Examining the "Whole Child" to Generate Usable Knowledge

Despite the promise of scientific knowledge contributing to issues facing vulnerable children, families, and communities, typical approaches to research have made applications challenging. While contemporary theories of human development offer appropriate complexity, research has mostly failed to address dynamic developmental processes. Research typically fragments or splits the human organism into "investigatable" units—biology, behavior, culture, genetics, relationships, innate modules of mind, etc.—resulting in the inevitable loss of the person as an integrated, embodied center of agency. This is problematic for generating knowledge that is usable because in educational practice the unit of analysis and application is the whole person. We discuss the problems inherent to generating usable knowledge when theory and research methodology are so deeply incongruent. In an illustrative example, we adopt a "person-in-context" perspective to demonstrate how research has led to the mischaracterization of maltreated children as immature, disorganized, and dysregulated. Using this "person-in-context" perspective in research can facilitate generating usable knowledge.     

利用信息技术促进"三表"的原理与策略——CAST通用学习设计指南

教育要重视使得新手学习者如何顺利地转换为专家学习者--懂得如何学习,有学习的愿望和为终身学习做好个性化准备的人.基于对大脑科学三种网络--识别网络、策略网络、情感网络和对数字媒体特性的了解,通用学习设计提出了"三表"原理:多元表征理解--聚焦学什么、多种行为表现--关注怎样学和多样表达意愿---探究为什么学.与之相配的有32种教学策略,这是从课程的四个要素出发(目标、教材、方法和评价,目前尤其考虑了教材与方法),旨在改进原有的课程在教学对象失准、教学内容不当和教学方式狭隘等缺陷.     

Hard to reach and hard to teach: supporting the self-regulation of learning in an alternative provision secondary school

Since 2010, new types of state-funded schools have opened in England with a focus on providing alternative education provision. Very little is known about these schools, partly due to their novelty, and how they are attempting to re-engage those students who for various, and often complex, reasons have become disconnected from education. We scrutinised the approach used at one such school to examine what instructional practices were used, how they were adapted to the needs of the students and what factors enabled and obstructed (re)engagement. Data were collected over a month-long fieldwork visit and included semi-structured interviews with staff and students, and semi-structured classroom observations. Instructional approaches were used that supported the learning of students who were not experienced in, or had difficulty with, regulating their learning. These included breaking down tasks, providing lots of on-task prompts, encouragement, using frequent feedback and scaffolding, and offering quick support to students. This approach allowed students to re-engage with their learning and make progress towards important qualifications required for entry to the labour market and post-compulsory education and training.     

Play of the unconscious in pre-service teachers’ self-reflection around race and racism

Reading psychoanalytic theory of the unconscious desire for wholeness in the light of the notion of white racial supremacy, this study explores a constituted difficulty that self-reflection around the issues of race and racism confronts by exploring three white male pre-service teachers’ emotional experiences inscribed in their responses to the process of engaging in self-reflection. The pervasiveness of strong emotional reactions to the process of engaging in self-reflection spoke volumes not only about how uncomfortable the participants felt in the face of ambivalence, incommensurability and vulnerability but also about their active resistance against their emotional states to defend their unconscious desire for wholeness that is intensified by the forces of white racial supremacy. This study also seeks to elaborate problems inherent in teachers’ self-reflection and why and how unknown and unconscious emotional world filters and at times hinders the participants’ willingness to inquire into their own relationship to race and racism. In the final section, the author discusses how the findings may be used to imagine how teachers’ unknown and unconscious emotional world can become subjective curriculum which in turn becomes a foundation for students’ learning or lack thereof and also informs the field of teacher education engaging in critical self-reflection.     

Integrating family content in teacher preparation programs using intentional reflection and planning

ABSTRACT

Strong family involvement in children’s education supports positive academic and social-emotional outcomes. Therefore, developing early childhood (EC) professionals’ competence in engaging and involving families in their children’s education is emphasized across state licensure requirements, personnel preparation standards, and professional recommendations (e.g., Division for Early Childhood, Council for Exceptional Children, InTASC, National Association for the Education of Young Children). Although many states have begun to require family course content as part of their licensure for educators, higher education faculty and instructors may struggle to integrate family-related content into their coursework and field experiences while also covering state standards in instructional strategies, assessment, and other content areas. In order to effectively and comprehensively include family content across university programs and courses, faculty need to evaluate their current content and systematically plan to include current and research-based family material. The purpose of this article is to provide a framework for faculty to evaluate, reflect, and plan their use of family content in university courses aligned with the Division for Early Childhood’s Recommended Practices: Family (2014). This article shares self-assessment and action plan tools for integrating family content into course materials, activities, and assignments.     

“Ice Cream is Worse,and Joblessness is Not an Option”

A rise in informal labor, characterized by contracted and non-salaried positions, has been observed in many industry sectors including journalism. While opportunities for freelance journalists have increased, the journalism industry has simultaneously experienced mass layoffs. Using a survey (N?=?411), with quantitative and qualitative measures, this study assesses freelancers’ experiences in the US context with a particular attention to gender. The study finds that women perceive freelancing, but not full-time journalism, as compatible with raising children. Although there were no differences in perceptions about layoffs and job stability, the women in the sample were more likely to rely on freelancing as the only job and subsequently express concerns over pay. Open-ended responses provide further insight into the state of the journalism industry, full-time employment, and gender dynamics.     

Self-Reported Changes in Food Safety Behaviors among Foodservice Employees: Impact of a Retail Food Safety Education Program

ABSTRACT:  A food safety education program developed for retail food establishments was evaluated to assess the extent to which participants were practicing selected behaviors linked to reducing the risk of foodborne disease both before and after the program. Scores from the state health department's Certified Food Manager (CFM) exam also were examined. Based on the 189 usable surveys returned, most respondents were female, middle age, and white with nearly 11 y of foodservice experience. Results revealed that after completing the program, participants reported practicing behaviors related to hand washing, maintaining safe food temperatures, preventing crosscontamination, and pest management more frequently ( P < 0.05) compared to before the program. Effect size analysis indicated these results were also practically significant. Most (82.5%; n = 156) participants passed the CFM exam. Compared to those who failed the CFM exam, those who passed reported significantly higher changes in the adoption of selected behaviors; however, these results were of limited practical significance according to effect size analysis. Results suggest the food safety program is effective in promoting the adoption of food safety behaviors that can help reduce the risk of foodborne illness.     

Paraprofessionals use of group school-based instrumental mentoring: Examining process and preliminary outcomes

Many schools use paraprofessionals to implement and monitor interventions. Though paraprofessionals are cost-effective, many questions remain about the training and skills they need to implement a wide array of school-based interventions. In this study, we compare paraprofessionals' (i.e., undergraduates) implementation of the Group-Academic Mentoring Program for Education Development (Group-AMPED) to school psychology graduate students' implementation of Group-AMPED. Ten paraprofessionals and five school psychology graduate students provided approximately eight sessions of Group-AMPED to 35 sixth-grade students. Results indicated no significant differences between middle school students' engagement when groups were led by either school psychology graduate students or paraprofessionals. Similarly, self-reports of fidelity and supervisor postsession implementation confidence indicated no difference between paraprofessionals and graduate students' implementation of Group-AMPED. Follow-up measures indicated that mentors and proteges perceived Group-AMPED as feasible, acceptable, and understandable. Most importantly, middle school students participating in Group-AMPED had significantly higher second-semester grades in comparison to a small control group.