Managing Inquiry-Based Science: Challenges in Enacting Complex Science Instruction in Elementary and Middle School Classrooms

Effectively enacting inquiry-based science instruction entails considerable changes in classroom management practices. In this article, we describe five interconnected management areas that need to be addressed when managing an inquiry-oriented K-8 science classroom. We introduce a pyramid model as a framework for thinking about these management areas and present a brief review of what the research literature says about each area. We propose that enacting inquiry-based instruction requires a different kind of approach to classroom management that takes into account the close-knit relationship between management and instruction. This perspective recognizes the pervasive nature of managing the classroom for inquiry learning.     

作为跨文化教育的教育:一场全球变革

全球化并不是美国化或欧洲化,趋向标准化的全球化进程带来了新经济的发展,也带来了全球范围内的贫困、苦难、战争、恐怖以及过度开发和毁坏自然。必须意识到文化多样性的不可避免,并在教育体系中引入以和平与社会公正为导向的、旨在可持续性的跨文化教育,培养学生积极应对社会与自然中他者的能力。本文从多重维度对上述命题进行了探讨,并从概念与教学方式等角度分析了跨文化教育的理论与实践。     

Literature searching for social science systematic reviews: consideration of a range of search techniques

Background: Literature for a systematic review on the student experience of e‐learning is located across a range of subject areas including health, education, social science, library and information science. Objectives: To assess the merits and shortcomings of using different search techniques in retrieval of evidence in the social science literature. Methods: A conventional subject search was undertaken as the principal method of identifying the literature for the review. Four supplementary search methods were used including citation searching, reference list checking, contact with experts and pearl growing. Results: The conventional subject search identified 30 of 41 included references; retrieved from 10 different databases. References were missed by this method and a further 11 references were identified via citation searching, reference list checking and contact with experts. Pearl growing was suspended as the nominated pearls were dispersed across numerous databases, with no single database indexing more than four pearls. Conclusions: Searching within the social sciences literature requires careful consideration. Conventional subject searching identified the majority of references, but additional search techniques were essential and located further high quality references.     

Exploring the Link Between Self‐Construal and Distress Among African American and Asian American College Students

The authors investigated ethnicity, self‐construal, and distress among African American and Asian American college students. African American students expressed more salient independent self‐construals, whereas Asian American students expressed more salient interdependent self‐construals. As hypothesized, among African American participants, distress was positively related to interdependent self‐construal and negatively associated with independent self‐construal. Contrary to prediction, the same pattern was found for Asian American participants. Multicultural clinical practice implications are presented.     

A snapshot of creativity: Evaluating a quick and simple method for assessing divergent thinking

Creativity assessment commonly uses open-ended divergent thinking tasks. The typical methods for scoring these tasks (uniqueness scoring and subjective ratings) are time-intensive, however, so it is impractical for researchers to include divergent thinking as an ancillary construct. The present research evaluated snapshot scoring of divergent thinking tasks, in which the set of responses receives a single holistic rating. We compared snapshot scoring to top-two scoring, a time-intensive, detailed scoring method. A sample of college students (n = 226) completed divergent thinking tasks and measures of personality and art expertise. Top-two scoring had larger effect sizes, but snapshot scoring performed well overall. Snapshot scoring thus appears promising as a quick and simple approach to assessing creativity.     

Sleep in athletes and the effects of Ramadan

Sleep is now considered as a new frontier in performance enhancement. This article presents background content on sleep function, sleep needs and methods of sleep investigation along with data on the potential effects of Ramadan fasting on sleep in normal individuals and athletes. Accumulated sleep loss has negative impacts on cognitive function, mood, daytime sleepiness and performance. Sleep studies in athletes fasting during Ramadan are very rare. Most of them have demonstrated that during this month, sleep duration decreased and sleep timing shifted. But the direct relation between sleep changes and performance during Ramadan is not yet elucidated. Objective sleep patterns can be investigated using polysomnography, actigraphy, and standardised questionnaires and recorded in daily journals or sleep logs. The available data on sleep indicate that team doctors and coaches should consider planning sleep schedule and napping; implementing educational programmes focusing on the need for healthy sleep; and consider routine screening for sleep loss in athletes of all age groups and genders.     

Developing the Coach Analysis and Intervention System (CAIS): establishing validity and reliability of a computerised systematic observation instrument

We outline the evolution of a computerised systematic observation tool and describe the process for establishing the validity and reliability of this new instrument. The Coach Analysis and Interventions System (CAIS) has 23 primary behaviours related to physical behaviour, feedback/reinforcement, instruction, verbal/non-verbal, questioning and management. The instrument also analyses secondary coach behaviour related to performance states, recipient, timing, content and questioning/silence. The CAIS is a multi-dimensional and multi-level mechanism able to provide detailed and contextualised data about specific coaching behaviours occurring in complex and nuanced coaching interventions and environments that can be applied to both practice sessions and competition.     

Childhood aerobic fitness predicts cognitive performance one year later

Aerobically fit children outperform less fit peers on cognitive control challenges that involve inhibition, cognitive flexibility, and working memory. The aim of this study was to determine whether, compared with less fit children, more fit 9- and 10-year-old pre-adolescents exhibit superior performance on a modified compatible and incompatible flanker task of cognitive control at the initial time of fitness testing and approximately one year later. We found that more fit children demonstrated increased flanker accuracy at both test sessions, coupled with a superior ability to flexibly allocate strategies during task conditions that required different amounts of cognitive control, relative to less fit children. More fit children also gained a speed benefit at follow-up testing. Structural MRI data were also collected to investigate the relationship between basal ganglia volume and task performance. Bilateral putamen volumes of the dorsal striatum and globus pallidus volumes predicted flanker performance at initial and follow-up testing one year later. The present findings suggest that childhood aerobic fitness and basal ganglia volumes relate to cognitive control at the time of fitness testing and may play a role in cognitive performance in the future. We hope that this research will encourage public health and educational changes that will promote a physically active lifestyle in children.     

Management innovation through standardization: Consultants as standardizers of organizational practice

Management innovation and the consultants who promote and support it are both typically associated with the ‘new’, with departures from the norm and from standard approaches. Indeed, standardization is often seen as an impediment to innovation, especially in the current ‘post-bureaucratic’ era. This article challenges such a view, arguing that consultant-led management innovation is often highly standardized. Based upon qualitative research into internal consultancy in large business organizations, both standardizing agendas and standardized methods are identified from a range of consultant-led management innovation programs. The analysis then points to some of the structural and cultural features of organizations that lead to managers favouring incremental, standardized approaches to change, even if these are often contested. In conclusion, the article points to the need to consider a range of different dimensions in the relationship between standardization and management innovation.