Student Science Teachers Constructing Practical Knowledge from Inservice Science Supervisors' Stories

Journal of Science Teacher Education -     

SimPharm: How pharmacy students made meaning of a clinical case differently in paper‐ and simulation‐based workshops

Several scholars contend that learning with computer games and simulations results in students thinking more like professionals. Bearing this goal in mind, we investigated how a group of pharmacy students learnt with an in‐house developed computer simulation, SimPharm. Adopting situated cognition as our theoretical lens, we conducted a case study involving 20 undergraduate students to tease out how they made meaning of a clinical case differently in two different contexts: a typical paper‐based workshop and one enabled by SimPharm. The data collected included audio recordings of classroom discourse, focus group interviews and class observations. The findings identified differences in four areas: framing of the problem; problem‐solving steps and tools used; sources and meaning of feedback; and conceptualisation of the patient. These four areas can serve as axes along which future evaluations of educational simulations can be carried out based on their affordances.     

A Lost Dimension? The political education of women in the suffragette movement in Edwardian Britain

It is argued that present‐day definitions of education that focus upon educational forms, such as schools, further education, universities and adult education, have little relevance for the educational experiences of the majority of women in the past. To illustrate this point, the article explores the ‘education’ of women in a major political grouping in Edwardian Britain, namely the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) which, as a militant women‐only organisation, became the most famous of all the groupings campaigning for the enfranchisement of women. The WSPU offered its women members the opportunity to invade and enter the male sphere of politics. Thus, in its early years, members learnt a political role through peaceful means of campaigning, such as heckling politicians, carrying petitions to parliament, public speaking and writing to the press. Later, after many years of such protesting, when the government refused to yield on the issue of women's enfranchisement, more militant roles were adopted by a minority of the membership. These ‘guerilla activists’ engaged in activities such as the large‐scale breaking of windows, vandalising art treasures and setting fire to empty houses. For many of these WSPU women, their participation in the feminist movement was the educational experience of a lifetime, that far outshone any more formal schooling that they might have received in schools, adult education or colleges.     

Native Teacher Education in a Community Setting: The Mount Currie Program∗

The planning and implementation of a teacher education programme for the original population of Canada must take into account five important elements: the participation of the community itself, the integration of their language and culture, decentralisation of administration, revision of admission criteria, and the quality of the program. An experiment of this kind, which was a success, was tried out at Mount Currie. The Mount Currie program, even though it could serve as a model for other programs, cannot without any modification be transposed to all the other communities. In fact, the program only corresponds to the particular needs of a particular community and of the persons who make it up.

     

Effect of acquisition rates on off‐task behavior of kindergarten students while learning sight words

Assessing a student's acquisition rates (ARs) is a reliable way to determine how many new words should be taught in one lesson without reducing retention. Exceeding a student's AR can result in frustration and problem behaviors. The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of AR on the off‐task behavior of kindergarten students while participating in a commonly used sight‐word instruction video. Participants included 39 kindergarten students whose ARs were assessed before showing the sight‐word video. Behavior was measured as on‐ and off‐task using momentary time‐sampling with 10‐s intervals. Results indicated that students' time off task increased after exceeding their ARs, with a noticeable immediate increase. The implications and limitations of these results are discussed.