The Politics of Terror: Rereading Harry Potter

This article claims that J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series, with its use of magic, frightening storylines, and character ambiguity is beneficial to children who are dealing with issues related to terror and terrorism. The author explains that the scenarios presented in Rowling's series teach children strategies for coping with both physical and psychological victimization, and argues that the series explores morality issues, allowing child readers to analyze terror-related questions such as why some people are considered evil, why difference is often believed to be bad, and why good people do bad things. It is acknowledged that many critics believe that the same elements claimed as beneficial in the essay are actually immoral and dangerous to child readers. These critics' evaluations are countered in two ways: first, the author uses expert evidence to demonstrate that children are capable of distinguishing between fantasy and reality by the age of 5, making fantasy the most viable means for children to cope with terror; and second, the author examines and interprets specific passages within the series to demonstrate how various scenes lead children to explore important, yet frightening issues while remaining in an emotionally safe state. The author concludes that the series has proven to be more beneficial than harmful by presenting evidence gathered from actual child readers who state that the Harry Potter series has allowed them to confront and cope with terror and terrorism in their own lives.     

School Adjustment in Sixth Graders: Parenting Transitions, Family Climate, and Peer Norm Effects

This study examined whether sixth graders' (mean age = 11.86 years) adjustment to the school context (assessed by grades, achievement scores, and disruptive behavior) was affected by factors from both the family context (represented by students' reports of the number of parenting transitions experienced as well as current levels of supervision, acceptance, autonomy granting, and conflict in the family) and the peer context (represented by students' perceptions of peer norms supporting academic excellence). School adjustment was related to the number of parenting transitions experienced, family climate, and peer norms as well as to higher-order relations involving family climate and peer norms such that ( a ) high grade point averages occurred at only moderate levels of family supervision, ( b ) achievement scores were positively related to supervision at only low levels of family autonomy granting, and ( c ) grade point average was positively related to peer norms at only high levels of family acceptance.     

Self-Operated Verbal Instructions for People with Intellectual and Visual Disabilities: Using instruction clusters after task acquisition

Three adults with intellectual and visual disabilities were taught vocationally relevant tasks through the use of a self-operated verbal instruction system. During training, the system presented one verbal instruction per task step, individually. After training, the system presented instructions arranged in clusters/groups of two. Data showed that during training all participants achieved percentages of correct task performance exceeding 90. The subsequent use of instruction clusters was effective in maintaining high levels of correct performance for each adult, whereas a deterioration of performance occurred when instructions were not available. Implications of the findings are discussed.     

Getting to Evo-Devo: Concepts and Challenges for Students Learning Evolutionary Developmental Biology

To examine how well biology majors have achieved the necessary foundation in evolution, numerous studies have examined how students learn natural selection. However, no studies to date have examined how students learn developmental aspects of evolution (evo-devo). Although evo-devo plays an increasing role in undergraduate biology curricula, we find that instruction often addresses development cursorily, with most of the treatment embedded within instruction on evolution. Based on results of surveys and interviews with students, we suggest that teaching core concepts (CCs) within a framework that integrates supporting concepts (SCs) from both evolutionary and developmental biology can improve evo-devo instruction. We articulate CCs, SCs, and foundational concepts (FCs) that provide an integrative framework to help students master evo-devo concepts and to help educators address specific conceptual difficulties their students have with evo-devo. We then identify the difficulties that undergraduates have with these concepts. Most of these difficulties are of two types: those that are ubiquitous among students in all areas of biology and those that stem from an inadequate understanding of FCs from developmental, cell, and molecular biology.     

Exploring teaching concerns and characteristics of graduate teaching assistants

The purpose of the study was to explore a conceptual structure of graduate teaching assistant (GTA) teaching concerns. Results indicated that GTAs experience five distinct, inter-related types of concerns: class control, external evaluation, task, impact and role/time/communication. These ‘teaching concerns’ were further analysed by examining their relationship with the value placed on them by the GTAs and the confidence in dealing with the teaching-related issues of concern. The results revealed that GTAs tend to have concerns about self, task or role/time/communication-related issues when the nature of the concerned issues is perceived as being valuable but challenging. On the other hand, GTAs are more likely to have concerns with impact-related issues when the nature of the issues is perceived as both being valuable and manageable. Several GTA characteristics, such as teaching experience, teacher efficacy, participation in professional development and values on teaching practices, were examined as predictors of GTA teaching concerns.     

Encouraging the development of higher-level study skills using an experiential learning framework

Teachers have only recently considered how study skills support in higher education (HE) can be delivered in a way that encourages experiential learning. This paper aims to substantiate, or otherwise, the idea that a carefully developed initiative can encourage the experiential learning of study skills. In addition, it considers whether such an approach might also allow student access to some of the higher-level study skills required for successful university study. Focus group data were used to evaluate a module delivered to sports students at a post-1992 university in the UK. This data suggested that the module facilitated learning in each stage of Kolb's experiential learning cycle. Moreover, there was evidence that the module encouraged students to undertake an ‘epistemological shift’ in which they moved from seeing knowledge as a set of uncontested facts to seeing it as something that they are expected to question and contribute to themselves.     

Developing grass roots writing resources: a novel approach to writing within the social work discipline

In this case study, we report on the development of a writing-specialist position, the ‘Writing Resource Coordinator (WRC)’, in a school of social work at a large state university in the southern USA. Such programs are facing increasing budgetary pressures at the same time as their growing enrollments strain available resources. Students who arrive under-prepared or un-acculturated to the discipline often suffer high writing-related anxiety, putting them at risk for low performance, or dropping out altogether. The WRC provides discipline-specific ‘grass roots’ writing assistance to the most at-risk students through a program aimed at both students and faculty, providing a two-pronged service strategy including: (a) individual consultations and (b) group-oriented seminars and workshops. We describe the implementation of this resource and offer recommendations for improving upon and adopting this approach in social science programs at comparable institutions.     

Student and teacher co-navigation of a course: following the natural lines of academic enquiry

Using the mountaineering metaphor of ‘natural lines’ this article describes the co-navigation of an honours course by students and teachers. It suggests the benefits and possibilities of going beyond the confines of conventional teaching and learning wisdom (as canonised in the notion of constructive alignment) and offering just and joyful ways for students to explore disciplinary knowledge. We openly explore issues of power between students and teachers in the construction of so-called partnerships, recognising the inherent challenges in moving beyond the prevailing mainstream. We suggest that a natural lines approach enables students to act as genuine co-navigators and to experience disciplinary knowledge in authentic ways and provides rich opportunities for personal reflection and development.     

The Question of Competence: the origins,strengths and inadequacies of a leadership training paradigm

During the 1990s the Teacher Training Agency showed its commitment to adopting elements of a 'competence' model of educational management training in the construction of the National Standards for Headteachers (TTA 1997, 1998). These same 'standards' have come to underpin the most ambitious programme of educational management training and development ever attempted in the UK (Glatter 1997) including the National Professional Qualification for Headship (NPQH), the Headteachers' Leadership and Management Programme (HEADLAMP) and the Leadership Programme for Serving Headteachers (LPSH). This article attempts to trace the origins of competence-based approaches to management training and suggests that the model, though having much to commend it, contains within it a variety of underlying and unresolved tensions.