Photo essay: The border is …

Based on autobiographical data, the paper describes six ideal types of teacher identities conceived as different patterns of perceiving and coping with professional demands. One hundred and twenty full‐time seventh through ninth grade teachers were selected in a stratified random sample. Teachers’ experience ranged from 5 to 29 years and 12.5% of the selected teachers were female. Data were collected in the form of semi‐structured interviews that started with a short overview of the interviewee's professional biography [Stegreiferzählung]and continued with self‐image and attitudes, social and professional mobility, vocation, start as a classroom teacher, professional competence, best years and burn‐out, professional satisfaction, and social network questions. The first step of data analysis included content and frequency analyses of these topics. In a second step, the Stegreiferzahlungwas analyzed by classifying the different biographical phases and defining biographical types. In a third step, identity‐types were constructed by using the biographical type as an “independent” variable to analyze the systematically explored topics according to Mex Weber's method of forming ideal types. This led to the six ideal types of teacher identity: the stabilization‐type, the development‐type, the diversification‐type, the problem‐type, the crisis‐type, and the resignation‐type.     

The effects of passive and active learning on student preference and performance in an undergraduate basic science course

Active learning is based on self-directed and autonomous teaching methods, whereas passive learning is grounded in instructor taught lectures. An animal physiology course was studied over a two-year period (Year 1, n = 42 students; Year 2, n = 30 students) to determine the effects of student-led seminar (andragogical) and lecture (pedagogical) teaching methods on students' retention of information and performance. For each year of the study, the course was divided into two time periods. The first half was dedicated to instructor-led lectures, followed by a control survey in which the students rated the efficiency of pedagogical learning on a five-point Likert scale from one (strongly disagree) to five (strongly agree). During the second period, students engaged in andragogical learning via peer-led seminars. An experimental survey was then administered to students using the same scale as above to determine students' preferred teaching method. Raw examination scores and survey results from both halves of the course were statistically analyzed by ANOVA with Newman-Keuls multiple comparison test. By the end of the study, student preference for peer-led seminars increased [mean ± SD: (2.47 ± 0.94)/(4.03 ± 1.36), P < 0.04], and examination scores significantly increased [mean ± SD: (73.91% ± 13.18)/(85.77 ± 5.22), P < 0.001]. A majority of students (68.8%) preferred a method that contained peer-led seminars and instructor-led lectures. These results may indicate that integration of active and passive learning into undergraduate courses may have greater benefit in terms of student preference and performance than either method alone.     

For Whom Are We Building These Gems? Redefining Impact at the Museo Textil de Oaxaca

Abstract Can museums still be valuable to populations that don’t visit them? The city of Oaxaca, Mexico is home to a flourishing museum scene, but despite a desire by those museum professionals to serve the Oaxacan community, the city’s museums largely lack a local visiting base. This article, which reflects on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Oaxaca in 2010, explores the implications of the disjunction between intention, assumption, and reality in some of Oaxaca’s museums, especially the Museo Textil de Oaxaca, a small private textile museum in the city’s historical center. By considering the museum’s inherent value and its innovative attempts to tangibly impact a specific community outside of the museum edifice, I suggest a way to rethink impact in museums by, in effect, turning them inside out: shifting the focus away from “public value driven by a universal right to cultural access” ( Stein 2012, 219 ), toward more tangible, external outcomes, including direct interventions in the dynamic world beyond the quiet galleries.     

Correlates of school-day physical activity in preschool students

This study examined the relationship among sex, body mass index, motor skill competence (MSC), perceived physical competence (PPC), and school-day physical activity in preschool students (N = 34). Physical activity was assessed by steps accumulated during the school day, while MSC and PPC were assessed with the Test of Gross Motor Development-2nd edition (Ulrich, 2000) and the Pictorial Scale of Perceived Competence and Social Acceptance (Harter & Pike, 1984). Regression analyses revealed that preschool students' locomotor ability accounted for 21 % (p = .007) of the variance associated with school-day physical activity. The findings support an association between participants' ability to locomote and be physically active. The findings warrant future investigations to examine the relationship between locomotor skills and physical activity behaviors.     

Contextual challenges of implementing learner‐centred pedagogy: the case of the problem‐solving approach in Uganda

This article explores teachers’ experiences of implementing the problem‐solving approach; a learner centred pedagogic innovation prescribed by a centrally mandated curriculum in Uganda. It presents teachers’ interpretations of the pedagogic principles suggested by the innovation as well as their accounts of challenges of implementing the pedagogic approach. The findings suggest that the teachers’ implementation of the problem‐solving approach was far more regulated by contextual affordances and constraints within schools and the broader education system and society than by their interpretations of the official curriculum. These findings highlight the influence of structural contextual factors in regulating pedagogic practice and teachers’ take‐up of learner‐centred pedagogies in Africa. The evidence from this paper suggests the need for education researchers in developing countries such as Uganda to focus on helping teachers develop strategies for teaching large classes as learner‐centred pedagogies have a bleak future in the region.     

The Information Environment and Universal Service

This essay focuses on universal service and the Internet as means to support social and political participation. The emphasis on access to telecommunications systems in conventional approaches to universal service is contrasted with access to content. A model of the information environment is described that accounts for the roles of content and conduit, both of which are necessary conditions to achieve true access. A method is outlined for employing information indicators to observe or measure the information environment.     

The last step: Adding theory to practice

Colleges and universities have not adequately dealt with the education of the experienced adult student. Currently these students are forced to choose between traditional courses and independent studies and the assessment of learning. Courses and independent studies force students to spend time re-learning that which they've learned through experience. Even worse, students don't learn to integrate theoretical knowledge with practical knowledge. Assessment, on the other hand, places little emphasis on theoretical knowledge and provides little opportunity for interaction with other experts in the field. This paper outlines the problems inherent in those options and presents another alternative: educational workshops which focus on the theories in a field and the relationships between those theories and practical experience. In these workshops students gain the theoretical knowledge so often not gained through experience, and have the opportunity to interact with and learn from other experienced adults without being forced into the traditional classroom geared toward younger less experienced students.