Integrating alternative assessment in a project-based learning course for pre-service science and technology teachers

This paper deals with a required methods course, based on the national curriculum of science and technology for junior high schools. The course participants are pre-service teachers who study towards a B.Sc. degree in education in science and technology parallel to their studies in one of the faculties of sciences or engineering. Working in small teams, the students carry out a project in a Project-Based Learning (PBL) environment. The final outcomes of the project are group and individual written reports, a portfolio, a multimedia presentation and a physical model. The research question was: what implementation issues and processes do higher education students encounter in a Project-Based Learning environment which involves an alternative assessment approach? Qualitative and quantitative tools for collecting data included ‘the participant as observer’ observations at the classroom, semi-structured interviews with students, questionnaire, and analysis of students' reports and products. The findings relate to the advantages of PBL from the students' point of view, the challenges students experienced and perceived while conducting their projects, and the benefits students may gain from formative assessment.     

A Fresh Theoretical Perspective on Practice‐Led Research

Practice‐led research in art and design has now come of age and can take its place alongside other forms of research at the academic ‘high table’. It no longer needs to be treated with ‘special consideration’ as a new form of intellectual enquiry. The research craft developed by those involved in practice‐led research admits them to a broader community of practice engaged in questioning the conceptual basis of how we perceive and make sense of the world around us. The objective/subjective divide that preoccupied an earlier generation of academics has eventually been replaced by a more nuanced epistemological framework able to embrace PhDs that include non‐textual artefacts as part of their exposition. An increasing number of academic institutions around the world have taken up the debate and now participate in practice‐led research programmes. However, for early‐career researchers in these fields there are still many hurdles to overcome, some of which are unique to this form of endeavour, as we outline. This article has been developed from a series of seminars and workshops presented by the authors to early‐career practice‐led researchers as part of their Project Dialogue programme which seeks greater engagement between the arts and sciences.     

A Review of Research on School Bullying Among African American Youth: An Ecological Systems Analysis

School bullying and peer victimization are social problems that affect African American youth across various environmental contexts. Regrettably, many of the empirical research on bullying and peer victimization among African American youth has examined individual and direct level influences in silos rather than a constellation of factors occurring in multiple settings, such as home, school, and neighborhood. As a holistic model, the social–ecological framework provides a context with which to situate and interpret findings and draw implications from a broader psychosocial framework, which can be applicable across various systems. We utilize Bronfenbrenner’s (American Psychologist 32:513–531, 1977) social–ecological framework as a springboard for investigating the accumulation of risk contributors and the presences of protective factors in relation to school bullying and peer victimization of African American youth. More specifically, we examine the risk and protective factors occurring in the micro- (i.e., parents, peers, school, and community), exo- (i.e., parental stress), and macrosystem levels (i.e., hypermasculinity, and gender role beliefs and stereotypes). We then discuss implications for research and school-based practice.     

Building Mind, Brain, and Education Connections: The View From the Upper Valley

ABSTRACT— This article describes the efforts of a small group of educators and researchers to build a model for making connections across mind, brain, and education. With a common goal of sharing, strengthening, and building useable knowledge about child and adolescent learning and development, we focused on questions of mutual interest to educators and researchers. We describe our efforts to develop a common vocabulary and language and to create opportunities for dialogue and discussion, including classes and talks for in-service and preservice teachers, research laboratories open to in-service and preservice teachers, local conferences that provided a context for educator and researcher interactions, and researcher outreach in the local education community at the administrative, classroom, and student levels. These activities represent concrete mechanisms by which links might be forged between educators and researchers within the context of Mind, Brain, and Education.     

And Robins I have Never Seen...

A group of children aged 9 and 10 were asked what signified Christmas to them. The children had all English as a mother tongue and were in the traditional mainstream English culture pattern. The children were asked: (1) to write random ideas on Christmas; (2) to define certain terms used in the nativity story, otherwise seldom used; (3) to identify unmarked greetings cards, isolating if possible reasons for their identification.

Afterwards, they heard a reminiscence of Christmas in another land, and applied their imagination to drawing cards appropriate to that.

The whole exercise was in the context of trying to give explicit reasons for signs which have implicit basic cultural significance, and the authors raise the question of whether at least partial knowledge of reasons is important in this type of semiological context, and whether making intuitive knowledge explicit could make a difference to learning.     

What is The International Statistical Institute?

This is the second of a short series of articles briefly describing the organisations that sponsor Teaching Statistics.