Educating for sustainability: environmental pledges as part of tertiary pedagogical practice in science teacher education

Educating for sustainability has been a key principle underpinning the primary/middle undergraduate teacher education programme at an Australian University for the past decade. Educating for sustainability seeks to provide knowledge and understanding of the physical, biological, and human world, and involves students making decisions about a range of ethical, social, environmental and economic issues, and acting upon them. This study (a part of the ongoing evaluation of our courses) focuses on pre-service teachers (PSTs) who have selected a minor in science and mathematics. Participatory and inclusive learning processes, transdisciplinary collaborations, experiential learning, and the use of local environment and community as learning resources as outlined by Sterling (2001) have formed the basis of much of our practice to develop PSTs’ confidence and competence to teach science. This paper explores one pedagogical practice, environmental pledges which the preservice teachers undertook for 15 weeks. The focus is on the impact that undertaking an environmental pledge has had on the personal and professional lives of two groups, first, four cohorts of final-year science and mathematics pathway PSTs, and second, a small group of early-career teachers who had completed the course in previous years. Data have been collected from final-year science and mathematics students and early-career teachers using ethnographic methods to provide insight into their experiences of using the pledge.     

Severe Violence During Adolescence and Early Adulthood and Its Relation to Anticipated Rewards and Costs

This report compares the effects (concurrent and lagged) of the anticipated rewards and costs of violent crime on engagement in severe violence in a sample of male juvenile offenders (N = 1,170; 42.1% black, 34.0% Hispanic, 19.2% white, and 4.6% other; ages 14–18 at baseline). Anticipated rewards (social approval, thrill) are more predictive of concurrent severe violence than are anticipated costs (social disapproval, risk of punishment). The analysis finds no evidence that perceptions of the rewards and costs of violent crime influence engagement in severe violence 6 months later. The results support the view that adolescence is a time of heightened reward salience but raise doubt about the longitudinal predictive validity of perceptions about crime during this time of life.     

Teamwork and Entrepreneurial Behavior among K-12 Teachers in the United States

Abstract

This study attempted to identify the predictors of entrepreneurial behavior by assessing a series of variables that included teamwork skills and demographic variables, and to explore teachers’ experiences with teamwork. A sample of 367?K-12 public school teachers completed the survey. The findings indicated that teamwork predicts entrepreneurial behavior. Most participants received teamwork training through their school districts. Barriers to teamwork included time constraints, individual differences, and inability to collaborate.     

The Schooling Experience of Adolescent Boys with AD/HD: An Australian Case Study

This study explored the experience of schooling of six adolescent boys diagnosed with AD/HD from the perspectives of the boys, their mothers and their teachers. The study utilised social constructionism as the theoretical orientation and the Dynamic Developmental Theory (DDT) of AD/HD as the explanatory framework. Utilising a multiple, instrumental case-study, data were collected by means of semi-structured individual and focus group interviews as well as a review of school reports across a two year period. Findings of the study suggest that taking medication as prescribed together with supporting the students to make and manage friendships, utilising classroom strategies that support learning, and providing an engaging classroom environment are important considerations to promote a positive schooling experience for adolescents with AD/HD.     

Written language of deaf and hard-of-hearing students in public schools

We obtained data on the writing of 110 deaf or hard-of-hearing students attending public schools who completed the spontaneous writing portion of the Test of Written Language. The average written quotient for the sample was in the below-average range but within 1 standard deviation of the test mean. Forty-nine percent of the sample received written quotients within or above the average range. Mean scores for the three subtests of contextual conventions, contextual language, and story construction were within the low-average range; between 55% and 68% of students scored within the average or above-average range for the subtests. Predictors of writing quotients were eligibility for free lunch, grade, degree of hearing loss and gender; however, only 18% of the variance in total writing quotients was explained by these variables. The data indicate that attention needs to be paid to the writing ability and instruction of many public-school students regardless of degree of hearing loss.     

What is normal,true, and right: a critical discourse analysis of students’ written resistance strategies on LGBTQ topics

This study examines how students perform resistance to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer topics in their written reflections in a higher education diversity course. Using a three-tiered critical discourse analysis , this article maps students’ resistant textual devices in their written reflections, analyzes the institutional setting of the course, and examines how the larger social discourse plays an important role. Findings suggest that students engage in resistance and (re)produce oppressive discourse in part due to the institutional and larger social discourse of the course and the topic. Implications suggest the need to promote to course instructors how language can (re)position students in a place of privilege.     

‘Left with a title but nothing else’: the challenges of embedding professional recognition schemes for teachers within higher education institutions

ABSTRACT

With increasing moves globally towards the professionalisation of teaching in Higher Education, there is growing interest in the role of accredited professional recognition schemes that provide professional development for established university teaching staff. In the UK, There are now over 120 professional recognition schemes, resulting in institutionally focused evaluation studies examining their impact. This article contributes to this emerging body of work; it draws on cross-institutional data and Foucauldian theorising to address two important questions. In what ways does engagement with an institutional professional recognition scheme impact on participants’ teaching development, and how does institutional culture influence that engagement? The data illustrate that whilst institutional culture drives engagement, it did little to promote teaching development. Across the case-study institutions, neo-liberalism agendas were apparent. Some staff felt pushed to achieve professional recognition in response to the increasing use of metrics to measure the student experience and to inform institutional standing in league tables. Whilst evidence shows the process of seeking accreditation can lead to an enhancement in teaching practices, caution must be taken to ensure that the professional development opportunities offered by accreditation schemes are fully realised.     

The related effects of item characteristics in measures of epistemological beliefs

Personal epistemology is concerned with people’s beliefs or assumptions about the nature of knowledge and knowing. Whilst contributions in this field can be traced back to the 1970s, fundamental questions about the ontology and epistemology of the construct still remain. The current study explored the effects of three characteristics of questions aimed at eliciting epistemological assumptions on our interpretations of an individual’s assumptions, namely the level of directness with which questions targeted assumptions, the domainspecificity of the question, and whether the questions were open or closed-ended. A paper-and-pencil measure was designed to manipulate these variables, and the interpretations made about the assumptions of 35 postgraduate Psychology students were compared. The results suggested that the characteristics do exert an influence and caution is raised regarding the validity of methodologies that are used in the study of personal epistemology.     

Design,validation, and use of an evaluation instrument for monitoring systemic reform

Over the past decade, state and national policymakers have promoted systemic reform as a way to achieve high‐quality science education for all students. However, few instruments are available to measure changes in key dimensions relevant to systemic reform such as teaching practices, student attitudes, or home and peer support. Furthermore, Rasch methods of analysis are needed to permit valid comparison of different cohorts of students during different years of a reform effort. This article describes the design, development, validation, and use of an instrument that measures student attitudes and several environment dimensions (standards‐based teaching, home support, and peer support) using a three‐step process that incorporated expert opinion, factor analysis, and item response theory. The instrument was validated with over 8,000 science and mathematics students, taught by more than 1,000 teachers in over 200 schools as part of a comprehensive assessment of the effectiveness of Ohio's systemic reform initiative. When the new four‐factor, 20‐item questionnaire was used to explore the relative influence of the class, home, and peer environment on student achievement and attitudes, findings were remarkably consistent across 3 years and different units and methods of analysis. All three environments accounted for unique variance in student attitudes, but only the environment of the class accounted for unique variance in student achievement. However, the class environment (standards‐based teaching practices) was the strongest independent predictor of both achievement and attitude, and appreciable amounts of the total variance in attitudes were common to the three environments. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 38: 646–662, 2001