A cross-disciplinary approach to teaching data literacy and proportionality

The Thinking with Data project (TWD) expands on current notions of data literacy by (1) focusing on proportional reasoning as key to data literacy and (2) leveraging the non-mathematics disciplines to engage students in deep thinking about the context of data and the application of proportionality. A set of four 2-week, sequential modules for cross-disciplinary implementation in seventh-grade classrooms was designed and evaluated. Using a quasi-experimental approach, we found that student data literacy was increased through the focused integration of social studies, mathematics, science, and English language arts. In this article, we describe our theoretical approach to designing and implementing the modules, report on student learning gains in mathematics, and describe teacher reactions to the materials. In sum, our study provides evidence that the TWD approach has the potential to build data literacy while also allowing students to learn core discipline-based content standards.     

An analysis of the changing shape of initial teacher education and training in Wales since devolution

After a sustained period of relative calm, initial teacher education and training (ITET) in Wales has seen much change in recent times since devolution and all the indications are that this change agenda is likely to escalate in both the short and long term. In order to understand what has been happening in the ITET field in Wales, our paper sets out to achieve three things: first, it has contextualised the changing ITET, political, social and economic climate within Wales. Second, it has presented ITET data for Wales from the onset of devolution to the present time. Thereafter, these data have been compared and contrasted. Third, we have attempted to project our findings forward, albeit in an era which is increasingly difficult to predict given both the financial climate and “cuts” agenda. These latter aspects may result in the longer term, at best, to ITET in Wales becoming even further fragmented or reduced in numbers to, at worst, being decimated or changed forever from the more traditional scene which was apparent in both Wales and the rest of the UK since the Robbins Report aftermath in the late 1960s.     

Reflections of being “A Man of Truancy”: 40 years on

This paper reflects upon a career of 40 years involving teaching and research into the causes and solutions for school absenteeism and truancy. It includes insights into both professional and empirical work and notes how the subject has become increasingly ‘politicised’ over the last 25–30 years by governments of both persuasions: Left and Right. It also reinforces difficulties which educational researchers can face in obtaining funding for their chosen field and notes how stubbornly difficult improving school attendance and reducing truancy and school absenteeism has become, despite innovations and the changing curriculum and educational policy scenes. Moreover, truancy has changed from being a largely male phenomenon to one where girls now play an equal role.     

Increasing international and domestic student interaction through group work: a case study from the humanities

This article explores the use of group work strategies to increase student interaction and learning. Despite the growing linguistic and cultural diversity in tertiary institutions, there is strong evidence of minimal interaction between ‘domestic’ and ‘international’ students in classrooms and in wider university contexts. This study investigates the implementation of teaching and learning strategies in an undergraduate class comprising domestic and international students from Education and Arts. The strategies relate to in-class group work, tutorial groups and assessment design. The findings indicate greater class interaction, higher satisfaction ratings and better learning outcomes as a result of the strategies. The article argues for three key features underpinning the pedagogy: where international students can work from a position of power equality in class, where both groups of students can enact the role of ‘experts’ and where support in language and learning how to learn is embedded in assessment and outcomes.     

Lifelong Participation,Physical Education and the Work of Ken Roberts

A broad consensus has emerged in recent years in relation to the desirability of one particular purpose for physical education (PE); namely, the promotion of lifelong participation in sport and physical activity. This paper represents an attempt to rectify what is taken to be the relative failure of those investigating (whilst typically advocating) lifelong participation through PE to make use of a sociological perspective on leisure, youth cultures and sport. More specifically, it brings the seminal work of someone often referred to as a 'founding father' of the field, Ken Roberts, to bear on the topic, on the premise that any study of young people's propensity towards ongoing involvement in sport and physical activity needs to be viewed as an aspect of their lives 'in the round' and that, in this regard, Roberts' contribution is especially important. The paper argues that among a number of lessons to be learned from Roberts' work over the last decade or so is that sports participation--contrary to the common-sense views of teachers, government and other interested parties--has become part of present-day youth cultures and that this is, in no small measure, a consequence of a trend over the last 25 or so years towards a broadening of PE curricula in a manner that mutually reinforces broader trends in young people's leisure styles. The paper concludes that if lifelong participation is to be a primary aim of PE, then there needs to be a shift in policy towards the development of wide sporting repertoires, during the crucial secondary school years by, amongst other things, incorporating a significant element of choice on the part of pupils from a broad range of curricula and extracurricular activities, including so-called 'lifestyle' activities.     

Mission impossible? Reflecting upon the relationship between physical education,youth sport and lifelong participation

It is widely believed that school physical education (PE) is or, at the very least, can (even should) be a crucial vehicle for enhancing young people's engagement with physically active recreation (typically but not exclusively in the form of sport) in their leisure and, in the longer run, over the life-course. Despite the prevalence of such beliefs, there remains a dearth of evidence demonstrating a ‘PE effect’. Indeed, the precise nature of the relationship between PE, youth¹1. Youth is defined as a life-stage that in chronological terms can be very broadly mapped onto the latter teenage years, with some leeway at the upper end to include the post-teen years up to young adulthood. Thus, youth is regarded as a period of transition ranging from roughly 15 to 25 years. For the purposes of this article, the emphasis will be on the latter secondary school years. sport and lifelong participation is seldom explored other than in implicit, often speculative and discursive, ways that simply take-for-granted the positive effects of the former (PE) on the latter (youth and adult participation in sport and physically active recreation). Using largely European studies to frame the issue, this article reflects upon the supposedly ‘causal’ relationship between PE, youth sport and lifelong participation and, in doing so, highlights the inherent problems associated with attempts to identify, characterise and establish a ‘PE effect.’ In the process, the article points to a need for more longitudinal and biographical research exploring sports careers and the sporting habituses of young people, not least in order to better understand in precisely what circumstances PE interventions might work to enhance youth involvement in sport and physical activity and, subsequently, lifelong participation.     

Tensions in learning content and technology: the experience of education students in a web-based research project

Abstract

There has been little research on how a content-based teacher education course can embed effective training in the use of the World Wide Web to search for information and present learning outcomes. To address this gap, the present study documents the experience of 64 pre-service and inservice teachers who completed a web-based group project in an applied linguistics course. Participants expressed general appreciation of the experience but also felt tension between technology and content learning. The study raises questions about the role of technology in knowledge construction, teachers' beliefs regarding what constitutes learning in a content-based course, and how new technology can be used to enhance the learning of content knowledge.     

Some effects of voice quality on retention

All radio and television stations in some way use the human voice as a major communications tool in their programming and their programs and advertising messages. Although some research into this instrument was conducted, particularly in the late 1920s and 1930s, research into the qualities and effects of broadcast voices recently has been infrequent.

Ken Hadwiger earned the M.A. from the University of Iowa and the Ph.D. from the University of Oklahoma. A former member of the faculty at Wichita State University, he presently is Director of Mass Communications at Eastern Illinois University. Dr. Hadwiger has logged eight years of professional radio and television announcing and directing experience.