Research and Teacher Education: A British Perspective

The title of a lecture or address is often the least important part of it. Sometimes, indeed, it is almost an after-thought. In the case of my address today, however, the words of the title are important. What one puts between ‘research’ and ‘teacher education’ — on, or and, or in – makes a great deal of difference to the subject matter.     

LATIN ‐‐AN INTEGRATED LEARNING PROJECT

Television has an increasing role as an aid to learning. In the past, because of the expense of the equipment needed, it has been regarded as a tool for teaching. Only recently has it been installed in libraries and resource centres together with video recorders and headsets, to permit students to learn from video sources of information. In many of these applications, however, despite the fact that other media is available in the same location, the connection between other items and television material is no more than tenuous. In the Latin Learning Project used by Surrey schools, as described in this article, efforts have been made to get beyond this limitation.     

Psychodrama and sociodrama in primary and secondary education

Students need practice in decision making and problem solving, and sociodrama can provide this practice in a safe, nonthreatening context. It helps them to become aware of the typical ways they solve problems, and it increases both social and personal awareness. It may promote acceptance, cooperation, and cohesiveness in the classroom. Students readily adapt to this kind of activity and find it both enjoyable and stimulating. It is recommended as a useful method in the classroom and guidance and counseling setting for helping students understand their own behavior and the behavior of others.     

Continuity of individual adaptation from infancy to kindergarten: a predictive study of ego-resiliency and curiosity in preschoolers

In this longitudinal study, individual differences in security of attachment at 18 months and effective autonomous functioning at age 2 years were related to the dimensions of ego-control and ego-resiliency at age 4--5 years. The kindergarten or nursery school teachers of 26 children completed California Child Q-Sorts. The children were also given a short form of the Block's laboratory battery (Banta's curiosity box, level of aspiration, motor impulse control delay of gratification, the Shure and Spivack Preschool Interpersonal Problem-solving Test, and the Lowenfeld mosaics). Following the Blocks, composited ego-resiliency and ego-control scores were derived from each data set. Children earlier classified as securely attached were, as predicted, significantly higher on ego-resiliency on both laboratory and Q-sort composites. They were also higher than anxiously attached infants on 3 independent measures of curiosity. An independently composited index of competence from 2-year tool-using measures also correlated significantly with later resiliency, as did 2-year measures of mothers' support and quality of assistance. The data provide initial links between the infant's quality of attachment, the toddler's effectiveness in a problem-solving situation, and competence during the preschool years.     

Roosttime restlessness in captive American Robins (Turdus migratorius)

All-day observations of captive American Robins (Turdus migratorius) revealed that the birds became extremely active at dusk, the time when wild Robins typically fly some distance to a communal roost site. This roosttime restlessness occurred during every month of the year, and so was distinguishable from the migratory restlessness that the birds displayed during early morning hours of spring months. The present observations also uncovered a recapitulation effect, in that the changes in activity level that occurred within any single day (from dawn through dusk) tended to parallel the changes in activity level that occurred across the year (from spring through winter).     

Reversibility of reinforcement between eating and running by schedule changes: A comparison of hypotheses and models

Rats increased eating that produced access to a running-wheel or increased running that produced access to food, depending on which response was potentially deprived, relative to baseline, by the scheduled ratio of responding. Under both schedules, instrumental responding significantly exceeded appropriate baselines of the noncontingent effects of the schedule. The results contradicted the hypothesis that reinforcement is produced by an overall or momentary probability differential between two responses; instead, they supported the condition of response deprivation as a key determinant of reinforcement. Of several recent quantitative models that predict reversibility of reinforcement by schedule changes, only the predictions of the relative response-deprivation model did not differ significantly from the data of either schedule.