On the teaching and evaluation of experiential learning in a conventional university setting

The notion of experiential learning emphasizes the personal experience of the learner. In this article, I describe my approach to making learning a more personal experience for students on a conventional university course. I focus on modeling of behaviour and attitudes by the teacher, clear communication, attention to process, and collaboration in learning. Evaluation can be formative (to facilitate learning) or summative (for assessment). I describe a number of methods which I have used in the formative evaluation of experiential learning. In general, I try to maximize feedback to all participants (including myself) having first created an atmosphere where defences can be lowered and the feedback heard. Finally, I consider summative evaluation, which presents considerable, but not insuperable, difficulties.     

We are the stories we tell about ourselves: child welfare records and the construction of identity among Australians who,as children,experienced out-of-home ‘care’

Since the late 1990s, a significant number of commissions of inquiry have been conducted by the Commonwealth Government of Australia, individual states and territories in Australia, and internationally, into the treatment of children in out-of-home care. This paper traces the most significant of these inquiries and the recommendations arising regarding records, with the purpose of highlighting some of the recurring themes identified by each inquiry. An overview is also given of some of the positive changes to aspects of recordkeeping as a direct consequence of the landmark inquiries. Lastly, this overview hopes to raise some questions surrounding the role of the profession in promoting awareness of recordkeeping issues that have emerged through these inquiries.     

On Bosworth Field or the Playing Fields of Eton and Rugby? Who Really Invented Modern Football?

In 1867 the Football Association was considering disbanding but was largely dissuaded from doing so by the progress the game was making in Sheffield. The football rules used there seemed much more appealing to teams and spectators alike and the game was beginning to be exploited commercially. This commercialism was resisted though by the local social elite who still had a fierce belief in amateurism and opposed the professionalisation of football. At the same time, in Lancashire, there existed a vigorous sporting culture surrounding pedestrianism, horse racing, boxing and cricket together with a well developed structure of sporting facilities. By the 1870s football, a game that had not previously been exploited commercially in Lancashire, was beginning to become popular and was rapidly professionalised. Nominal record linkage indicates that this development was essentially driven by schoolteachers, clerks, bookkeepers and accountants using their social and cultural capital rather than the transference of public school culture through returning public schoolboys. The formation of modern association football in Lancashire between 1830 and 1885 can then be seen to be effected though linear continuities in local popular culture and the emergence of a lower middle class rather than public school traditions and a civilising process.     

The Origins of Football Debate: Football and Cultural Continuity, 1857–1859

This article seeks to add to the growing volume of evidence of a broad, tenacious and visible footballing culture throughout nineteenth-century Britain. It is argued that football persisted among the general population in a variety of forms, none of which required the assistance or involvement of the public schools or public schoolboys to ensure its survival as some historians had previously believed. Indeed, the sheer number of games, evidenced in a variety of forms and a variety of settings, suggests beyond reasonable doubt that most forms of football being played across the country were not formal matches but small-sided games played on church, works' or schools' outings, at rural fetes, galas and celebrations, or as street or casual football, the latter taking place on meadows, fields and greens. Contrary to orthodox historians, these games did survive through mid-century. Importantly, these were predominantly small-sided games and are the ones which are closest to Association football as it was codified in 1863 and hence of most interest to the debate on origins. Common sense then dictates that football can be seen as a cultural continuity, especially as far as the traditions of male youth are concerned, across the nineteenth century.     

The Assessment of Project Work in Nuffield Advanced Biology and Nuffield Advanced Physical Science∗

The range of assessments made by teachers of the performance of their students in the Nuffield Advanced Biology project and the Nuffield Advanced Physical Science project was subjected to a factor analysis. The analyses reveal only one major factor for each project. An analysis of pooled assessments confirmed the existence of these factors and revealed that they are different for each project. The existence of only one major factor in the assessment of each project raises doubts about the validity of the teacher assessments or implies the existence of some general factor underlying performance on all the criteria for that project. The fact that the Biology factor is different from the Physical Science factor indicates that different abilities are being measured and so suggestions which have been made about using one project for both subjects would appear not to be feasible.

     

Views on the philosophy of science among undergraduate science students and their tutors at the University of Papua New Guinea: origins,progression, enculturation and destinations

Using a schedule originated by Nott and Wellington to explore science teachers’ views on the philosophy of science, data were gathered at the University of Papua New Guinea. Similarities in response were established for successive first year intakes of science undergraduates (1999–2000). Students with experience in national high schools or Australian high schools responded more positively than their provincial secondary school trained peers to items indicating that the findings of scientific enquiry were universally true. A cross‐sectional analysis showed the undergraduates in the third and fourth years to be more process orientated than the first or second years. Both the first and second years were different in their views compared with their tutors in the relativism–positivism scale, where they were more positivist, the contextualism–decontextualism scale, where they were less decontextualist, and the process–content scale where they were considerably less process orientated. Those with a preferred career destination of medicine were slightly more decontextualist in outlook while being marginally realist, those with a preferred physical science career being very weakly instrumentalist. The results can be interpreted in terms of respondents’ experiences in secondary schooling and on programmes at the University of Papua New Guinea.     

Biochemical Profile of Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease Patients in Eastern India with Histopathological Correlation

Aminotransferase assay is often used as a screening test as well as an endpoint for resolution of disease in nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). Aim of the study was to evaluate the relationship of transaminase level with metabolic variables and histology in NAFLD. Single center observational study was conducted in a gastroenterology clinic at Cuttack in coastal Odisha. Subjects were consecutive patients presenting with functional bowel disease and undergoing abdominal sonography. All participants were evaluated for the presence of metabolic syndrome (MS), insulin resistance, liver function test and lipid profile. Various parameters were compared between NAFLD subjects and controls. 53.5 % of NAFLD had normal serum transaminases, whereas 20.8 % of healthy controls had transaminitis. NAFLD patients had significantly higher BMI, fasting plasma glucose, serum transaminases, serum triglycerides, serum insulin and homeostatic model assessment (HOMA) IR than controls. NAFLD patients who had transaminitis had significantly higher incidence of MS and higher mean HOMA IR than those without. There was no significant difference in histopathological features between NAFLD with and without transaminitis. To conclude, over half of NAFLD subjects do not have transaminitis while transaminitis is present in a fifth of healthy people without fatty liver. Hence serum transaminase should not be used as screening test for NAFLD. NAFLD patients with transaminitis had a higher incidence of MS and insulin resistance than those without. However, there was no significant difference in histopathological features between these two groups.     

‘THE BREAD,THE JAM AND SOME COFFEE IN THE MORNING’: PERCEPTIONS OF A NURTURE GROUP

The provision of nurture groups has increasingly been advocated as a strategy for meeting the needs of young emotionally disturbed children (DfEE, 1998a, p.44). This article is based on a qualitative evaluation of a nurture group in a primary school situated in an inner‐city area of severe deprivation. Though criteria for success varied, the nurture group was viewed as effective from the different viewpoints of all involved, including teachers, parents and pupils. However, questions are raised about the group in terms of policies of inlcusion and teacher‐parent partnerships, suggesting that exclusion within mainstream schools may be fostered under the flag of inclusion.