Narratives of Learning from Co-editing,Writing and Presenting Stories of Experience in Self-Study

In this self-study, we look at the contribution made towards our professional learning through an aspect of teacher education work that is not commonly featured in the research literature: exploring the implications of our work as co-editors of an international collection about teacher educators’ journeys of professional becoming. Through this self-study, we argue that this type of work is valuable to individuals and institutions in relation to its impact on the professional learning and career development of teacher educators. Adopting a narrative approach, we examined our experiences of co-editing the book and the associated activities such as conference presentations, to understand how this influenced our professional learning and identity as teacher educators. Findings include having a stronger sense of the evolution of our professional selves over time and greater insight and awareness of our strengths and uncertainties. A clearer perspective on our own career development and professional becoming was evident, and many parallels could be drawn between our experiences of professional becoming and those of the chapter authors in the edited book. We conclude that while activities such as book editing do not usually count in institutional metrics as outputs, they are nonetheless a significant opportunity for professional learning and make a contribution to knowledge and to teacher education practice, and should be recognised as such by institutions and colleagues.     

Symbolic Functioning in Very Young Children: Understanding of Pictures and Models

Before one can understand or use any symbol, one must first realize that it is a symbol, that is, that it stands for or represents something other than itself. This article reports 4 studies investigating very young children's understanding of 2 different kinds of symbolic stimuli--scale models and pictures. The data replicate previous findings that 2.5-year-old children have great difficulty appreciating the relation between a scale model and the larger space it represents, but that they very readily appreciate the relation between a picture and its referent. This result is interpreted in terms of the dual orientation hypothesis. Models are difficult for young children because they require a dual representation--a child must think about a model both as an object itself and as a representation of something else. Because pictures are not salient as real objects, they do not require a dual representation. Several kinds of evidence supporting the dual orientation hypothesis are presented. An additional result was the occurrence of a transfer effect: Prior experience with a picture task led to better performance on a subsequent model task. This finding suggests that experience with a symbolic medium they understand can help young children figure out a different, unfamilar medium that they would otherwise not understand.     

A look at superheroes: Some issues and guidelines

Most early childhood teachers are not alarmists about children and television. TV is a fact of life for American children and simply another aspect that teachers must deal with in the classroom.     

Physical Similarity and Young Children''s Understanding of Scale Models

Young children's understanding of the correspondence between a scale model and a larger space is affected by the degree of physical similarity between the 2 spaces. In 4 studies, children between 2.5 and 3.5 years of age watched as a miniature toy was hidden somewhere in a scale model of a room. They were then asked to find an analogous toy that was hidden in the corresponding place in the room itself. The effects of different levels of 3 types of physical similarity were investigated. In general, the children's retrieval scores increased as a function of increasing similarity, although younger children required a higher degree of similarity to appreciate the model-room correspondence than did older children. Some types of similarity were more important than others: The level of similarity between the objects within the 2 spaces and of the overall size of the spaces both had large effects on the children's performance. Similarity presumably affects accessibility, the likelihood that children's representation of one space will provide access to their representation of the other space.     

Transfer in Young Children's Understanding of Spatial Representations

The creative and flexible use of symbols is a unique human ability. In order to use a symbol, one must understand the basic relation between the symbol and what it represents. How do young children come to appreciate such relations? One possibility is that insight into one symbolic relation helps children appreciate different ones. The 3 studies presented here support this possibility. In Experiments 1 and 2, both 2.5- and 3.0-year-old children showed transfer from an easy task that required appreciation of a model-room symbolic relation to a more difficult one, one that children their age typically do not appreciate. In Experiment 3, 2.5-year-olds showed transfer between symbol types: Experience with a model-room relation helped them appreciate a map-room relation. These transfer effects are consistent with the claim that early experience with symbolic relations contributes to symbolic sensitivity, a basic readiness to recognize that one object or event may stand for another.     

Does learning the alphabet in kindergarten give children a head start in the first year of school? A comparison of children’s reading progress in two first grade classes in state and Montessori schools in Switzerland

Abstract

The main purpose of this study was to examine whether the age at which children start to learn to read affects their later progress. The study was conducted in Zürich, Switzerland, and compared a first grade class in a local school with two first grade classes in a Montessori school. It was found that although the Montessori children had an advantage over the local children in alphabet knowledge at entry to Grade 1, this was not translated into a significant advantage at the end of Grade 1 in either phonemic awareness or reading ability. Further analysis revealed that pretest alphabet knowledge for the whole group was significantly related to progress. In addition, scatterplots showed that some children started school with high levels of alphabet knowledge but did not make progress, indicating that alphabet knowledge is necessary for literacy progress but not sufficient.     

Leading assessment for enhanced student outcomes

This paper reports the leadership findings that emerged from the Alberta Student Assessment Study, a large-scale study employing a mixed-method design. Findings included the importance of assessment leadership, credibility of leaders, capacity to make hard decisions and ability to lead professional learning. An optimal assessment leadership profile emerged which includes values and assessment knowledge, mediated by personal qualities and accompanied by an interplay between procedural knowledge and professional skills. This informs leadership vision and actions leading to increased assessment literacy, more effective monitoring and reporting practice, enhanced instructional practice, enriched partnerships with parents and community members and positive student outcomes.     

Big Macs/Peanut Butter and Jelly: An Exploration of Dialectical Contradictions Experienced by the Sandwich Generation

Grounded in relational dialectics theory, this article reports a study exploring the influence of internal relational dialectic contradictions of women who are in the “Sandwich Generation,” or simultaneously providing some kind of care for generations of family both older and younger than them. Two hundred twenty-five female multi-generational caretakers (MGCs) reported their perceptions of the autonomy–connection, predictability–unpredictability, and openness–closedness of the relationship they have with an older adult for whom they provide care, as well as their current satisfaction level with this relationship. The data indicate communication between MGCs and their care recipient is more satisfying when the caretaker believes she has a high level of autonomy in the relationships and when there is a high level of openness within the relationships. These findings are interpreted using dialectic contradiction, change, and totality. This article also discusses practical implications of these findings for members of the Sandwich Generation.     

History of U.S. Broadcasting

Irving E. Fang Those Radio Commentators (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1977—$14.95)

Judy Fireman TV Book: The Ultimate Television Book (New York: Workman Publishing Co, 1977—$7.95, paper with a hardback also available)

Raymond William Stedman The Serials: Suspense and Drama by Installment (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1977—$12.95)

Madeleine Edmondson and David Rounds From Mary Noble to Mary Hartman: The Complete Soap Opera Book (New York: Jove Books (Harcourt, Brace Jovanovich), 1977— $1.75, paper)