Developing a Deeper Involvement with Science: Keith's Story

Much research in science education has focused on the conflicts that exist between individuals' ways of knowing the world and science. We have been left without an image of the compatibility or congruency that is necessary for science to occupy a fundamental position in a person's life. In this study we argue that Keith, a Jamaican American pre-service teacher, provides us with such an image. Using narrative, we trace the development of Keith's relationship with science over time and space in order to understand how Keith has constructed an identity through science amid the larger structures and contexts that comprise his life. We believe Keith's stories of practicing science in and out of the classroom illustrate how science, while taking an essential position in his lifeworld, extends and articulates Keith's subjective stances on experience. As part of his lifeworld, Keith finds a sense of value in science that turns it into a discipline that is part of the person he both is and wants to be and the world he wants to shape as a teacher. Richard Kozoll is an assistant professor of science education at the School of Education of DePaul University. His research interests include students' identity constructs as a means to understand engagement with and participation in science and inform inclusive science teaching practices. An additional line of research includes the use of narrative in science education research. Margery Osborne is an Associate Professor in the College of Education at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She teaches early childhood and elementary science education courses. Her research interests, located within the intersections constructed between ideas of reflective practice and research on critical and feminist pedagogy, include exploring the dynamic and complex nature of teacher knowledge.     

Lifewide learning in the city: novel big data approaches to exploring learning with large-scale surveys,GPS, and social media

ABSTRACT

Despite UNESCO’s Learning Cities agenda, which argues for the mobilisation of resources to promote education across all sectors and environments, there is little evaluative research on Learning City engagement which is both naturalistic and empirically rigorous. The research on informal adult learning in urban contexts is particularly sparse. This paper provides a case study of informal learning and lifewide literacies amongst Glaswegian adults using three distinct approaches to data collection: a household survey capturing rich data on learning attitudes, behaviours, and literacies; GPS trails that track mobility around the city; and the capture of naturally occurring social media. The work operationalises Learning City indicators, and explores domains beyond education, some of which have not previously been considered in surveys of adult learning, for example, physical mobilities and transportation patterns. We use theoretical concepts of social identity and capital to situate inclusion within explanatory frameworks of marginalisation in less tangible domains of informal learning using multi-stranded data. A triangulated analysis of city-wide participation in lifewide learning reveals a demographic picture of groups marginalised from learning opportunities and practices. We conclude with a call for new approaches to exploring learning participation which offer novel methods to evidence informal learning and lifewide literacies.     

Teaching Science Effectively With Analogies: An Approach for Preservice and Inservice Teacher Education

Journal of Science Teacher Education -     

Changes in the Singapore University Student Demand since the Currency Crash

The purpose of this article is to detail what has happened to demand for overseas university education by Singaporeans since the economic crisis of 1997. Briefly stated, the demand for education has risen dramatically over the past year in Singapore, but fear of future economic conditions has caused prospective students to switch their target preferences. As most prospective students feel that they cannot afford to enrol in higher education course programmes in Europe and in North America, they are switching their allegiances to higher education systems and programmes in Australia and New Zealand. The real winners in the new market‐place are the international education institutions that have set up operations in Singapore. Schools that have a history of transnational offerings in Singapore have experienced large increases in enrolments, up to 300 per cent in some areas over the past year. These increases have been achieved without the sacrifice of any teaching quality.     

Learning to teach at the elbows: The tao of teaching

The metaphor learning to teach at the elbows is put forward in this article to highlight claims about learning to teach that focus on the development of “teaching manner.” My particular interest is in characterizing and understanding aspects of teaching that seem to be acquired, shared, mediated, and changed through teachers' work together—a shaping which I believe occurs initially through mimicry in the practice setting, and which in many cases appears to take place independent of rational deliberation. I ask “How do I understand this kind of learning?” and “How, then, do I then represent my work as a teacher educator?” These questions are explored in light of contemporary Western ideas about situated cognition, activity, and identity—ideas which are extended further in this paper by pointing out similar problems related to integrating knowing and action that are found in early Chinese philosophy. In particular, the dialogical relationship between Confucianism and Taoism provides a useful framework for understanding the studio interplay between learning as socio-culturally mediated activity and critical reflection in the initial preparation of teachers.     

Examining type I error and power for detection of differential item and testlet functioning

In this study, the effectiveness of detection of differential item functioning (DIF) and testlet DIF using SIBTEST and Poly-SIBTEST were examined in tests composed of testlets. An example using data from a reading comprehension test showed that results from SIBTEST and Poly-SIBTEST were not completely consistent in the detection of DIF and testlet DIF. Results from a simulation study indicated that SIBTEST appeared to maintain type I error control for most conditions, except in some instances in which the magnitude of simulated DIF tended to increase. This same pattern was present for the Poly-SIBTEST results, although Poly-SIBTEST demonstrated markedly less control of type I errors. Type I error control with Poly-SIBTEST was lower for those conditions for which the ability was unmatched to test difficulty. The power results for SIBTEST were not adversely affected, when the size and percent of simulated DIF increased. Although Poly-SIBTEST failed to control type I errors in over 85% of the conditions simulated, in those conditions for which type I error control was maintained, Poly-SIBTEST demonstrated higher power than SIBTEST.     

The importance of being a ‘lady’: hyper‐femininity and heterosexuality in the private,single‐sex primary school

Drawing on recent ethnographic research in one single‐sex, private primary school, this paper will explore what it meant for the girls in this setting to embody the discourse of the ‘lady’. The paper will propose that classed and gendered discourses of respectability featured strongly in the girls’ lives, as they were expected to behave like ‘proper’ upper‐middle‐class ladies. However, the paper will also suggest that these discourses were being reworked through post‐feminist, neo‐liberal notions of modern girlhood, meaning that the girls also felt compelled to make themselves as heterofeminine ‘girly’ girls; as sassy, sexy and successful, as well as respectable and upper‐middle‐class(y) enough. By exploring the clash between these two sets of discourse, the paper will specifically seek to examine the lived embodiment of intersections of class, gender and sexuality and to explore the relevance of Judith Butler’s heterosexual matrix for these upper‐middle‐class girls.