Television and Families: What Do Young Children Watch with Their Parents?

A sample of 271 3- and 5-year-olds and their families participated in a 2-year longitudinal study of television viewing patterns. 5 1-week diaries for all family members were collected at 6-month intervals. Programs were categorized as: (1) child informative, (2) child entertainment, (3) news and informative, (4) sports, (5) comedy, (6) drama, (7) action-adventure, and (8) variety-game. The majority of child programs were viewed without parents, while the majority of adult programs were watched with parents. Coviewing patterns of adult programs were predicted from parents' individual viewing habits, but not from the child's. Coviewing declined with age. Parental encouragement and regulation of viewing were orthogonal. Children whose parents encouraged viewing watched more child informative programming; children of restrictive parents watched less entertainment programming. Encouraging parents coviewed more than nonencouraging parents. Results support the assertion that parental viewing preferences, habits, and orientations toward television influence children's viewing, both with and without parents.     

行为重塑大脑

通过心理刺激和肢体训练，可以出人意料地塑造大脑，这让“不用则废”这一格言的信奉者又得了一分。     

大西洋岸边的动物奇观

海滩上游和杂草丛生的沼泽地上正在上演一场追逐嬉戏的声音大合奏.一个轻柔的声音夹杂其中,讲述着千千万万年千千万万的马蹄鲎和候鸟的故事.     

Cooperative learning in industrial-sized biology classes

This study examined the impact of cooperative learning activities on student achievement and attitudes in large-enrollment (>250) introductory biology classes. We found that students taught using a cooperative learning approach showed greater improvement in their knowledge of course material compared with students taught using a traditional lecture format. In addition, students viewed cooperative learning activities highly favorably. These findings suggest that encouraging students to work in small groups and improving feedback between the instructor and the students can help to improve student outcomes even in very large classes. These results should be viewed cautiously, however, until this experiment can be replicated with additional faculty. Strategies for potentially improving the impact of cooperative learning on student achievement in large courses are discussed.     

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Social Services and HumanIm, prepare welfare applicants to find and retain employment to improve their lives. The intensive educational program utilizes the constructivism approach to learning, incorporating both developmental and social learning theories.     

Strong back,legs, feet,and a good pair of shoes: Connecting stories of inspiring teachers to coursework in teacher education

Abstract

Because of their belief in the social interactionist model of teacher education, the authors read aloud to various undergraduate and graduate classes excerpts from published teacher stories, either vignettes or opinion pieces. Their immediate goals were to help build class community, advertise books that the students might then return to on their own, personalize discussion topics, and inspire continuing reflection and pride in the chosen profession. A more long‐term goal was to get students to internalize stories that would help guide their actions in the classroom. This article describes their use of teacher stories and includes some of the readings as well as a comprehensive list of teacher stories consulted. Student reactions were varied depending on the stories and the contexts of the readings. Reactions included apathy, evaluation of the teacher, self‐reflective journal entries, and a refusal to pass a book on to peers without the promise of being able to take it home. The authors are reading/language arts educators, who recommend the use of teacher stories for teacher education in all fields.