Opportunities for and obstacles to science in preschools: views from a community perspective

ABSTRACT

In this study, Activity Theory (AT) is used to analyse general patterns for how cultural and historical factors interact with the shaping of science activities in preschools. Data was produced from field notes, video observations, video stimulated recall group discussions and individual interviews with preschool teachers at fourteen preschool units, where science activities were described as a common feature of the practice. Two factors were found to be particularly important for how and whether science learning opportunities were afforded the children: the structure of the preschool community and the type of educational culture within it. In communities characterised by weak mutual commitment and without joint understanding of the purpose of the activities, the science learning objects of the activity often became fragmented and thereby elusive. This was also true for strong communities, with a shared approach and a joint understanding of the purpose of the science activities, but with educational cultures where science learning was not actively supported. In contrast, a strong community combined with an educational culture that allowed teachers to lead and intentionally frame the science content, offered child-centred science activities with clear science learning objects.     

Drawings as Representations of Children's Conceptions

Drawings are often used to obtain an idea of children's conceptions. Doing so takes for granted an unambiguous relation between conceptions and their representations in drawings. This study was undertaken to gain knowledge of the relation between children's conceptions and their representation of these conceptions in drawings. A theory of contextualization was the basis for finding out how children related their contextualization of conceptions in conceptual frameworks to their contextualization of drawings in pictorial convention. Eighteen children were interviewed in a semi‐structured method while they were drawing the Earth. Audio‐recorded interviews, drawings, and notes were analysed to find the cognitive and cultural intentions behind the drawings. Also, even children who demonstrated alternative conceptions of the Earth in the interviews still followed cultural conventions in their drawings. Thus, these alternative conceptions could not be deduced from the drawings. The results indicate that children's drawings can be used to grasp children's conceptions only by considering the meaning the children themselves give to their own drawings.     

Puppets on a string in a theatre of display? Interactions of image,text, material,space and motion in The Family of Man (ca. 1950s–1960s)

In the past few decades, increasing attention has been devoted within various disciplines to aspects previously considered trivial, among which are images, material objects and spaces. While the visual, the material and the spatial are receiving ever more consideration and the myriad issues surrounding them are being tackled, their convergence in educational settings across time and space has thus far remained underexplored. A travelling photo exhibition, The Family of Man, will serve as a starting point in this paper for addressing some of the complexities inherent in this convergence and thus highlight an essential yet neglected feature of education: its reliance on, and creative use of, multiple “modes” of communication and representation when attempting to produce learning effects. As a particular educational constellation that went on to travel throughout the world and interact with the contexts in which it moved, The Family of Man was anything but neutral in design. The paper will show just how carefully it was composed to promote meaning-, power-, and knowledge-making in accordance with its mission. This border-crossing installation thus constituted a spectacle of different interacting views, forms, surfaces, lighting effects, panoramas, movements, captions and other factors that aimed to create order among things and people. Nevertheless, the paper argues, “theatres of display” in education such as this do not imply determination and causality of effects, but rather provide “uncertain conditions” within a spectrum of “actors” and “actants”. The paper relates this to the manifold affordances of objects, images, places and so on, to disruptions of meaning in their convergence across time and space and to “emancipation” on the part of learners.     

Students Connecting with the Elderly: Validation as a Tool

In this article we respond to the call to action that is the crisis among seniors called The Silver Tsunami! We describe the education of students through the use of Feil's Validation Therapy. There are growing concerns among social service providers regarding the rapid increase of the elderly population and the lack of adequate staff to provide care for our seniors. If we as educators, agency administrators, or committed family members ignore this call to action, the cycle of the employee “revolving door” will continue with inadequately trained and emotionally disconnected personnel working with aging persons. Frontline workers are the backbone of any agency. They are the ones who interact with seniors and their loved ones and collaborate with other medical and community professionals. We, as their teachers, must enhance their knowledge and skills so they many continue to provide service to the second most vulnerable population.     

Stand by me: The effects of peer and teacher support in mitigating the impact of bullying on quality of life

Bullying is one of the most common forms of school violence. Engagement in bullying has been shown to have adverse effects on perpetrators and victims of bullying. In this study, the impact of bullying on well‐being (quality of life/life satisfaction) was explored in a sample of elementary and middle school children (N = 4,331). Results suggest that students who bully and/or are bullied experience reduced life satisfaction and support from peers and teachers compared to “bystanders” (children who are neither victims nor perpetrators of bullying). Mediational analyses demonstrate that peer and teacher support might mitigate the impact of bullying on the quality of life of victims. This study underscores the value of efforts to promote social support from peers and teachers in both universal bullying prevention programs and school climate initiatives. Furthermore, results support further investigation into the possible contributions of bystanders in supporting school‐wide bullying prevention/school climate strategies. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Relationships between physical education (PE) teaching and student self-efficacy,aptitude to participate in PE and functional skills: with a special focus on students with disabilities

Background: Students with disability show an increasing incidence of school failure. Quality teaching and appropriate support may foster high self-efficacy, a predictive factor for successful school outcomes. Physical Education (PE) can provide students with a context in which self-efficacy and participation are promoted leading to improved academic achievement. The transition into secondary school can be challenging for many students with increased educational demands, developmental changes and individual social identification coinciding. A disability may add to the challenge of success.

Methods: Three groups of students, aged 13 years and enrolled in Swedish mainstream schools were targeted (n?=?439). Groups included students with 1. A diagnosed disability, 2. Low grades in PE (D–F) and 3. High grades (A–C) in PE. Questionnaires were collected and analyzed from 30/439 students with a diagnosed disability (physical, neuro-developmental and intellectual) from 26 classes, their classmates and their PE-teachers (n?=?25). Relationships between student self-reports and PE-teachers’ self-ratings were investigated. Also examined was the potential to which students’ functional skills could predict elevated general school self-efficacy, PE specific self-efficacy and aptitude to participate in PE. Results were compared with the total sample and between the three target groups (n?=?121).

Results: For students with disabilities, better self-rated teaching skills were related to lower student perceived general school self-efficacy, PE specific self-efficacy and aptitude to participate in PE. The impact of classroom climate in PE was more obvious among students with disabilities. Perceived functional skills were associated with elevated general school self-efficacy, PE specific self-efficacy and aptitude to participate in PE. Better socio-cognitive functional skills had an overall positive effect on all outcomes. Students with disabilities reported results similar to the total sample, the D–F group scored lower and the A–C group higher than the total sample and the disability group. Elevated self-efficacy in PE is six times less probable in students with disabilities, compared to the A–C group.

Conclusions: Our findings that better teacher planning and grading skills, are detrimental to students disadvantaged by disability is contradictive. Improving the establishment and communication of adapted learning standards at the transition to secondary school is a crucial and a predictive factor for promoting positive school experiences for students with disability. Students with disabilities need to be assured that the intended learning outcomes can be reached by doing activities differently than their typically functioning peers. Consideration of class composition is suggested as a means of promoting a positive learning climate, which would particularly benefit students with disabilities. Allocation of resources to support student socio-cognitive skills would improve experiences for the D–F group and likely promote a positive learning environment.     

Visual–motor symbol production facilitates letter recognition in young children

Previous research has suggested that handwriting letters may be an important exerciser to facilitate early letter understanding. Experimental studies to date, however, have not investigated whether this effect is general to any visual–motor experience or specific to handwriting letters. In the present work, we addressed this issue by testing letter knowledge using three measures in preschool children before and after a school-based intervention. Participants were divided into four training groups (letter-writing, digit-writing, letter-viewing, digit-viewing) that either wrote letters or digits or viewed letters or digits, twice a week for 6 weeks. We hypothesized that the visual–motor experience of handwriting letters or digits would improve letter knowledge more than viewing experience and that this effect would not be specific to training with letters. Our results demonstrated that the writing groups improved in letter recognition—one component of letter knowledge—significantly more than the viewing groups. The letter-writing group did not improve significantly more than the digit-writing group. These results suggest that visual–motor practice with any symbol could lead to increases in letter recognition. We interpret this novel finding as suggesting that any handwriting will increase letter recognition in part because it facilitates gains in visual–motor coordination.     

Using common formative assessments as a source of professional development in an urban American elementary school

By implementing a system of common formative assessments, the teachers at an American urban elementary school improved student achievement and facilitated their own professional development. By aligning content standards with assessments and purposeful instruction, the teachers at this school developed a depth of knowledge about their content standards, improved their ability to design assessments, learned to better link assessments with instruction, and planned for intervention for students who continued to struggle with reading and writing.     

Attitudes towards being assessed in group work: The effects of self-efficacy and collective efficacy moderated by a short educational intervention

Being assessed in group work is a balance between cooperation and competition. Self-efficacy and collective efficacy are important concepts in understanding how group work progresses and what attitudes assessment evokes. The aim of the study was to investigate the effects of a short educational intervention on the association between efficacy beliefs and attitudes towards being assessed in group work. In a randomized, controlled study of 22 pupil work groups, half of them got a short educational intervention. The work groups were formed for this study. The pupils answered a questionnaire before the intervention and after doing group work for 3 to 6 weeks with a study-specific task. A moderated mediation analysis showed that attitudes towards being assessed in group work significantly are related to self-efficacy mediated through perceived collective efficacy and that this relationship is stronger in the intervention group. In the context of work group assessment, we have shown that self-efficacy and collective efficacy are two separate, but related concepts that are dependent on each other when it comes to pupil attitudes towards group work assessment, and that a relatively short educational intervention to teachers and pupils had an effect on the attitude. However, the older girls' attitude towards group work assessment was the least positive of all, which may indicate that the intervention depends on gender and age.     

A note on glass and silica in oil paintings from the 15th to the 17th century

This articles reports new discoveries relating to ground glass and silica in European easel paintings from the 15th to the 17th centuries that were created by various German, Italian and Netherlandish artists. The earliest known additions of these extenders date to the early 1430s. Glass powder of varying fineness, prepared from vessel or window cullet, is often found in red lake glazes as well as in other colours or preparatory layers of paintings. SEM/EDX analyses of the glass particles reveal a variety of chemical compositions (soda ash, wood ash, wood ash-lime, wood ash-lead, mixed alkali), which are discussed with respect to the provenance of the paintings. Historical sources on painting techniques mention glass additions most frequently to accelerate drying of oil paints, but also occasionally to facilitate grinding of pigments. Another possible function of powdered glass and silica, especially in oil-bound red lake glazes, is that of a transparent filler, as will be here discussed based on paint trials.