Culture wars in the classroom: Prospective teachers question science

Does studying about the nature(s) of science contribute to a prospective teachers' effectiveness as a science teacher? This research grew out of a course created by a science educator and historian of science who believed prospective teachers needed more complex understandings of the cultural wars surrounding science. The research team consisted of five prospective teachers who participated in the course as well as the two instructors. This paper describes the experience of participating in the course from both perspectives. We argue that studying the cultural wars over science contributes to prospective teachers' professional growth as much because the course elicits tacit beliefs about school science as it introduces more complex understandings of science. We found that prospective teachers' tacit beliefs about school science were their greatest barrier to developing more complex understandings about the nature(s) of science. We contend that willingness to grapple with complexity and developing a professional identity by locating oneself in the conversations about the nature(s) of science are better criteria for determining the professional growth of prospective teachers than knowledge measures. Finally, we argue that prospective teachers should be viewed as professionals who are responsible for finding their own voice, making their own decisions, and considering the consequences of their beliefs on their practice. This study raises questions critical to teacher education programs for prospective teachers and teacher‐educators alike. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 37: 895–915, 2000     

The emotional design of everyday things: The 2006 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Computer and Cognitive Science presented to Donald A. Norman

Donald Norman changed and continues to change the way in which we live our technology-infused and technology-based lives. Norman was one of the founders of the field of cognitive science and based on that work, he went on to create the field of user-centered design. It is the latter work for which he was awarded the 2006 Benjamin Franklin award in Computer and Cognitive Science. When one works within the paradigm of user-centered design, technology is created so that it is based on human cognitive capabilities, and is therefore, usable.¹ When technology is not designed in this way, it is often experienced as unusable.In creating the field of user-centered design, Donald Norman works at a conceptual level; his influence is therefore both widespread and profound.     

Paint and Pedagogy: Anton Ehrenzweig and the Aesthetics of Art Education

Anton Ehrenzweig's work training art teachers at Goldsmiths College in London was groundbreaking in its field. The work of the studio fed back into Ehrenzweig's writings through his reflections on teaching and the work produced in end of year shows. In The Hidden Order of Art (1967), he theorised the creative process in psychoanalytic terms and elsewhere likened the task of the art teacher to that of a psychotherapist. In this article I argue that, by taking psychoanalytic art theory into the teaching studio, Ehrenzweig provided a psychic space within which students were freed from convention and encouraged to pursue their own practice.     

Revisiting the dialogue on the transition from coteaching to inservice teaching: new frameworks, additional benefits and emergent issues

In this rejoinder, we respond to the major points made by Gallo-Fox (this forum), Beers (this forum), Carambo and Stickney (this forum), and Murphy, Carlisle and Beggs (this forum). We focus primarily on the benefits and considerations that stem from employing additional theoretical frameworks for analyzing research in coteaching. We also address some of the future directions that should be explored in coteaching research.

Vital pathways for hospital librarians: present and future roles

Objectives:

The research objectives were to (1) describe the current and future roles of hospital librarians and the challenges they face and (2) find evidence supporting the hypothesis that librarians are essential to hospitals in achieving the organizations'' mission-critical goals.

Method:

The authors used results from a previous research study that identified the five organizational mission-critical goals important to hospital administrators and then searched the literature and solicited examples from hospital librarians to describe the librarian''s role in helping hospitals achieve these goals.

Results:

The literature supports the hypothesis that hospital librarians play important roles in the success of the hospital. Librarians support quality clinical care, efficient and effective hospital operations, continuing education for staff, research and innovation, and patient, family, and community health information needs.

Conclusion:

Hospital librarians fulfill many mission-critical roles in today''s hospital, providing the right information at the right time in a variety of ways to enhance hospital and medical staff effectiveness, optimize patient care, improve patient outcomes, and increase patient and family satisfaction with the hospital and its services. Because hospital librarians and their services provide an excellent return on investment for the hospital and help the hospital keep its competitive edge, hospital staff should have access to the services of a professional librarian.

Highlights

• A review of the literature supports the hypothesis that services of the professional librarian result in:
  • enhanced staff effectiveness,
  • optimized patient care,
  • improved patient outcomes, and
  • increased patient and family satisfaction with the hospital and its services.

Implications

• Because hospital librarians and their services provide an excellent return on investment for the hospital and help the hospital keep its competitive edge, hospital staff should have access to the services of a professional librarian.

     

Will Undergraduate Students Play Games to Learn How to Conduct Library Research?

This exploratory study examines whether undergraduate students will play games to learn how to conduct library research. Results indicate that students will play games that are an integral component of the course curriculum and enable them to accomplish overall course goals at the same time they learn about library research.     

Re-mythologizing mathematics through attention to classroom positioning

With our conceptualization of Harré and van Langenhove’s (1999) positioning theory, we draw attention to immanent experience and read transcendent discursive practices through the moment of interaction. We use a series of spatial images as metaphors to analyze the way positioning is conceptualized in current mathematics education literature and the way it may be alternatively conceptualized. This leads us to claim that changing the way mathematics is talked about and changing the stories (or myths) told about mathematics is necessary for efforts to change the way mathematics is done and the way it is taught.

Disposition and health outcomes among infants born to mothers with no prenatal care

ObjectiveThis study assessed infant disposition and health outcomes among offspring born to mothers without prenatal care, based on maternal characteristics and the reason for lack of prenatal care (i.e., denial of pregnancy, concealment of pregnancy, primary substance use, financial barriers and multiparity).MethodsA retrospective record review was completed at an urban academic medical center. Subjects were women who presented at delivery or immediately postpartum with no history of prenatal care (N = 211), and their infants.ResultsInfants of mothers with substance use problems had the highest rates of referral to child protective services and out-of-home placement at discharge, though mothers with other reasons for no prenatal care also experienced both referral and placement. Infants born to mothers using substances experienced the highest rates of neonatal intensive care unit admission, and the lowest mean birth weight.ConclusionsThough those without prenatal care experienced a variety of adverse outcomes, substance use problems were most frequently correlated with adverse infant outcomes. Mothers who either had lost custody of other children or with substance use problems were at highest risk of losing custody of their infants. Those who denied or concealed their pregnancy still frequently retained custody.Practice implicationsAmong mothers without prenatal care, those with substance use problems were least likely to retain custody of their infant at hospital discharge. Custody status of the mother's other children was also independently associated with infant custody. Mothers who denied or concealed their pregnancy still often retained custody. Referrals of mothers with no prenatal care for psychiatric evaluation were rare, though referrals to social work were frequent. Child protective services occasionally did not investigate referrals in the denial and concealment groups. Healthcare providers should be aware of the medical and psychological needs of this vulnerable population of infants and mothers.     

Agency,sociomateriality, and configuration work

Social informatics research offers insights into the relationship between information technologies and social contexts. However, the material roles of information technologies, and their interplay with the agentic work of social actors, have not been addressed. Drawing on a field study of 37 mobile knowledge workers, we examine the dual material roles (enabling and constraining) played by information technologies in their work practices. We also investigate how these workers exert agency by fashioning multiple information technologies into a functioning digital assemblage. Although information technologies provide consequential affordances that enable mobilization of work across spaces and times, they simultaneously present design-driven, local, organizational, and temporal technological constraints that require mobile knowledge workers to engage in “configuration work” to make information technologies function effectively. Building on a sociomaterial perspective, we further discuss the interplay of information technologies and work practices enacted by mobile knowledge workers, in which both human and technological agency are materialized.