Pedagogy and possibility thinking in the early years

Connecting to current work in the area of creative pedagogies, this paper reports findings of an exploratory study that sought to identify what characterises possibility thinking in young children's learning experiences and how teachers’ pedagogical practice fosters this critical aspect of creativity. It focuses in particular on pedagogy, seeking to demonstrate how approaches adopted facilitated children's possibility thinking. Possibility thinking has been conceptualised as being central to creative learning although its role, as manifest in the learning engagement of children and the pedagogical strategies of practitioners has not been fully illuminated. The co-participative research team involved in this study comprised staff in an early childhood centre, in an infant and a primary school, working collaboratively with three university-based researchers. The 12-month long segment of a longer study employed various data collection methods including video-stimulated review (VSR) to facilitate reflection, critical conversations, classroom observation, interviews and examination of planning documents. The paper illuminates the perspectives and embedded values that the teachers expressed whilst reflecting upon their practice, and highlights common pedagogical themes, including the practice of ‘standing back’, profiling learner agency and creating time and space. Particular strategies were employed by each of the teachers. These approaches appeared to foster possibility thinking in young learners. In addition, the paper considers the development of the teachers’ thinking through the phases of the research process and presents a model for conceptualising a pedagogy of possibility thinking.     

Discrimination and generalization of leaf damage by blue jays (Cyanocitta cristata)

Blue jays (Cyanocitta cristata) responded to projected black-and-white silhouettes of cherry leaves that were either undamaged or were damaged by either cryptic caterpillars that disguise leaf damage due to their feeding or by noncryptic caterpillars that do not disguise leaf damage due to their feeding. Pecks to the key on which the images were projected were reinforced only if interresponse times fell within specified temporal boundaries. These boundaries were different in the presence of the two types of leaf damage. Following training with one exemplar of each damage type, the jays correctly categorized novel instances of both types. They categorized novel undamaged leaves as if they were examples of leaves showing damage by cryptic caterpillars. Results suggest that the jays can readily discriminate and generalize to new members of a polymorphous stimulus class. The results suggest that techniques for the study of concept formation in animals can be applied to an animal’s ability to categorize stimuli that are involved in a potential prey-predator relationship.     

An engineering application for hypertext

This paper discusses the underlying framework for the protetype of a Hypertext-based tool for the preparation of on-line Design Brief Expansion (DBE) Documents as applied to a systematic design process. It describes the mapping of the DBE into Hypertext and shows how the electronic version of this process is not only more efficient, but also conveys more accessible information than a traditional paper version. It also explains how a natural language system (chunker) can be used to structure the information. The paper concludes with an assessment of how the prototype, implemented in C and HyperNeWS, will be used and a discussion of future improvements.     

Diversity research literature in school psychology: 1990–1999

This study is an extension of an initial study conducted by Wiese Rogers in 1992 that examined the diversity literature in school psychology journals. The purpose of this study was to review all research published in four major school psychology journals during the decade of the 90s for diversity content to determine if there had been an increase. Results indicated that 10.6% of the articles have diversity as a focus, a slight increase over Wiese Rogers's findings. Assessment continues to be the area that has the greatest number of diversity articles. Six reasons are proposed for the continued gap in the literature base. Implications for the field of school psychology and suggestions for increasing diversity articles are provided. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Developing a measure to understand young children’s Internet cognition and cyber-safety awareness: a pilot test

Abstract

Advancements in technology have increased preschool children’s access to the Internet. Very little research has been conducted to identify pre-school-aged children’s understandings of the Internet and ramifications of being ‘online’. Without an understanding of children’s thinking about the Internet, it is difficult to provide age- and pedagogically appropriate cyber-safety education. This study developed and pilot-tested an interview schedule that focuses on the Internet thinking and cyber-safety awareness of Australian children aged 4–5 years. The schedule is informed by sociocultural theory, cyber-safety education research and approaches for researching with young children. The schedule shows potential to elicit children’s understandings of the Internet and cyber-safety awareness. Adjustments are required to allow more contextualised responses from children.     

Progress report on the development of child abuse prevention, identification, and treatment systems in Eastern Europe

PROBLEM: After the Soviet Union dissolved in 1989, it became apparent that there was little recognition of the problems of child abuse and neglect, professionally, legally, or societally. There were no effective systems or laws in place to deal with these problems. METHOD: Beginning in 1995 the Children's Mental Health Alliance, in conjunction with the Open Society Institute began conducting trainings in Eastern Europe [Journal of the American Academy of Child Adolescent Psychiatry 39 (2000) 660]. Originally 18 countries from the Baltics to the Balkans participated. A program was elaborated which would proceed in several stages: (1) training mental health professionals to deal with child abuse and neglect (CAN); (2) teaching multidisciplinary team work and fostering the development of multidisciplinary NGOs focused on CAN; (3) promoting the self-sufficiency of these NGO's which would then facilitate social and legal reform and increase public awareness of the problem. Specific methods included multi-national trainings, assignment of mentors to the developing teams who maintained weekly contact with the teams and made yearly site visits to their countries, and overseeing project grants from OSI. RESULTS: NGO's had been established and registered in 11 countries, many establishing a network of programs within their countries. By 2000, over 3800 mental health professional had been trained, either directly by the program or by the trainees of the program. By the end of 2000, over 17,000 other professionals (lawyers, police, judges, educators, other physicians, etc.) had been trained by the network. CONCLUSION: While more work needs to be in this region, the teams in 11 countries have made solid starts.     

Mothers' Worries During Pregnancy: A Content Analysis of Reddit Posts

Qualitative investigations into maternal worries during pregnancy are limited. The aim of this study was to identify the content of women''s pregnancy-related worries by completing a content analysis of posts on Reddit. A total of 217 posts by 196 unique users were analyzed. Most worries related to infant factors (32.6%), individual factors (27.1%), and antenatal care factors, such as medical procedures (25.2%). The remaining worries related to situational factors (10.9%) and the partner relationship (4.3%). Although most fears related to fetal well-being, other concerns included problems with family members, women''s own mental health, and not being a “good mother.” These findings support calls for antenatal education to more adequately address women''s psychosocial concerns.     

Visualizing diversity: the Oregon Health & Science University Educational Use Photo Diversity Repository

Background:Health science education needs images that represent both the diversity of patients served and the diversity of its students and clinicians. To begin to address this need, a nurse educator and librarian collaborated to launch the Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) Educational Use Photo Diversity Repository. This online resource provides educators of health professional students with access to photos of pathophysiological conditions in skin of various colors so their students can increase their awareness of issues related to health and diversity and prepare themselves for more effective clinical work with their future patients.Case Presentation:The OHSU Educational Use Photo Diversity Repository became a university-wide project, leveraging the thoughts of an image advisory board, clinicians, faculty members, administrators, and students. Key considerations were given to the workflows used to submit photos as well as the controlled vocabulary for submitting images. The repository was started with photos already in existence, with future plans to have images taken specifically for the repository.Conclusions:This repository is playing an important role as OHSU and the health sciences in general reflect on the role of systemic racism in health care and clinical education. Negotiating issues of consent, patient health information, and privacy around using different technologies to take photos is a complex and ongoing process. The repository provides opportunities for closely examining these processes and creating improvements that result in more equitable education.     

Exploiting the Links between Theory and Practice: Developing Students' Cross-cultural Understanding through an International Study Tour to China

This paper describes and critiques a study tour to China of undergraduate and postgraduate business students in a large business faculty in a university with an emerging focus on internationalisation through building links with global business and industry. The study tour was designed to fit with the emerging trend towards internationalisation of business education wherein universities perceive themselves as being international universities based in one city rather than city-based universities who have international students. The literature on the difficulties of cross-cultural understanding and adjustment when business people sojourn to other countries is well documented. Yet, the same difficulties being encountered by students on short-term cultural immersion tours are yet to be adequately documented. This paper serves to address this gap in the literature by examining the experiences of 50 Australian and international students when confronted with a three week immersion into China's business, cultural and social practices. The paper explores the contributions of the study tour to academic understanding of globalisation.