Volunteers as Products of a Zoo Conservation Education Program

Zoos embrace docents/volunteers as a means of interpreting the threats to wildlife and biodiversity to visitors. To accomplish this, zoos provide docents’ education, training, and work experience. Docents themselves also engage in solitary and social wildlife experiences outside of their volunteer obligations. This study examined what motivates docents and how they change as part of their experience. Results from a mailback questionnaire (91% response rate, n = 365) documented that both altruistic (interpreting wildlife to visitors) and egoistic (learning about wildlife themselves; socializing with like-minded others) motivations were predictive of continuing satisfaction with their volunteer experiences. Docents also reported starting or increasing many conservation behaviors after beginning to volunteer at the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo. Docents with more years of experience tended to report more involvement with conservation behaviors. Results support an environmental socialization framework to explain the impacts of an environmental training program. Implications for future research and practice are presented.     

A Nontraditional Teacher's Experience after Student Teaching: Implications for Early Childhood Teacher Education

Introducing critical pedagogies into undergraduate early childhood teacher education programs may enable working class teachers who work with working class children to better examine assumptions of developmentally and culturally appropriate practices. This study focuses on a Latino assistant teacher who, after having returned from a semester of student teaching, attempted to cultivate an ethos of professional interaction among his peers. His ability to name, challenge and ultimately reject inappropriate ideologies and practices (Bartolomé, 2004 Bartolomé, L. I. 2004. Critical pedagogy and teacher education: Radicalizing perspective teachers. Teacher Education Quarterly, 31(1): 97–122.  [Google Scholar]) are coupled with his concern for his children and his community. Illustrating Dahlberg, Moss, and Pence's definitions of “quality” and “meaning making,” (2001) this study also considers ways in which administrators and teacher educators can respond to and support teachers who return to their jobs after their student-teaching experiences.     

Leadership practices for student engagement in challenging conditions

Student Engagement is the investment of time, effort and other relevant resources by both students and their institutions intended to optimise the student experience and enhance the learning outcomes and development of students, and the performance and reputation of the institution. As such, it has affective, behavioural and cognitive dimensions, which may manifest congruently or oppositionally. The current popularity of the concept derives from a large body of evidence suggesting that student engagement improves a range of desirable outcomes. A study funded by the Leadership Foundation to uncover leadership practices that enhanced student engagement revealed the importance of climate, resourcing, communication and values. The article concludes with some suggestions of how the findings might usefully be applied in a higher education setting.     

A Comparison of Students' Evaluations of a Peer-delivered Sex Education Programme and Teacher-led Provision

This article reports data from the process evaluation of a randomised controlled trial of peer-led sex education in English secondary schools. Data from 52 focus group discussions in 19 schools and selected items from a questionnaire survey completed by 7770 students in 1998/99 are used to compare student views on teacher- and peer-led sex education. Questionnaire data show that a significantly greater proportion of students taught by peer educators than teachers felt that sex education was enjoyable, engaging and useful to them. Data also show that a slightly greater proportion of students taught by teachers felt the classroom was well controlled. Data from an analysis of the focus group discussions are used to explore and illustrate factors which students associated with the acceptability and satisfaction of the peer-led intervention. The importance of peer educator empathy and similarity with students is highlighted and data show how these characteristics are associated with peer educators' choice of teaching methods, the content of lessons and the sexual values and attitudes they espouse. The influence of contextual factors like student prior expectations and experiences of relationships with teachers, school environment and norms are considered along with the potential influence of the research process on responses.     

Collaborative Assistance in a Highly Prescribed School Reform Model: The Case of Success for All

This article focuses on how the Success for All Foundation (SFAF)—the nonprofit intermediary organization that promotes Success for All—works with educators in schools to increase capacity for learning and instruction. Success for All is a comprehensive school reform model that primarily centers on early literacy intervention. Building on research on intermediary organizations and situated learning, we examine how SFAF structures professional development and the types of relationships the organization cultivates with practitioners. At a glance, although much of the theory, strategy, and tools driving the SFAF's approach to school reform seem technically oriented and highly prescribed, our investigation indicates that the deeper process of creating knowledge for school improvement is a collaborative, situated endeavor. Moreover, the study reveals that the process of learning and professional development within the program is a result of the ongoing, dynamic interplay among the SFAF, local conditions, and the broader policy context. Implications for policy and practice are discussed.     

Exposing blindspots and the hidden curriculum within counselor supervision models

Anti-racist and anti-oppressive supervision remains a burgeoning area of scholarship and research within the counselor education nomenclature. In this paper, we explore how matters of race and racism are conspicuously underemphasized in counselor training, specifically, the supervision process. We explore the hidden curriculum in counselor education supervision models. Next, we consider how a supervision model grounded in critical race theory provides a more robust framework for addressing gaps in existing supervision models through anti-racist practices.