Does engagement in Forest School influence perceptions of risk,held by children,their parents,and their school staff?

In a climate where, it is claimed, children now spend very little time out of doors because adults fear for their safety and impose a ‘zero risk childhood’ on them, Forest School aims to offer learners the opportunity to take ‘supported risks’. This study investigated perceptions of risk associated with the outdoors, held by children, their parents and practitioners, and whether accessing Forest School impacts on these perceptions of risk. Practitioners were generally either strongly risk-averse or strongly permissive; Forest School influenced them to be less risk-averse in some respects. Parents held ambiguous perceptions, wanting to keep their children very safe but also to help them develop strong and confident attitudes to risk. Implications for research and practice are discussed.     

Implementing cycles of Assess,Plan, Do,Review: a literature review of practitioner perspectives

This article uses a literature review process to explore current literature on Response to Intervention (RtI), an approach to the identification of and provision for students with special educational needs introduced in the USA by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004. Parallels are made between RtI and the graduated approach of successive cycles of Assess, Plan, Do, Review (APDR) outlined in the Special Educational Needs and Disability Code of Practice introduced in England in 2014. Research concerning APDR is scarce, and therefore this review looks to research on RtI to inform current practice. Recurring themes throughout the literature relate to the ongoing professional development and learning for practitioners that is afforded by engagement in RtI, and an awareness that it takes time to accrue the benefits of such an approach. Further research is needed to ascertain the outworking of a reform such as RtI/APDR within the English context.     

Impacts of contextual and explicit instruction on preservice elementary teachers' understandings of the nature of science

This mixed‐methods investigation compared the relative impacts of instructional approach and context of nature of science instruction on preservice elementary teachers' understandings. The sample consisted of 75 preservice teachers enrolled in four sections of an elementary science methods course. Independent variables included instructional approach to teaching nature of science (implicit vs. explicit) and the context of nature of science instruction (as a stand‐alone topic vs. situated within instruction about global climate change and global warming). These treatments were randomly applied to the four class sections along a 2 × 2 matrix, permitting the comparison of outcomes for each independent variable separately and in combination to those of a control group. Data collection spanned the semester‐long course and included written responses to pre‐ and post‐treatment administrations of the VNOS‐B, semi‐structured interviews, and a variety of classroom artifacts. Qualitative methods were used to analyze the data with the goal of constructing profiles of participants' understandings of the nature of science and of global climate change /global warming (GCC/GW). These profiles were compared across treatments using non‐parametric statistics to assess the relative effectiveness of the four instructional approaches. Results indicated that preservice teachers who experienced explicit instruction about the nature of science made statistically significant gains in their views of nature of science regardless of whether the nature of science instruction was situated within the context of GCC/GW or as a stand‐alone topic. Further, the participants who experienced explicit nature of science instruction as a stand‐alone topic were able to apply their understandings of nature of science appropriately to novel situations and issues. We address the implications of these results for teaching the nature of science in teacher preparation courses. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc., Inc. J Res Sci Teach 48: 414–436, 2011     

Conceptions of e‐learning and professional development for e‐learning held by tertiary educators in New Zealand

The conceptions an individual holds about a phenomenon can influence and determine associated behaviours and perspectives. Consequently, they have a bearing upon how learning about a phenomenon is undertaken and how that phenomenon is experienced and applied in context. A phenomenographic research approach was used to gather the expressed experiences of e‐learning and professional development for e‐learning held by teachers and support staff from institutions across New Zealand. Five conceptions of e‐learning (as tool and equipment; as a facilitator of interaction; as learning; as a reduction in distance; and as a collaborative enterprise) and four conceptions of professional development for e‐learning (as training; as opening up possibilities; as collaboration; and as relevant and purposeful) were discovered. In this report, we discuss the conceptions, and show how they are interrelated through outcome space. Implications for the professional development of tertiary teachers and teaching support staff are outlined. The study provides some insights for individuals, institutions and those responsible for planning and implementing professional development programmes to help them to support the development and progress of e‐learning in appropriate and rewarding directions.     

Changing personal epistemologies in early childhood pre-service teachers using an integrated teaching program

This study investigated changes in pre-service teachers' personal epistemologies as they engaged in an integrated teaching program. Personal epistemology refers to individual beliefs about the nature of knowing and knowledge and has been shown to influence teaching practice. An integrated approach to teaching, based on both an implicit and explicit focus on personal epistemology, was developed by an academic team within a Bachelor of Education (Early Childhood). The teaching program integrated content across four units of study, modelling personal epistemologies implicitly through collaborative reflexive practice. The students were also required to engage in explicit reflections on their personal epistemologies. Quantitative measures of personal epistemology were collected at the beginning and end of the semester using the Epistemological Beliefs Survey (EBS) to assess changes across the teaching period. Results indicated that pre-service teachers' epistemological beliefs about the integration of knowledge became more sophisticated over the course of the teaching period. Qualitative data included pre-service teachers' responses to open ended questions and field experience journal reflections about their perceptions of the teaching program and were collected at the end of the semester. These data showed that pre-service teachers held different conceptions about learning as integration, which provided a more nuanced understanding of the EBS data. Understanding pre-service teachers' epistemological beliefs provides promising directions for teacher preparation and professional enrichment.     

Listening to grandmothers

In this column, three proud grandmothers share their unique stories and eloquently describe the transforming experience of becoming a grandmother and the joy associated with witnessing their daughters giving birth.