An Aging Game Simulation Activity for Allied Health Students

The Aging Game, a simulation activity, has been used successfully with medical students in the development of empathetic attitudes toward older adults. To date, the Aging Game has not been used extensively with allied health students. It has been viewed as too costly, time-consuming and labor-intensive. The purpose of this study was to examine the administrative feasibility of implementing a modified version of the Aging Game for use with allied health students. The study showed that the Aging Game can be easily modified for use with allied health students, and it can deliver positive results for improving empathetic attitudes toward older adults.     

Literature and the phonograph

Oral English and Public Speaking for Secondary Schools. By Edwin Dubois Shurter. Chicago. Row, Peterson and Company. pp. 247, $1.25.

University Debaters’ Annual. Edited by Edith M. Phelps. New York. The H. W. Wilson Company, 1918. Pp. 274. Cloth. $1.80.

World War Issues and Ideals. By Morris Edmund Speare and Walter Blake Norris. New York, Ginn Company, 1918, 12 mo. Pp. xi+461. Cloth. $1.40.     

ANNUAL REPORT OF THE GENERAL SECRETARY

The purpose of this column is to keep religious educators abreast of the relevant significant research in the general field of psychology. Its implications for methods and materials in religious education are clear. Religious educators may well take advantage of every new finding in scientific research.

Each abstract or group is preceded by an evaluation and interpretative comment, which aims to guide the reader in understanding the research reported.

All of these abstracts are from PSYCHOLOGICAL ABSTRACTS, and used by permission of that periodical. The abstract number is Volume 29, Number 2, April, 1955.     

Religious Education in a Liberal,Pluralist, Democratic State

This study presents the cases of two teachers in a Jewish supplementary school whose experiences as learners in a year-long professional development (PD) program shaped their teaching practice. The PD program, based in a theory of havruta text learning, immersed the faculty in the very pedagogy they were being encouraged to use in their teaching and gave them tools to enact it to meet their classroom learning goals. In one case, the teacher learned to share “control” and give students a direct encounter with biblical texts; in another case, the teacher supported students to engage in interpretive play with the text. This study demonstrates the potential of the pedagogy of havruta learning to harness the religious educator's role as both learner and teacher and how the continuity between these roles can affect teaching practice in multiple ways.     

Cultivating a Religiously Literate Society: Challenges and Possibilities for America's Public Schools

This article presents a rationale as well as a proposal for a religious literacy curriculum in U.S. public high schools. Relying on the Religious Education curriculum currently in use in the United Kingdom, the authors sketch a religious literacy curriculum designed to help students thrive in a pluralistic and democratic society. In order to help young citizens develop the skills, dispositions, and knowledge to thrive in an increasingly global, pluralistic, and democratic society, they need to become religiously literate. For students to be religiously literate they must learn to respect the religious other as well as understand the role of religions in contributing to civic life.     

Overtures on Religious Training

Comparative Religion is seen as an important curricula because it could serve as a mechanism for enhancing cross-cultural religious communication. The authors seek to examine the role of Comparative Religion as an important science for enhancing dialogue skills. Such a communication skill, however, must be developed from both intra- and inter-civilizational levels. The authors have employed an historical and textual analysis to re-examine Comparative Religion and its methodology. The authors proposed new curricula in Comparative Religion studies including criticism of the methodologies used in Comparative Religion. This includes a new methodology that considers the existing multicultural religious phenomenon as well as post–September 11, 2001 developments and the plans for departmentalization of Comparative Religion. For further benefit toward peace, harmony, and accepting co-existence, this study also highlights suggestions for developing the undergraduate and postgraduate programs at the higher education level.     

The Performance of Eyewitnesses with Intellectual Disabilities on Photographic Identification Line-ups

Despite the large number of people with intellectual disabilities (ID) and the fact they are more likely to be victims and witnesses of crime, only two published studies have investigated their performance on identification line-up parades. In the present study we examined the identification performance of adults with and without ID on both a perpetrator-present and a perpetrator-absent photographic line-up. In addition, we investigated factors that could explain any potential difficulties with identification performance, such as face recognition performance (as measured by a standardised test), eyewitness confidence, understanding of the purpose of a line-up, and memory for non-biased line-up instructions. In comparison with typical adults, participants with ID demonstrated poorer performance across both perpetrator-present and perpetrator-absent photographic line-ups, yet were more confident in the accuracy of their responses. In addition they had poorer face recognition performance, were less likely to understand the purpose of the line-up, and were less likely to remember the non-biased line-up instructions. This pattern of difficulties is discussed in relation to the development of future research and interventions.     

Fun Science: The Use of Variable Manipulation to Avoid Content Instruction

This study examined the beliefs and rationale pre-service elementary teachers used to choose activities for upper-elementary students in a 1-week intensive science camp. Six undergraduate elementary pre-service teachers were observed as they took a semester-long science methods class that culminated in a 1-week science camp. This qualitative, phenomenological study found that counselors chose activities with the possibility of fun being a priority rather than teaching content, even after they were confronted with campers who demanded more content. Additionally, all six of the counselors agreed that activities involving variable manipulation were the most successful, even though content knowledge was not required to complete the activities. The counselors felt the variable manipulation activities were successful because students were constructing products and therefore getting to the end of the activity. Implications include building an awareness of the complexity of self-efficacy of science teaching and outcome expectancy to improve teacher education programs.