Research Experiences for Teachers (RET): Motivation, Expectations, and Changes to Teaching Practices due to Professional Program Involvement

This study investigated teachers’ motivation, expectations, and changes to teaching practices due to a 6 week summer professional development program involvement. Participants (n = 67) attended the Research Experiences for Teachers (RET) program within a major university in southeast. Surveys and interviews were used to collect data to answer the following research questions: (1) Who attends the RET program? (2) In what ways do elementary teachers differ from middle/secondary teachers with respect to their motivation for attending the RET program and their expectations about the program? (3) In what ways do elementary teachers differ from middle/secondary teachers with respect to implementing changes to their teaching practices due to RET program attendance? Survey results indicated significant differences between elementary teachers and secondary education teachers with respect to their expectations about the program, and changes to their teaching practices. Interview results provided support to survey findings. Implications for professional development and science teacher education are discussed in relationship with the current study findings.     

Reading/Literacy – For the Lower Orders?

The second part of this account of struggles over literacy begins in the later seventeenth century. From the 1670s, the new dissenting academies, backed by rising business classes, made teaching in English for a wider curriculum their goal. Thus was Defoe’s mastery of a new spoken style developed, while in Scotland, the eighteenth century achievements of the Scottish Enlightenment heralded Modern Subjects. But the labouring peasantry and new urban working classes had to wait for revolutionary tribunes like Tom Paine and Cobbett to speak directly to them. Even then their prolonged struggles for a literacy in their own terms continued – and met a new setback, when the 1870 Act promised them universal education, but in tests dominated by Payment by Results. The struggles resumed.     

Confronting assumptions,biases, and stereotypes in preservice teachers' conceptualizations of science teaching through the use of book club

This study focuses on the structure and theoretical foundations of the book club for promoting multicultural understandings in science teacher education. The book club was defined as an informal, peer‐directed group discussion that met regularly to discuss an ethnographic, multicultural text regarding issues pertinent to science teaching and learning in urban classrooms. Twenty‐three preservice teachers (PSTs) enrolled in a 16‐week elementary science methods course at a large urban university participated in the study. From the qualitative analyses of PSTs' written reflections and researcher journal notes, five themes which emphasize Individual, Collaborative, and Collective learning are presented. These findings highlight how the book club structure and theoretical foundation fostered critical, reflective inquiry and served as a method for effecting ideological change which is needed in order to embrace issues of diversity in urban science education. Implications for science teacher education concerning the relevancy of pedagogical strategies, the use of multiple theoretical perspectives, and the book club as a strategy in teacher education and urban education are discussed. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 46: 1041–1066, 2009     

Pete's Tool: Identity and sex-play in the design and technology classroom

ABSTRACT The paper explores the 'interactional work' of one boy in a technology lesson as he elaborates, through 'play' with workshop tools, a sexual fantasy of masturbation and penetration. This action is contextualised by his relations with others, and by the dominance of a prevailing myth of male sexuality in his construction of a masculine identity in the classroom. The role of the teacher in interpreting pedagogic style is considered. It is suggested that the dominance of hegemonic masculinity does not erase differences amongst boys; that it is 'taken up' differently by groups and individuals in the interplay of other cultural texts/discourses. It is suggested that viewing the work of identity as both a personal and a social project, in which individuals act distinctly and yet 'within pattern', provides a starting point for understanding the contingent but committed construction of heterosexual gender relations of domination.     

Individual Differences in Children's and Parents' Generic Language

Generics (“Dogs bark”) convey important information about categories and facilitate children's learning. Two studies with parents and their 2‐ or 4‐year‐old children (N = 104 dyads) examined whether individual differences in generic language use are as follows: (a) stable over time, contexts, and domains, and (b) linked to conceptual factors. For both children and parents, individual differences in rate of generic production were stable across time, contexts, and domains, and parents' generic usage significantly correlated with that of their own children. Furthermore, parents' essentialist beliefs correlated with their own and their children's rates of generic frequency. These results indicate that generic language use exhibits substantial stability and may reflect individual differences in speakers' conceptual attitudes toward categories.     

COGNITIVE ASSESSMENT PRACTICES: A SURVEY OF SCHOOL PSYCHOLOGISTS

The present article describes an exploratory study regarding the preferred cognitive assessment practices of current school psychologists. Three hundred and twenty‐three school psychologists participated in the survey. The results suggest that the majority of school psychologists endorsed that they base their assessment practices on an underlying theoretical framework, specifically Cattell‐Horn‐Carroll (CHC) theory. Despite this finding, the majority of those sampled continue to engage in traditional assessment practices that are not consistent with CHC theory. Furthermore, the majority of those sampled reported that they assess culturally and linguistically diverse students and modify their practices when doing so. Unfortunately, the modifications endorsed by those surveyed might be discriminatory. The implications of these findings are discussed herein.