Supporting Knowledge Integration in Chemistry with a Visualization-Enhanced Inquiry Unit

This paper describes the design and impact of an inquiry-oriented online curriculum that takes advantage of dynamic molecular visualizations to improve students’ understanding of chemical reactions. The visualization-enhanced unit uses research-based guidelines following the knowledge integration framework to help students develop coherent understanding by connecting and refining existing and new ideas. The inquiry unit supports students to develop connections among molecular, observable, and symbolic representations of chemical reactions. Design-based research included a pilot study, a study comparing the visualization-enhanced inquiry unit to typical instruction, and a course-long comparison study featuring a delayed posttest. Students participating in the visualization-enhanced unit outperformed students receiving typical instruction and further consolidated their understanding on the delayed posttest. Students who used the visualization-enhanced unit formed more connections among concepts than students with typical textbook and lecture-based instruction. Item analysis revealed the types of connections students made when studying the curriculum and suggested how these connections enabled students to consolidate their understanding as they continued in the chemistry course. Results demonstrate that visualization-enhanced inquiry designed for knowledge integration can improve connections between observable and atomic-level phenomena and serve students well as they study subsequent topics in chemistry.     

Teaching the Nature of Inquiry: Further Developments in a High School Genetics Curriculum

In order for students to truly understand science, we feel that they must be familiar with select subject matter and also understand how that subject matter knowledge was generated and justified through the process of inquiry. Here we describe a high school biology curriculum designed to give students opportunities to learn about genetic inquiry in part by providing them with authentic experiences doing inquiry in the discipline. Since a primary goal of practicing scientists is to construct explanatory models to account for natural phenomena, involving students in the construction of their own explanatory models provides a major emphasis in the classroom. The students work in groups structured like scientific communities to build, revise, and defend explanatory models for inheritance phenomena. The overall instructional goals include helping students understand the iterative nature of scientific inquiry, the tentativeness of specific knowledge claims (and why they should be considered tentative), and the degree to which scientists rely on empirical data as well as broader conceptual and metaphysical commitments to assess models and to direct future inquiries.     

Rewards,Risks and Tensions: Perceptions of males enrolled in an early childhood teacher education programme

This article describes the perceptions held by a group of male early childhood student teachers concerning the potential rewards and risks entailed in their non-traditional career choice, and the gender-related tensions they encountered in their pre-service programme. Although these men hoped that their involvement in early childhood education might contribute to long-term gender reform, their accounts indicated that each had difficulty articulating a consistent perspective about gender and gender-related issues. The article highlights the need for early childhood teacher education programmes to address gender issues, and considers implications for teacher educators seeking to increase the participation and retention rates of pro-feminist males with potential to contribute to gender reform.     

The Relationship of Moral Reasoning Style to Counselor Expression of Empathy

Results in the literature indicate that high levels of moral development are positively correlated with high levels of empathy. However, the issue of moral reasoning style and its relationship to empathy remains unclear. The role that moral reasoning style (care vs. justice orientation) plays in counselors' ability to relate empathically to clients was investigated among a sample of 44 counselors‐in‐training. Results indicate that counselors were able to respond equally to clients with the same moral reasoning style as themselves and to those with a different style. Counselors with a care orientation were no more able than justice‐oriented counselors to respond empathically. Findings contribute information about measures of moral reasoning style and suggest that matching of counselors with college‐aged and young adult clients based on moral reasoning style is not an issue of concern for college counselors.     

Reflection: can we assess it? Should we assess it?

This paper reports on a study undertaken by two university‐based teacher educators into an aspect of professional practice. The feasibility and desirability of assessing reflection demonstrated by student teachers studying early childhood literacy was investigated. While reaffirming the importance of developing reflective practitioners, the study highlighted the difficulties of equitably or meaningfully assessing reflection. Use of alternative methodologies was called for in future research into reflection