Opportunities for sex education and personal and social education (PSE) through science lessons: the comments of primary pupils when observing meal worms and brine shrimps

Five hundred and seventy eight conversations were audio-taped while year 2 (6-7-year-old) or year 5 (9-10-year-old) pupils were observing meal worms (Tenebrio molitar) or brine shrimps (Artemia salina) during science activities in a UK primary school. Analysis revealed many comments to do with sex, reproduction, death, violence and the life history of the organisms. In addition, pupils made associations to humans, raised moral issues and expressed emotions and wonder. Significant differences were found between the comments of year 2 and year 5 pupils, between the comments of boys and girls, and between comments made when observing meal worms and when observing brine shrimps. These findings have implications both for the formal teaching of science and for the use of science as a vehicle for the teaching of sex education and other aspects of personal and social education (PSE).     

Dioramas as Depictions of Reality and Opportunities for Learning in Biology

Abstract A diorama is a careful positioning of a number of museum objects in a naturalistic setting. While expensive to construct, dioramas offer tremendous potential as educational tools. The education literature on dioramas, while growing, is still slight. Here we focus on dioramas as sites for learning science, specifically biology. We examine the extent to which dioramas reflect or construct reality and the effect on visitors. We suggest that a useful perspective can be to see dioramas as telling stories. Visitors respond well to stories and bring their own experiences, hopes, and fears to them. But to maximize the educational impact of dioramas, the stories they tell need to be constructed with some care. Younger visitors, for example, can benefit from scaffolding, an approach often used when introducing children to literature that is at the upper end of, or beyond, their present unaided capabilities.     

Developing a research partnership: teachers as researchers and teacher educators

This paper discusses a combined university–school research project involving three associate teachers from the pre-service teacher education degree at the University of Otago, New Zealand in the examination of their literacy teaching practice. The provision of resources for this collaborative study allowed the teachers to design the project in response to the learning needs of the children in their classrooms. The paper specifically analyses the research experience for the teachers as they theorized their classroom literacy practice and utilized the research findings to inform the content and processes of teaching at both the primary and tertiary classroom levels.     

The virtual learning future

Since there is a real possibility that online courses will become the dominant informational platforms of the future universities need to address a range of issues from design and quality through to ethics and economics to ensure that the all-round investment required reaps positive outcomes. This paper addresses some of the issues that have confronted teachers and students engaged in online teaching and learning in eastern and western contexts. This paper concludes that Asian students are not necessarily poor online learners, as has often been suggested, but that they are alert to the importance, and real advantages, of personal interaction in the learning process. For this reason it is suggested that integrated hybrid virtual and classroom courses might prove more effective and elicit more positive responses from such students than courses that are conducted entirely online.     

What Sort of Girl Wants to Study Physics After the Age of 16? Findings from a Large-scale UK Survey

This paper investigates the characteristics of 15-year-old girls who express an intention to study physics post-16. This paper unpacks issues around within-girl group differences and similarities between boys and girls in survey responses about physics. The analysis is based on the year 10 (age 15 years) responses of 5,034 students from 137 UK schools as learners of physics during the academic year 2008–2009. A comparison between boys and girls indicates the pervasiveness of gender issues, with boys more likely to respond positively towards physics-specific constructs than girls. The analysis also indicates that girls and boys who expressed intentions to participate in physics post-16 gave similar responses towards their physics teachers and physics lessons and had comparable physics extrinsic motivation. Girls (regardless of their intention to participate in physics) were less likely than boys to be encouraged to study physics post-16 by teachers, family and friends. Despite this, there were a subset of girls still intending to study physics post-16. The crucial differences between the girls who intended to study physics post-16 and those who did not is that girls who intend to study physics post-16 had higher physics extrinsic motivation, more positive perceptions of physics teachers and lessons, greater competitiveness and a tendency to be less extrovert. This strongly suggests that higher extrinsic motivation in physics could be the crucial underlying key that encourages a subset of girls (as well as boys) in wanting to pursue physics post-16.     

Inequality in Experiences of Physics Education: Secondary School Girls' and Boys' Perceptions of their Physics Education and Intentions to Continue with Physics After the Age of 16

This paper explores the factors that are associated in England with 15-year-old students' intentions to study physics after the age of 16, when it is no longer compulsory. Survey responses were collated from 5,034 year 10 students as learners of physics during the academic year 2008–2009 from 137 England secondary schools. Our analysis uses individual items from the survey rather than constructs (aggregates of items) to explore what it is about physics teachers, physics lessons and physics itself that is most correlated with intended participation in physics after the age of 16. Our findings indicate that extrinsic material gain motivation in physics was the most important factor associated with intended participation. In addition, an item-level analysis helped to uncover issues around gender inequality in physics educational experiences which were masked by the use of construct-based analyses. Girls' perceptions of their physics teachers were similar to those of boys on many fronts. However, despite the encouragement individual students receive from their teachers being a key factor associated with aspirations to continue with physics, girls were statistically significantly less likely to receive such encouragement. We also found that girls had less positive experiences of their physics lessons and physics education than did boys.