PERCEPTIONS OF THE ELDERLY AMONG MINISTERS AND MINISTRY STUDENTS: IMPLICATIONS FOR SEMINARY CURRICULA

The changing age composition of the American population has direct implications for clergy members. Despite older individual's high rates of involvement in religious activities and reliance on members of the clergy, most clergy members, both current and prospective, are not adequately prepared for ministry with older adults. In the present study, 754 ministers and 363 ministry students completed Palmore's Facts on Aging Quiz I to determine their knowledge of the aging process and perceptions of the elderly. The results indicate that both ministers and ministry students are poorly informed about the processes and realities of aging. The main implication of the findings is that seminary curricula and continuing education offerings need to be infused with gerontological content so that members of the clergy can be better prepared for ministry to, and with, older adults.     

How One State Tackles Environmental Education

Abstract

In December of 1997, an international conference was held in Thessaloniki, Greece, to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Tbilisi Doctrine and to reorient education for sustainability in the 21st century. The culmination of this event was the Thessaloniki Declaration—a charter for the future of education for sustainability. In only 2 of the 29 statements made in the Declaration was the term environmental education mentioned. One of those references suggested that environmental education be referred to as education for environment and sustainability. The author believes that this scant use of the term environmental education indicates that the term is finding decreasing support in the international community. The author reviews reasons why environmental education's position is in peril and offers a status report on the current criticisms and weaknesses of environmental education. The author outlines several important strategies that must be implemented to preserve the name and the concept of environmental education for decades to come.     

Reflective journals: making constructive use of the “apprenticeship of observation” in preservice teacher education

Many scholars have characterized the “apprenticeship of observation” as a “pitfall” to be avoided or a barrier to be overcome in preservice teacher education, but directly challenging students’ experience-based beliefs often leads to resistance, making students feel discounted or disrespected. In my introductory educational psychology course, students write biweekly journals reflecting on their own lived experiences in light of course concepts and ideas. These reflections are then shared in a variety of ways, serving as a vital context for further investigation and discussion of how these concepts and ideas translate into the classroom. In this paper, I share typical journal questions and excerpts from the responses of two recent classes to show how students can engage journal questions at differing levels; how even the experiences of my mostly privileged and successful students have at some points echoed, and thus can illuminate, the struggles of the less privileged, the rebellious, and the failed students who most need good teaching; and how students’ own shared reflections can be used nonthreateningly to help them confront their unconsidered assumptions about teaching and learning. Finally, I discuss choice, respect, and agency as three essential conditions for effective use of student journals in preservice teacher education.     

Learning to Love the LOR: Implementing an Internal Learning Object Repository at a Large National Organization

This article is a case study that discusses the development and implementation of an internal learning object repository (LOR) for a large national organization with a distributed working environment. It describes the organizational environment and why an internal LOR was needed. It describes technical considerations, including the various document management systems (DMS) available, and why an open source DMS was selected to use as an internal LOR. Lastly, this article weighs the benefits and challenges of implementing a LOR across a distributed working environment and reflects on challenges associated with implementation.     

The Challenges of Defining and Measuring Student Engagement in Science

Engagement is one of the hottest research topics in the field of educational psychology. Research shows that multifarious benefits occur when students are engaged in their own learning, including increased motivation and achievement. However, there is little agreement on a concrete definition and effective measurement of engagement. This special issue serves to discuss and work toward addressing conceptual and instrumentation issues related to engagement, with particular interest in engagement in the domain of science learning. We start by describing the dimensional perspective of engagement (behavioral, cognitive, emotional, agentic) and suggest a complementary approach that places engagement instrumentation on a continuum. Specifically, we recommend that instrumentation be considered on a “grain-size” continuum that ranges from a person-centered to a context-centered orientation to clarify measurement issues. We then provide a synopsis of the articles included in this special issue and conclude with suggestions for future research.