Alternative Displays for Communicating NAEP Results: A Redesign and Validity Study

Five diswlays, chosen from the NAEP 1994 Reading: A First Look , were redesigned. The redesign was informed by the principles developed and enunciated in Wainer's 1997 popular text Visual Revelations. After the redesign was completed a survey of educational policymakers was done in which substantive questions were asked about the content of the various displays. Each redesign was paired with the original and were assigned randomly to one of two survey forms. We found that, on average, the redesigns yielded both more accurate and faster answers to the questions asked. The more difficult the question the greater the disparity between the original format and the redesigned one.     

How Do Teachers Learn to Manage Classroom Behaviour? A study of teachers’ opinions about their initial training with special reference to classroom behaviour management

Structured interviews were carried out with 176 secondary school teachers to elicit their views/opinions about their initial professional training and their later practical experience, with particular reference to classroom behaviour management. The results showed that the vast majority of teachers believe classroom management skills to be of major importance to them professionally. Nearly three‐quarters of them were dissatisfied with the preparation in this area of professional skills provided by their initial training courses. Many thought that their colleagues spent too much time on matters of order and control and 38% thought that they, themselves, did also. Generally, they showed an interest in attending training courses in classroom behaviour management. Many felt that such training could reduce stress among teachers and might help to reduce troublesome behaviour among their pupils. Nearly all of them thought that it would be of benefit to their younger colleagues who were just beginning their careers.     

Human Figure Drawings by Schooled and Unschooled Children in Papua New Guinea

Human figure drawings were collected from 287 schooled and unschooled children, aged between 10 and 15 years, living in a remote region of the Western Highlands Province of Papua New Guinea, an area with no tradition of graphic art. A classification and ordinal scoring system was devised which encompassed graphic productions ranging from scribbles to conventional competent human figure drawings. The effects of school experience on drawing, even brief and indirect experience, were found to be significant. All the children attending school drew only conventional human figures, but the whole range of drawings, scribbles, transitional forms, and conventional human figure drawings were found in the unschooled children's attempts. Nonrepresentational scribbles and shapes were largely produced by unschooled children living in remote villages without a school, trade store, or mission. Some children appeared to be able to draw representations of the human figure without going through a scribbling stage. The material is considered in relation to other reports on drawings produced by children from societies with little or no indigenous graphic art. The results are discussed in relation to various theories on the development of drawing and representational abilities.     

The Development of the Concept of Work: A Case where History Can Inform Pedagogy

An historical analysis of the work concept with particular emphasis given to the contributions of John Smeaton and Daniel Bernouilli is provided with a view to enlightening or resolving current difficulties experienced in the teaching and learning of the concept of work and its relationship to kinetic and potential energies. An approach which emphasises the work done by both applied and resisting forces and which gives some technological significance to the (force x distance) definition of work is recommended.     

Mathematics in science: The role of the history of science in communicating the significance of mathematical formalism in science

The use of a historical profile for illustrating the significance of the mathematical components of a scientific law is discussed in this paper. Such an approach addresses the need for the purposive use of scientific laws rather than the blind substitutionary procedures characteristic of most problem-solvers. The approach has the potential for increasing female participation in the physical sciences because of its reliance on learning modes favourable to female participation.     

Managing Troublesome Classroom Behaviour in Regular Schools: A Positive Teaching Perspective

THIS PAPER reviews the work of the Positive Teaching Project, carried out from the Centre for Child Study, University of Birmingham and directed by the author. Following a brief introduction to the project and the conceptual model of Positive Teaching, four main areas of research activity into effective classroom behaviour management are addressed: the nature of classroom behaviour problems experienced as particularly troublesome by teachers; teachers’ typical responses to classroom behaviour; classroom behaviour management strategies based on the manipulation of antecedents and natural consequences; and training teachers in the skills of Positive Teaching.