A Meta-Analytic Review of the Benefit of Spacing out Retrieval Practice Episodes on Retention

Educational Psychology Review - Spaced retrieval practice consists of repetitions of the same retrieval event distributed through time. This learning strategy combines two “desirable...     

Towards collaborative professional learning in the first year early childhood teacher education practicum: issues in negotiating the multiple interests of stakeholder feedback

This paper analyses data from two sources of stakeholder feedback – first year pre‐service teachers and supervising teachers/centre directors – about the issues involved in creating more collaborative approaches to the first year early childhood teacher education practicum at an Australian regional university. The collection of this feedback was part of a broader participatory action research project directed at maximising both the effectiveness of the pre‐service teachers' knowledge acquisition and meaning‐making and the sustainability of the partnership underpinning the practicum. The paper provides new insights into a hitherto under‐researched area, that of pre‐service early childhood teachers' professional learning experiences in child care contexts. It uses, as a basis, the work of Cardini. The main findings are that there are multiple viewpoints and competing interests, resulting in asymmetries, dissonance and the potential for conflict.     

Bringing Dinosaur Science to the Junior Girl Scouts Through a College Service-Learning Project

Undergraduate students in an introductory-level geoscience course successfully designed and conducted a science badge day for the Junior Girl Scouts. With national concerns that girls turn away from science at a young age, a service-learning project was incorporated into a college course with the end result providing a group of girls a positive and fun science-learning experience. A number of science and technology badges exist for the Girl Scouts, yet not many of these badges have been completed because of a lack of confidence the troop leaders have in teaching science and a paucity of scheduled science events for the leaders to take their girls. Junior Girl Scout troops were invited to the Pennsylvania State University Delaware County campus to complete a series of hands-on dinosaur science activities that allowed them to earn the Science in Everyday Life badge. At the conclusion of the badge event, the girls reported a greater interest in science, a desire to learn more science, and a desire to complete additional science-related Girl Scout badges.     

The prospects for using the Internet in collaborative design education with China

The Internet has become widely available in higher educationinstitutions all over the world offering new possibilities incommunication, collaboration and delivery. This paper examines theprospects for using the Internet in the context of collaborative designeducation with China, using the School of Design of the Hong KongPolytechnic University as a case study. The critical success factors arediscussed. These involve serious investment of resources and changes atgovernment, institutional and personal levels on both sides of thecollaborative institutions. It is important to look into theinfrastructure and policy issues, access to information technology,curriculum adaptation and instructional design as well as staff andstudent attitudes in order to achieve the collaborative objectivesthrough an Internet supported strategy. Although the Internet is a costeffective delivery mechanism, the School does not intend to deliver itsdesign course materials to China purely online. Pedagogically, theSchool believes in a dynamic interaction between real and virtuallearning environments for quality student learning. Technically, thereare many impediments to overcome before teaching staff and students arefamiliar with the use of information technology and it will take sometime before most people in China can make full access of the Internet toconnect freely to electronic education. Therefore, a hybrid approach isproposed to train design educators and practitioners in Mainland Chinaby utilising traditional face-to-face teaching method and establishedtechnologies while developing the use of the Internetgradually.     

Examining the practice of beginning teachers’ micropolitical literacy within professional inquiry communities

This paper investigates beginning teachers collaboratively making sense of and responding to the micropolitical environments of their schools. Drawing on a qualitative multi-case study conducted within the context of a university-sponsored, inquiry-based induction program, this research employs a community of practice frame to examine how novice teachers came to practice “micropolitical literacy.” The paper identifies four dimensions of micropolitical discourse that surfaced in the situated setting of the inquiry groups. The analysis further illustrates how beginning teachers, while participating in inquiry groups, coconstructed understandings of the organizational structures and professional cultures of their schools.