Educating Young Educators: A Pedagogical Internship for Undergraduate Teaching Assistants

Although undergraduates have long held a role as teaching assistants for introductory science courses at liberal arts colleges and universities, educational institutions often do not provide these students with opportunities to explore science teaching and pedagogy. At Brandeis University, we designed an internship course to help increase the motivation, understanding, and knowledge of teaching pedagogy for undergraduate teaching assistants that is offered concurrently with their teaching responsibilities. Weekly sessions with faculty mentors are guided by readings in current science education literature, and throughout the semester students are asked to develop new course material based on the pedagogical frameworks discussed. To evaluate the effectiveness of this course, we surveyed students at the close of the semester. We found an overall increase in student confidence levels with regard to teaching and better awareness of the difficulties faced in science education. All students who participated in the course expressed interest in participating in future educational internships. We believe that the Educating Young Educators internship has the potential to be a catalyst for personal and professional growth from a novice into an informed young educator.     

Doing an effective job? Measuring the impact of casework

This article describes an initiative to evaluate the impact of educational psychologists’ (EPs’) casework. Previous studies have often focussed on evaluating processes or reducing outcomes to measurable units. The authors argue that qualitative research methods can be used to illuminate EP effectiveness. They describe a real world and proportionate methodology, crucially aimed at supporting self‐reflection and development. An evaluation of this initiative showed that it can demonstrate EP impact and has validity for individual and service improvement. Implications, including the need to face up to less than positive feedback, are discussed.     

The interface between arts practice and research: attitudes and perceptions of Australian artist‐academics

Whilst an academic working in the arts may have been appointed as a consequence of artistic accomplishment and a capacity to teach, the research that underpins such work is an intrinsic part of its production and also needs to be recognised. In Australia, the ability of the artist‐academic to translate research into a form that is respected and rewarded is an issue of contention. This paper gathers responses to this issue. Perceptions of and attitudes to creative work as research are canvassed alongside life decisions arising from those perceptions and attitudes. This research occurs in the context of a new Australian framework for the evaluation of research. This framework offers some recognition of the research that supports creative practice. Thus, the long‐standing experience of compromise reported by the Australian artist‐academics interviewed for this study are discussed alongside new policies that seek to construct methodologies for its amelioration.     

Comparing cognition by integrating concept learning,proactive interference,and list memory

This article describes an approach for training a variety of species to learn the abstract concept of same/different, which in turn forms the basis for testing proactive interference and list memory. The stimulus set for concept-learning training was progressively doubled from 8, 16, 32, 64, 128 . . . to 1,024 different pictures with novel-stimulus transfer following learning. All species fully learned the same/different abstract concept: capuchin and rhesus monkeys learned more readily than pigeons; nutcrackers and magpies were at least equivalent to monkeys and transferred somewhat better following initial training sets. A similar task using the 1,024-picture set plus delays was used to test proactive interference on occasional trials. Pigeons revealed greater interference with 10-s than with 1-s delays, whereas delay time had no effect on rhesus monkeys, suggesting that the monkeys’ interference was event based. This same single-item same/different task was expanded to a 4-item list memory task to test animal list memory. Humans were tested similarly with lists of kaleidoscope pictures. Delays between the list and test were manipulated, resulting in strong initial recency effects (i.e., strong 4th-item memory) at short delays and changing to a strong primacy effect (i.e., strong 1st-item memory) at long delays (pigeons 0-s to 10-s delays; monkeys 0-s to 30-s delays; humans 0-s to 100-s delays). Results and findings are discussed in terms of these species’ cognition and memory comparisons, evolutionary implications, and future directions for testing other species in these synergistically related tasks.     

Tool for Assessing Responsibility-Based Education (TARE): Instrument Development,Content Validity,and Inter-Rater Reliability

Numerous scholars have stressed the importance of personal and social responsibility in physical activity settings; however, there is a lack of instrumentation to study the implementation of responsibility-based teaching strategies. The development, content validity, and initial inter-rater reliability testing of the Tool for Assessing Responsibility-Based Education (TARE) are described here. Inter-rater agreement was calculated for paired observations focused on 2 different teachers delivering a total of 18 separate physical education lessons for students in grades 1 through 6. Findings indicate that the Tool for Assessing Responsibility-Based Education provides scores with adequate inter-rater reliability. The procedures employed in this study proved feasible and enable observers to characterize the implementation of responsibility-based teaching in physical education. The Tool for Assessing Responsibility-Based Education has numerous research and training applications relative to the Teaching Personal and Social Responsibility model (Hellison, 2003 Hellison, D. 2003. Teaching responsibility through physical activity, 2nd, 15–38. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.  [Google Scholar]) and the national content standards for K–12 physical education, specifically Standard 5: Exhibits responsible personal and social behavior that respects self and others in physical activity settings (National Association for Sport and Physical Education, 2004 National Association for Sport and Physical Education (NASPE). 2004. Moving into the future. National standards for physical education, 2nd, 39–43. Reston, VA: Author.  [Google Scholar]).     

Book Reviews

This study examined the teaching of games via a tactical approach (also known as teaching games for understanding) from the theoretical perspective of social constructivism. A pilot study (of student teachers (STs) and pupils) informed the ‘main’ study which included collecting data on 49 STs, 58 cooperating teachers (CTs) and 1177 pupils. ST data were collected through videotaping (lessons), interviews and questionnaires; CT data through interviews and questionnaires; and pupil data through questionnaires. Data analysis techniques included systematic coding of teaching behaviours through computer software, using constant comparison to code open-ended question responses, and computing frequencies of Likert-scale question responses. T-tests were used to compare pre- and post-CT workshop data. Findings suggest that STs’ teaching of the tactical approach was in line with a social constructivist perspective, in part because lessons were student-centred. Overall student activity was 53% of all lessons taught, and STs facilitated pupil learning through several question and answer scenarios. Pupils wrote that they enjoyed playing games in what amounted to ‘authentic’ settings. Their responses also suggest that learning took place through ‘legitimate peripheral participation in communities of practice’ and this facilitated pupil movement through the ‘zone of proximal development’. There were indications that pupil experiences were mediated by ST competence. CTs reported that an in-service workshop on the tactical approach and mentoring was beneficial and subsequent pairings with STs elicited positive feelings from both parties.