Change or Durability? The Contribution of Metaconceptual Awareness in Preservice Early Childhood Teachers’ Learning of Science Concepts

This longitudinal study examined the role of metaconceptual awareness in the change and the durability of preservice teachers’ conceptual understandings over the course of several months. Sixteen preservice early childhood teachers participated in the study. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to reveal the participants’ conceptual understandings of lunar phases (pre, post, and delayed-post) and level of metaconceptual awareness (delayed-post only). Based on the change and stability in participants’ conceptual understandings from pre to post and from post to delayed-post interviews, participants’ conceptual understandings were assigned into three groups that described the profile of their long-term conceptual understandings: “decay or stability”, “continuous growth”, and “growth and stability”. The results indicated that participants in the “continuous growth” and “growth and stability” groups had significantly higher metaconceptual awareness scores than participants in the “decay or stability” group. The results provided evidence that metaconceptual awareness plays a more decisive role in the restructuring of conceptual understandings than the durability of conceptual understandings.     

Teaching Weight-Gravity and Gravitation in Middle School

This study deals with the school instruction of the concept of weight. The historical review reveals the major steps in changing weight definition reflecting the epistemological changes in physics. The latest change drawing on the operation of weighing has been not widely copied into physics education. We compared the older instruction based on the gravitational definition of weight with the newer one based on the operational definition. The experimental teaching was applied in two versions, simpler and extended. The study examined the impact of this instruction on the middle school students in regular teaching environment. The experiment involved three groups (N = 486) of 14-year-old students (ninth grade). The assessment drew on a written questionnaire and personal interviews. The elicited schemes of conceptual knowledge allowed to evaluate the impact on students’ pertinent knowledge. The advantage of the new teaching manifested itself in the significant decrease of the well-known misconceptions such as “space causes weightlessness,” “weight is an unchanged property of the body considered,” and “heavier objects fall faster”. The twofold advantage—epistemological and conceptual—of the operational definition of weight supports the correspondent curricular changes of its adoption.     

Identifying the Item Hierarchy and Charting the Progression across Grade Levels: Surveying Taiwanese Students’ Understanding of Scientific Models and Modeling

The purpose of this study was, first, to understand the item hierarchy regarding students’ understanding of scientific models and modeling (USM). Secondly, this study investigated Taiwanese students’ USM progression from 7th to 12th grade, and after participating in a model-based curriculum. The questionnaire items were developed based on 6 aspects of USM, namely, model type, model content, constructed nature of models, multiple models, change of models, and purpose of models. Moreover, 10 representations of models were included for surveying what a model is. Results show that the purpose of models and model type items covered a wide range of item difficulties. At the one end, items for the purpose of models are most likely to be endorsed by the students, except for the item “models are used to predict.” At the other end, the “model type” items tended to be difficult. The students were least likely to agree that models can be text, mathematical, or dynamic. The items of the constructed nature of models were consistently located above the average, while the change of models items were consistently located around the mean level of difficulty. In terms of the natural progression of USM, the results show significant differences between 7th grade and all grades above 10th, and between 8th grade and 12th grade. The students in the 7th grade intervention group performed better than the students in the 7th and 8th grades who received no special instruction on models.     

What Does it Mean to Assess Gifted Students’ Perceptions of Giftedness Labels?

Measuring gifted and talented (GT) students’ perceptions of their GT label might seem to be a relatively straightforward affair. Most of this research uses survey methods that ask GT students to complete Likert scale or open-ended response questionnaires about their perceptions of the label and then presents results in clear and quantifiable terms, such as “X % of students hold positive perceptions of the GT label.” However, our qualitative study of GT students in two middle school social studies classrooms presents findings that not only trouble, but prompt questions about simple proclamations regarding GT students’ perceptions of the GT label. What we found was that given the opportunity to share their thoughts at length, this group of GT students expressed a range of often contradictory perceptions about their GT label. Students expressed multiple interpretations and perceptions of the GT label, as well as both embraced the label and rejected the label.     

<Emphasis Type="Italic">Bildung</Emphasis> in globalizing times

This key paper is intended to produce a comparison of Bildung and globalization, acknowledging that Bildung and globalization are both fuzzy concepts. Our comparison of globalization and Bildung therefore is to be seen as a construction. To reach this objective, we start with the identification of dimensions of the concept of globalization based predominantly on sociological research. This analysis is followed by explication of dimensions of the concept of Bildung as they can be identified before a frame of globalization. We want to find out whether it makes sense to see globalization as one part of a new model of Bildung. In the conclusion, we demonstrate the normativity of each and any theory of Bildung in globalizing times, and we explain why it is necessary to reflect on the normativity of the different concepts. We indicate where we see connections with the other papers of this special issue of “Zeitschrift für Erziehungswissenschaft”.     

Problem-Centered Supplemental Instruction in Biology: Influence on Content Recall,Content Understanding,and Problem Solving Ability

To address the need for effective, efficient ways to apply active learning in undergraduate biology courses, in this paper, we propose a problem-centered approach that utilizes supplemental web-based instructional materials based on principles of active learning. We compared two supplementary web-based modules using active learning strategies: the first used Merrill’s First Principles of Instruction as a framework for organizing multiple active learning strategies; the second used a traditional web-based approach. Results indicated that (a) the First Principles group gained significantly from pretest to posttest at the Remember level (t(40) = ?1.432, p = 0.08, ES = 0.4) and at the Problem Solving level (U = 142.5, N1 = 21, N2 = 21, p = .02, ES = 0.7) and (b) the Traditional group gained significantly from pretest to posttest at the Remember level (t(36) = 1.762, p = 0.043, ES = 0.6). Those in the First Principles group were significantly more likely than the traditional group to be confident in their ability to solve problems in the future (χ² (2, N = 40) = 3.585, p = 0.09).     

Morphology and spelling in French students with dyslexia: the case of silent final letters

Spelling is a challenge for individuals with dyslexia. Phoneme-to-grapheme correspondence rules are highly inconsistent in French, which make them very difficult to master, in particular for dyslexics. One recurrent manifestation of this inconsistency is the presence of silent letters at the end of words. Many of these silent letters perform a morphological function. The current study examined whether students with dyslexia (aged between 10 and 15 years) benefit from the morphological status of silent final letters when spelling. We compared, their ability to spell words with silent final letters that are either morphologically justified (e.g., tricot, “knit,” where the final “t” is pronounced in morphologically related words such as tricoter, “to knit” and tricoteur “knitter”) or not morphologically justified (e.g., effort, “effort”) to that of a group of younger children matched for reading and spelling level. Results indicated that the dyslexic students’ spelling of silent final letters was impaired in comparison to the control group. Interestingly, morphological status helped the dyslexics improve the accuracy of their choice of final letters, contrary to the control group. This finding provides new evidence of morphological processing in dyslexia during spelling.     

Knowledge production in a constructed field: reflections on comparative and international education

Adopting Maria Manzon’s theoretical framework, which draws on Foucault and proposes that comparative education as an academic field is socially constructed, I suggest that the field is neither stable nor well defined. To demonstrate this, I conduct a content analysis of the Comparative Education Review, using Klaus Krippendorff’s methodological framework to study comparative and international education (CIE) researchers’ understanding of the national—and of their related knowledge production in the field. Many comparativists express interests in multiple countries, and their knowledge production takes the form of individual country studies. The countries are habitually studied using a “problem approach” focusing on one specific aspect of the country under investigation and using an associated social science methodology deemed appropriate. Few comparativists are making explicit use of or reference to any methodology that is unique to comparative education. Efforts to catalog and systematize CIE research have demonstrated that the field is becoming so inclusive that it hardly is distinguishable from educational studies as a whole. Hence, I suggest that instead of speaking about unifying features of the field, it may be more relevant to speak about frequent elements, such as a focus on the national, and a knowledge production characterized by the academic practitioner who desires to improve the education systems studied. A third frequent element may be the focus on educational development, thus justifying the label of “comparative, international, and development education.” One challenge of the field is its dependence on Western social science discourses, which may be marginalizing other voices.     

The Role of Humor in Learning Physics: a Study of Undergraduate Students

We all know that they do it, but what do students laugh about when learning science together? Although research has shown that students do use humor when they learn science, the role of humor in science education has received little attention. In this study, undergraduate students’ laughter during collaborative work in physics has been investigated. In order to do this, a framework inspired by conversation analysis has been used. Empirical data was drawn from two video-recorded sessions in which first-year engineering students solved physics problems together. The analysis revealed that the students’ use of humor was almost exclusively related to physics. Five themes identified summarize the role of humor in the group discussions: Something is obvious, Something is difficult, Something said might be wrong, Something is absurd, and Something said is not within informal norms.This study shows that humor may contribute not only to a good working atmosphere and thereby to the students’ learning but also how humor interrelates with both disciplinary culture of physics and its epistemology. The students do not only create and re-create humor that facilitates their social interactions, but through humor they constitute local norms of science and engage with the disciplinary discourse.     

“Keeping Some Wildness Always Alive”: Posthumanism and the Animality of Children’s Literature and Play

This article explores posthumanism as a philosophy that emphasizes human relationships with the natural world by examining representations of animality, both in children’s literature (e.g. titles such as Where the Wild Things Are, Wild, Virginia Wolf, and No Fits, Nilson!) and in children’s play in order to better understand the significance of philosophy in children’s literature and lives. By fostering a feeling of “necessary wilderness,” or connection to nature (Almond, 2011, p. 110), and by practicing a sense of being in nature, “keeping some wildness always alive” (Lerman, 2012, p. 311) through literary engagement and animal play, the authors suggest that children and adults can maintain an interconnectedness with the natural world, even when they cannot be in it themselves. Through a mixed methods approach that combines educational theory, ecocriticism, and qualitative research, we discuss links between children’s stories and bodies, identifying how becoming animals through narrative engagement and play reflects posthumanist theory in practice, and encourages a child’s embodied knowledge of nature. The authors also speak to the ways that embodied education approaches that encourage animal play and “expressive literary engagement” [Sipe, 2002, pp. 476–483]) can support a shifting and necessary worldview informed by posthumanism, suggesting that philosophical change is necessary if humanity aims to survive the ecological and technological changes to come.     

An oriental melon 9-lipoxygenase gene <Emphasis Type="Italic">CmLOX09</Emphasis> response to stresses,hormones, and signal substances

In plants, lipoxygenases (LOXs) play a crucial role in biotic and abiotic stresses. In our previous study, five 13-LOX genes of oriental melon were regulated by abiotic stress but it is unclear whether the 9-LOX is involved in biotic and abiotic stresses. The promoter analysis revealed that CmLOX09 (type of 9-LOX) has hormone elements, signal substances, and stress elements. We analyzed the expression of CmLOX09 and its downstream genes—CmHPL and CmAOS—in the leaves of four-leaf stage seedlings of the oriental melon cultivar “Yumeiren” under wound, hormone, and signal substances. CmLOX09, CmHPL, and CmAOS were all induced by wounding. CmLOX09 was induced by auxin (indole acetic acid, IAA) and gibberellins (GA₃); however, CmHPL and CmAOS showed differential responses to IAA and GA₃. CmLOX09, CmHPL, and CmAOS were all induced by hydrogen peroxide (H₂O₂) and methyl jasmonate (MeJA), while being inhibited by abscisic acid (ABA) and salicylic acid (SA). CmLOX09, CmHPL, and CmAOS were all induced by the powdery mildew pathogen Podosphaera xanthii. The content of 2-hexynol and 2-hexenal in leaves after MeJA treatment was significantly higher than that in the control. After infection with P. xanthii, the diseased leaves of the oriental melon were divided into four levels—levels 1, 2, 3, and 4. The content of jasmonic acid (JA) in the leaves of levels 1 and 3 was significantly higher than that in the level 0 leaves. In summary, the results suggested that CmLOX09 might play a positive role in the response to MeJA through the hydroperoxide lyase (HPL) pathway to produce C6 alcohols and aldehydes, and in the response to P. xanthii through the allene oxide synthase (AOS) pathway to form JA.     

Mappaemundi,Maps and the Romantic Aesthetic in Children’s Books

This article considers the extent to which medieval mappaemundi are an important precedent for literary cartographies in fiction for children. It connects the notion of embeddedness to Peta Mitchell’s (2011) suggestion that mappaemundi refused to entertain the later, post-Enlightenment cartographic distinction between subject and environment, positing instead the “absorption” of the medieval subject into the religious medieval world space. The article documents some of the visual conventions that maps in children’s literature have appropriated from mappaemundi. In doing so, it articulates the contradictions inherent both to ecological rhetoric and cartographic space and the visual lexicon of maps included with children’s books, which contribute to a rhetoric of ecomimesis. The article argues that maps in children’s literature are invested in a rhetoric of ecomimesis, that we are, as Timothy Morton (2009) has it, “embedded” in Nature, and that this embeddedness conceit threatens to forestall critique in that it reproduces the related oppositions of culture/Nature, subject/object and subject/environment even as it appears to collapse their respective terms. In the process, it considers maps in Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (2007/1719), the Alderley Edge books of Alan Garner, Arthur Ransome’s Swallows and Amazons (2012/1930), and Rosemary Sutcliff’s Outcast (1998/1955).     

Millennials,Technology and Perceived Relevance of Community Service Organizations: Is Social Media Replacing Community Service Activities?

This mixed-methods qualitative study examined the relationship between perceptions of the importance of social media (i.e., Facebook, Twitter) with community service projects and volunteerism. Participants (n = 80) were interviewed and surveyed regarding their experiences in participating in a variety of community service work (CSW) projects (i.e., urban forestry, community gardening) with their perceptions of the importance of social media. Results supported the hypothesis that a significant correlation exists (r = .286, p < .05) between perceptions of technology as an important part of my life and reduced importance of CSW activities. A significant correlation (r = 287, p < .001) also developed between perceptions of “connectedness” to one’s community, increased technology use and reduced perceptions of the importance of CSW activities. Additionally, a significant positive correlation (r = .454, p < .001) was found between reports of improved perceptions among ethnically diverse populations and the overall importance of CSW activities within the community. Results and suggestions for further research are offered regarding the application of theory to “real world” perspectives and problems involving education and environmental issues.     

Navigating “thorny” issues

In their article Mindfulness and discussing ‘thorny’ issues in the classroom Konstantinos Alexakos et al. (Cult Stud Sci Educ, 2016. doi: 10.1007/s11422-015-9718-0) describe “thorny” issues as “difficult topics to discuss because they are more personal to some perhaps even cause pain and violence.” As women from different backgrounds, we engage in a metalogue, which expands on our thoughts and emotions the thorny issues evoked. Our discussion is grounded in theoretical frameworks of mindfulness, wellness, and safe space for learning. We also reflect on our experiences of facing some of the thorny issues in our academic and personal lives. Having trust and respect for one another and being aware of thorny issues allows for a meaningful conversation about the complexity and nuances involved in discussing difficult topics in a classroom setting.     

“I experienced freedom within the frame of my own narrative”: The contribution of psychodrama techniques to experiential learning in teacher training

To prepare Dutch students in education for critical situations in their professional life as a teacher, part of their training is to ask them to reflect upon their own experiences in their life as a child, a pupil and a student – experiences of crucial moments or with significant others which are still of the utmost importance to them. This article underlines the significance of so-called “experiential learning” in student career counselling. In this context, experiential learning is understood as an extension of in-depth reflection on critical incidents and critical persons in the biography of pre-service teachers. This reflection – customary and effective in Dutch teacher training – is a verbal process. However, this technique does not seem to be adequate for many students from other cultural backgrounds (e.g. second-generation descendants of migrant workers). By consequence, some of these students are not able to take newly offered information on board, but remain imprisoned in their own culture-related narrative, their own ethnic society of mind. Research has shown that for these students, psychodrama techniques, focusing on non-verbal and playful aspects of reflection, seem to be more suitable. The author of this article presents a sample case from a pilot study which used one of the psychodrama techniques called the empty chair. The findings of the pilot study are promising in the sense that experiencing different I-positions does seem to help students from other cultural backgrounds to develop agency in responding to hitherto unfamiliar and confusing situations.     

Teachers’ Use of Focus Questions in German Biology Classrooms: a Video-based Naturalistic Study

This study investigated the effects of teachers’ use of focus questions on students’ knowledge structures and classroom teaching-learning process by re-analyzing selected data from a quasi-experimental pre-post video study (Wadouh, 2007). Focus questions are content-related anchoring questions highlighting the key content taught in individual lessons (Forbes & Davis, 2010). In Wadouh’ study, students answered a knowledge test before and after the lesson on “blood and the circulatory system” and one lesson per teacher was videotaped to investigate teaching practices in grade 9 biology classrooms. Students also completed a post-unit concept mapping exercise and a motivation-interest questionnaire. In this study, 30 lesson videos selected from 47 were re-analyzed for teachers’ use of focus questions—no focus questions, non-specific or simple focus questions, and specific and challenging focus questions. Individual students’ scores in the concept mapping exercise were aggregated as students’ topic-related knowledge structure. Multilevel analyses revealed a significant positive effect of teachers’ use of specific and challenging focus questions on students’ topic-related knowledge structure. Furthermore, a comparative case analysis of the classroom teaching-learning process was conducted in four lessons where teachers used specific and challenging focus questions in two of the lessons and non-specific or simple focus questions in the other two lessons. The findings indicate that specific and challenging focus questions anchored lessons on students’ co-construction of scientific explanations by activating their pre-instructional ideas, whereas non-specific or simple focus questions anchored lessons on their accumulation of canonical scientific knowledge. This study’s limitations and implications for teacher education reform are discussed.     

A novel endogenous badnavirus exists in <Emphasis Type="Italic">Alhagi sparsifolia</Emphasis>

We report the recovery of a 7068-nt viral sequence from the “viral fossils” embedded in the genome of Alhagi sparsifolia, a typical desert plant. Although the full viral genome remains to be completed, the putative genome structure, the deduced amino acids and phylogenetic analysis unambiguously demonstrate that this viral sequence represents a novel species of the genus Badnavirus. The putative virus is tentatively termed Alhagi bacilliform virus (ABV). Southern blotting and inverse polymerase chain reaction (PCR) data indicate that the ABV-related sequence is integrated into the A. sparsifolia genome, and probably does not give rise to functional episomal virus. Molecular evidence that the ABV sequence exists widely in A. sparsifolia is also presented. To our knowledge, this is the first endogenous badnavirus identified from plants in the Gobi desert, and may provide new clues on the evolution, geographical distribution as well as the host range of the badnaviruses.     

Changes in Students’ Views about Nature of Scientific Inquiry at a Science Camp

Although nature of science (NOS) and nature of scientific inquiry (NOSI) are related to each other, they are differentiated as NOS is being more related to the product of scientific inquiry (SI) which is scientific knowledge whereas NOSI is more related to the process of SI (Schwartz et al. 2008). Lederman et al. (Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 51, 65–8, 2014) determined eight NOSI aspects for K-16 context. In this study, a science camp was conducted to teach scientific inquiry (SI) and NOSI to 24 6th and 7th graders (16 girls and 8 boys). The core of the program was guided inquiry in nature. The children working in small groups under guidance of science advisors conducted four guided-inquiries in the nature in morning sessions on nearby plants, animals, water, and soil. NOSI aspects were made explicit during and at the end of each inquiry session. Views about scientific inquiry (VASI) (Lederman et al. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 51, 65–8, 2014) questionnaire was applied as pre- and post-test. The results of the study showed that children developed in all eight NOSI aspects, but higher developments were observed in “scientific investigations all begin with a question” and “there is no single scientific method,” and “explanations are developed from data and what is already known” aspects. It was concluded that the science camp program was effective in teaching NOSI.     

Child Readers and the Worlds of the Picture Book

Children as readers of picture books and the ways they respond to, and make meaning from, such texts are the focus of this article, which reports on a small-scale study undertaken in Norway and Wales, UK. The theoretical framing of the research draws on concepts of the multimodal ensemble in picture books and of the reading event as part of a social practice. The research design was developed from the team’s analysis of two texts, Pappa by Svein Nyhus (1998) and What does Daddy Do? by Rachel Bright (2009). Twenty-four children, who were 7 and 8 years old, took part in the study. This was built around two reading events for each book, staged as an immediate response and as a guided response. The data subsequently collected were analysed according to three overarching organisational principles, as book world, real world and play world. For both Daddy and Pappa, the first reading event showed the children’s responses were mainly directed towards exploring the book world. On the second reading event, references to the real world predominated for Daddy, while for Pappa the book world was again dominant. Across both reading events and for both books, the playworld revealed those occasions when the children expanded the meaning of the story, demonstrating an inventive ability to play with the text. Overall, the children’s responses moved fluidly across the three worlds, showing them to be energetically making connections between the reading, their experience of books and their own lives.