Careers in Health

Carreras en Salud (Careers in Health) provides bilingual/bicultural individuals with a fully-supported customized career path for nursing and other allied health occupations bridging individuals from unemployment/underemployment to high-demand healthcare positions. Healthcare providers, elected officials, and community leaders have partnered with the collaboration and supported the initiative in its various stages.     

The CoVis Project: Building a Large-Scale Science Education Testbed*

This paper describes the construction and research program of the Learning Through Collaborative Visualization (CoVis) Project, a testbed for exploring science education reform with telecommunications technology. The CoVis testbed is contrasted with other forms of educational research in an “ecology of paradigms,” which argues that testbeds are in fact a new setting for research with different requirements and challenges for the researcher. Two extended examples of telecommunications research are provided as examples of the kind of research that testbeds are well suited to explore. The first example is the evolution of videoconferencing in the CoVis testbed. The second example is the design and development of a networked groupware application called the Collaboratory Notebook.     

Students Making Sense of Chaotic Behavior

Abstract

This article reports a preliminary study of high school students making sense of the behavior displayed by a Lorenzian Water Wheel. The Lorenzian Water Wheel is a rotating disk driven by the flow of water whose motion may be periodic or not, depending on different parameters (e.g., tilt of the wheel, flow rate of the water, and amount of friction). The study aims to contribute toward new basis for the learning of dissipative dynamics through the analysis and experimentation with common phenomena. The study also aims to support the design of learning environments that focus on fundamental aspects of dissipative dynamics‐such as the origins of turbulence, the relationships between periodicity and predictability, or the notion of an attractor—by refining intuitions that emerge from the daily experience with the surrounding world.     

Conservation of stained glass windows with protective glazing: Main results from the European VIDRIO research programme

The methodology of protecting the European stained glass windows against environmental risk (e.g. meteorological factors, air pollution, microorganisms) by means of an external glazing is not new. In spite of many scientific studies carried out in the last 20 years, some questions were still up for discussion. The European VIDRIO (2002–2005) project gave an answer to these questions. The research carried out by the different project partners established a new multidisciplinary approach aimed at evaluating the efficiency of the protective glazing systems and their effects on stained glass windows conservation, and finally at assessing the most appropriate strategy to preserve stained glass windows. Scientific results showed that the so-called isothermal glazing (i.e. ventilation by the air coming from the inside of the building) protected efficiently the ancient stained glass window from environmental attack (i.e. rain, pollutants, condensation, thermal shocks) with very limited secondary effects. The scientific research highlighted that its efficiency was strongly related to the technical design of the protective system. In particular, the ventilation and the size of the interspace had to be carefully considered. The research developed within the VIDRIO project was turned into general recommendations to the owners and practitioners on the best practice for the stained glass windows future conservation.     

Teaching future teachers basic astronomy concepts—seasonal changes—at a time of reform in science education

Bearing in mind students' misconceptions about basic concepts in astronomy, the present study conducted a series of constructivist activities aimed at changing future elementary and junior high school teachers' conceptions about the cause of seasonal changes, and several characteristics of the Sun–Earth–Moon relative movements like Moon phases, Sun and Moon eclipses, and others. The activities and results concerning the cause of seasonal changes are reported. Both the experimental class and the control groups improved their grasp of basic astronomy concepts statistically significantly, although the experimental class made the most impressive progress of all. Regarding subjects relevant to this study (seasonal changes), only the experimental class showed a statistically significant improvement, which justifies the constructivist approach. We conclude that in implementing a reform in the science curriculum, the change has to include the subjects taught and also the way they are taught. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 43: 879–906, 2006     

The Collective that Didn't Quite Collect: Reflections on the IALS

The concept and methodology of IALS obviously represent progress for literacy research. Nevertheless, this survey presents serious limitations. It prioritises the handling of data-based information as opposed to experiential and contextualized information, ranking at a higher position those who handle the first kind of information. The survey ignores how people solve problems in their life context. The competence of people cannot be understood merely through outside observation and a questionnaire situation. In the case of Poland, the interpretation of data manifests an ethnocentric Western attitude, tending to reduce cultural differences to a cultural deficit. Two IALS-inspired surveys conducted in Spain and Portugal mixed quantitative and qualitative methods in order to take into account the social relations in their cultural context. This article questions the role of research, which cannot be limited to the objectivation of reality, but should help to transform and improve it. The alternative model proposed is named "investigation action."     

The formation of the academic counsellor

Conclusion A detailed and exact evaluation of this program of Teacher Formation and of theactivities of academic counsellors is presently underway. We expect to have theresults by the middle of 1982. Nevertheless, partial evaluations of differentteaching and counselling activities show that there has been a change in the conceptionof what education is, development of aptitudes and attitudes and a profoundimprovement in the teaching quality.     

Educational counselling in Mexico: Developments and perspectives

Conclusion It is necessary to realize the limitations of counselling services in Mexico. In spite of all the efforts taken, the academic preparation of counsellors is not strong enough. As has been mentioned, 50% are psychologists or pedagogues, at best, and the rest, who are not specifically prepared for counselling, are constantly moving away from the helping services. There seems to be little progress. On the other hand, we hope that counselling and the counsellors, once services have been established, might some day be able to resolve those complex problems which the educational system has not been able to resolve or diminish with its own traditional resources, especially problems like school dropout, the correct choice of vocational and academic studies, the distribution of students to the various branches and levels of the educational system in accordance with the actual needs of the country, and a whole series of other tasks, which may fail in an area of myth or may really be related to the possibilities of the discipline. Therefore, it is necessary to set the limits of counsellors' tasks and to define the counsellor's role more clearly in the near future, in order to strengthen the discipline on behalf of our future students.Knowing, understanding and evaluating the relationship that now exists between the counselling tasks of counsellors, the educational Practice and the national and international policy, shall facilitate the future implementation of more solid and feasible programmes. For the time being, having a clear view of what we can do (and not only justifying things we cannot accomplish) should help our students to use our counselling services with higher benefits.