Capturing and Enhancing Science Teachers’ Professional Knowledge

This paper reports research from a three-year Australian science teacher professional learning project, the Science Teaching and Learning (STaL) Project, in which groups of science teacher participants (across years K – 12) worked with academics over a one-year period as teacher researchers. Through reflecting on their experiences within the STaL Project and collecting data from their classrooms related to specific science teaching concerns, teacher participants constructed cases around particular aspects of their professional learning. The cases that these participants developed elicited rich insights into their teaching and their students’ learning of science. This paper discusses how the cases were developed by the teacher researcher participants and uses exemplars as a way of illustrating the nature of the professional knowledge developed.     

Effect of Including Parents in a School-Based Exercise and Nutrition Program for Children

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of parental involvement in a school-based program about exercise and nutrition. One fifth grade and one sixth grade class were randomly assigned to each of the three different treatment conditions, a school-and-home condition (n = 45), a school-only condition (n = 43), and a control condition (n = 44). In the school-and-home condition, the children's parents were also asked to participate in nutritional and exercise activities at home as a family “home team.” A multivariate analysis of variance on change scores was completed on the following variables: height, weight, skinfold, sit-and-reach, sit-ups, mile run, exercise knowledge, saturated fat, cholesterol, percent calories from fat, percent calories from carbohydrates, and nutrition knowledge. There was a significant difference among groups. The school-and-home and school-only groups showed significantly greater improvement than the control group but were not significantly different from each other. Univariate analyses on posttest scores indicated that the school-and-home children scored significantly higher than the control group on sit-and-reach flexibility and nutrition knowledge. The results indicate that including the family was primarily effective in facilitating children's improvements in flexibility and nutrition knowledge rather than in diet and exercise behaviors.     

More than just fun: a place for games in playful learning / Más que diversión: el lugar de los juegos reglados en el aprendizaje lúdico

Games play a significant role in childhood, fuelling hours of engagement and social interaction, and probably much learning as well. Board games, card games and outdoor games (such as Tag) first come to mind, but more recently, games have also gone digital. In this piece, we offer a new perspective by placing games within the established construct of ‘playful learning’. We review key elements of playful learning and the two subtypes: free play and guided play. We suggest that games promote learning in ways similar to other playful learning situations. Games involve fun, a sense of curiosity and an inhibition of reality, in active, engaging, meaningful and socially interactive contexts. We argue that games therefore belong alongside free play and guided play to form a trio of playful learning experiences. This perspective adds to a growing understanding of the role of games in supporting children’s learning and development.     

Cultural and gender influences on age identification

Age identification plays a significant role in young adults’ mass, interpersonal, intergenerational, and intercultural communication. This research examines cultural and gender influences on young people's age identity by measuring the social age identity of male and female young adult members of five cultures varying in individualism/collectivism (Laos, Thailand, Spain, Australia, and the U.S.A.). We found cultural influences on age identity to be both unexpected in nature and modest in effect. American and Laotian respondents had similar and nominally higher levels of age identity than Australian, Thai, and Spanish respondents, with all having a markedly different age identities than those of Japanese respondents as reported by other researchers. No direct effect for gender on age identity emerged, though American females were more age identified than all other respondents. Across cultures, the social identity scale was found to be a reasonably adequate measure of age identity.     

Library Outreach Positions: From Planning to Practice

East Tennessee State University has a diverse student population of approximately 12,500 students. Recent statistics have indicated that the student body is bypassing the physical library building, including reference services, and connecting to online sources from off campus. With only six public service librarians whose duties include interlibrary loan, instruction, and other key library functions, librarians are limited in their ability to provide outreach to those students who might never enter the library. In this article, the authors describe the decision process in developing outreach librarian positions for the graduate programs librarian and the undergraduate student services librarian and discuss the specific services that these librarians provide to students.     

Adapting an Embedded Model of Librarianship,College by College

Librarians are increasingly moving out of the library and into the wider university setting as patrons spend more time seeking information online and less time visiting the library. The move to embed librarians in colleges, departments, or customer groups has been going on for some time but has recently received more attention as libraries work to find new ways to reach patrons that no longer need to come to the physical library. Few universities have attempted to embed all their librarians. This case study describes how one group of health sciences librarians dispersed its professional staff throughout its campuses and medical centers.     

From Memories to Diaries: A Portrait of Hope Captured from the Lens of a Nurse Educator as a Breast Cancer Patient

Breast cancer is the most common malignancy affecting women worldwide. While it is true that hope influences how these victims view and live their lives, little is known as to how hope is lived and experienced by a breast cancer patient whose professional background and practice is nursing. This narrative–interpretive study purports to create a portrait of a nurse educator whose hope becomes her language of meaning-making. A Filipino nurse educator suffering from breast cancer was used as the subject of this study. Constituting the study's corpus of data is a series of diaries which were religiously written for a period of six months (November 2007–April 2008). Three interesting themes that elucidate the portrait of hope as embodied in the subject's diaries include (a) Stop: Searching for Meaning; (b) Look: Standing through Meaning; and (c) Listen: Sailing through Meaning. Notably, hope serving as a universal human experience is a powerful gift that enables an individual to see meaning amidst painful conditions, stand firmly despite adversities, and live by faith to continue life's journey.     

Education to Promote Positive Attitudes About Aging

ABSTRACT

This longitudinal study examined what a one-time intervention about aging does to the attitudes of high-school students toward aging. Early findings from the study support previous research that indicates ageist attitudes formed in early childhood become difficult to change as children reach adolescence. This research further supports the need for aging education to begin in early childhood.