Instructional Issues for Teaching Assistants

This study examined teaching assistants' perceptions of various instructional issues and explored whether their perceptions were affected by nationality, gender, and academic discipline. The study generated significant, positive results. Logistic regression with dummy coding revealed significant predictors of teaching assistants' instructional roles, teaching style, instructional methods, communication strategies, and potential problems. Discussion of the results, implications, and recommendations for future research are included.where she coordinates the campus-wide TA training and development program     

Scientists' views of science,models of writing,and science writing practices

Written and oral communications and the processes of writing and reading are highly valued within the scientific community; scientists who communicate well are successful in gaining recognition and support from members of their own communities, the research funding agencies, and the wider society. Yet how do scientists achieve this proficiency? Are expert scientists equally expert writers in and of science? Do scientists' perceptions of the nature of science influence their writing strategies and processes, and their beliefs about the role of writing in knowledge construction? This study used a questionnaire and semistructured interviews to document these perceptions, strategies, processes, and beliefs in a nonrandom sample of Canadian university scientists and engineers. The results indicate that the scientists subscribed to a contemporary evaluativist view of science, used common writing strategies, held similar beliefs about scientific writing and nonscientific writing, and agreed that writing generates insights and clarifies ambiguity in science. The engineers held a different view of technology than the common views of science or technology as simply applied science. These findings were slightly different than those found for American scientists from a large land‐grant university. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 41: 338–369, 2004     

Heuristics of Reasoning and Analogy in Children''s Visual Perspective Taking

We propose that children's reasoning about others' visual perspectives is guided by simple heuristics based on a perceiver's line of sight and salient features of the object met by that line. In 3 experiments employing a 2-perceiver analogy task, children aged 3-6 were generally better able to reproduce a perceiver's perspective if a visual cue in the perceiver's line of sight sufficed to distinguish it from alternatives. Children had greater difficulty when the task hinged on attending to configural cues. Availability of distinctive cues affixed on the objects' sides facilitated solution of the symmetrical orientations. These and several other related findings reported in the literature are traced to children's reliance on heuristics of reasoning.     

Curriculum Compartmentalisation?: A futures perspective on environmental education

Children aged 5-12 years were asked to think about what their environment would look like when they were grandparents. Children from two regions of Australia (the Australian Capital Territory and rural New South Wales) drew and discussed their visions for the future. This paper examines the data and discusses the implications for science education, technology education and environmental education. Futures education is discussed within the context of the differing ways that the issues identified can be addressed within schools.     

Tower of Hanoi disk-transfer task: Influences of strategy knowledge and learning on performance

Tower of Hanoi has become a popular tool in cognitive and neuropsychology to assess a set of behaviors collectively referred to as executive functions. Substantial variability in performance on the Tower of Hanoi (TOH) disk-transfer task among normally functioning young adults, and potential contributions to these individual differences, were examined. In this expanded 60-problem version of the four-disk TOH, the degree to which problem administration (blocked vs. random) and strategy knowledge influenced overall performance and changes in accuracy across problems was examined. Eighty-seven college students were randomly assigned to a Blocked Group (problems given in ascending order of move-length) and a Random Group (problems given in a random order). After administration of the TOH task, participants described their problem solving and these verbal protocols were analyzed with regard to four elements of a strategic approach to problem solving. Problem administration order demonstrated no effect on task performance or on expressed strategy knowledge; however, strategy knowledge did predict performance on the TOH. An expected decrease in performance across trials was observed in the Blocked Group, and an increase in accuracy in the Random group indicated a learning effect. Strategy knowledge did not interact with these changes in performance across the items. These results suggest that external cues do not influence performance on the TOH to the same extent as individual differences in strategy induction relatively early in the problem solving process.     

Curiosity as a personality variable influencing learning in a learner controlled lesson with and without advisement

This study investigated the effect of curiosity on learning art education facts and concepts by first- and second-graders in computer-based interactive learner control environments with and without advisement. High-curious subjects, who generally prefer a higher degree of unfamiliarity and uncertainty, were predicted to perform better in either learner control environment than low-curious children. All children regardless of curiosity level were expected to perform better in the advisement condition than in the no-advisement condition. As predicted, a significant difference in achievement scores favored the high-curious children in both conditions. Although there was no main treatment effect, exploratory analyses revealed an unpredicted significant interaction between grade level and treatment. First-graders performed significantly better with advisement than without advisement while second-graders performed better without. Examination of treatment usage data indicated that first-graders followed advisement more than did second-graders.     

Windows,Bridges and Mirrors: Building Culturally Responsive Early Childhood Classrooms through the Integration of Literacy and the Arts

This article investigates how instructors can utilize the integration of early literacy skills and the arts to cultivate the appreciation and celebration of cultures in early childhood classrooms. The theoretical framework is developed through three personal accounts establishing a rationale for the importance of a viable home to school connection for young children. Finally, the suggested activities support the transference of theory into classroom practice.     

Relational and Overt Aggression in Disruptive Adolescents: Prediction from Early Social Representations and Links with Concurrent Problems

Children's representations of conflict and distress situations at 7 years were examined as developmental precursors to relational aggression, overt aggression, and psychiatric symptoms in early adolescence. Children were identified in early adolescence. Children were identified in preschool as normally developing or with behavior problems. Overt, but not relational, aggression, was correlated with concurrent disruptive symptoms in adolescence. Childhood predictors of adolescent aggression were found only for girls: Early hostile themes predicted more relational and overt aggression, while prosocial themes predicted less relational aggression. Also for girls only, early emotions foretold later functioning: Sadness predicted a higher ratio of relational to overt aggression, while inexpressiveness predicted disruptive, anxiety, and depressive symptoms. Relational and overt aggression are discussed with regard to sex differences in symptom changes over time.     

The Flunk Heard Round the World

In April 1998, the state of Massachusetts implemented its first-ever high-stakes teacher test, requiring a pass of all those who sought a teaching license. Fifty-nine percent of teacher candidates failed, and their flunk was heard in newspaper and television stories around the world. This article presents brief highlights from a study of the impact of the Massachusetts test on teacher education at five higher education sites in the state. Contrary to expectations based on research about the impact of high stakes tests in K-12 schools, the study indicated that the teacher test had little impact on teacher education curriculum or program structures. Drawing on a market-policy lens, the article suggests that, instead, one of the major impacts of the test was its contribution to the grand narrative about teaching and teacher education as culprits in what is wrong with public schools and public education, which in turn supports a larger political agenda for privatization and a market approach to educational reform.