Learning Choices,Older Australians and Active Ageing

This paper reports on the findings of qualitative, semistructured interviews conducted with 40 older Australian participants who either did or did not engage in organized learning. Phenomenology was used to guide the interviews and analysis to explore the lived learning experiences and perspectives of these older people. Their experiences of learning can be described in two main categories of pleasure and leisure or purpose and relevance. Almost all the activities described in these categories have the potential to support health and wellbeing. Organizers of activities should take these reasons into account.     

The Effects of an Age‐appropriate Intervention on Young Children's Understanding of Inheritance

ABSTRACT The present study explored 4(N = 22) and 7‐year‐olds’ (N = 24) under‐Standing of biological inheritance in cows and horses. An intervention technique adapted from Springer (1995) in which children are taught the basic facts of intrauterine development and birth, in story form, was used in an attempt to improve children's conceptual understanding of inheritance. All children were pre‐tested about inheritance and subsequently half were trained using the intervention (the others were controls). All children were post‐tested within a week of pre‐test, and about 4 weeks later completed delayed post‐tests. Results showed that at pre‐test there were significant age differences in both judgements and explanations of inheritance with 7‐year‐olds exhibiting more sophisticated biological reasoning. Surprisingly, there were no significant improvements for either age in judgements or explanations of inheritance as a function of the intervention at post‐test or delayed post‐test. The findings are discussed with reference to theoretical issues surrounding children's theory of inheritance and the implications for training studies.     

Research on Divorce, Separation and Family Change: Messages for Practitioners

The JRF has supported a series of twelve research projects about the effects of divorce and separation. This paper highlights key messages and common themes that emerge for practitioners working with children and their families.     

Teacher planning in the development of collaborative cultures

The value of collaborative working practices in schools and other institutions has been studied by a number of researchers, eg Fullan (1991); Hargreaves (1994). Researchers generally agree that collaborative practice is an important factor in teacher development and school improvement.

The significance of planning in primary schools is widely acknowledged. However, limited research has been carried out into the planning of primary teachers in Britain and much of what is written and advocated as good practice has little evidential basis.

This article explores the symbiotic relationship between planning and collaboration. In particular, it discusses the significance of this relationship to the individual teacher and to the school as an institution.     

Putting journals out to tender: guidelines for societies and other sponsors

Many journals are sponsored by one body and published by another. These notes are intended to guide sponsors by outlining the stages, processes, and timetable involved in obtaining and comparing tenders. Sponsors are advised that detailed analysis and open communication are more likely to result in satisfactory long‐term publishing arrangements.     

Values and Imagination in Teaching: With a Special Focus on Social Studies

Both local and global issues are typically dealt with in the Social Studies curriculum, or in curriculum areas with other names but similar intents. In the literature about Social Studies the imagination has played little role, and consequently it hardly appears in texts designed to help teachers plan and implement Social Studies lessons. What is true of Social Studies is also largely reflected in general texts concerning planning teaching. Clearly many theorists and practitioners are concerned to engage students' imaginations in learning, even though they use terms other than 'imagination' in doing so. This article suggests that a more explicit attention to imagination can make our efforts to engage students in learning more effective. We provide, first, a working definition of imagination, then show how students' imaginations can be characterized in terms of the 'cognitive toolkits' they bring to learning. We look at such 'cognitive tools' as stories, images, humor, binary oppositions, a sense of mystery and how these can be used to engage students' imaginations in learning Social Studies and other content from kindergarten to about grade four. We then consider 'cognitive tools' commonly deployed by students from about grade four to grade nine, including a sense of reality, the extremes of experience and limits of reality, and associating with the heroic. We also provide examples of how using such tools could influence planning and teaching Social Studies topics.