Pedagogical Media Competencies of Preservice Teachers in Germany and the United States: A Comparative Analysis of Theory and Practice

Teachers need knowledge and skills to make effective use of the growing variety of media and technology texts and tools available for use in elementary and secondary education. For this reason, pedagogical media competencies are highly relevant for teachers’ professional development. The theory of media pedagogical competencies is first defined and then located in the context of the relevant scholarly literature from both Germany and the United States. We conducted a comparative analysis of German and U.S. pedagogical media competency models and report data on a survey of teacher education programs in Germany and the United States to identify the proportion of programs of study that include courses in media didactics, media and school reform, and media education. We consider the implications of the missing connections between the theoretical framework of pedagogical media competencies and the current practice of media pedagogical teacher training, revealing implications for further work needed to improve the integration of media in various school-related contexts.     

The Structure of Phonological Processing and Its Relationship to Basic Reading

We investigated various structural models of phonological processing and the relationship of phonological processing abilities to basic reading. Data were collected on 116 kindergarten and first grade students. The specific ability model, which included phonological awareness, phonological memory, and rapid automatized naming as separate abilities, had the strongest fit to the data. Of the specific phonological processing abilities, rapid automatized naming was least associated with a second-order factor. Phonological awareness and rapid automatized naming accounted for variance in word reading, although the latter demonstrated limited practical utility. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Models of understanding: historical constructions of breast cancer in medicine and public health

The era of technical and scientific progress ushered in with the twentieth century brought new medical knowledge such as the Halstead ‘radical’ mastectomy, which promised a cure for breast cancer. These advances in medical knowledge were premised on an epidemiological model of disease, which shaped the treatment and public understanding of breast cancer through most of the twentieth century—to be replaced by a systemic model of breast cancer in the later years of the century. This article traces how this shift was both influenced by and influential on public understandings of medicine and disease. The author argues that, while the epidemiological model of disease shaped treatment options and public health campaigns through most of the century, current treatment regimes and health campaigns are shifting to reflect changes in the underlying model of disease (toward a systemic model).     

Technology and Method Intersect in the Online Focus Group

Online focus groups may provide a new tool for research conducted in sport science settings (e.g., psychology, sociology, management, physical education, and recreation). Benefits of online focus groups include the ability for people in multiple locations to respond synchronously via chat rooms or asynchronously via discussion software. Additional benefits include increased equality of participation, greater participant diversity, the matching of research design with research environment, researcher interaction, and the elimination of transcribing. Disadvantages include under representation of non-Internet users, lack of face-to-face contact, potential participant no-show rate, and the difficulty of securing data on the Internet. Sport science scholars are encouraged to examine this emerging method as related to their specific research aims and consider application of online focus groups to further their research.     

Understanding the Young Gifted Child: Guidelines for Parents, Families, and Educators

Young children who are gifted or talented share special characteristics that impact on the way they learn and develop. Teachers and parents need to consider the unique needs of each child as they plan ways to nurture and educate these youngsters. Concerns such as uneven development, the need for acceleration and/or enrichment, appropriate socialization and peer interactions, and modification of the curriculum are some of the topics discussed. Suggestions for teachers and parents are included along with a variety of resources.     

Challenges and opportunities: using a science-based video game in secondary school settings

Simulations and games are not new artifacts to the study of science in secondary school settings (Hug, Kriajcik and Marx 2005), however teachers remain skeptical as to their value, use and appropriateness (Rice 2006). The difficulty is not only the design and development of effective play environments that produce measurable changes in knowledge and/or understanding, but also in their on-the-ground use (Jaipal and Figg 2010). This paper reports on the use of a science-focused video game in five very different secondary school settings in Ontario, Canada. A mixed-methods approach was used in the study, and included data gathered on general gameplay habits and technology use, as well as informal interviews with teachers and students who played the game. In total, 161 participants played a series of games focused on the ??life of a plant??, and were given both a pre and post quiz to determine if the game helped them retain and/or change what they knew about scientific processes like plant cell anatomy and photosynthesis. Participants showed statistically significant improvement on quizzes that were taken after playing the game for approximately one-hour sessions, despite difficulties in some cases both accessing and playing the game for the full hour. Our findings also reveal the ongoing challenges in making use of technology in a variety of school sessions, even when using a browser-based game, that demanded very little other than a reliable internet connection.     

Child sexual abuse prevention education: A review of school policy and curriculum provision in Australia

The past four decades have seen increasing public and professional awareness of child sexual abuse. Congruent with public health approaches to prevention, efforts to eliminate child sexual abuse have inspired the emergence of prevention initiatives which can be provided to all children as part of their standard school curriculum. However, relatively little is known about the scope and nature of child sexual abuse prevention efforts in government school systems internationally. This paper assesses and compares the policies and curriculum initiatives in primary (elementary) schools across state and territory Departments of Education in Australia. Using publicly available electronic data, a deductive qualitative content analysis of policy and curriculum documents was undertaken to examine the characteristics of child sexual abuse prevention education in these school systems. It was found that the system-level provision occurs unevenly across state and territory jurisdictions. This results in the potential for substantial inequity in Australian children’s access to learning opportunities in child abuse prevention education as a part of their standard school curriculum. In this research, we have developed a strategy for generating a set of theoretically-sound empirical criteria that may be more extensively applied in comparative research about prevention initiatives internationally.