A Curriculum Innovation Framework for Science, Technology and Mathematics Education

There is growing concern about falling levels of student engagement with school science, as evidenced by studies of student attitudes, and decreasing participation at the post compulsory level. One major response to this, the Australian School Innovation in Science, Technology and Mathematics (ASISTM) initiative, involves partnerships between schools and community and industry organisations in developing curriculum projects at the local level. This project fulfils many of the conditions advocated to engage students in learning in the sciences. ASISTM is underpinned by the notion of innovation. This paper describes the findings of case study research in which 16 ASISTM projects were selected as innovation exemplars. A definition of innovation and an innovation framework were developed, through which the case studies were analysed to make sense of the significance of the ideas and practices, participating actors, and outcomes of the projects. Through this analysis we argue that innovation is a powerful idea for framing curriculum development in the sciences at the local level that is generative for students and teachers, and that these ASISTM projects provide valuable models for engaging students, and for teacher professional learning.     

Discourse communities: A framework from which to consider professional development for rural teachers of science and mathematics

This paper explores aspects of professional development for teachers of science and mathematics in schools in rural Australia. The study identified a range of issues including tensions between government, school and individual professional learning priorities and their respective responsibilities; the shaping of professional development by rurality; and issues of generic versus subject-specific professional learning. The paper will focus on the needs of teachers, particularly secondary teachers, for subject-specific professional development and the capacity of different professional development approaches for satisfying these needs. The notion of discourse communities is proposed as a framework for considering this issue.     

Impact of the design of U.S. history textbooks on content acquisition and academic engagement of special education students: an experimental investigation

We used randomized controlled trials to compare the impact of the designs of 2 United States history textbooks on the content acquisition and behavior of 8th-grade students identified for special education services or identified as low achieving. We also investigated whether teachers differed in their use of instructional activities and questioning strategies based on the type of text used. Our findings suggest that students learned more history content, were more actively engaged, and answered more questions correctly when using the experimental textbook. Teachers used different activities depending on which textbook they used, but did not differ in types of questions asked.     

History as narrative: the nature and quality of historical understanding for students with LD

In this study, we examine the nature and quality of students' comprehension of history. Specifically, we explore whether cognitive-psychological theories developed to capture the comprehension of narrative text can be used to capture the comprehension of history. Participants were 36 students with learning disabilities who had taken part in an earlier study designed to investigate the effects of an interactive instructional intervention in history. The results of the original study supported the effectiveness of the intervention in terms of amount recalled. The results of the present study reveal that historical understanding can be characterized as the construction of meaning through the creation of a causal network of events. The study of history within a causal network framework has implications for understanding the nature and quality of students' learning of history, and for potentially identifying sources of failure in learning.     

From Christian Gentleman to Bewildered Seeker: The Transformation of American Higher Education

In this carefully documented essay, Russell K. Nieli outlines the major transformation in American higher education that began at the end of the nineteenth century. Today’s research- and vocation-driven private universities began as Christian institutions founded by zealous evangelizers, while public colleges embraced a watered-down version of the earnest and forward-thinking Protestant gentleman’s worldview, which saw no conflict between theological and secular knowledge. Science and religion remained friendly until the advent of the industrial revolution brought the model of the German research university to the attention of American academic reformers. Unity of knowledge was eventually supplanted by a secular, elective system. While the great “multiversity” had arrived, critics mourned the loss of educational coherence and abandonment of the civilizing mission to which moral and classical training were essential. In the 1920’s, the Great Books approach was reborn, despite the seemingly unstoppable march of progress, science, and the subdiscipline. Vietnam-era upheavals led to the American academy’s transformation into a politically correct mutlicultural smorgasboard seasoned to please the modern student palate. When today’s students demand to be entertained and scholars continue to narrowly train, is there still room on the plate for the best that has been said, thought, and written about the human experience?

The ethics of randomized controlled trials in social settings: can social trials be scientifically promising and must there be equipoise?

In a randomized controlled trial (RCT), treatments are assigned randomly and treatments are withheld from participants. Is it ethically permissible to conduct an RCT in a social setting? This paper addresses two conditions for justifying RCTs: that there should be a state of equipoise and that the trial should be scientifically promising. Illustrated with a discussion of the RCT evaluation of the Wizards of Words reading programme, this paper argues that, first, the two conditions can give rise to genuine moral conflicts, and second, efforts can be made to ensure RCTs in social settings are scientifically promising. The argument of this paper therefore is a departure from the current debate on RCTs, where it is assumed these two justifying conditions should not come into conflict, either because research ethics is derived from the professional's duty of care, or because there is a strong distinction between the ethics of research and the duty of care. This paper also addresses critics who argue that in social settings RCTs cannot be scientifically promising and for that reason they are ethically impermissible.     

The pattern of responding after extensive extinction

Extensive extinction greatly reduces response rate and increases the relative frequency of short interresponse times, but does not affect temporal learning or operant response rate. In each of two experiments, 24 rats were trained in a multiple cued interval procedure with three stimuli (noise, light, and clicker) at three intervals (30, 60, and 120 sec). In Experiment 1, after 50 sessions of extinction, response rate decreased from about 25 to 0.5 responses/min, but temporal discriminations were maintained and the initial response gradients in reacquisition had a pattern that corresponded with the original (rather than current) training conditions. In Experiment 2, these results were replicated and extended by examination of the effect of stimulus duration on response patterns during extinction, but its lack of effect on reacquisition. The similarity of the initial performance in reacquisition to the asymptotic performance in acquisition was presumably due to the similarity of context. The individual subject data may be downloaded from www.psychonomic.org/archive.     

Social supports from teachers and peers as predictors of academic and social motivation

Young adolescents’ perceptions of teachers’ and peers’ multiple classroom supports were examined in relation to motivational outcomes (interest and social goal pursuit). Responses from sixth (n = 120), seventh (n = 115), and eighth (n = 123) grade students concerning four dimensions of support (expectations for specific behavioral and academic outcomes, provisions of help, safety, and emotional nurturing) indicated that social supports differ as a function of students’ sex, grade level, teacher, and classroom, and in their relations to interest and social goal pursuit. Relations of students’ perceptions to motivational outcomes differed as a function of source of support. In addition, students’ perceptions of teacher and peer supports differed as a function of teacher and classroom. In general, findings confirm the utility of a multi-dimensional approach to social support that acknowledges the independent as well as interactive contributions of teachers and peers to student motivation.     

Exploring the association between teachers’ perceived student misbehaviour and emotional exhaustion: the importance of teacher efficacy beliefs and emotion regulation

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between teachers’ perceived student misbehaviour and emotional exhaustion, and the role of teacher efficacy beliefs (related to handling student misbehaviour) and emotion regulation in this relationship. Additionally, we examined teacher turnover intentions in relation to emotional exhaustion. Data were collected from 610 elementary, middle‐ and high‐school teachers using an online survey. Results indicate that despite the significant direct effect between the two emotion regulation strategies (cognitive reappraisal, expressive suppression) on emotional exhaustion, both strategies failed to show a mediating effect between perceived student misbehaviour and emotional exhaustion. However, teacher efficacy in handling student misbehaviour was found to mediate the relationship between perceived student misbehaviour and emotional exhaustion. In turn, a significant relationship was found between emotional exhaustion and turnover intentions. Furthermore, teacher perception of student misbehaviour was found to have a considerable indirect effect on teacher turnover intentions. Findings signify the importance of developing strategies that enhance teachers’ situation‐specific efficacy beliefs.     

Does school choice increase the rate of youth entrepreneurship?

Because entrepreneurial activity is a key source of economic growth, promoting youth entrepreneurship has become a priority for policymakers. School choice programs force administrators and teachers to be more entrepreneurial in their jobs by encouraging innovation and by creating competition and a more business-like environment in K-12 education. Does going to school in this climate make students more likely to become entrepreneurs? In this paper we test whether youth entrepreneurship rates are higher in counties with school choice programs. We find that voucher programs create higher rates of youth entrepreneurship, while charter schools do not, relative to traditional public schools.