How Young Children Construe Pain Experienced by Self and Others: A Case of Naive Theory

We investigated young children's construal of pain in relation to (a) the self, (b) other humans, and (c) animals, plants, and objects, to elucidate children's cognitive understanding of this complex, abstract, subjective concept. We interviewed 17 Kindergarten students using a variety of non-painful stimuli and procedures to prompt discussion of pain's causes, consequences, intensity, contagion, and treatment. Findings suggest that young children use naive theory to describe pain that only partly agree with canonic knowledge and were cognizance of the need to treat pain and cope with it. Awareness of children's construal of pain may promote caregivers' and teachers' ability to effectively treat pain-related situations and contribute to the design of a relevant curriculum for enhancing their knowledge about pain.     

Editors' column

This article proposes a theoretical frame for technical communication peda- gogy based on six layered literacies: basic, rhetorical, social, technological, ethical, and critical. The layered literacies frame advocates diverse instruction in technical communication programs, ranging from the ancient art of rhetoric to the most contemporary of technologies, from basic reading and writing skills to ethical and critical situational analyses. The article also suggests how the frame can be applied to a program of study or individual course in order to establish teaching objectives; develop course and lesson activities; and assess pedagogical materials, students, and programs.     

CLASSROOM RESEARCH AND EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING: THREE SUCCESSFUL EXPERIENCES‐THE IMPACT OF STUDENT WRITING IN LEARNING ACCOUNTING

As the knowledge base in all disciplines continues to grow, professors face the problem of incorporating even more essential, difficult, technical material into their already content‐filled courses. Furthermore, companies are hiring more selectively than ever, requiring not only superior technical skills but also good writing skills of the people they hire. How can faculty add more technical material plus extra writing practice into already bulging courses?

One solution may be to supplement typical homework problems with daily written journals. In using these journals, the students would think about and better understand difficult concepts that are not being fully understood through homework problems. Also, a byproduct of writing in daily journals would be extra writing practice and, presumably, better writing skills.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the results of research done in the Collin County Community College District in which four Principles of Accounting classes were used in an experiment involving writing to learn. Two classes were conducted in the traditional accounting class format in which student participation was through homework problems. The other two classes also wrote in daily journals, using a few minutes of class time to individually summarize difficult concepts presented during that class. Final grades and attrition rates of the experimental groups were compared at the end of the semester with promising results.     

Ingenuous aesthetic art

I have noticed over the years at conferences, cocktail parties and staff meetings that we early childhood educators greatly pride ourselves on our tolerance of individual differences and our nurturance of individual strengths. We teach the whole child including emotional, social and physical development as well as cognitive skills in our curriculum. We speak glowingly of such human traits as diversity and creativity.     

How does leadership affect student achievement? Results from a national US survey

Using survey responses from a national sample of US teachers, this paper provides insight into 2 questions: (1) Do 3 specific attributes of leadership behavior – the sharing of leadership with teachers, the development of trust relationships among professionals, and the provision of support for instructional improvement – affect teachers' work with each other and their classroom practices? and (2) Do the behaviors of school leaders contribute to student achievement? We tie this investigation of school leader behaviors to 2 additional factors that have also received increasing attention in research because they have been shown to be related to student achievement: professional community and the quality of classroom instruction. Our analysis provides an empirical test of the notion that leadership variables are positively related to student learning. It also suggests that both shared and instructionally focused leadership are complementary approaches for improving schools.     

‘Photo-words’: promoting language skills using photographs

Abstract

This study, using a mixed methods design, examined the use of a photograph-based model to improve students’ language and writing skills. Classes were assigned to receive the photograph-based intervention (experimental) or to receive the regular language-based curriculum (control). Both second and fifth grade students in the experimental group significantly improved their language and writing skills compared to the control group. Second grade students improved significantly more than fifth grade students. The findings also enabled the research team to identify deficiencies that required specific modifications in language curriculum design.     

Examining teachers' beliefs through action research: guidance and counseling/pastoral care reflected in the cross-cultural mirror

The TRIO Project (Teacher Training & Research for Individuals & Organisations) began with the notion that cross-cultural reflection could be an effective tool by which teachers could examine their personal belief systems about learning, teaching and pupil guidance. University-based teacher educators from four countries, the Netherlands, Russia, the United States and the United Kingdom, worked collaboratively to create this 3-year project. They first had teachers systematically examine their own teaching practices at the local level using action research strategies and then brought them together in an annual international workshop, where the teachers from all four countries were able to reflect upon their work and their pedagogical belief systems using a cross-cultural lens. This article describes the process used to facilitate that exchange, and what was learned by both teachers and teacher-educators about the value of cross-cultural reflective practice leading to personal and professional growth.     

Revisiting curriculum inquiry: the role of visual representations

Curriculum materials and knowledge about curricular purposes and structures are valuable tools that teachers often draw upon to organize instruction and facilitate student learning. Careful analysis of teachers’ curriculum implementation and the decision-making that undergirds their curriculum use is critical for fully understanding enactment. This paper compares how integrity analyses of implementation of curriculum materials and actor-oriented analysis of teachers’ curriculum use can help researchers, teacher educators, and curriculum designers interpret teachers’ decisions about what aspects of new materials to use and how to use such materials. Drawing on evidence from teacher interviews and observations, we compare two teachers’ enactments of a new elementary-level environmental biology unit. Our analyses of integrity point to differences in teachers’ adaptations with respect to their consistency with the purposes and structures of curriculum materials as construed by designers. By contrast, our actor-oriented analysis explain how the teachers’ different approaches to interpreting the goals and structures of the curriculum unit partly account for patterns in their enactment in ways that can inform refinements to materials and the design of professional development supports for teachers. In so doing, we show how implementation integrity and actor-oriented analyses offer complementary perspectives to inform curriculum research and development.