Pupils' Voices on Achievement: An alternative to the standards agenda

Raising achievement has become a public issue, with policy strategies focused on target setting. Pupil performance is seen as an indicator of school success; the pupils' perceptions of school life find little place in the standards discourse. A study of under-achievement included group interviews with pupils in the early years of secondary school in Scotland. School experience emerged as a social rather than a pedagogic experience, with instrumental goals and arbitrary criteria. Comparative monitoring of performance and conformity with peer norms shaped pupils' perceptions of achievement. Relationships with teachers were characterised by the absence of a discourse about learning. The study underlined the importance of listening to the pupil's voice in school in order to focus on learning rather than on performance and 'standards' of achievement.     

How gender influences learners working collaboratively with science simulations

This paper presents an overview of several research projects involving groups working with science simulations, in particular with relation to gender effects on science learning. The groups of learners discussed include: pairs of adults working together on computer simulations at a distance, or side by side, pairs of 15 year-olds working with computer simulations, and larger groups of younger children working co-operatively on combinations of computer simulations and real science experiments. While collaboration may be in many respects a good thing, there is a growing realisation amongst science educators that particular features of the learning experience are altered by the gender composition of the groups. These features range from the way in which conflict is expressed or the task perceived, to differences in the way that dialogue is used. These findings need to be considered together with evidence concerning the barriers which girls experience while learning science. This work is reviewed, together with some research projects involving students working collaboratively with computers on science topics. Gender differences in the most productive way of forming groups to work at the computer on science simulations are considered.     

Preparing teachers for inclusive classrooms

Effective teaching skills consist of high levels of student engagement based on good classroom and time management skills; the ability to scaffold learning that is adapted to students' current levels of understanding; cognitively engaging students in higher-order thinking; and encouraging and supporting success. The research reported here suggests that in elementary classrooms, effective teaching skills are effective for all students, both with and without special education needs.     

Personal inquiry: innovations in participatory design and models for inquiry learning

This paper describes a participatory design approach to the development of inquiry‐based learning supported through a technology toolkit. The work is part of an interdisciplinary project – Personal Inquiry (PI). The paper focuses on the approach we adopted, concentrating in particular on the two mediating artefacts we used to guide and frame the design process during two design workshops. The first mediating artefact used was an inquiry framework developed as part of the wider PI project and the second was Kellett’s enquiry research bubbles, which is a framework to guide enquiry‐based thinking processes. The paper reports on data collected during the workshops and reflects on the value of the approach adopted. The paper also explores the PI‐team’s own reflections on the design process and its role in the overall project.     

Boys and their reading: Conceptionsof young people about the successof the full on magazine

ABSTRACT

Design and technology is a relatively new subject in the National Curriculum for England and Wales. This paper presents a theoretical consideration of design and technology and argues that it has the potential to provide a classroom context which encourages critical thinking and analytical competence in pupils. This claim is based on the view that design and technology requires a type of classroom interaction that is different from that most commonly practised in our schools, both primary and secondary. Learning in design and technology depends upon collaboration between teacher and pupils, and between the pupils themselves, and as such is ideally suited to the development of collaborative learning, a method of learning which encourages decision making after a period of critical enquiry and experimentation. We further argue that the successful implementation of the design and technology curriculum hinges upon the development of classroom talk, because talk plays the central role in the development of critical thinking, reflection and evaluation, all important features of design and technology.     

Changes in Friendship Commitment: Comparing Geographically Close and Long-Distance Young-Adult Friendships

The existence of long-distance (LD) friendships throws into question assumptions that scholars of interpersonal communication often make about commitment to relationships, the development of relationships, and friendships. An analysis of turning points comparing commitment changes in young-adult geographically close and LD same-sex friendships revealed high and fluctuating levels of commitment over the history of the friendships for both types. Over 80% of those having LD friends reported their levels of commitment were currently increasing, rather than decreasing. Women were more likely than men to report nonlinear trajectories for their friendships, more downturns in commitment to their friendships, and more turning points related to changes in commitment to their friendships.     

Speaking of race and ethnic identities: exploring multicultural curricula

New demographic patterns as well as new communication and information technologies and administrative and marketing practices have irrevocably altered schools in Australia's large cities. This study examines the ways that teachers and parents in one urban school speak about race and ethnicity in the midst of these changes. Beneath the ironic relationship between difference and sameness which underpins multicultural debate are different understandings that determine ways some belong and some do not belong within the school community. This paradoxical relationship persists, despite increasingly post‐modern definitions of identity that underpin the field of this debate. I conclude that the examination of multicultural curricula must include the normalized ways of knowing and ‘being’ identity, which underpin conversations about race and identity.     

High school students’ implicit theories of what facilitates science learning

Background: Research has primarily concentrated on adults’ implicit theories about high quality science education for all students. Little work has considered the students’ perspective. This study investigated high school students’ implicit theories about what helped them learn science.

Purpose: This study addressed (1) What characterizes high school students’ implicit theories of what facilitates their learning of science?; (2) With respect to students’ self-classifications as African American or European American and female or male, do differences exist in the students’ implicit theories?

Sample, design and methods: Students in an urban high school located in south-eastern United States were surveyed in 2006 about their thoughts on what helps them learn science. To confirm or disconfirm any differences, data from two different samples were analyzed. Responses of 112 African American and 118 European American students and responses from 297 European American students comprised the data for sample one and two, respectively.

Results: Seven categories emerged from the deductive and inductive analyses of data: personal responsibility, learning arrangements, interest and knowledge, communication, student mastery, environmental responsiveness, and instructional strategies. Instructional strategies captured 82% and 80% of the data from sample one and two, respectively; consequently, this category was further subjected to Mann-Whitney statistical analysis at p < .05 to ascertain ethnic differences. Significant differences did not exist for ethnicity but differences between females and males in sample one and sample two emerged.

Conclusions: African American and European American students’ implicit theories about instructional strategies that facilitated their science learning did not significantly differ but female and male students’ implicit theories about instructional strategies that helped them learn science significantly differed. Because students attend and respond to what they think and perceive to be important, addressing students’ implicit theories may be one way to enhance science education reform.