Student teachers in school practice: an analysis of learning opportunities

Abstract

Over the past decade, educational policy in Britain, as in other industrial nations, has been increasingly driven by the concern that higher education should serve the needs of the economy more effectively. The report Highly Qualified People: supply and demand reflects this concern and attempts to establish from employers Britain's likely requirement, in the 1990s, for such expensively educated labour. Though the report concluded that Britain needed more graduates over the next few years, closer scrutiny of its data suggests a very different conclusion ‐ not that Britain needs more graduates to prosper, but rather that Britain needs first to prosper before it is likely to want the graduates it already produces.

     

The Physical Educator as Evaluator

There has been a limited interest in examining physical education teacher educators’ role and practices in embedding professional responsibility and commitment to continued professional learning for both teacher educators and pre-service teachers in a physical education teacher education (PETE) program (MacPhail, 2011) Directed by a landscape of community of practice (CoP) as professional development (Parker, Patton &; Tannehill, 2012), this article shares four case studies that demonstrate the extent to which PETE learning can be mapped onto the landscape. In essence, a CoP is sustained over time, involves shared member goals, involves frequent discourse, is active and social, and is characterized by problems being solved by the members. The ideas in this article in tandem with Wenger's (1998) CoP process can encourage teacher educators to consider whether opportunities undertaken in a PETE program, and with colleagues external to the PETE program, encourage an authentic CoP.     

School choice as ‘motherwork’: valuing African‐American women’s educational advocacy and resistance

This study draws on in‐depth interview data to discuss the school choices and educational advocacy roles of 14 African‐American mothers. The narratives of the study’s participants, who have low‐income or working‐class status, show how race, class and gender factors influence their school choice‐making and their value of education. The author asserts that the mothers’ school choice‐making constitutes an important act of cultural resistance and empowerment called motherwork. Analysis of the study’s findings challenges conventional notions of parent involvement and counters prevalent stereotypes that portray African‐American mothers as uncaring. Attention is given to the inequities that the mothers face in the educational marketplace and how they seek agency. Educators are urged to consider how the mothers perceive themselves and construct their educational involvement roles in order to engage parents in empowering and meaningful ways.     

The elaboration theory of instruction: A model for sequencing and synthesizing instruction

This paper describes a novel instructional model for sequencing, syntheizing, and summarizing subject-matter content. The importance of such models is discussed, along with the need for a significant change in the role of subject-matter structure in instruction. A zoom-lens analogy is presented to facilitate an understanding of the elaboration model of instruction. Some basic concepts and principles upon which the model is based are described. The basic unvarying components of the elaboration model are described. And finally, some variations in the model for different kinds of goals are described. The elaboration model follows a general-to-detailed pattern of sequencing, as opposed to the hierarchically based sequences derived from Gagné-type task analyses.Many of the ideas described in this paper were developed under two projeets, one funded by Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, and the other by the Navy Personnel Research and Development Center in San Diego, California; however, the ideas expressed do not necessarily constitute the opinions of the funding institutions.     

The Effectiveness of an Augmented Reality Head-Mounted Display in Learning Skull Anatomy at a Community College

Despite an increase in the use of technology in undergraduate anatomy education, and the rising popularity of online anatomy courses at community colleges in the United States, there have been no reports on the efficacy of augmented reality on anatomy education in this population. The purpose of this study was to test the hypothesis that augmented reality is an effective and engaging tool for learning anatomy in community college students. Participants recruited from Cuyahoga Community College (Cleveland, OH) studied skull anatomy using either traditional tools (i.e., textbook and plastic skull model) or an augmented reality head-mounted display with an interactive virtual skull application. Comparison of knowledge before and following the study period revealed that augmented reality was an effective tool for learning skull anatomy: pre-quiz = 32.7% (± 25.2); mean (± SD), post-quiz = 61.8% (± 19.5); n = 15; t₍₂₈₎ = 3.53; P = 0.001. The traditional tools were equally effective: pre-quiz = 44.9 % (± 18.6), post-quiz = 67.9 % (± 17.3); n = 17; t₍₃₂₎ = 3.73; P = 0.0007. Students rated the augmented reality device as 9.6 (± 1.0); mean (± SD) when asked if it fit the statement “fun to use” on a semantic differential scale from 1 (poor) to 10 (excellent). In conclusion, this study found that augmented reality is an effective and engaging tool for the instruction of skull anatomy at a community college.     

The dynamics of the impact and coalescence of droplets on a solid surface

A simple experimental setup to study the impact and coalescence of deposited droplets is described. Droplet impact and coalescence have been investigated by high-speed particle image velocimetry. Velocity fields near the liquid-substrate interface have been observed for the impact and coalescence of 2.4 mm diameter droplets of glycerol∕water striking a flat transparent substrate in air. The experimental arrangement images the internal flow in the droplets from below the substrate with a high-speed camera and continuous laser illumination. Experimental results are in the form of digital images that are processed by particle image velocimetry and image processing algorithms to obtain velocity fields, droplet geometries, and contact line positions. Experimental results are compared with numerical simulations by the lattice Boltzmann method.     

Perceptions of optimal conditions for teaching and learning: a case study from Flinders University

Effective teaching and learning in higher education is an important focal point of literature around the globe. Various models are presented as desirable and fostering optimal conditions for teaching and learning. However, each model must be examined within the context of its institutional culture, mission and strategic plan to ascertain if it meets the envisaged goals. The Reinventing Teaching Project survey conducted at Flinders University in 2009 provided a unique opportunity for academic staff and students across all faculties to respond to a survey that explored their perceptions of optimal learning conditions and assessed if the campus environment was conducive to effective teaching and learning practices. The exploratory study was designed to gather qualitative and quantitative data on the motivation of teachers and learners to engage with learning and learners (or not). The results of the survey present valuable insights into what teachers and learners consider to be important attributes of optimal teaching and learning and indicate a number of similarities and differences among teacher-student perceptions. This paper identifies and discusses some of the pertinent outcomes of the study to provide a framework for other similar studies.     

Innovation in a federal state

As a country with a relatively small international reputation for manufacturing and, apparently, with an even smaller one for technology-based product and process innovation in manufacturing, Canada has a long way to go to develop its manufacturing and innovative activities to the stage reached by most European countries. Recently, however, a number of science and research policy studies have been made to examine problems associated with innovation in manufacturing. This present paper deals with two important elements associated with these studies, namely, the organization of the public sector in Canada and the roles and responsibilities of the public sector agencies with regard to the encouragement of technology-based innovation in manufacturing. As pointed out in the paper, the federal structure and the agencies within it may at present frustrate as well as encourage innovation. However, assuming that the appropriate policy objectives can be articulated and accepted, the removal of the principal public sector frustrations will be dependent upon better divisions of responsibility and labour between the three levels of government.