Changing practice, changing minds, from arithmetical to algebraic thinking: an application of the concerns-based adoption model (CBAM)

This study examines the process of change among grade 4 teachers (students aged 9–10 years) who participated in a yearlong Teacher Quality Grant innovation program. The concerns-based adoption model (CBAM), which informed the design and implementation of the program, was used to examine the process of change. Two questions guided the investigation: (1) How did teachers’ concerns about and levels of use of the innovation evolve during the course of the project? (2) What changes in teachers’ perceptions and practices arose as a result of the innovation? Results showed that several of the teachers’ concerns evolved from self/task toward impact. With continued support, several participants achieved routine levels of use, which they sustained beyond the project.     

Polices of promise and practices of limit: Singapore’s literacy education policy landscape and its impact on one school programme

This paper is about the interaction between policy and practice, and about how competing policies contributed to a paradoxical tension within that interaction in one school. Within a paradigm of educational renewal, the Singapore Ministry of Education (MOE) has initiated a number of policies designed to give schools autonomy in designing and implementing programmes to achieve optimal educational outcomes for its students. Among these are READ! Singapore, Teach Less, Learn More and the School Excellence Model. In this context, we review an MOE initiated Extensive Reading (ER) programme in one school. Despite such innovative policies, Dewey Secondary School’s [The names of the school and individuals have been changed to protect their privacy.] pedagogical and literacy practices continue to be largely influenced by other dominant features of Singapore’s and the school’s own educational culture—an exam-oriented focus that prioritises outcome and skill-based pedagogy and the school’s historical practice of restricting literacies. Competing policies as interpreted by the school and diverse stakeholders result in a morphed ER programme—an adaptation of a reading programme that reflects the programme intent overtly but one that collides at other times, and as a result, is pulled in different directions. The story is, thus, one of ‘policies of promise and practices of limit’.     

Maternal intrusiveness, maternal warmth, and mother-toddler relationship outcomes: variations across low-income ethnic and acculturation groups

The present study investigated the extent to which maternal intrusiveness and warmth during play, observed in 579 European American, 412 African American, and 110 more and 131 less acculturated Mexican American low-income families when children were approximately 15 months old, predicted 3 dimensions of the mother-toddler relationship 10 months later. Intrusiveness predicted increases in later child negativity in all 4 groups. Among African Americans only, this association was moderated by maternal warmth. Intrusiveness predicted negative change in child engagement with mothers only in European American families. Finally, near-significant trends suggested that intrusiveness predicted later decreased dyadic mutuality in European American and more acculturated Mexican American families, but not in African American or less acculturated Mexican American families.     

Perceptions of Social Support Among Young Children

225 children (ages 4 to 8, 103 girls, 37.5% Mexican-American) participated, reporting who provides support, frequency of receiving different types of support, and satisfaction with support received. These reports were subjected to factor analyses and results did not fit a prior conceptualization. Exploratory factor analyses resulted in a three factor solution that was both more interpretable and the solutions were more similar for reports of frequency of receiving support and satisfaction. A total of six subscale scores were computed, three each for the frequency and the satisfaction items, which were subsequently labelled: informational/emotional, recreational, and practical support. Analyses of the empirically derived subscale scores suggested that young, pre- and early elementary school-aged children responded to questions about their social support in reasonably reliable and valid ways. Significant correlations with indices of perceived competence and acceptance resulted. Remarkably little is known about young children's perceptions of their social worlds, or specifically the nature of support they think is available or that they actually receive. These data suggest that gathering this information from the children themselves is feasible. Ultimately such information should be critical for the design and evaluation of early childhood curricula instructing children about social relations generally, and specifically, who they can turn to for support.     

Preschool Children's Evolving Conceptions of Badness: A Longitudinal Study

The purpose of this research was to investigate longitudinally preschool children's conceptions of badness. Forty children from the Block and Block study of personality and cognitive development were interviewed at ages 3, 4, and 5 years. When asked to generate things children do that are “bad”, preschoolers predominately generated events entailing negative consequences to others, that is, moral transgressions. They also mentioned events pertaining to conventional violations, emotional expressions, prudential situations, and punishments, but these were comparatively rare. The moral transgressions generated involved physical harm, property violations, and inter- personal trust violations. Physical harm was referred to significantly more often than the latter two moral categories. These findings were stable across the preschool years.     

Reading Aloud with Infants: The Controversy, the Myth, and a Case Study

Reading aloud to infants continues to be the focus of controversy between educators, researchers, and health care professionals. This article will provide insight into what research says about reading aloud to infants as well as the results of a case study of a six-month-old infant who has been read aloud to in utero to the present time. The results of this case study confirm that parents and caregivers reading aloud to infants is necessary in developing literacy skills that are paramount to book awareness, print awareness, vocabulary development, fluency, and comprehension, all of which are stepping stones to learning to read and write.     

Food Safety Education Using Music Parodies

ABSTRACT:  Musical parodies of contemporary songs with their lyrics altered to address current food safety issues were incorporated into a variety of food safety educational programs and the effectiveness of the music was evaluated by semiquantitative and qualitative measures. Audiences receiving the music-enriched curricula included school foodservice supervisors, school foodservice managers, culinary arts instructors, culinary arts students, Family and Consumer Sciences teachers, and youth aged 8 to 12 y and studies were conducted in South Carolina, North Carolina, and Delaware. Among school foodservice supervisors, school foodservice managers, and culinary arts students, most participants were able to recall the main points of each song that was introduced in the curriculum. The culinary arts students were less likely to recall the main points of each song than were the other 2 groups, possibly because of the lack of prior knowledge of food safety practices as well as a lack of preference for the style of songs used. Family and Consumer Sciences teachers were enthusiastic about the use of the music but also identified potential barriers to the successful use of the music, due to the potential lack of appropriate audiovisual equipment, a lack of skills in using such equipment, and time constraints for the use of music in curricula due to the strong emphasis on end of year testing. Participants in the summer youth groups demonstrated significant increases between pre- and posttest examinations of safe food handling behaviors and most were able to quote lines or phrases from the songs.