Using Historical Nonfiction and Literature Circles to Develop Elementary Teachers’ Nature of Science Understandings

Explicit instruction of the nature of science (NOS) may be problematic if the NOS is portrayed as either a solely a cognitive or discursive endeavor, overlooking other aspects of epistemology, such as aesthetic ways of knowing. Here the aesthetic stance refers to individual’s responses during reading as they create links between the text and their own lives, prompting personal and emotional connections. From an aesthetic orientation, exploring historical nonfiction science texts via literature circles allows alternative possibilities for participants to create personal connections to the NOS. This article presents practical techniques and theoretical rationales for teaching the NOS using literature circles and concluding thoughts regarding narrative pedagogy and research possibilities associated with this instructional approach in elementary science teacher education.     

Learning in professional practice schools: Beyond clinical experiences and teacher workshops

Over the past two years, Florida State University's Science Education Program and Sabal Palm Elementary have collaborated to develop a PPS. The formation of the Sabal Palm PPS was not based upon a predetermined design nor has one group served as an authority to direct how the PPS ought to operate. The success of this model relies on PPS participants working collaboratively to establish goals and plans for actions to be taken to support teacher-learning. The Sabal Palm PPS continues to evolve as dynamic model for creating a center for teacher and student learning. The purpose of this paper is to discuss our involvement in the formation a PPS and implications for enhancing teacher education programs. Specializations: professional practice school development, teacher research, primary science education Specializations: environmental science, primary science education.     

Self‐Efficacy of First‐Generation and Non‐First‐Generation College Students: The Relationship With Academic Performance and College Adjustment

The authors examined whether self‐efficacy mediated the relationship between generational status and 2 academic outcome indicators of 192 college students. A mediation effect was not found with either academic performance or college adjustment. However, high self‐efficacy at the beginning of the year predicted better college adjustment at the end of the 1st year. For college students in general, high self‐efficacy was related to better college adjustment. Recommendations for counselors are discussed.     

Changing What Is Taught: Hearing the Voices of the Underrepresented

A major challenge facing institutions today is determining the role of multiculturalism in the curriculum. Institutions that decide to incorporate multicultural perspectives into the general education curriculum will face a long and complex process. In 1991, policy makers at Florida State University made the decision to require all students to take multicultural courses to fulfill general education requirements. This article provides insight into the challenges that institutional policy makers face as they seek to change the curriculum to include the voices of those previously underrepresented.     

Guilt in young children: development, determinants, and relations with a broader system of standards

In this comprehensive study of the early development of guilt, 106 children were observed in laboratory paradigms in which they were led to believe that they had damaged valuable objects, during two separate sessions at each of the assessments at 22, 33, and 45 months. The behavioral and affective components of guilt cohered significantly across the sessions, converged with each other, were stable across all the assessments, and corresponded modestly with maternal reports. Most components decreased with age, except for bodily tension, which increased. At 33 and 45 months, girls displayed more guilt than did boys. Children who were more fearful in typical fear-inducing paradigms also displayed more guilt. Children of mothers who relied on more power-assertive discipline, observed and self-reported, displayed less guilt. Guilt related positively to the development of self at 18 months and to moral self at 56 months. Children who displayed more guilt were less likely to violate rules of conduct at 56 months. A mediational model was supported: Fearful temperament contributed to guilt proneness, which in turn served to inhibit children's tendency to violate rules.     

Revisiting five decades of educational technology research: A content and authorship analysis of the British Journal of Educational Technology

Reflecting on 50 years of educational technology research, a content and authorship analysis was conducted of 1777 research article titles and abstracts, published in the British Journal of Educational Technology (BJET) from 1970 to Issue 3, 2018. A text-mining tool (Leximancer) was used to identify key concepts and themes emerging throughout each of the five decades, which were then compared to those found in a previous analysis of Computers & Education, as well as the most cited BJET publications in each decade. The framework of West and Rich (2012) was then used to provide guidance on BJET’s rigour, impact and prestige. Common themes in BJET throughout the past 50 years have included the evolution of teaching and learning in distance education, the emergence of instructional design, misunderstanding between practitioners and learning designers, issues of pre and in-service teacher education and technology uptake by educators and students, including the confidence to do so, the technology skills of educators and students, as well as a lack of institutional support to provide space and time for training and integration to occur. The authorship analysis revealed an encouraging increase in international identity over time, with 60% of articles in BJET published by an author outside of the UK over the past 50 years, and 79% in the past decade. Despite this, contributions from South America, the Middle East and Africa are vastly underrepresented, and authors from these regions need further support from the field. Suggested future research areas include finding alternative models of educator professional development, further exploration of the role of theory and policy, as well as the rise of co-authorship and collaborative research.     

Fostering empathy in undergraduate health science majors through the reconciliation of objectivity and subjectivity: An integrated approach

The demand for empathetic health care practitioners requires an academic curriculum suited to that need. Here we describe a series of integrated activities that were designed to foster empathy in undergraduate health science majors. By combining content and pedagogical approaches from the humanities and sciences, we asked students to reconcile objective and subjective modes of understanding the human body as a learning object. Preliminary evaluations of student behavior, written student responses, and survey results are offered as support for our conclusion that the integration of a humanities perspective into the Anatomy classroom at University of Minnesota Rochester can facilitate the process of developing student empathy through the reconciliation of objective and subjective modes. Furthermore, students were able to apply this understanding to images on the page or screen, to living human learning objects and human cadavers. Although to claim that these activities in themselves can stymie the stasis/decline of empathy that health science students report would be patently false, we conclude that similar approaches could offer an avenue by which other educators might develop similar activities that, in aggregate, might have a lasting effect from the undergraduate through the graduate level of training in the health sciences. Anat Sci Educ. © 2012 American Association of Anatomists.     

Framing Teacher Education: An Analysis of the Comprehensive Educator Equity Plans of 16 State Education Agencies

This article explores the nature of a federal intervention into teacher education through state policy making and problem framing. The authors examined the 16 comprehensive educator equity plans that were approved by the U.S. Department of Education in 2015 and surface four inadequacies the reports communicate about teacher education: (a) an inability to recruit diverse candidates, (b) an unsuitable curriculum for high-needs schools, (c) limited exposure to diverse teaching placements, and (d) an environment that lacks accountability. Through this project, this article covers how federal educational aims are delegated to states in order to frame economics as the goal of education and teacher education as negligent in this pursuit.     

Gender-inclusive science teaching: A feminist-constructivist approach

The underrepresentation of women in science is an extensively studied yet persistent concern of our society. Researchers have identified numerous educational and social factors thought to be responsible for this underrepresentation (Kahle, 1990a; Kelly, 1987). One of the dominant explanations, used by many researchers for years to discuss gender differences in science and mathematics achievement as well as interest, has been the differences in the cognitive abilities of men and women. This explanation, however, has been discarded in recent years (Linn & Hyde, 1989; Linn 1990). On the basis of their meta-analyses of various studies. Linn and Hyde (1989) concluded that gender differences in cognitive skills have declined and those that remain are largely explained by experiential differences. Women may not have different cognitive abilities, but they may have a different way of learning rooted in their role in society. The epistemic differences between men and women stemming from their standpoint in life can help us understand their differential interaction with the nature of science, and hence their participation in the field. In the following section, we will briefly discuss the feminist critique of science and extend the implication to science education.