Exploring emotional climate in preservice science teacher education

Classroom emotional climates (ECs) are interrelated with students’ engagement with university courses. Despite growing interest in emotions and EC research, little is known about the ways in which social interactions and different subject matter mediate ECs in preservice science teacher education classes. In this study we investigated the EC and associated classroom interactions in a preservice science teacher education class. We were interested in the ways in which salient classroom interactions were related to the EC during lessons centered on debates about science-based issues (e.g., nuclear energy alternatives). Participants used audience response technology to indicate their perceptions of the EC. Analysis of conversation for salient video clips and analysis of non-verbal conduct (acoustic parameters, body movements, and facial expressions) supplemented EC data. One key contribution that this study makes to preservice science teacher education is to identify the micro-processes of successful and unsuccessful class interactions that were associated with positive and neutral EC. The structure of these interactions can inform the practice of other science educators who wish to produce positive ECs in their classes. The study also extends and explicates the construct of intensity of EC.     

Perspectives on learning to teach science: insights and dilemmas from a collaborative practicum project

In this article we discuss the theoretical and practical rationale for establishing a collaborative science practicum project and report on the findings of the first two years. The project was designed to strengthen the communication links among the school‐based educators, the pre‐service teachers, and the university‐based educators, in order to address the seemingly intractable problems associated with initiating new science teachers into the varied social practices of the teaching profession. Our findings are organized and discussed in the form of three dilemmas (Cuban 1992). These dilemmas are associated with the difficulties the pre‐service teachers had in connecting the propositional knowledge presented in the university setting with the procedural knowledge required in the school setting, and the lack of familiarity by the university and school‐based educators of each other's practice setting. We describe results that resonate with similar issues reported in other collaborative projects, and propose an alternative approach for preparing science teachers. This approach is based on conceptualizing learning to teach as a cognitive apprenticeship (Hennessy 1993) which prepares pre‐service teachers to enter the ‘community of practice’ called teaching. We argue that the success of such an approach requires the development of a collaborative community in which all participants engage in meaningful and supportive discourse concerning what, when and how science is taught in the classroom.     

Transfronteriza pre-service teachers managing,resisting, and coping with the demands of mathematical discourse

This article reports on a case study of a college class for pre-service teachers on the US–Mexico border in which students participated in in-depth discussion around mathematical problems every day. This pedagogical approach promotes the socialization of students into and through the specialized discourse of mathematics. The focus of this paper is on the experience of transfronterizo students in that course. Transfronterizos are Mexican residents who periodically cross the border to attend school. For these students, whose educational background in Mexico allowed them to develop proficiency in elementary mathematical discourse in Spanish, their socialization experience includes ways in which they draw on language, and other social and learning experiences in Mexico. The focus of this paper is an assignment called Thinking Logs, a genre that required the use of mathematical discourse for teaching. Drawing on data gathered from participant observation of the course, interviews, analysis of study session discourse, and genre analysis, I highlight agentive ways that each participant used in their own socialization process. I show how participants improvised writing of models, asked for clarification in the first language, and even resisted the discourse. Students who resisted the demands might incur negative effects. Furthermore, I argue that the role of the guidance from an expert (such as a professor) is imperative in a socialization process, and I offer implications for ways that teachers can guide second language writers to develop mathematics discourse.     

Public universities and the neoliberal common sense: seven iconoclastic theses

Neoliberalism has utterly failed as a viable model of economic development, yet the politics of culture associated with neoliberalism is still in force, becoming the new common sense shaping the role of government and education. This ‘common sense’ has become an ideology playing a major role in constructing hegemony as moral and intellectual leadership in contemporary societies. Neoliberal globalisation, predicated on the dominance of the market over the state and on deregulatory models of governance, has deeply affected the university in the context of ‘academic capitalism’. The resulting reforms, rationalised as advancing international competitiveness, have affected public universities in four primary areas: efficiency and accountability, accreditation and universalisation, international competitiveness and privatisation. There is also growing resistance to globalisation as top-down-imposed reforms reflected in the public debates about schooling reform, curriculum and instruction, teacher training and school governance. Many question whether neoliberal reforms attempt to limit the effectiveness of universities as sites of contestation of the national and global order and thus undermine the broader goals of education. Neoliberal reforms have limited access and opportunity along class and racial lines, including limiting access to higher education through the imposition of higher tuition and reduced government support to institutions and individuals.     

La diferencia de sexo en la resolución de problemas aritméticos: un estudio transversal

Resumen

En este trabajo se estudia la diferencia entre los sexos en la resolución de problemas aritméticos verbales. Participaron 1.078 escolares de los grados 3.°, 4.°, 5.°, 6.° y 8.° de E.G.B. Se aplicó una prueba de 17 problemas aritméticos a los escolares de 3°, 4° y 5° en dos sesiones. También se aplicó una prueba de 4 problemas aritméticos a los escolares de 6.° y 8.° Los resultados indican que sólo en 8.° los varones son más hábiles que las mujeres resolviendo este tipo de problemas. Se hacen algunas consideraciones adicionales sobre los factores del contexto familiar y escolar que puedan incidir sobre los resultados.     

INTERVIEWS

Four groups of student teachers taught short lessons to small classes of children. According to the micro‐teaching format developed at Stanford University they then retaught a similar lesson approximately one hour later to a comparable but different group of children. In the intervening one‐hour period they received various kinds of feedback about the first lesson they had given. Analysis of the second lessons showed that the students who had both seen videotapes of their first lesson and been given information about their interaction with the class were likely to lecture less, elicit more spontaneous talk by the children and be rated higher by them.     

Around the quad

This feature presents abstracts of articles from journals representing disciplines other than library and information science. Articles are selected for their perceived interest to academic librarians from journals on business, management, personnel and training, higher education, and management of technology.