An attitude study of teachers involved in a Primary Mentoring Programme

The study pertains to students currently finishing the second year of their B.A.(Ed) degree, and who are the pioneering group for the Mentorship programme. It seeks to identify the attitudes held by host teachers, non‐host teachers and headteachers in the Mentor‐ ship schools about the programme, following a four week school experience by second year students.     

Dog Treat Ball: An Activity to Introduce Systems of Differential Equations

Abstract

This paper describes an activity using a dog treat ball to introduce systems of first-order differential equations. Beads are placed in the first of two hemispherical chambers of a food-dispensing dog toy. As the ball is turned, students track the number of beads in the first chamber, the second chamber, and the exterior of the ball. Students develop a working assumption, write a system of differential equations to model the number of beads in each region, and use a spreadsheet to compare their experimental and model results.     

Child of Our Time. Variations in adult views of childhood with age

Recent events concerning children that have received much prominence in the media, such as the murder of James Bulger, the shooting of 5‐year‐olds in Dunblane, the presumed abuse of children in the Orkneys, have focused attention on what it is to be a child and on whether or not childhood has changed in the recent past. Questions easily spring to mind: When is childhood thought to start? When does it end? How is it best described? What, in fact, is it? Such questions have a direct professional relevance to all those involved in education, whether informal or formal, whether as recipients or providers, for on our views of who and what children are, will depend how we treat them and, indeed, how we regard ourselves. This paper seeks to investigate how attitudes towards childhood may be thought to change with age.

The investigation is part of a larger doctoral study at Birmingham University School of Education seeking to analyse adult perceptions of childhood, by use of a range of research instruments, including questionnaire, interview and prose testimony. The questionnaire findings reported here are endorsed by the findings from interview and prose scrutiny which are reported in the larger study.