Contemporary Scientists and their Interactions with Non-Scientists: Alternative Companion Stories for School Curricula

Research in Science Education - Students learn more than science knowledge in a science classroom; they also acquire important messages about the purposes and contexts of science. Roberts (2011)...     

The Bicycle Assembly Line Game

“The Bicycle Assembly Line Game” is a team‐based, in‐class activity that helps students develop a basic understanding of continuously operating processes. Each team of 7–10 students selects one of seven prefigured bicycle assembly lines to operate. The lines are run in real‐time, and the team that operates the line that yields the highest revenue wins. Students learn through discovery “What drives output rate?”; “How is capacity managed relative to market demand?”; and “Why does inventory accumulate?” Because task times are constant, the game provides a nice lead‐in to the topic of line balancing. This game has been successfully used in both undergraduate‐ and MBA‐level operations management courses.     

From Spirit-Murdering to Spirit-Healing: Addressing Anti-Black Aggressions and the Inhumane Discipline of Black Children

School is a hyperviolent space for Black students and in particular for Black girls. Black girls continue to be adultified, criminalized, and spirit-murdered by educators who enact racially discriminatory school disciplinary policies. Using literature from racial microaggressions and antiblackness, we introduce a model that we refer to as “antiblack aggressions” to examine the disciplinary experiences of two Black girls who were at the center of a violent assault by a White male School Resource Officer at Spring Valley High School. We provide an analysis of South Carolina's Disturbing Schools Law, and we discuss how an antiblack aggressions model can challenge traditional notions of peace, law, and justice for Black girls in school.     

EDUCATION ABOUT AGING: A RATIONALE

Based on a review of studies on children's and adolescents’ attitudes and conceptions about aging and older people and on studies analyzing media content such as children's literature, textbooks, and public television programs to determine how older persons are portrayed, a rationale is provided for systematic education about aging in the public schools of the United States.     

Theorising the academic viva in higher education: the argument for a qualitative approach

The argument made in this essay is that it is necessary to theorize a form of assessment—the academic viva in higher education. It is threatened with extinction because of its high cost compared with written exams, multiple choice and other forms of assessment. However, little empirical research, both in Norway and internationally, has been undertaken to reveal what is actually going on in the viva. This has partly been because it has been difficult to gain access to systematically observe the viva examination as it takes place. In the qualitative research presented by the author, on the higher education viva in Norway, permission was obtained to film a number of master’s in education vivas where candidates defended 50,000‐word dissertations. Three research questions were asked: how was the viva talked into being, what kinds of judgements were made by examiners, and, lastly, what would a validity argument look like for the viva? Answering these research questions moves some way to proposing a theory of the viva and hence providing a foundation for determining whether its continued existence is legitimate, at least from a theoretical and qualitatively researched point of view.     

Vocabulary Is Important for Some,but Not All Reading Skills

Although there is evidence for a close link between the development of oral vocabulary and reading comprehension, less clear is whether oral vocabulary skills relate to the development of word-level reading skills. This study investigated vocabulary and literacy in 81 children aged 8 to 10 years. In regression analyses, vocabulary accounted for unique variance in exception word reading and reading comprehension, but not text reading accuracy, decoding, or regular word reading. Consistent with these data, children with poor reading comprehension exhibited oral vocabulary weaknesses and read fewer exception words correctly. These findings demonstrate that oral vocabulary is associated with some, but not all, reading skills. Results are discussed in terms of current models of reading development.     

Towards an adolescent friendly methodology: accessing the authentic through collective reflection

The re-emergence of student voice presents a challenge to schools and researchers to become more responsive to the voice of adolescents in education and in research. However, the poor articulation of the nature of student voice to date is confirmation of the complex and important nature of the personal advocacy and human agency that is involved in all student voice activities. This lack of clarity leads to interpretations of student voice that range in authenticity from token to active and meaningful (Hart, R. 1997. Children's Participation: The Theory and Practice of Involving Young Citizens in Community Development and Environmental Care. Earthscan Publications. London: UNICEF). Researchers who are guided by more traditional methodologies may implement methods that are appropriate for adults yet are not sensitive to the needs and interests of the young person whose perspectives are usually the focus of the research. This research found that while an advocacy and empowerment worldview supports student voice research, adolescents also prefer a methodology that is agentic, socially based, reflective and embodied (Dempster, N., A. Lizzio, M. Keeffe, J. Skinner, and D. Andrews. 2010. “The Contributions of Research Design and Process Facilitation in Accessing Adolescent views of Leadership.” Leading and Managing 16 [2]: 77–89). Adolescent perspectives on research processes and methods are valuable in helping researchers to choose more responsive approaches to sharing understandings with adolescents, so that research designs may be challenging, meaningful and rewarding for all participants.