed a fondness for science in school or because they had science‐related hobbies outside of school. The data were collected from the following sources: interviews of students, their parents and their teachers; observations in science classes; journal writing; and focus groups. These girls' stories provide us with a better understanding of the variety of ways girls choose to engage in science and how this engagement is shaped by their views of what kind of girl they are. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 37: 441–458, 2000.     

Student‐teachers' Learning Outcomes during Science Subject Matter Courses

This paper is about a longitudinal study to investigate how student‐teachers developed understanding of some key ecological concepts during a teacher education programme. Another aim was to interpret the student‐teachers' intentions in respect of the programme and to examine how these intentions influenced their learning. A group of students were followed through 2.5 years of a teacher education programme. The whole student group (n = 47–60) answered a questionnaire three times. Their understanding of scientific concepts, relevant to environmental education, was examined. Fourteen students were interviewed three times about a newspaper article discussing the use of surplus heat from a crematorium. The students were also asked about expectations of the teaching programme and of learning experiences from their science courses and from school practice. It is concluded that many of the student‐teachers did not develop the conceptual understanding necessary to be able to engage with the socio‐scientific issue presented to them. It also concludes that many of the student‐teachers approach the learning of science content from the perspective of their personal notions of the tasks of a primary schoolteacher, which is significantly different from the perspectives underpinning the curriculum and the intention of teacher educators. The connection between these two conclusions is discussed.     

Mission Impossible? What States With Large Percentages of Rural Schools Tell Us About Federal School Improvement Grants

This article summarizes findings and lessons learned about implementing school improvement grant (SIG) initiatives in rural areas of the United States. The study examines state-level survey data based on the proportion of rural schools receiving SIG funds in the fall of 2010 in each state. In addition, the authors summarize related findings from rural-focused state and district case study work. The state survey showed that, regardless of the proportion of rural SIG schools, participating state officials (N = 46) reported providing similar supports to districts, such as technical assistance and increased monitoring and data review. However, fewer states with larger proportions of rural SIG schools believed these supports were important for improving schools. Among states with larger proportions of rural SIG schools, significantly fewer reported that replacing principals through SIG was key to improving student achievement. The case study data confirmed and elaborated on the survey findings.     

What Does a Culturally Sustaining Learning Climate Look Like?

A solid base of research evidence exists to show that teachers’ assessments of children are impacted by their perceptions of those children. From the Pygmalion in the Classroom experiment which powerfully showed that teacher expectations of students impacted those students’ performance, to more recent research on teachers’ underrating of children based on low SES, race, and language learner status, it is clear that what educators believe about their students has real implications for their educational outcomes. This article examines the learning climate for young children at the intersection of children's immigration status, disproportionality, and teacher perceptions, making an argument for classrooms that are humanizing and culturally sustaining. Given the large and ever growing population of young immigrant students, teachers need tools to develop positive climates within which all students can thrive. This article presents a framework of such tools that can be built into teacher preparation curricula to support the development of early childhood educators.     

What do COVID-19 Tweets Reveal about Public Engagement with Nature of Science?

Science & Education - Using the social media platform Twitter, this study explores public reference to “scientific method(s)” in tweets specifically pertaining to COVID-19 posted...     

Does Student Philanthropy Work? A Study of Long-term Effects of the “Learning by Giving” Approach

Student philanthropy is a teaching strategy designed to engage students actively in the curriculum, increase awareness of social needs and nonprofit organizations, and teach grant-writing and grant-making skills. This is the first study to examine long-term effects of student philanthropy by surveying alumni years after their experience with this teaching strategy. A majority of respondents indicated that student philanthropy had a positive effect on their awareness, learning, beliefs, and intentions. Further, 86% of student philanthropy alumni had recently made charitable contributions, 71% reported volunteering, and 15% served on nonprofit boards – all of which are much higher than the national averages for these behaviors.     

What Works in the Architecture Studio? Five Strategies for Optimising Student Learning

Good teaching requires pedagogical dynamism: a willingness to vary one’s teaching approach relative to the context (and cohort) at hand, and to any new challenges that may arise from that context. This requires that teachers obtain a broad knowledge of teaching strategies and tactics. Given the demands of contemporary higher education, finding the time to obtain this knowledge can pose a challenge to full‐time academics. This is exacerbated in the case of part‐time and practitioner‐teachers who often work in varying degrees of isolation from the communities of learning to which they contribute. An analysis of the teaching practices of eight high‐performing practitioner‐teachers, alongside data obtained from 74 students, within a master’s‐level architectural course at a large Australian university, has been used to delineate five strategies for optimising student learning within the architecture studio. These include: setting up a challenge that clearly articulates the role of the student within it; early and frequent assessment tasks to assist students in rapid skill development and reflective practice; communicating clear expectations around performance; facilitating a strong peer culture; and enhancing motivation via high expectations. This article details the tactics by which these strategies can be achieved. This article delivers directly applicable advice for architectural educators, but it also provides practical insight into the specifics of architectural teaching that may assist educators working in other disciplines.     

Online Postings of Teacher Education Candidates Completing Student Teaching: What do they talk about?

This purpose of this investigation was to review the postings of candidates completing student teaching using an online discussion module. A total of 3624 on-line postings by 295 student teachers over eight semesters were examined. Postings were grouped into one of six categories (general information, teaching, students, placements, projects and parents). The most frequent postings (34%) focused on topics related to teaching. It was noted that the postings were positive in nature and that candidates used the discussion board to share and reflect on their experiences during student teaching.     

Classroom Transactions of Student‐Teachers of Science

Summaries

English

The report describes a study of the teaching behaviour of student‐teachers of science disciplines during the one‐term teaching practice of the English ‘Post‐Graduate Certificate in Education’ course, using the Science Teaching Observation Schedule by Eggleston et al.

The results suggest that in several behavioural dimensions, students and teachers achieve a close match. These dimensions, it is suggested, could represent the ‘stable’ elements in the students’ perception of science teacher behaviour learnt during their time as pupils, or they might represent ‘safe’ transactions which do not involve students extensively in problems of classroom management and control.

For other behaviour categories, it was found that students tended to behave less like experienced teachers as the training practice proceeded, but this was to some extent determined by the subject taught. Physics student‐teachers substantially maintained their similarity to experienced teachers, whilst chemistry and biology students drifted away. The nature of these drifts is discussed.