Promoting Issues-based STSE Perspectives in Science Teacher Education: Problems of Identity and Ideology

Although science, technology, society and environment (STSE) education has gained considerable force in the past few years, it has made fewer strides in practice. We suggest that science teacher identity plays a role in the adoption of STSE perspectives. Simply put, issues-based STSE education challenges traditional images of a science teacher and science instructional ideologies. In this paper, we briefly describe the development of a multimedia documentary depicting issues-based STSE education in a teacher’s class and its subsequent implementation with 64 secondary student-teachers at a large Canadian university. Specifically, we set out to explore: (1) science teacher candidates’ responses to a case of issues-based STSE teaching, and (2) how science teacher identity intersects with the adoption of STSE perspectives. Findings reveal that although teacher candidates expressed confidence and motivation regarding teaching STSE, they also indicated decreased likelihood to teach these perspectives in their early years of teaching. Particular tensions or problems of practice consistently emerged that helped explain this paradox – including issues related to: control and autonomy; support and belonging; expertise and negotiating curriculum; politicization and action; and biases and ideological bents. We conclude our paper with a discussion regarding the lessons learned about STSE education, teacher identity and the role of multimedia case methods.     

Beginning teacher resilience in remote Australia: a place-based perspective

Enhancing resilience is key to reducing teacher attrition and addressing the challenges of the profession but scant research exists on resilience in regional and remote settings, where there is a shortage of quality, specialist and lead teachers. The aim of this study was to combine ecological and relational perspectives on resilience to examine pre-service and early career teacher resilience in the remote context of central Australia. The findings suggest that beginning teacher resilience in central Australia involves a particular set of enablers and constraints which are characterised by teachers’ capacity to build connections to place, connections as a learner and connections in relationships. A transactional systems model is presented that articulates the dynamism of the resilience processes and offers a way to better understand the ecological interdependencies unique to a particular context and culture. This understanding will enable teachers, initial teacher educators, school leaders and policy makers to better address the challenges facing this profession.     

Stepping Inside an English Classroom: Investigating the Everyday Experiences of an English Teacher

This essay presents an English teacher’s inquiry into her professional practice in an institutional setting that is heavily regulated by standards-based reforms. Rather than something external to her, she sees those reforms as part of an internal conflict that affects her capacity to be fully responsive to her students. In dialogue with a colleague, she writes stories that reaffirm the deeply relational character of her work, both as an ethically responsive stance and as a means to understand the socially mediated character of her everyday world. She attempts to find alternative ways of seeing and accounting for her work than the reified mentality of standards-based reforms, positing a world that is relational, rather than compartmentalised, where our chief responsibility as teachers is to cultivate a sensitivity towards others around us, rather than continually being compelled to classify and judge them.     

Student trust in teachers and student perceptions of safety: positive predictors of student identification with school

This study examined the effects of student trust in teacher and student perceptions of safety on identification with school. Data were collected from one large urban district in an eastern state. Participants included 5441 students in 3rd through 12th grades from 49 schools. Students responded to surveys that assessed student trust in teachers, safety and identification with school. Free and Reduced Lunch (a proxy for SES), school level and ethnicity were included as control variables. Two hypotheses guided the study. Hypothesis 1 stated that student trust, safety and identification with school would positively covary. Hypothesis 2 predicted that student trust in teachers and perceptions of safety were school properties that would individually and collectively explain differences among schools in student identification with school. Both hypotheses were confirmed. The results of the hierarchical linear model indicated that student trust in teachers and school safety accounted for 98% of the 22% of variance that exists among schools in student identification. SES, school level and ethnicity were not significant predictors of identification with school. Findings suggest that student trust in teachers and perceptions of safety may significantly contribute to student identification above the effects of SES, ethnicity and school level.     

Context-related problems and university students’ dropout intentions—the buffering effect of personal best goals

This study investigates the effects of contextual and motivational factors as well as, crucially, their interaction in predicting university students’ dropout intentions. We focus on context-related problems in students’ degree program as contextual factors and students’ personal best goals (PB goals) as motivational factors. The sample of this study comprised 432 university students (74.3% female) enrolled in master’s degree programs at Austrian universities. Data was analyzed by means of structural equation modeling and latent moderated structural equation modeling. The results indicated that PB goals were negatively associated with dropout intentions, while context-related problems were positively associated with dropout intentions. In addition, the context-related problems × PB goals interaction effect proved significant and negatively predicted dropout intentions. By showing that the positive relation between context-related problems and dropout intentions can be reversed by increasing PB goals, we provide empirical evidence of the buffering effect of PB goals in the face of context-related problems.

     

Toward a Typology of Business Education in the Internet Age*

Many diverse forces are motivating institutions of higher education, particularly business schools, to develop and deliver education via the Internet. As higher education institutions explore this opportunity, the question of how courses and degree programs should be designed for effective online delivery via the Internet is a nontrivial concern and challenge. To address this concern and challenge, this paper articulates, defines, and justifies a typology consisting of four types of online distance education that can be pursued by institutions of higher education. The four online distance education types—Overview Model, Overview Model with Feedback, Technical‐Skills Model, and Managerial Learning Model—can be differentiated along a number of content‐related, delivery‐related, and learning‐related issues and have applicability at various educational levels. In addition, the paper highlights and discusses five key lessons for institutions to consider in their desire to launch online distance education initiatives. These lessons provide insights not only for launch success but also for the ongoing sustainability of online distance education.     

Dissociation predicts later attention problems in sexually abused children

OBJECTIVE: The goals of this research are to develop and test a prospective model of attention problems in sexually abused children that includes fixed variables (e.g., gender), trauma, and disclosure-related pathways. METHODS: At Time 1, fixed variables, trauma variables, and stress reactions upon disclosure were assessed in 156 children aged 8-13 years. At the Time 2 follow-up (8-36 months following the initial interview), 56 of the children were assessed for attention problems. RESULTS: A path analysis involving a series of hierarchically nested, ordinary least squares multiple regression analyses indicated two direct paths to attention problems including the child's relationship to the perpetrator (beta=.23) and dissociation measured immediately after disclosure (beta=.53), while controlling for concurrent externalizing behavior (beta=.43). Post-traumatic stress symptoms were only indirectly associated with attention problems via dissociation. Taken together, these pathways accounted for approximately 52% of the variance in attention problems and provided an excellent fit to the data. CONCLUSIONS: Children who report dissociative symptoms upon disclosure of CSA and/or were sexually abused by someone within their family are at an increased risk of developing attention problems. PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS: Findings from this study indicate that children who experienced sexual abuse at an earlier age, by someone within their family, and/or report symptoms of dissociation during disclosure are especially likely to benefit from intervention. Effective interventions should involve (1) providing emotion regulation and coping skills; and (2) helping children to process traumatic aspects of the abuse to reduce the cyclic nature of traumatic reminders leading to unmanageable stress and dissociation.     

Digital writing practices: a close look at one grade three author

This paper reports on the digital writing practices of a Grade Three primary school student as he used an iPad to plan, produce and share digital texts. The case study acknowledges that writing is undergoing a period of great change in many classrooms and works to show how a student author has interpreted and produced digital texts with new technologies. In particular, the specific practices, digital materials and literacy concepts will be explicated through analyses of two digital texts created by this author. This focus acknowledges the ways texts can be planned, produced and shared using multiple modes and media. These social practices and the wider learning opportunities afforded through the flexible and recursive ways students produce text have yet to be fully explored. This paper also extends current understandings about digital writing practices through its examination of the connections between and among multiple apps as an author crafts digital text.     

Environmental learning in online social networks: adopting environmentally responsible behaviors

Online social networks are increasingly important information and communication tools for young people and for the environmental movement. Networks may provide the motivation for young adults to increase environmental behaviors by increasing their knowledge of environmental issues and of the specific actions they can take to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This study examined an application within Facebook.com – the largest online social network in the world – that allowed users to post climate change news stories from other websites and comment on those stories. A survey revealed that users of the social networking application reported above average knowledge of climate change science and that self‐reported environmental behaviors increased during young people's involvement with the Facebook application. Focus groups indicated that peer role modeling through interaction on the site motivated pro‐environmental behaviors, that is, behavior that seeks to minimize the negative impact of one's actions on the natural and built world. Participation in a community of like‐minded users spurred many participants to learn more about climate change and do more to limit its impact.