The Grieving Process in Children: Strategies for Understanding, Educating, and Reconciling Children's Perceptions of Death

Just like adults, children of all ages need time and understanding in order to process the concept of death and dying. This process is much different for children than it is for adults. There are 4 components relative to children's understanding of death: (a) the irreversibility factor, (b) finality, (c) inevitability, and (d) causality. These 4 components relate directly to the developmental level of the child at the time the death occurs. Knowing how children's concept of death is constructed provides parents and caregivers important information and helps them respond more sensitively to what children might feel and experience. This article provides an overview of how children understand death, concrete strategies for talking to children about death, and suggestions for teachers about how to help children through grief and mourning.     

Mentors for beginning teachers as middle leaders: the messy work of recontextualising

ABSTRACT

Mentors for beginning teachers in schools are often unacknowledged middle leaders in their schools. Through their work with beginning teachers, they not only provide local leadership in their contexts, they influence and shape the work of the next generation of teachers. Government-funded mentor training for the purpose of supporting beginning teachers in Education Queensland schools commenced in 2014 (Queensland Government. [2017]. Mentoring Beginning Teachers. http://education.qld.gov.au/staff/development/employee/teachers/mentoring.html). In Queensland, Australia, over 3000 experienced teachers have completed a two-day professional learning Mentoring Beginning Teacher (MBT) programme. Upon completion, mentors were expected to design and enact a mentoring programme that met the beginning teachers’ needs in their context, using the dialogic mentoring principles they had learned to fulfil the policy goals of increasing the number of beginning teachers transitioning to full registration. This article draws on Bernstein’s ([2000]. Pedagogy, Symbolic Control, and Identity: Theory, Research, Critique. Revised ed. Rowman & Littlefield) concepts of recontextualisation, and horizontal and vertical discourses of knowledge to understand how mentor teachers negotiated and enacted their roles as middle leaders in schools in diverse schooling contexts.     

Academic involvement at university

The call for students to become more involved in their academic study is not new. However few studies have investigated academic involvement as it is experienced by university students. This paper discusses the results of a study that was designed to explore student perceptions of the nature of academic involvement in learning. In addition students were asked to identify factors in their learning experience that encouraged or discouraged their academic involvement. The results reported here are drawn from interviews with 58 first and second year students attending Victoria University of Wellington.The results demonstrate that students experience involvement in qualitatively and quantitatively different ways that appear to be related to approach to learning. A major focus of the paper is on the interactive role personal and contextual factors play in the development of involvement. It is suggested that such factors combine to produce a particular learning climate that directly affects involvement in learning. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of this research for university policy, teaching practice and course design and makes some suggestions for further research.     

Neurological models of cognitive processing

A framework is proposed from which to evaluate contemporary neurological models of cognitive processing. Selected models are classified as unidimensional, bidimensional, or tridimensional according to the neuraxes that they address. The empirical research that supports each model is considered in terms of anatomical, physiological, and behavioral levels of analysis. Applied implications of the models for learning and individual differences are identified as they relate to psychoeducational assessment and intervention. Finally, differences and similarities among the selected models are synthesized.     

Through the looking glass … preservice professional portfolio's

Abstract

This article shares one institution's experiences using professional portfolios to assist future teachers in becoming effective practitioners and making the transition between school and work. It describes the portfolio development process and the exit presentations. Both give students a peer/faculty forum to showcase their competencies, growth, and promote reflection, self‐confidence, job search preparedness, and an increased awareness of professional standards. In order to ascertain students’ perceptions regarding the development of a professional portfolio, faculty administered a questionnaire. Student feedback highlighted the benefits of portfolio development and offered suggestions for future improvements. They overwhelmingly viewed the invested time as worthwhile, saw the process as an appropriate program exit assessment, and recommended its continuation with future students. In addition, their suggestions held implications for portfolio use in teacher training programs.