Intergenerational Educational Encounters: Part 2: Counseling Implications of the Model

This second paper commences where Part 1 concluded in volume 33, number 1, 2006. The paper describes the relations reflected in the Model-of-Knowledge between all partners of the intergenerational encounters at school—children, old adults, and teachers. The Model-of-Knowledge represents a relatively balanced approach toward the generations' typical needs, while teachers are regarded as members of the middle generation who may contribute to the intergenerational mediation process. By discussing concepts such as “authority,” “productive aging,” “search for meaning,” and “life span,” the paper offers possible ramifications for the social images and status of older adults. Additionally, it discusses the experimental realism of the intergenerational programs at school. Gerontologists and education professionals are invited to explore the psychosocial insights that the model brings to the fore.     

The Impact of a Novel Curriculum on Secondary Biology Teachers’ Dispositions Toward Using Authentic Data and Media in Their Human Impact and Ecology Lessons

This study examines how the implementation of a novel curriculum, that emphasizes the use of published scientific data and media to learn about human impact and ecological function, influenced ninth-grade biology teacher (N-36) dispositions toward using data and media in their ecology and human impact lesson plans. It explores how integration of these elements shaped their lesson plans. Research questions addressed are 1. How do teachers' use of data and media change as a result of implementing this novel curriculum? 2. How do the integration of data and media influence teachers' lesson plans? Findings show that implementation positively affected teachers’ dispositions toward using authentic data and real-world media about scientific research to explain how people impact ecological function. Teachers also demonstrated increased appreciation and capacity for using data and media for learning how humans disrupt ecological function. Importantly, prior to implementation, 42 % of teachers specifically reported not using data when teaching human impact. Additionally, content analysis of teachers' lesson plan reports shows that focusing lesson plans around data and media can support teachers in making human impact lessons more specific and that a data- and media-centered curriculum can assist teachers in moving away from discussions of the generalized effect of people on the environment to specific real-world examples of how humans impact ecological function.     

Preparing university educators for hot moments: theater for educational development about difference,power, and privilege

A ‘hot moment’ is an emotion-laden moment of conflict or tension that threatens to derail teaching and learning. In this study, an educational development workshop used interactive theater depicting a hot moment to prepare university instructors for diverse classrooms. Participants in three workshops wrote short reflections, both before and after the theater-based experience, about whether instructors should consider differences among students. After the workshop, many participants took new dimensions of difference into consideration. Surprisingly, after the interactive theater experience, almost all participants reflected exclusively on instrumental issues in teaching (e.g. classroom management strategies), but not structural issues of difference, power, and privilege that underlie hot moments. The empirical findings and the author's reflections on a personal hot moment are theorized in terms of concepts from and critiques of critical and feminist pedagogy.     

The effects of maternal smartphone use on mother–child interaction

This study assessed the effects of maternal smartphone use on mother–child interaction. Thirty-three Israeli mothers and their 24- to 36-month-old toddlers (16 boys) from middle-high socioeconomic status participated in three within-subjects experimental conditions: maternal smartphone use, maternal magazine reading, and uninterrupted dyadic free-play. The mothers produced fewer utterances, provided fewer responses to child bids, missed child bids more often, and exchanged fewer conversational turns with their children when engaged with a smartphone or printed magazines compared to uninterrupted free-play. The quality of maternal responsiveness was also decreased. These findings suggest maternal smartphone use compromises mother–child interaction, which given smartphone ubiquity in daily life may have negative effects on child development in various domains, including language, cognition, and socioemotional regulation.     

Defining parental involvement： The Israeli case

During the past decade, Israeli parents declared their rights to be involved in their children＇s education. The term used is ＂parental involvement＂, but there is no real agreement on the definition of the term. This paper describes the different opinions and approaches of parents, teachers, students, principals and decision makers, as found and described by Israeli researchers. The development, definitions and boundaries of the term are introduced. Even though the research in Israel is on a Hebrew term and this discussion is in English, the processes involved translate well, as these processes are in a well developed country, based on democracy and Western culture and an education system established under the British Mandate with its historical traces.     

The learning environment of natural history museums: Multiple ways to capture students’ views

This article describes an initial attempt to find out students’ perceptions of class visits to natural history museums, with regard to the museum’s role as a place for intellectual and social experience. The study followed up approximately 500 Grades 6–8 students who visited four museums of different sizes, locations and foci. Data sources included the Museum Constructivist Learning Environment Survey (M-CLES), which was adapted from Constructivist Learning Environment Survey, an open-ended question and semi-structured interviews with 50 students. The three instruments highlighted some differences in students’ perceptions of the visit. Opportunities for concrete experiences and cognitive and affective engagement were not covered by the M-CLES, while the nature of science was not discussed by the students in their responses to the open-ended item and the interviews. This suggests that each instrument has its advantages and limitations and, therefore, the three means for data collection enabled a complementary view. Based on our findings, we suggest further development of museum learning environment surveys to capture students’ perceptions.     

Community-level environmental projects as learning tools for planners: a case study of graduate planning students

Despite the potential environmental impact of urban planning, there is little research on Environmental Education (EE) in the context of urban planning curricula. This study follows graduate planning students’ learning experience during group projects assigned as part of a planning course at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. These participatory projects, characterized as project-based learning and service learning, took place in several communities in Israel. We examined the types of learning impacts the projects engendered by analyzing the reported experiences of the students using parameters from the field of EE. The main goal of this research is to understand the contribution of such practical, hands-on project exercises to the course curriculum for inculcating environmental education themes. Findings indicate that projects helped students acquire and/or improve professional tools. They enhanced motivation to consider environmental concerns in their work and in some cases changed students’ personal environmental behavior.     

Attitudes of social science students in Israel and Austria towards the belated twins scenario--an exploratory study

This article discusses results of a questionnaire survey of 156 university students in Israel and Austria examining reactions towards the Belated Twins scenario, which entails the artificial twinning of embryos of which one is immediately carried to term while the other one is born later. The scenario resembles a case of human reproductive cloning in terms of result (the creation of genetically identical individuals in a time-delayed manner) but it involves gamete fusion like "natural" reproduction. By means of qualitative text analysis we discuss the core themes mobilized both in support and opposition to the scenario. While Israeli and Austrian respondents held similar general attitudes (about half were in favour of legalizing Belated Twins, while about a third opposed it), they drew partly on different arguments to arrive at their conclusions. In both groups, uncertainty stemming from "novel" elements in the scenario was regularly interpreted as negatively exacerbating existing issues.     

Explaining a reverse gender gap in advanced physics and computer science course-taking: An exploratory case study comparing Hebrew-speaking and Arabic-speaking high schools in Israel

In the past three decades in high-income countries, female students have outperformed male students in most indicators of educational attainment. However, the underrepresentation of girls and women in science courses and careers, especially in physics, computer sciences, and engineering, remains persistent. What is often neglected by the vast existing literature is the role that schools, as social institutions, play in maintaining or eliminating such gender gaps. This explorative case study research compares two high schools in Israel: one Hebrew-speaking state school that serves mostly middleclass students and exhibits a typical gender gap in physics and computer science; the other, an Arabic-speaking state school located in a Bedouin town that serves mostly students from a lower socioeconomic background. In the Arabic-speaking school over 50% of the students in the advanced physics and computer science classes are females. The study aims to explain this seemingly counterintuitive gender pattern with respect to participation in physics and computer science. A comparison of school policies regarding sorting and choice reveals that the two schools employ very different policies that might explain the different patterns of participation. The Hebrew-speaking school prioritizes self-fulfillment and “free-choice,” while in the Arabic-speaking school, staff are much more active in sorting and assigning students to different curricular programs. The qualitative analysis suggests that in the case of the Arabic-speaking school the intersection between traditional and collectivist society and neoliberal pressures in the form of raising achievement benchmarks contributes to the reversal of the gender gap in physics and computer science courses.     

Dynamics of forensic interviews with suspected abuse victims who do not disclose abuse

OBJECTIVES: The present study was designed to explore structural differences between forensic interviews in which children made allegations and those in which children did not make allegations. METHODOLOGY: Fifty forensic interviews of 4- to 13-year-old suspected victims of abuse who did not disclose abuse during the interview were compared with the same number of forensic interviews of alleged victims who made allegations of sexual or physical abuse. Only cases in which there was substantial reason to believe that abuse had taken place were included in the study. Audiotapes of the interviews were examined with a focus on interviewer utterances and children's responses during the pre-substantive rapport-building, episodic memory training, and 'getting the allegation' phases of the interviews, which all employed the NICHD Investigative Interview Guide. FINDINGS: Forensic interviews which yielded allegations of child abuse were characterized by quite different dynamics than interviews with children who did not make allegations. When interviewing non-disclosers, interviewers made less frequent use of free recall prompts and offered fewer supportive comments than when interviewing children who made allegations of abuse. Children who did not disclose abuse were somewhat uncooperative, offered fewer details, and gave more uninformative responses, even at the very beginning of the interview, before the interviewers focused on substantive issues and before the interviewers themselves began to behave differently. CONCLUSIONS: A premature focus on substantive issues may prevent children who are not responsive in the episodic memory training phase from disclosing abuse. Identifying reluctant disclosers and making more extensive efforts to build rapport before substantive issues are broached, or interviewing such children in more than one session, may help suspected victims disclose their experiences.