Drugs and the Brain: Learning the impact of methamphetamine abuse on the brain through a virtual brain exhibit in the museum

Drugs and the Brain: A Serious Game, a prototype museum exhibit, was designed to employ virtual models of the brain into a video game format. It was done to create a fun and engaging way of conveying knowledge and concepts about neuroscience, as well as the impact of methamphetamine abuse on the brain. The purpose of this study is to evaluate this prototype exhibit that promises to educate participants from various age, ethnicity, and gender backgrounds, and to establish a stronger concept of drug abuse prevention among children. A quantitative methodology using the pre‐ and post‐experimental designs was conducted on 175 museum visitors. A series of two‐sample paired t‐tests and subsequent ANOVAs were performed to examine the difference between pre‐ and post‐tests and to determine if there was a difference in the results in age, gender, ethnicity, and race. Results showed that both the understanding and attitudes of the participants toward the impact of methamphetamine abuse on the brain improved significantly (p < 0.01).     

The (mis)use of SATs to examine gender and achievement at Key Stage 2

ABSTRACT

This article discusses some of the issues raised in the early stages of an Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) study. ¹ 1 Gender and Learning: A Study of Underachievement in Junior Schools, Economic and Social Research Council R000237346. Project directors: Harry Daniels, Valerie Hey, Diana Leonard and Marjorie Smith. The first phase of the project involved an analysis of end of Key Stage 2 (children aged 10–11) Standard Assessment Test (SAT) data within a Midlands and a London local education authority (LEA(M) and LEA(L) respectively). The LEAs were identified according to the quality and accessibility of the data and their socio‐economic and socio‐cultural diversity. The analysis was used as an instrument for selecting schools in each LEA that displayed specific but con‐ sistent patterns of high, low and average achievement which were cross cut by large differences between boys' and girls' achievement in all three SAT subjects (English, maths and science). On one level, this article discusses the difficulties we encountered in identifying schools with consistent patterns of gendered achievement as well as signposting the ‘political’ significance of these difficulties for present and future edu‐ cation policies. On another level, it is a vehicle for the development of the theoretical lenses of learner identity and post‐Vygotskian analysis that have shaped our under‐ standing of gendered achievement which we use to ‘speak’ to and influence the development of the test procedures highlighted in this article.

     

A Self-Guiding Communities Approach

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine the leadership characteristics of effective Colorado Outward Bound school instructors and develop criteria which might be useful in their selection. A biographical inventory questionnaire was developed and administered, along with the FIRO-B personality test, to 130 instructors and assistant instructors at the Colorado Outward Bound school. Profiles of instructors and assistant instructors rated “most effective” and “least effective” were compared to determine if statistically significant differences between the two groups existed. Statistical evidence was found relating a limited number of biographical characteristics to leadership effectiveness. There was no statistical evidence linking personality characteristics and leadership effectiveness.     

Assessing twenty‐first century skills through a teacher created video game for high school biology students

As twenty‐first century skills become a greater focus in K‐12 education, an infusion of technology that meets the needs of today’s students is paramount. This study looks at the design and creation of a Multiplayer Educational Gaming Application (MEGA) for high school biology students. The quasi‐experimental, qualitative design assessed the twenty‐first century skills of digital age literacy, inventive thinking, high productivity, and effective communication techniques of the students exposed to a MEGA. Three factors, as they pertained to these skills, emerged from classroom observations. Interaction with the teacher, discussion with peers, and engagement/time‐on‐task while playing the MEGA suggested that students playing an educational video game exhibited all of the projected twenty‐first century skills while being engrossed in the embedded science content.     

REVIEW OF CURRENT PERIODICAL LITERATURE

Art and Literature: Children's Experiences in Art by Pearl Greenberg. New York: Reinhold, 1966. 132 pp. $7.50.

Comparative and International Education: The World in Their Hands by Anna L. Rose Hawkes. West Lafayette, Ind.: Kappa Delta Pi Press, 1966. go pp. $2.50.

Chinese Communist Education: Records of the First Decade. New York: John Wiley &; Sons, Inc., 1966. 542 PP. 82.95 paper.

Guidance and Psychology: Neurological Organization and Reading by Carl H. Delacato. Springfield, Ill.: Charles C Thomas, Publisher, 1966. 181 pp. $7.50.

Frustration and Conflict by Aubrey J. Yates. New York: John Wiley &; Sons, Inc., 1966, 236 pp. $1.45 paper.

Cybernetic Principles of Learning and Educational Design by Karl U. Smith and Margaret Foltz Smith, New York: Holt, Rinehart &; Winston, 1966. 529 PP. 88.95.

Guidance—Personnel Work: Future-Tense edited by Margaret Ruth Smith. New York: Teachers College Press, Columbia University, 1966. 176 PP. $4.75

Higher Education: The University in the American Future by Kenneth D. Benne, Sir Charles Morris, Henry Steele Commager, and Gunnar Myrdal. Edited by Thomas B. Stroup. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1966. 111 pp. $4.00.

Eighteen Plus, Unity and Diversity in Higher Education edited by Marjorie Reeves. London: Faber &; Faber, Ltd., 1965. 226 pp. 25s.

History and Philosophy of Education: Toward A Theory of Instruction by Jerome S. Bruner. Cambridge: The Belnap Press of Harvard University Press. x + 176 pp. $3.95.

Catholic Schools in Action edited by Reginald Neuwien. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1966. 328 pp. $10.50.

Authority and Freedom in Education by Paul Nash. New York: John Wiley &; Sons, 1966. 342 pp. $3.95 paper.

Classrooms on Main Street by Harold F. Clark and Harold S. Sloan. New York: Teachers College Press, 1966. 162 PP. $3.95.

Mathematics: Basic Concepts of Elementary Mathematics (2nd Ed.) by William L. Schaaf. New York: John Wiley &; Sons, Inc., 1965. 384 pp. $6.95.

Social Studies and Science: A Sourcebook for the Biological Sciences (2nd Ed.) by Evelyn Morholl, Paul Brandwein, and Alexander Joseph. New York: Harcourt, Brace &; World, Inc., 1966. 795 PP. $9.75.

Geography in the Teaching of Social Studies by Paul R. Hanna, Rose E. Sabaroff, Gordon F. Davies, and Charles R. Farrar. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1966. 511 pp. $4.00 paper.     

Transforming Doctoral Studies: Competencies and Artistry

This article examines the effects of recent attempts, particularly in the humanities and the social sciences, to make doctoral studies in the United Kingdom more efficient and effective and to produce the sorts of skilled researchers the economy is thought to need. It draws on the literature about the transformational effects of current state managerialism on the public services and on the nature of education for the professions to look specifically at the situation of the greatly increased numbers of research students. It also uses insights from feminist scholarship on the ''projects of masculinity'' embedded in late-modernist thinking to suggest that a general repositioning of the academic profession is occurring, and of women academics specifically, and that there are deleterious consequences for intellectual creativity from over-stressing certain ''masculine values''.     

Taking Shared Print to the Next Level: The Partnership for Shared Book Collections

Abstract

This article introduces the Partnership for Shared Book Collections, a federation of monograph shared print programs. Collaboration of programs at the network level allows for:

• Reducing the cost of retaining the scholarly record through shared distribution of commitments;

• De-duplicating efforts;

• Developing and promoting evidence-based best practices;

• Increasing the effectiveness of communication with end-users and funders;

• Tackling large-scale projects and research that are out of reach for individual shared print programs. This shared stewardship of collection is critical as local resources are depleted due to the COVID-19 pandemic and access to print for digitization increases.