Issues in boys' education: a question of teacher threshold knowledges?

This paper exploresthe effects of specific teacher threshold knowledges about boys and gender on the implementation of a so‐called ‘boy friendly’ curriculum at one junior secondary high school in Australia. Through semi‐structured interviews with selected staff at the school, it examines the normalizing assumptionsand ‘truth claims’ about boys, as gendered subjects, which drive the pedagogical impetus for such a curriculum initiative. This research raises crucial questions about the need for the formulation of both school and governmental policy grounded in sound research‐based knowledge about the social construction of gender and its impact on the lives of both boys and girls and their experiences of schooling. This is crucial, we argue, in light of the recent parliamentary report on boys' education in Australia which rejects gender theorizing and given the failure of key staff in the research school to interrogate thebinary ways in which masculinity and femininity are socially constructed and institutionalized in schools through a particular ‘gender regime’. While some good things are happening in the research school, the failure to acknowledge the social construction of gender means that ultimately the school's programs cannot be successful.     

Antigone Aloud Allowed

This is an exploration of what can happen when a rich, complex, challenging text is read aloud in class, of how students make meanings and connections with their own lives (and of how mysterious these processes often are).     

I fall to musing

This is a narrative of the author reading—with his students in a remedial English class at a community college in Brooklyn, New York—a story by Leo Tolstoy about a shoemaker's awakening through reading. As it recounts the students' reactions and the instructor's remarks, it quotes the story ‘Where Love Is, There God Is Also’ piece by piece. For the instructor, Tolstoy's story is problematic, for the story is patently religious (and his students are widely divergent in their beliefs, he is an atheist and the college is emphatically and legally secular), and yet its deeper significance, he hopes, is that it dramatises the deep thinking and feeling that only reading seems able to provide.     

Research Study on an Applied Interdisciplinary Product Development Course for College Sophomores

This research compares the industry readiness, product development skill level, and overall knowledge gains of students taking an undergraduate research course (treatment) to those who did not (control). This 2‐semester Applied Interdisciplinary Product Development (AIPD) course for sophomores brought together interdisciplinary teams of food science, nutrition, and packaging science students in a hands‐on setting to create healthy food products for children, complete with retail packaging. A Subject Knowledge Assessment (SKA) was used to evaluate the mean percent difference value (MPDV) of food science, nutrition, packaging science, and general product development knowledge gained through the course. SKA results indicated that the MPDV were significantly different (α = 0.05) between the treatment and comparison groups in the overall score and in every subject area score except packaging science. Data from an Exit Questionnaire (EQ) was used for evaluation of attitudes pertaining to product development knowledge and skills, department engagement, and pedagogy. EQ results indicated that mean scores between the treatment and comparison groups were significantly different (α = 0.05) in 7 of the 9 statements on product development knowledge and skills, both statements pertaining to pedagogy, and the statement pertaining to department engagement. Overall, the research project was considered a successful intervention for educating sophomores at the University. Overall, the research project was considered a successful intervention for educating sophomores in the Food, Nutrition and Packaging Science department at Clemson University. The student‐lead teams were held to a greater degree of accountability for their success in terms of education gleaned and value of experience gained as metric for the University and other IFT Accredited programs.     

Systematic Mentoring for New Faculty Teachers and Graduate Teaching Assistants

This study reports on the development and assessment of two mentoring programs, one for new faculty and one for new graduate teaching assistants. The first program was an externally funded, elaborate program; and it suggested the centrality of factors such as sustained, involving relationships for best outcomes with protégés. The second project, with newcomers to graduate study, demonstrated that a simpler program focusing on involvement within the pair and group meetings produces promising results. From both these projects, we developed a replicable model of systematic mentoring; and we obtained a clear picture of the styles and skills of exemplary mentors.Peg Boyle: Graduated from the State University of New York at Stony Brooknow resides in Boone, North Carolina     

Learning to Teach About Ideas and Evidence in Science: The Student Teacher as Change Agent

A collaborative curriculum development project was set up to address the lack of good examples of teaching about ideas and evidence and the nature of science encountered by student teachers training to teach in the age range 11–16 in schools in England. Student and teacher-mentor pairs devised, taught and evaluated novel lessons and approaches. The project design required increasing levels of critique through cycles of teaching, evaluation and revision of lessons. Data were gathered from interviews and students’ reports to assess the impact of the project on student teachers and to what extent any influences survived when they gained their first teaching posts. A significant outcome was the perception of teaching shifting from the delivery of standard lessons in prescribed ways to endeavours demanding creativity and decision-making. Although school-based factors limited newly qualified teachers’ chances to use new lessons and approaches and therefore act as change-agents in schools, the ability to critique curriculum materials and the recognition of the need to create space for professional dialogue were durable gains.