Persistence and withdrawal by students in a preservice science and mathematics teacher education course

At a time when recruitment into preservice teacher education courses in mathematics and science is difficult, one strategy to increase the number of graduates is to minimise the number of students who fail to complete their university courses. This study sought to determine factors which distinguish withdrawers from persisters in the first semester of a B.Ed course. Discriminant analysis was employed; a discriminant function employing seven factors resulted in correct classification in 81% of cases. Further analysis distinguishing between dropouts and transferees resulted in two discriminant functions with some common variables. Specializations: Science Education, Pedagogy. Specializations: Science Education, Inservice Teacher Education, Metacognition     

Professional development and perceived needs of science teachers

About 100 science teachers in the Sydney Metropolitan West Region were surveyed to determine their professional development needs and the ways in which these needs could be met. The findings provide a ranking of science teacher perceived professional development needs, a list of possible incentives to motivate science teachers to complete inservice programs (in priority order) and an indication of the preferred modes of presentation to meet professional development needs. In general, science teachers stated a preference for professional development related to modern trends in science education directly related to classroom practice. In contrast to recommendations from DEET, science teachers indicated a preference for traditional models of inservice. Data related to preferred mode of inservice indicated significant gender differences. Specializations: science teacher professional development. Specializations: educational psychology and research design. Specialization: constructivist approaches in science education.     

Popularising science through television

Conclusion Currently the 26 films in the Science Territory series have been shown to audiences who watch Channel 8 commercial television in the vicinity of Darwin. They are still being shown to audienc who watch Imparja Television. There are no plans at the moment to shown Science Territory for any extra time on either Channel 8 or Imparja, once the Imparja programmes are completes. There are plans however to develop materials to complement the programmes, which could be used in schools and there are also plans to repeat the success of Science Territory and to expand it on a national basis to a series of programmes to be called “Science Oz”. This research note has described of the Scienc Territory project which has attempted to improve students' and parents' attitudes to science. It has alo attempted to explain how the issue of determining the effectiveness of the project has been addressed. Overall, Science Territory proved to be an interesting, exciting, successful and whorthwhile venture, particularly for the small scientific community of the Northern Territory. It also appears to be unique both in Australia and worldwide. There are therefore lessons that science educators can learn from this about new ways of improving students' attitudes to science. Specializations: Science education policy, curriculum development and science education development projects with industry. Specializations: Science teacher education, chemical education, science education in developing countries, educational Issues.     

The dialectics of agency in educational ethnography

This paper outlines a dialectical conceptualisation of children’s agency for the purposes of multidisciplinary educational theory and practice. We illuminate five contradictory but connected dimensions of children’s agency, or the dialectics of agency, identified from theoretical debate between sociologically and psychologically oriented educational literature: Agency (1) as enacted and imagined; (2) as situatively emergent and progressively developmental; (3) as dependence and separation; (4) as mastery and submission; and (5) as control and freedom. We examine these contradictions ‘at work’ in an ethnographic early education case study. We argue that the children’s struggles towards agency and adults’ efforts and failures to support children in their struggles can be conceptualised as a dialectical movement that has a potential to develop the educational practice itself. Our dialectical reading of both data and theory helps to highlight the challenges the practitioners face when supporting children’s agency and the solutions they implement when doing so.     

A learning model for science education: Deriving teaching strategies

A learning model for science education was proposed by Appleton (1989), based on Osborne and Wittrock’s generative learning theory (1983) and the Piagetian notions of disequilibrium, assimilation, and accommodation. The model incorporated many aspects of difficulties in learning science experienced by students, as revealed in the LISP projects and similar research. This paper examines how the model may be used to derive teaching strategies: components of the model are analysed in terms of specific types of teacher interventions which could facilitate students’ progress to accommodation. Some established teaching strategies are analysed in terms of these interventions. Specializations: primary teacher education, teaching strategies in science.     

SUBLIMATED ATTRACTIONS

The paper focuses on the emergence of Finnish computer culture in the late 1950s. The introduction of computers is studied by using a wide range of source material of popular media, such as commercial and company promotion films, newspapers, popular magazine articles, cartoons and comic strips. The paper argues that the introduction of the new computing technology was deeply experienced with the help of popular media, where the technological capabilities of computers as thinking and sensing ‘all-purpose machines’ were translated into several media-specific audio-visual forms. Computers were represented as sensing and sensible technology, a rubric that was remediated by the help of old media. In this process, the spectacularization of computers worked not only as an innocent fabulation of the computers to convince the ‘general public’ but to create a certain social arrangement particular to this spectacle. The idea that the end-user is cut off from the actual processes of the computer, as suggested by such media historians as Friedrich Kittler, was evident already in the earlier construction of computing culture in the mainframe era.     

Integrating art into science education: a survey of science teachers’ practices

ABSTRACT

Numerous case studies suggest that integrating art and science education could engage students with creative projects and encourage students to express science in multitude of ways. However, little is known about art integration practices in everyday science teaching. With a qualitative e-survey, this study explores the art integration of science teachers (n?=?66). A pedagogical model for science teachers’ art integration emerged from a qualitative content analysis conducted on examples of art integration. In the model, art integration is characterised as integration through content and activities. Whilst the links in the content were facilitated either directly between concepts and ideas or indirectly through themes or artefacts, the integration through activity often connected an activity in one domain and a concept, idea or artefact in the other domain with the exception of some activities that could belong to both domains. Moreover, the examples of art integration in everyday classroom did not include expression of emotions often associated with art. In addition, quantitative part of the survey confirmed that integration is infrequent in all mapped areas. The findings of this study have implications for science teacher education that should offer opportunities for more consistent art integration.     

Humanizing Attendance Procedures

In instructional settings, educators are both the creator and the vehicle for that which seeks to be born: an academic legacy. Creating an enduring legacy begins with bringing to life the kind of academic environment that one truly wants to be a part of. Crafting a memorable legacy in the classroom requires authentic, sustainable relationships coupled with exemplary instructional practices that make a difference in lives of students including: professionalism, viewpoint diversity, impulse to learn, engaged questioning, and GRIT: “the engine of human accomplishment.”     

Law and Marine Science

Abstract

The 1970s witnessed a tremendous national concern about the environment. As might be expected, this concern was translated to schools in the form of environmental education and the need to have teachers qualified to teach this topic. This paper reviews the published studies from the 1970s (indexed in ERIC Document Retrieval Service) dealing with teacher inservice in environmental education. A wide variety of formats and audiences were addressed by these inservice opportunities. Unfortunately, few studies made any attempt to test the effectiveness of their programs. Thus, it is difficult to recommend a particular format for future inservice efforts.