Teaching of Energy Issues: A Debate Proposal for a Global Reorientation

The growing awareness of serious difficulties in the learning of energy issues has produced a great deal of research, most of which is focused on specific conceptual aspects. In our opinion, the difficulties pointed out in the literature are interrelated and connected to other aspects (conceptual as well as procedural and axiological), which are not sufficiently taken into account in previous research. This paper aims to carry out a global analysis in order to avoid the more limited approaches that deal only with individual aspects. From this global analysis we have outlined 24 propositions that are put forward for debate to lay the foundations for a profound reorientation of the teaching of energy topics in upper high school courses, in order to facilitate a better scientific understanding of these topics, avoid many students’ misconceptions and enhance awareness of the current situation of planetary emergency. This paper has been conceived as a contribution to the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development, established by the UN General Assembly for the period 2005–2014.     

Zones of interaction: Differential access to elementary science discourse

This study investigated teacher–child interaction within small‐group science activities in a fourth‐grade classroom. This qualitative study revealed three “zones of interaction,” or teacher–child interaction categories: Individual Zones of Interaction, Multiple Zones of Interaction, and a Collective Zone of Interaction. Each zone was further shaped by either a procedural, conceptual, or managerial focus for the interaction. These zones granted children differential levels of access to the teacher's knowledge. Based on these data and findings, we propose a discourse model for elementary science classrooms that encompasses talk, materials, knowledge, engagement, and power. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 43: 443–466, 2006     

Modelling success networks to improve the quality of undergraduate education

Discussions of support and intervention in undergraduate university education are dominated by discussion of attrition. This study quests more broadly in arguing that support and intervention for undergraduate students may also benefit from models of engagement and success as well as conventional risk and failure. Supporting this proposition is a study that involved multifactorial approaches based in a combination of aspects of social network theory and social ecology theory. Analysis was enacted through social network analysis of archival data sets derived from a single cohort of 4065 undergraduate students at a regional Australian university. The findings suggest that models of academic success are suited to examination of the broader issues of student agency and undergraduate university education. The success networks developed are uniquely student-centred and place-based and may serve as more nuanced models for university intervention and support structures and mechanisms.     

Early Indications of Resilience and Their Relation to Experiences in the Home Environments of Low Birthweight, Premature Children Living in Poverty

The caregiving environment experienced by 243 premature, low birthweight (LBW) children living in poverty was examined to determine whether the quality of care such children receive affords them some measure of protection from the generally deleterious consequences of poverty and prematurity. Only 26 children were identified as functioning in the normal range for cognitive, social/adaptive, health, and growth parameters at age 3. These children, who showed early signs of resiliency, differed from nonresilient children in that they were receiving more responsive, accepting, stimulating, and organized care. They were also living in safer, less crowded homes. 6 "protective" aspects of caregiving were identified and used as part of a cumulative protection index. Children with less than 3 protective aspects of caregiving present at age 1 had only a 2% probability of being resilient, and only a 6% probability if fewer than 3 were present at age 3. Overall, premature LBW children born into conditions of poverty have a very poor prognosis of functioning within normal ranges across all the dimensions of health and development assessed. However, those raised in a setting with 3 or more protective factors were more likely to show early signs of resiliency.     

Teacher Evaluation and Teacher Effectiveness in the United Kingdom

An outline is given of the UK research situation for the knowledge bases of school effectiveness and teacher effectiveness, and the UK policy situation in terms of school and teacher evaluation, improvement and development. It is argued that the UK has seen a much greater use of school-level policies, reflecting its substantial school effectiveness research base, rather than teacher-level interventions, although there are currently some attempts at policy and practice level to focus upon teacher effects, teacher evaluation and related issues of professional development. Speculations are given concerning future policy and research needs.     

A review of empirical studies of affordances and development of a framework for educational adoption of mobile social media

Educational technology research and development - As one of the most widely adopted mobile and social media applications, Tencent WeChat ® (‘WeChat’) has been increasingly used in...     

Ethnic Identity Development and Acculturation Preferences Among Minority and Majority Youth: Norms and Contact

This article tests a longitudinal model of the antecedents and consequences of changes in identification with indigenous (Mapuche) among indigenous and nonindigenous youth in Chilean school contexts over a 6‐month period (633 nonindigenous and 270 Mapuche students, M_ages = 12.47 and 12.80 years, respectively). Results revealed that in‐group norms supporting contact and quality of intergroup contact at Time 1 predicted student's changes in Mapuche identification at Time 2, which in turn predicted changes in support for adoption of Chilean culture and maintenance of Mapuche culture at Time 2; some of the relationships between these variables were found to be moderated by age and ethnicity. Conceptual and policy implications are addressed in the Discussion .