Gender,Curriculum and Assessment Issues to 16 +

This paper examines the relationship between curriculum and assessment in respect of gender, focusing largely on ages 14‐16+. Discussion concerns specifically those gender issues arising from the current trend towards vocationalism and from the intention, via the 1988 Education Reform Act, to introduce in England and Wales a national curriculum and a national system of assessment and testing. Proposals for the new National Curriculum are examined and it is argued that the overall curriculum is becoming increasingly assessment‐ and vocationally‐led, the prescribed emphases being technological. The school curriculum itself is therefore increasingly founded upon technology in respect of both content and modes of student assessment. Further, the intention to introduce a technologically‐based and technological curriculum may give rise to some difficulties in respect of another current intention, variously interpreted though it is, to produce more gender‐equal educational provision.     

Spinning New Tales from Traditional Texts: Donna Jo Napoli and the Rewriting of Fairy Tale

This article demonstrates how Donna Jo Napoli changes generic conventions and reworks discursive formations in order to retell traditional tales. Discussed are the narrative strategies she uses in telling her stories, her representation of male and female characters in regard to gender and gendered relationships, and the way she renegotiates ideologies and value systems encoded in the traditional tales. It is suggested that these three areas are useful in defining and discussing feminist fairy tales for youth.     

Language‐Focused Interventions on Math Performance for English Learners: A Selective Meta‐Analysis of the Literature

This meta‐analysis synthesized research on math performance outcomes for English learners (EL) as a function of language‐focused (math vocabulary) interventions. We included group and single‐subject design studies with children from kindergarten to 8th grade (3,766 students for group, 30 for single‐subject). Group studies yielded a mean Hedges’ g of 0.26 in favor of the interventions relative to the control conditions, whereas single‐subject studies yielded a mean Percentage of Non‐Overlapping Data of 81.01% and Phi coefficient of .66 relative to baseline. Although group studies yielded small effect sizes (ESs), we found significant moderators for grade level, intervention focus, and length of intervention. Single‐subject studies yielded higher ESs than group studies, and were considered generally effective, with a high ES. This finding was attributed to a direct focus on children with math difficulties and one‐to‐one instruction. The implications for practice and future research are discussed.     

Experimenter Confirmation Bias and the Correction of Science Misconceptions

This paper describes a randomised educational experiment (n?=?47) that examined two different teaching methods and compared their effectiveness at correcting one science misconception using a sample of trainee primary school teachers. The treatment was designed to promote engagement with the scientific concept by eliciting emotional responses from learners that were triggered by their own confirmation biases. The treatment group showed superior learning gains to control at post-test immediately after the lesson, although benefits had dissipated after 6?weeks. Findings are discussed with reference to the conceptual change paradigm and to the importance of feeling emotion during a learning experience, having implications for the teaching of pedagogies to adults that have been previously shown to be successful with children.     

Teaching Biology at a Distance: Pleasures,Pitfalls, and Possibilities

Abstract

The Open University (OU) has a long and distinguished history of teaching biology at a distance by a supported open learning model. This article examines some of the challenges in delivering biology via distance teaching, explores some of the lessons learned, and discusses the opportunities and hazards of new teaching technologies that the OU has helped pioneer.     

Further Reflections on the WorldCat Collection Analysis Tool

This article focuses on a recent enhancement to the WorldCat Collection Analysis tool, the Interlibrary Loan Analyses module, exploring the possibilities that this enhancement offers for strategic collection development. The study concentrates on the tool as a way to assess the impact of the recent growth at North Carolina State University in biomedicine and human medicine programs. The research contained in this article originated from a session presented at XXVII Annual Charleston Conference, which was held in Charleston, South Carolina, on November 8, 2007.