Making values education everyone's business

Adults are typically required to make values‐based decisions multiple times each day.Why, then, should a discussion of values not be explicit across the college curriculum and intentionally integrated into the cocurriculum? The authors describe a place where the work of values education is widely shared.     

Aspiring Teachers and Urban Education Programs

The Urban Review - Research stresses a need for more contextually nuanced urban teacher preparation programs that explore racially oppressive structures in society. This article presents a case...     

Potentiation and overshadowing between landmarks and environmental geometric cues

Rats were required in three experiments to find one of two submerged platforms that were situated in the same pair of diagonally opposite corners of a rectangular grey swimming pool. The experimental groups were trained with landmarks, comprising A4 cards attached to the walls, located in the corners containing the platforms. For the control groups, the landmarks were situated in the corners containing the platforms for half of the trials, and in the other corners for the remaining trials. Learning about the positions of the platforms with reference to the shape of the pool was overshadowed in the experimental groups when the landmarks were white, and enhanced when the landmarks were black. A fourth experiment assessed whether geometric cues influenced the control acquired by the landmarks. As in the previous experiments, the presence of the geometric cues overshadowed learning about the landmarks when they were white, but enhanced learning when the landmarks were black.     

Interference and auditory short-term memory in the bottlenosed dolphin

Interference in auditory short-term memory in the bottlenosed dolphin,Tursiops truncatus (Montagu), was studied using a delayed matching-to-sample task. At each trial, one of two sample sounds, chosen randomly, was projected underwater for 4 sec and then, after a variable delay interval, both sounds were presented. A response to the sound matching the initial sample was reinforced. Correct matching was significantly reduced following short intervals between trials in combination with long delays after the sample (proactive interference), or when a near continuous irrelevant sound was inserted into the delay interval (retroactive interference). There was rapid habituation to interference if the irrelevant sound was short in duration relative to the delay interval. For both proactive and retroactive interference, the errors were predominantly responses to the sample sound appropriate to the prior trial rather than to the current trial, indicating that memory for the relative recency of events (temporal memory) was degraded by interference. When interference was deleted or minimized, temporal memory remained nearly perfect over 30-sec delay intervals, the longest tested. The importance of distinguishing between temporal memory and nontemporal, or event, memory in different forms of the delayed matching task was emphasized.     

Improving quality of the child care environment through a consultancy programme for centre directors

This study examined the effects of a newly developed on-site consultancy programme to improve global quality of the child care environment in non-parental child care centres for 0- to 4-year-old children as measured with the ITERS-R/ECERS-R. Using a randomised controlled trial with a pretest, posttest, and follow-up test, we compared 35 experimental group with 33 control group. The consultancy programme comprised three consultations in total. Analysis on the items that were specifically targeted during the consultancy showed a significant improvement on these targeted items between pretest and posttest and between posttest and follow-up. The effect of the consultancy programme on the total scores (including the non-targeted items) was not significant.     

Taylorism,Tylerism and Performance Indicators: defending the indefensible?

This paper explores some of the antecedents to the recent growing interest in the United Kingdom in the use of educational performance indicators, and links it in particular to aspects of both Taylorist and Tylerist philosophies. It attempts to distinguish between different constructed meanings of performance indicators evident in both policy statements and practice. Whilst acknowledging the many potential problems inherent in the adoption of this approach to evaluation, the paper argues that both the nature and use of educational performance indicators are crucially shaped by factors such as purpose, authorship, focus and audience. The paper outlines an approach to performance indicators which tacitly addresses a critique of Taylorist and Tylerist influences, adopting an optimistic view that indicators can be made professionally relevant and useful. At the heart of the paper is an account of a collaborative evaluation project which, over the last 5 years, has supported the development of teacher‐generated indicators across some 80 schools and colleges in a consortium of six local education authorities. Despite the difficulties which have been encountered in this approach, the paper concludes that performance indicators can be made professionally relevant and useful.     

Resilience in higher education students: a scoping review

ABSTRACT

The health, wellbeing and employability of university students are key considerations within higher education. In response, interest in student resilience is on the rise. Reviews of contemporary resilience literature highlight both conceptual and methodological weaknesses, issues which hamper attempts to design effective resilience interventions. To inform the design of a student resilience program, to be piloted at three Australian universities, a scoping review of resilience specific to the higher education context was undertaken. Searches of three electronic databases (PsychINFO, CINAHL and ProQuest) were conducted. Seventy-two peer-reviewed articles published between 2007 and 2017 were included in the review. While the review reaffirms the conceptual and methodological issues found in previous resilience research, it provides a useful critique of key issues in relation to university student resilience and interventions to enhance students’ resilience. Recommendations for educators and researchers are provided.     

What traits do academics value in student writing? Insights from a psychometric approach

The number of students studying for university qualifications through the medium of English and for whom English is not their first language has increased significantly in recent years. This, along with efforts to widen access to those under-represented in higher education, has brought into focus the question of what academics see as constituting a ‘good’ piece of student writing. In this small-scale pilot study, Thurstone’s method of paired comparisons was used to establish a scale for ranking six essays in terms of how favourably each was viewed by academic lecturers when compared with every other essay in the set. Kelly’s repertory grid technique was subsequently applied to interviews conducted with the same lecturers to establish which traits they associated with the upper and lower end of the scale. Findings suggest that this methodology represents a promising approach to establishing what academic tutors regard as the key elements of good writing and thus provides an indication of what English teachers might fruitfully focus on in their teaching of the skill.     

Psychodrama and sociodrama in primary and secondary education

Students need practice in decision making and problem solving, and sociodrama can provide this practice in a safe, nonthreatening context. It helps them to become aware of the typical ways they solve problems, and it increases both social and personal awareness. It may promote acceptance, cooperation, and cohesiveness in the classroom. Students readily adapt to this kind of activity and find it both enjoyable and stimulating. It is recommended as a useful method in the classroom and guidance and counseling setting for helping students understand their own behavior and the behavior of others.