Motivating Young Native American Students to Pursue STEM Learning Through a Culturally Relevant Science Program

Journal of Science Education and Technology - Data indicate that females and ethnic/race minority groups are underrepresented in the science and engineering workforce calling for innovative...     

‘Our surgeons want this to be short and simple’: practices of in-hospital medication review as coordinated sociomaterial actions

ABSTRACT

Medication review, a systematic assessment of a patient’s medicines by a health care professional, is intended to prevent medication-related harms. A critical element of medication review concerns whether medication review is conducted in a coordinated way. This article draws from a case example of implementing medication review in two surgical wards of a Swedish regional hospital and aims to analyse how medication review is being accomplished with respect to the coordination of its actions. Using a practice-based ethnographic approach, we present several coordination mechanisms by illustrating how practices are connected to materials involved in medication review. Also, we show how common orientations, ends, and understandings expressed in different medication review practices contribute to the coordination of the practices. In conclusion, this article highlights the complexity of establishing and sustaining medication review as a coordinated practice in routine health care. By closely examining sociomaterial connections, this article sheds new light on the neglected issue of artefacts and arrangements in constituting and transforming a highly complex medication practice.     

Factors associated with changes in prestige of university departments

Four models of possible predictors of changes in prestige for university departments are advanced and tested using multiple regression. Changes in prestige are measured using a residual change score derived from the ratings of departments in various disciplines collected by American Council of Education in 1964 and 1969. The models are tested using data collected from 1,164 faculty in 80 university departments in 1968, and from published sources for that same year. Results indicate that a resource model is the best predictor for sociology, and that a research productivity model and an organizational model were good predictors of reputational change for political science and chemistry. For physics, only one organizational variable was an important predictor. The fourth model tested involved reputation of faculty within the department, and this model yielded the fewest significant results. A composite predictive equation was then used, retaining variables that had emerged as significant in earlier analyses. Results again exhibited large differences across scientific fields, suggesting that there is no single set of factors that can reliably predict improvement or decline in prestige across all disciplines.     

Transformations in learning and teaching through Initial Teacher Education

In England, little research has been carried out into how pre‐service secondary English teachers transform what they know as they learn to teach. They are seldom asked to reflect explicitly on the connections between the pedagogy of their undergraduate studies and their pedagogical experiences as student teachers. The initial teacher education committee of the National Association for the Teaching of English decided to explore these connections by asking student teachers on English Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) courses in five different university departments of education to respond to a series of questions at the start and end of the academic year 2004–2005. The questions fall into four broad areas: student teachers' experiences as learners at undergraduate level and developing ideas about teaching; the nature of the subject English; tensions encountered during the PGCE course; new learning about teaching. The purpose of this article is to discuss some patterns emerging from the research. The most prominent of these is student teachers' realisation that good teaching comes from teachers seeing themselves as learners. We argue that ‘reflexivity’ ( Moore, 2004 ) is a valuable way to help student teachers begin to understand this transformation from learner into learning teacher.     

A systems approach to child abuse: management and treatment issues

In the systems approach certain patterns of family interaction are seen as fitting with physical abuse towards children in the family. If these interactions are blocked or changed using specific family therapy interventions, the risk of further abuse will be significantly reduced. Identifying typical patterns of interaction that fit with abuse is a useful first step in planning the management of physically abusing families. A full systemic formulation of the presenting problem will address numerous systems and sub-systems simultaneously, notably the family-professional system, the family within the extended family/friendship system, and the nuclear family. Interventions may have to be directed on a variety of these levels. The Marlborough Family Service has assessed and treated over 100 child-abusing families. A family day unit is used as the setting, and a multifamily group as the principle medium of treatment. Within the day unit real life stress situations are recreated around everyday issues, enabling families to find new and nonviolent solutions to the problems of daily life. In the cases seen, approximately one-third have resulted in a recommendation of permanent alternative family care for the children. In those families reunited, the re-injury rate has been found to be extremely low.     

Adaptation de la Perspective à une Situation Complexe par des Elèves de 9–12 ans

The research described here deals with relationships between teaching situations and pupils’ notions in the context of three dimensional geometry lessons during compulsory schooling. Specifically, ways in which 9 to 12 year old children adapt perspective drawings of a cube in two quite complex situations are looked at. These situations require that assemblies of cubes be represented with different objectives in mind. Furthermore, the situations are created at the beginning of the learning process as implemented at two different school grades. The article presents the bread range of possible types of visual representations of cube assemblies. Three ways of adapting to these situations can be picked out in terms of this classification, namely:

— successful resolution of the coordination problems posed by perspective representation of assemblies involving several cubes;

— restricted use of perspective drawings for one simple part of the assembly;

— abandonment of perspective drawings in favour of other, figurative or semi-figurative method of graphical representation.

The effect of certain features of each situation considered on pupils’ adaptation is also brought out. These features were used to favour semi-figurative techniques of representation linked to spatial orientation procedures.     

Curricular quality and day‐to‐day learning activities in pre‐school

The purpose of this paper is to show how curricular quality is related to the day‐to‐day activities experienced by children and the pedagogical activities of staff, both coded through systematic target‐child observations. Data were drawn from the Effective Provision of Pre‐School Education (EPPE) and the Researching Effective Pedagogy in the Early Years (REPEY) studies. Curricular quality was measured by coding the ECERS‐E, an English curricular extension to the well‐known ECERS‐R. In centres scoring high on the ECERS‐E, staff engaged in pedagogical practices that included more ‘sustained shared thinking’ and more ‘direct teaching’ such as questioning or modelling. In high‐scoring centres, children were also observed participating in more activities associated with early reading, emergent writing and active listening. Children in centres assessed as ‘adequate’ spent more time in activities associated with the ‘Physical Development’ and ‘Creative’ curriculum. Thus the ECERS‐E gives higher scores to pedagogical practices and activities where staff take a more active role in children’s learning, including scaffolding young children’s play, especially in the communication and literacy domains of the curriculum.     

The two faces of political science studies—junior and senior students’ thoughts about their education and their future profession

The article reports on an empirical small scaled interview study among junior and senior students in the political science programme in a Swedish University. The aim is to describe how students at various stages of their studies conceive of their education as well as their future professional life. Questions about their identity as students have also been posed. The results indicate that a programme with a major emphasis on political science appears to have two different faces as experienced by the students. The first half of the programme is experienced as traditional liberal arts studies, i.e., the students enrol in a ‘personal bildung project’ and conceive of political scientists as a kind of watchdog for democracy. Students in the latter part of their studies report an emerging identity as investigators and civil servants and an appreciation of the parts of the studies that enhance their generic skills.     

Inquiry as a Members’ Phenomenon: Young Children as Competent Inquirers

Understanding children’s inquiry often draws on exogenous understanding (i.e., scientists’ inquiry, classroom expectations) without first understanding inquiry in children’s everyday lives. In contrast, we examine young children’s inquiry in their families to better understand their competent engagement in inquiry. Specifically, we develop an endogenous representation of inquiry as a members’ phenomenon (IMP)—a representation formulated by participants in the course of their own activity. IMP highlights key moments in inquiry—beginning by orienting to inquiry, making progress by drawing on sensemaking resources, and orienting to ending inquiry. This representation also allows us to recognize evidence of young children’s competence in managing interactional, affective, and epistemic challenges inherent in these key moments of inquiry; the diverse array of sensemaking resources through which children address those challenges; and a range of children’s interests and concerns addressed within their inquiry. Furthermore, IMP provides a prism for reconceptualizing learning from learners’ perspective: attending to how participants orient to a moment of inquiry, inquire together, and come to what counts to them as a satisfactory end to their inquiry. This representation of inquiry is an important step in basic learning sciences research and informative for the design of science and other domain learning environments.     

Beyond Walter Cronkite’s “And That’s The Way It Is”

Television anchors are key public figures in the American news media, vital for the ratings success of their outlets. This study uses content analysis and framing theory to examine US network news anchors’ role at a pivotal career moment—the last minutes in the all-powerful anchor chair—their swan songs. These final words are examined for messages as anchors express gratitude, sum up careers, provide journalism insights, and pronounce final words of wisdom. The textual analysis revealed several dominant frames—becoming one with the audience, expressions of gratitude to staff and viewers, the anchors’ perception of their historical role noting predecessors and successors, and insightful wisdom about journalism’s role in society. The visual analysis showed a style reinforcing a professional presence, signaling authority, and objectivity. Each American lodestar anchor was different, yet they were similar in how they said goodbye and how they wanted to be remembered.