Constructivist Learning and Teaching of Optics Concepts Using ICT Tools in Greek Primary School: A Pilot Study

This pilot study documents the design and evaluation results of an innovative teaching approach with the use of ICT regarding the optics concepts of light reflection and diffusion, and vision in Greek primary school. First there was a survey of 140 students to ascertain their initial ideas regarding these concepts. On the basis of the results of that survey, a range of ICT tools were developed, including a multimedia software application and a piece of Greek physics educational software. They were then used in the classroom together with an applet on the Web and printed students’ worksheets, and their effectiveness was evaluated. Teaching was implemented in four Greek primary school classes with 81 students. Another 59 students were taught the subject traditionally. Before and after instruction all students answered a written questionnaire. Data analysis revealed that students of the experimental group achieved statistically better performance and manifested conceptual change whereas students in the control group students presented only a minimal evolution in their initial ideas.     

Factors affecting school choice: What do Malaysian Chinese parents want?

Aiming to explore factors affecting Malaysian Chinese parents in sending their children to either national secondary schools or Chinese independent schools, 494 parents were surveyed using a questionnaire. Results showed that parents who sent their children to Chinese independent schools have different priorities compared to those who sent theirs to national secondary schools—the former are concerned with teachers’ quality, chances of learning the Chinese culture and Mandarin while the latter are concerned with tuition fees and strategic location. In general, the finding that Malaysian Chinese parents take cultural and language factors into account when choosing a suitable school for their children is interesting because both are seldom listed as important.     

How much do specialists have to learn from each other when they jointly develop radical product innovations?

Specialists of different domains have to collaborate whenever technically demanding product innovations are developed. Their respective knowledge contributions need to be integrated into a functioning whole. Two approaches provide insight into how this is achieved: the dominating cross-learning approach assumes that the specialists of different knowledge domains have to intensively learn from each other in order to be able to jointly develop the new product. This cross-learning implies that groups of specialists transfer their specific knowledge, which encompasses different concepts (theories), methods and world views, among each other. However, some researchers argue that intensive cross-learning between specialists is a considerable expense in time and effort and, therefore, inefficient. They insist that integration of specialists’ knowledge is achieved through structural mechanisms that significantly reduce the need for cross-learning. This article is based on one of the latter approaches. We argue that the mechanisms of transactive memory, modularization and prototyping in combination can considerably reduce knowledge transfers. This assumption has found empirical support for incremental innovations. On the basis of a comparison between incremental and radical innovation projects in an electrotechnical company, we analyze whether the assumption that, on the basis of structural mechanisms, specialists can integrate their knowledge without having to intensively learn from each other, also holds for radical innovations.     

Telling it How it is: Accounts of Academic Life

Several kinds of account of what academic life is like are available. This article reviews three of these – academic novels, the professional media and 'how to' guides produced for academics – and makes some comparisons with the picture presented by academic research on higher education. These genres convey multiple, partial, diverse and competing accounts. Understanding their messages is interesting, useful and important to those interested in academic life.     

The Effect of Birth weight on Child Development Prior to School Entry

The present study examines variation in the effect of birth weight on children’s early cognitive and socioemotional outcomes by family socioeconomic status (SES). It is hypothesized that not only will lower birth weight children display worse cognitive and socioemotional outcomes prior to school entry, as prior research has found, but that effects will be stronger for lower-SES children. Using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study–Birth Cohort, the study compares the age 4 outcomes of twins discordant for birth weight (N ~ 1,400). Twin fixed-effects models are run on the full twin sample and separately for low- and high-SES children. Results support the study’s hypotheses, suggesting that socioeconomic risk accentuates the effects of birth weight on early development.     

School bullying,subjective well-being,and resilience

The aim of the current study was to examine the role of resilience in the victimization experiences of students and their subjective well-being as well as to explore gender and age-related effects. Initially, 558 students (52.15% male) from grades 6 to 10 participated in the study completing The Student Aggression and Victimization Questionnaire, The Mental Health Continuum, and the Connor–Davidson Resilience Scale. One-hundred and twenty-seven (22.8%) students were excluded from the final analysis, as they did not report any victimization experience during the past 3 months. Males in all year levels reported higher levels of well-being and resilience compared with females. No gender differences were found in victimization experiences. Languishing students were found to be at higher risk of experiencing serious victimization. Resilience was not found to moderate the effects of victimization on mental health, but a higher level of resilience appeared to be related to more positive well-being for boys and younger students. Limitations of the study and implications for anti-bullying interventions are briefly discussed.     

Promoting toddlers' self-regulation and healthy eating habits among families living in poverty: A randomized controlled trial of Recipe 4 Success

The Recipe 4 Success preventive intervention targeted multiple factors critical to the health and well-being of toddlers living in poverty. This randomized controlled trial, which was embedded within Early Head Start home visits for 12 weeks, included 242 racially and ethnically diverse families (51% girls; toddler mean age = 2.58 years; data collected 2016–2019). Compared to parents in usual practice home visits, parents in Recipe 4 Success displayed greater sensitive scaffolding of toddlers' learning and more responsive food parenting practices (Cohen's d = .21–.30). Toddlers in Recipe 4 Success exhibited greater self-regulation and had healthier eating habits (Cohen's d = |.16–.35|). Results highlight the value of Recipe 4 Success in promoting parent and toddler behavior change that could have life-long benefits.     

(Re)Constructing Ideals of Multicultural Education Through Grow Your Own Teachers

Reflecting on the current status of multicultural education in higher education institutions, we examine Grow Your Own Teachers, a progressive, innovative program that not only embodies and enacts major principles of multicultural education, but also represents an ongoing effort to redefine and revitalize multicultural education within teacher preparation.     

‘“COFO Is Not Godot’ The Free Southern Theater,the Black Freedom Movement,and the Search for a Usable Aesthetic”*

ABSTRACT

This article explores the home as a site of ‘scientific’ enquiry in eighteenth-century Britain and Ireland via the experiences of female experimenters. The focus of their investigation was the cultivation of silkworms for the purposes of making silk and substituting expensive foreign imports with domestic manufacture. This research argues that enquiry was just one of many domestic practices and that the relationship between domestic labour and intellectual work was enmeshed. The spaces and objects of home, alongside the tacit knowledge of its inhabitants, provided a flexible context for experiment, which was accessible to a broad section of eighteenth-century society.