LEARNING FROM A TAPE‐SLIDE PROGRAMME

Two groups of students were shown a tape‐slide programme on the history of photography. The use of a number of dark blank slides as a cueing device in the experimental programme had no significant effect on the retention of information from the audio channel, but did significantly increase the amount of visual information recalled on an immediate retention test.     

Instructions to Adopt an External Focus Enhance Muscular Endurance

Abstract

The influence of internal (movement focus) and external (outcome focus) attentional-focusing instructions on muscular endurance were investigated using three exercise protocols with experienced exercisers. Twenty-three participants completed a maximal repetition, assisted bench-press test on a Smith's machine. An external focus of attention resulted in significant (p < .05) improvements in performance compared to the internal focus of attention, but not the control condition. Seventeen participants completed repetitions to failure at 75% 1-RM on free bench-press and squat exercises. In both tasks, externally focused instructions resulted in significantly greater repetitions to failure than control and internal focus conditions (p < .05). These results support previous research showing beneficial effects of externally focused instructions on movement efficiency.     

The Efficiency of Film in Education

Film has now been with us as a visual aid in education for almost fifty years, although one can only really say that it has been widely used during the last twenty-five years. ‘Widely’, of course, should be defined, for unfortunately many teachers show educational films as a treat, a change, or as a means of having a break from a hard day or a week of teaching. I am sure we all know how often one member of staff in a school or college will ask his colleague if he may bring his students in to watch a film. I think one must really admit that sometimes the motives for showing a film have been to have a break oneself, or to gain time for marking, or to deal with one of those numerous tasks of administration which trouble every teacher at some stage. Nevertheless, there are numerous times, of course, when teachers seriously expose their students to carefully chosen films at a carefully selected time in the syllabus.     

Instructions to adopt an external focus enhance muscular endurance

The influence of internal (movement focus) and external (outcome focus) attentional-focusing instructions on muscular endurance were investigated using three exercise protocols with experienced exercisers. Twenty-three participants completed a maximal repetition, assisted bench-press test on a Smith's machine. An external focus of attention resulted in significant (p < .05) improvements in performance compared to the internal focus of attention, but not the control condition. Seventeen participants completed repetitions to failure at 75% 1-RM on free bench press and squat exercises. In both tasks, externally focused instructions resulted in significantly greater repetitions to failure than control and internal focus conditions (p < .05). These results support previous research showing beneficial effects of externally focused instructions on movement efficiency.     

VOICES IN EDUCATION: ACCOUNTABILITY IN TEACHER EDUCATION AND THE NATIONAL COUNCIL ON TEACHER QUALITY

Abstract

This article explains several reasons why multicultural preservice teacher education is important and suggests some ways it can be better accomplished. The authors make a strong case for teacher education programs to be more deliberate about preparing European Americans to teach ethnically diverse students of color. They argue that this explicit professional preparation is needed because of the increasing racial, cultural, and linguistic divide between teachers (predominately European American) and K–12 students (increasingly from ethnic groups of color). Two other factors underscore the need for more multicultural teacher education: the fear of diversity and the resistance to dealing with race and racism frequently expressed by students enrolled in teacher education programs. To overcome these problems and better prepare preservice teachers to work effectively with ethnically diverse students the authors suggest a two‐part program of professional development.     

A Quantitative Comparison of Teacher Education: students’ experiences at two colleges in England and the Republic of Ireland

This paper examines and compares some aspects of the academic and social experiences of first-year teacher education students at two colleges, one in England and the other in the Republic of Ireland. It describes the transition from second level (and, for some, the transition from further education) to third level education and offers an account of the integration of first-year students into the academic and social system of their institution. In comparing the experiences of students in both colleges, we use inferential statistics, thus assuming the legitimacy of inferring differences in the populations from which the samples come. Although we have no reason to believe that the students and colleges in our study are untypical of teacher education students and their respective colleges more generally in England and Ireland, we acknowledge the need for tentativeness in making the leap to the broader population and for further research to explore the national and international comparisons using a wider range of students and colleges.