Effects of live and recorded story telling on retelling performance of preschool children from low socioeconomic backgrounds

Two modes of story telling, live reading and recorded reading, were compared to test the hypothesis that live reading results in better retention. Thirty-four preschool children from low socioeconomic backgrounds were randomly assigned to the two conditions. Each child heard a story presented by the teacher or a recording and then retold the story in his or her own words. Children in the live group used significantly more words and more correct themes in retelling (p <.01) than did those in the recording group. Implications for research and teaching are discussed.     

Let right be done: trying to put ethical standards into practice

The development of ethical standards by professional associations, boards, councils and colleges of teachers, responds in part to a moral imperative that teachers and school leaders be accountable to the wider community, and in part to a desire to enhance the overall professionalism of educators' behaviour. This article explores the conceptual and practical complexities inherent in defining ethical standards for the teaching profession with a particular focus on their questionable capacity for implementation. In combining empirical evidence from previously reported research studies with newly fabricated first person narrative responses to the evidence, the article seeks to illustrate the difficulty, if not the impossibility, of applying ethical standards to actual situations in any professionally and ethically satisfying way. It argues further that moral dilemmas facing teachers are potentially resolvable only by communities of educators internalizing and applying principles of ethics, not formalized codes or standards.     

Investigating the Educational Implications of Embodied Cognition: A Model Interdisciplinary Inquiry in Mind,Brain, and Education Curricula

Much educational neuroscience research investigates connections between cognition, neuroscience, and educational theory and practice without reference to the body. In contrast, proponents of embodied cognition posit that the bodily action and perception play a central role in cognitive development. Some researchers within the field of Mind, Brain, and Education (MBE) explore this theory by researching the impact of sensorimotor activity on academic competencies such as language comprehension, mathematics, and scientific thinking. In this article, I call for this work to be highlighted more centrally in MBE training programs. Toward this end, I model an investigation of the concept of embodied cognition that can be used in MBE curricula with a dual purpose: to train future practitioners in the seminal metaphor of mind as an embodied system, and to demonstrate effective interdisciplinary research, which is critical to advancing the field of Mind, Brain, and Education.     

Eliciting Metacognitive Experiences and Reflection in a Year 11 Chemistry Classroom: An Activity Theory Perspective

Concerns regarding students’ learning and reasoning in chemistry classrooms are well documented. Students’ reasoning in chemistry should be characterized by conscious consideration of chemical phenomenon from laboratory work at macroscopic, molecular/sub-micro and symbolic levels. Further, students should develop metacognition in relation to such ways of reasoning about chemistry phenomena. Classroom change eliciting metacognitive experiences and metacognitive reflection is necessary to shift entrenched views of teaching and learning in students. In this study, Activity Theory is used as the framework for interpreting changes to the rules/customs and tools of the activity systems of two different classes of students taught by the same teacher, Frances, who was teaching chemical equilibrium to those classes in consecutive years. An interpretive methodology involving multiple data sources was employed. Frances explicitly changed her pedagogy in the second year to direct students attention to increasingly consider chemical phenomena at the molecular/sub-micro level. Additionally, she asked students not to use the textbook until toward the end of the equilibrium unit and sought to engage them in using their prior knowledge of chemistry to understand their observations from experiments. Frances’ changed pedagogy elicited metacognitive experiences and reflection in students and challenged them to reconsider their metacognitive beliefs about learning chemistry and how it might be achieved. While teacher change is essential for science education reform, students are not passive players in change efforts and they need to be convinced of the viability of teacher pedagogical change in the context of their goals, intentions, and beliefs.     

Moral Lessons: The Ethical Role of Teachers

This article explores conceptual and empirical issues related to the moral and ethical basis of professional practice in teaching. In considering the ethical role of teachers within an expanded context of the formal and informal moral life of classrooms, the discussion raises concerns about both the theoretical identification and practical investigation of "moral lessons." It does so through a review of current literature in this area and a report of a 2nd-level analysis of findings from a research study of 2 culturally diverse elementary school classrooms in urban Canada.     

‘Go somewhere,do something’. How students responded to the opportunity to complete an unstructured,five-day,wilderness solo in the Cantabrian Mountains,Northern Spain

This study explored the response of 28, second year undergraduate students to an innovative approach to a five-day solo. Periods of solitude are more likely to lead to positive outcomes when they are freely chosen than when they are programmed as part of a course. The extent to which a programmed solo can be ‘freely chosen’ by the individual is traditionally perceived as being constrained by logistic, safety and group needs. This study describes a solo, delivered as a required part of a core academic module, in which these perceived limitations were challenged. It describes an attempt to empower students to make their own choices about the nature of their solo experience and risk management. The study evaluates the extent to which individual students felt that they had freedom of choice; the choices they made and the outcomes of their solos. An intrinsic case study approach was used to explore the choices made by all students before, during and immediately after their solo as well as the more considered responses of 14 students eight months later. The data suggest that the pre-solo mindset was the most important factor in determining positive outcomes for participants and that offering students the opportunity to take responsibility for the structure of their own solo increased the likelihood that this would be achieved.     

Factors that influence women's technical skill development in outdoor adventure

Abstract

This article provides a theoretical foundation for understanding women's technical skill development (TSD) in outdoor adventure. An examination of societal and biological factors influencing women's TSD focuses on gender role socialization, sense of competence, technical conditioning, sexism, spatial ability, and risk-taking. The article suggests leadership and instructional strategies for facilitating technical skill competency for women in outdoor education.