Introducing micro-computers to micro-learners through play

Computers, once available exclusively to wealthy industries, are now rapidly becoming as familiar in preschool and kindergarten classrooms as block and crayons. Articles making claims such as Learning by Computers at Age 4 and Computers Preparing Preschoolers for Kindergarten now permeate the news media. Increasing numbers of child care centers, attempting to maximize public interest in computers, now readily advertise Computer Tutor in their literature. Computer Tutor is often even listed above other important qualifications such as certified teachers and professional affiliations of centers.Theresa Rubens has had extensive experience working with children in both family day homes and child care centers. Jennifer Poole is the Nursery Director at the First United Methodist Church in Carrollton, TX. James L. Hoot is Assistant Professor of Early Childhood Education at North Texas State University in Denton, Texas.     

Much ado about nothing: Science and hermeneutics

Insofar as the basic concepts (in particular, meaning, interpretation, text) and theses of Martin Eger's hermeneutics of the sciences are intelligible they are not distinctive, and insofar as they are distinctive they are unintelligible and/or lack backup arguments. Ambiguity characterises much of the argument. James Cushing's elaboration of hermeneutics, using the history of quantum mechanics as an illustration of its supposed strengths, does nothing to rescue the position against the criticisms here levelled at Martin Eger's formulations of it.     

Science, Society, and Technology—Three Cultures and Multiple Visions

The article reviews the strikingly divergent viewpoints of intellectuals—scientists and non-scientists—about Science and Technology. It shows that while scientists implicitly accept the difference between Science and Technology, to non-scientists that difference is irrelevant. The most important differences between Science and Technology that lie in their relative scales, outputs and accuracy of predictions are highlighted. The complexity of and difficulty in trying to quantify the contribution of science and technology to economic growth are discussed. Views of science and technology that include their societal perceptions are recommended.     

New Contents for New Media: Pavia Project Physics

This hypermedial project deals with a historical and conceptual approach to physics. The core of the project is a certain number of case studies, namely problems or phenomena recounted together with their different interpretations. All case studies present two levels of investigation: the first level is devoted to high school students, the second level is devoted to university students and high school teachers. Our project is directed at a new and better understanding and appreciation of scientific culture.Our methodology is a historical methodology: teaching physics and the history of physics are fellow-subjects. We are not interested in adding the history of physics to teaching physics, as an optional subject: the history of physics is inside physics.Since textbooks usually give one and only one explanation of each physical phenomenon – the true explanation – we would like, on the contrary, to present the phenomena together with different interpretations that factually occurred in the history of physics. We offer four different approaches to the subject of the case study: A. Phenomena, B. Textbooks, C. History and D. Maps.The basic unit of the hypermedia is the presentation , namely a coherent set of information endowed with a definite and complete meaning. From the media point of view, a presentation consists of pictures and/or animations, key-words and/or key-sentences and a speaker explanation. Each approach consists of a certain number of presentations.     

Three-dimensional symmetry

The errors made when high-school students locate reflections in horizontal, vertical or slanting mirrors were examined. A questionnaire consisting of thirty-six perspective drawings, each portraying an upright transparent cube containing a two-sided mirror, was given to 394 Australian students from grades 7, 9 and 11. On a corner, an edge, or a face of each cube was drawn either a point or a straight-line segment. The task was to draw its image (reflection). Analysis of errors revealed a strong tendency towards horizontal or vertical sliding, suggesting that the edges of the cube act in much the same way as a horizontal-vertical background grid does in the two-dimensional case.     

Student learning work: Grounds for anin situ analysis

The ethnomethodological programme of studies of work is drawn on to provide a general framework within which we might develop ways to undertake thein situ analysis of the competencies which constitute student learning activities. The objective of such research is to describe the locally managed and temporally organised nature of student learning work. Emphasis is placed on the development of methods of investigation which will enable us to describe the whatness of the work from within the setting of that work's accomplishment. The twin conceptions of the visibility and sequential order of student activities are discussed in detail. The implications of this approach for the notion of student learning are also examined.     

Real-time simulation in computer-assisted instruction

Large scale computer-assisted instruction systems generally impose severe constraints upon the demands that individual users may make. Nevertheless, it is possible to overcome these problems and a program is described which teaches students how to fly a specific maneuver through real-time simulation of the flight of a student-controlled airplane. This is achieved in spite of the fact that the student is flying his plane through the use of a manually controlled analog input device. Both computational and educational implications are discussed.Contractual support for this work was provided in part by the Life Sciences Program Air Force Office of Scientific Research, Contract number F44620-70-C-0105. Dr. Charles Hutchinson was the scientific monitor of the contract.     

The concept of chance in everyday teaching: Aspects of a social epistemology of mathematical knowledge

The paper analyzes the relationship between the epistemological nature of mathematical knowledge and its socially constituted meaning in classroom interaction. Epistemological investigation of basic concepts of elementary probability reveals the theoretical nature of mathematical concepts: The meaning of concepts cannot be deduced from more basic concepts; meaning depends in a self-referent manner on the concept itself. The self-referent nature of mathematical knowledge is in conflict with the linear procedures of teaching. The micro-analysis of a short teaching episode on the concept of chance illustrates this conflict. The interaction between teacher and students in everyday teaching produces a school-specific understanding of the epistemological status of mathematical concepts: the concept of chance is conceived of as a concrete generalization, which takes chance as a fixed and universalised pattern of explanation instead of unfolding potential and variable conceptual relations of chance or randomness and developing the theoretical nature of this concept in an appropriate way for students' comprehension.     

The Effects of Storytelling and Story Reading on the Oral Language Complexity and Story Comprehension of Young Children

What began as a case study of intergenerational initiatives in university-based early childhood programs evolved into a comparative study of two different program implementation processes. Despite operating with the same goals, university partners, and resources, two early childhood centers pursued fundamentally different strategies for launching their intergenerational programs. One site followed what we call an explicit intervention with a set timeline and series of planned steps for finding, placing, and involving seniors in classroom activities. The other pursued what we call an emergent (or organic) strategy with no predetermined plan for finding senior volunteers and integrating them into classroom activities. Drawing on data collected from interviews with program staff and parents, and observations of intergenerational activities, this study serves to describe, compare, and contrast these alternative program initiation strategies. Both models are effective, but represent different approaches to valuing the contributions of older adults in the lives of young children.     

University and community: Evolving perceptions of the African university

For the past two decades universities in Africa have been engaged in a re-examination of their relationship with society. In the light of this, the popular characterization of the African university as reflecting colonial, international, stages of development, or levels of integration models, appears inadequate to describe the challenge involved in creating an African identity for the university. Similarly, conceptions of the university as an instrument for creating an educated, planned or changed society or to think of it in terms of preserving and reflecting the dominant features of society, seem inadequate to describe fully the demands of contemporary and future society upon the university. A new framework of thought is urgently required; such a framework would encompass the desired aims of both the university and society and the relationships - dynamic and organic - between them. This article attempts to formulate such a framework and indicates its implications for the structure, content and operation of the university in Africa.     

Torsten Husén: A case of ethnocentrism in U.S. educational research?

This paper documents and discusses the lack of reference by U.S. educational researchers to the work of noted Swedish social scientist and educational researcher, Torsten Husén. The paucity of U.S. textbook or journal citations of Husén's writings and research is interpreted as an example of cultural ethnocentrism and academic imperialism in U.S. educational and psychological research. Crosscultural perspectives, interdisciplinary analyses, and global learning are proposed as methods of overcoming the methodological parochialism, overspecialization, and international fragmentation Husén describes as characteristic of much educational and social scientific research.     

Whitehead and a new look at teaching elementary science

If Whitehead is right, science teachers who try to increase student interest by making the science they teach more pure and by covering more material are going about their work in just the wrong way. Science, for purposes of precision in measurement, translates the dynamic world of feeling and force, of causal efficacy (for example, the San Francisco earthquake), into a static representation spatialized and given presentational immediacy (for example, the Richter scale). But notice that the Richter scale isn't very interesting (even as abstract art) apart from its connection, via symbolic reference, to the earthquake. Such reference is essential to give both a sense of reality and a feeling of interes to the subject, but it makes the science less pure, and it takes more time to cover the material. An example of teaching pure and impure formal logic is given as a case study.     

The use of visual media in the service of enriching mental thought processes

Visual media of communication are not just convenient and indifferent technologies for the transmission of knowledge but also, and perhaps mainly, different languages for gathering, packaging and conveying knowledge. The real differences among the media are not so much in the kinds of knowledge they can convey, but rather in the languages, that is — the symbol systems — they uniquely employ. The experienced horrors of Clockwork Orange, or the possible better understanding of group processes after viewing Twelve Angry Men are greatly due to the visual mode and the unique languages of such films, not just the content (which can be read in a book).Media's different and often unique symbol systems have been studied in recent years. It has been found, for example, that different symbol systems call upon different kinds of mental skills and convey different meanings. But above all, media's unique symbol systems cultivate unique mental skills by either activating or overtly supplanting them. By doing so, these symbol systems offer new ways for internal, cognitive, representation. Thus, they can be seen as potentially serving as cultivators of mental abilities.This paper was presented at the IW APP Festival 1980, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, January 1980.     

American college students' perceptions of counsellor approachability: Professional implications

The Repertory Grid technique was used to explore differences in the way in which freshers and postgraduate counselling students perceived the roles of counsellor and friend. Postgraduates viewed counsellors as more approachable than other students, while freshers viewed other students as more approachable than counsellors. The constructs identified by the students were content-analyzed to define approachability for each group. The perceptions held by students were used to address implications for the provision of outreach services, role-induction programmes, and the status of the counsellor as the professional.Department of Counseling and Educational Psychology, New Mexico State UniversityFor information contact Peggy Kaczmarek, Ph.D., New Mexico State University, Box 3CEP, Las Cruces, New Mexico 88003, United States.     

Strategies for enhancing learning in the “blow-off” course

Lower division courses are typically perceived by students as blow-off courses. We can overcome this image. This paper contrasts active and passivelearning environments, and describes efforts to create an active, critical learning environment in both Introduction to Sociology and The Family System-typical lower division courses in Sociology. A review of grade distributions, quantitative course evaluations, qualitative course evaluations, and a survey asking students to subjectively compare the active learning course structure to the typical multiple choice format provide evaluation data. Finally, the paper discusses problems in using these innovations.Randy Stoecker recently received a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Minnesota, and has been exploring alternative pedagogies since 1982. He has published in the areas of social theory and social movements. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Midwest Sociological Society Annual Meetings, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 1988. Many thanks for insightful comments by Tuck Green, Ron Berger, and an anonymousInnovative Higher Education referee.     

Collective Identity and the Burden of “Acting White” in Black History,Community, and Education

After more than 15 years of comparative study of minority education, I concluded that I would have to study two additional factors, namely collective identity and cultural frame of reference to more fully explain the variability in minority school performance. In 1986, I published an article with Signithia Fordham on how oppositional collective identity and cultural frame of reference or oppositional culture contributed to Black students' school performance. Many critics have misinterpreted the joint article and even constructed a different thesis of oppositional culture than the one we proposed in the joint article. The thesis is that Black students do not aspire to or strive to get good grades because it is perceived as acting White. Furthermore, they have translated my cultural–ecological theory into an oppositional culture theory. I am writing this paper to correct the misinterpretations of the joint article in order to advance scholarship on the subject. I begin by explaining the meaning of collective identity and distinguishing it from other concepts of identity. Specifically, I summarize the evolution of oppositional collective identity and cultural frame of reference or oppositional culture among Black Americans and discuss the Black experience with the burden of acting White in the contemporary United States. Finally, I suggest some continuity between Black historical and community experiences with the burden of acting White, as experienced by Black students.     

Exploring the Concept of ‘Habitus’ with Preservice Teachers Through the Use of Popular School Films

The thesis of this paper is that it is a productive venture to introduce preservice students to social theories that are typically not a part of teacher preparation programs. Examples of these theories are those associated with terms such as habitus, the carnivalesque, power / knowledge, seduction, detournement, the spectacle,la perruque, (the wig), and the art of making do,as well as others. In this paper, I describe a project that involved exploring the theory of habitus to problematize the tendency of preservice students to not think in terms of relations between what goes on in the classroom and what goes on in society. I introduced habitus by having preservice students read selected print materials and by having them view, analyze, and respond in writing to popular school films. Students also analyzed their experiences in classrooms in terms of habitus, making a connection between theory and practice.     

Evaluating women's homemaking and volunteer work experiences for college credit

This project developed methods and materials to assist colleges in evaluating the competencies which women acquire from their nonmarket (volunteer work and homemaking) experiences. Competencies were identified through interviews and questionnaires of women's activities. Next an informal task analysis of each activity was conducted to develop a list of the competencies involved, the I Can lists. A twelve step counseling process, based on the use of the I Can lists, is described. The paper also discusses methods of dealing with faculty and administrative concerns about this type of experiential learning evaluation.The author wishes to thank Marlaine Lockheed and Abigal Harris for their assistance in this research.Paper presented at the conference on Continuing Education Programs for Women—Issues and Trends, Columbus, Ohio, May 12, 1978.     

Emigration,internationalization, and “brain drain”: Propensities among British Academics

This research links two important higher education phenomena: potential brain drain among academics abroad and the U.S. academic labor market. The inquiry draws on the brain drain literature and is grounded primarily on a secondary analysis of a major survey (1989) of British university and polytechnic faculty members. The anlaysis shows that fully 40.0 percent of university faculty are seriously considering a move abroad with the substantial majority favoring the United States as a destination. Faculty characteristics—including academic field, research versus teaching orientation, rank, age, gender, and political identification—are correlated with faculty members' professed interest in emigration. The analysis also compares (former) polytechnic to university faculty as well as to a subset of Oxford and Cambridge faculty.     

Using problem solving teaching styles to prepare candidates for the CXC basic proficiency examinations

Two Grade 10 classes in an urban Jamaican High School were taught over a period of one academic year in two problem solving styles: an Explicit Style derived from Charles, and an Implicit Style derived from Isaacs. At the end of the academic year there was no significant difference in their performance on a problem solving test, or on the Problem Solving Profile of the Caribbean Examinations Council's Basic Proficiency papers. The two classes performed much better than the population who sat the Basic papers on the tasks measuring Recall and Algorithmic Thinking but only moderately better than the population on tasks measuring Problem Solving.The teaching project described in this paper was supported in part by grants from the Research and Publications Fund Committee of the University of the West Indies (Mona), and the Wolmers Trust, Kingston. The author wishes to thank the Registrar and the Pro-Registrar of the Caribbean Examinations Council for permission to use the CXC papers and data in this study. A modified version of this paper was presented at the 63rd Annual Conference of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics held in San Antonio, Texas in 1985.