Service Learning Experiences in University Science Degree Courses

This article describes a study about a service learning project at a small undergraduate university. We examined how professors and students became involved in service learning through course work and related activities. This study sought to find out why participation in service learning is low in post-secondary education science and mathematics courses. Participants described challenges to participation as well as benefits which, if emphasized, may allow for some growth in participation by science degree students.     

世界上最幸福的地方

当今世界哪里的人们对生活最为满意呢？经济合作与发展组织（OECD）新近发布的一项研究报告,显示北欧国家人们的幸福指数最高,这个设在法国巴黎,由30个民主政府组成的机构经常提供经济和社会方而的统计数据。     

Education in early postcolonial India: expansion,experimentation and planned self-help

After independence India’s leaders committed the country to democracy with universal franchise and to pursuing a socialistic pattern of society. As part of these interlocking projects, it was widely recognised that India’s educational systems needed reform. However, with scarce resources, Indian policy-makers faced the dilemma of whether to improve the existing system, which served a narrow, urban elite, or expand it to the entire population, as the Constitution promised they would. This overview of education policy in the first two decades after 1947 finds that, at the centre, Indian planning did not monopolise control over education. Rather, India’s was a socialism of scarcity, which relied on self-help efforts by the people to build the institutions of the welfare state. However, by relying on communities to use their own resources to build local schools, this DIY socialism entrenched existing inequalities.     

特权用户阻碍IT建设

谈到商业智能(BI),专栏作家Rick Sherman说,商业用户和IT企业之间就此问题存在着种种矛盾。但人们并不用对此过于担心,因为商业智能取得成功的关键在于那些特权用户。你是否想过,为什么很多公司从商业智能销售商那里购买了具有成百上千功能的软件,却仅使用其中的少许功能?为什么企业的员工在他们的IT解决方案中已经选定了一个商业智能工具,并打算不使用微软公司的Ex- cel时候,仍然还使用Excel作为他们的     

Volunteer youth sport coaches' perspectives of coaching education/certification and parental codes of conduct

The vast majority of youth sport programs in the United States relies primarily on parent volunteers to serve as coaches. Unfortunately, most of these volunteer coaches have not received formal training to prepare them adequately for the role of youth sport coach. To exacerbate the issue, according to the popular media, parents and other adults can commit belligerent and even violent acts around, and often resulting from, poorly managed youth sport events. Although some efforts have been made to standardize curricula, provide training for coaches, and contain or prevent inappropriate parent behaviors, few efforts have been directed at investigating the self-described needs and concerns of the coaches from their perspectives. The purpose of the current study was to investigate the concerns and issues of youth sport coaches related to coaching and parental education. Five focus group interviews with 25 volunteer youth sport coaches were conducted to investigate these issues. Results were organized around four higher order themes that emerged from inductive content analyses: (a) coaching education content areas of need, (b) barriers and problems of offering coaching education, (c) coaching education format recommendations, and (d) efficacy of parental codes of conduct. Results were discussed in terms of the potential impact administrators, coaches, and parents could have in implementing formal coaching education programs and developing their coaching education practices.     

The effects of cued interaction and ability grouping during cooperative computer-based science instruction

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of verbal interaction cues and ability grouping within a cooperative learning computer-based program. We blocked 231 eighth graders in a required science class by ability and randomly assigned them to homogeneous lower-ability, homogeneous higher-ability, or heterogeneous mixed-ability dyads. Each dyad was randomly assigned to a computer program that either did or did not contain verbal interaction cues designed to facilitate summarizing and explaining between partners. Results indicated that students using the cued version of the program performed significantly better on the posttest than students using the noncued version. Direct observation of student interaction indicated that students in cued dyads exhibited significantly more summarizing and helping behaviors than noncued students. Furthermore, higher-ability dyads exhibited significantly less off-task behavior than the other dyads. Implications for designing computer-based instruction for cooperative settings are provided.     

Pre-service Teachers’ Experiences with a Science Education Module

This paper describes a module provided to first year elementary participants in a two-year after-degree Bachelor of Education program. The module was specifically designed to address the fact that pre-service teachers can enter the B.Ed. degree with little or no science knowledge. Science experiences were explicitly incorporated into the B.Ed. module described here linking science content knowledge to specific science pedagogic content knowledge. The pre-service teachers were surveyed and interviewed during and after completion of the module. It was found that the inquiry based approach increased the pre-service teachers' level of science knowledge, their confidence with regard to teaching elementary science, and improved their attitude toward science teaching and learning.     

Capturing urban student voices in the creation of a science mini‐documentary

It has been widely proposed that student voices should play a crucial role in designing and implementing curriculum and instruction that promote students' engagement in science learning. In this study we examined the voices of two seventh grade boys from a low‐income urban community as they worked together in an after‐school program to create a student‐directed video documentary about science. Our analysis showed that these students used their voices to construct identities that they cared about in school, by reconstructing some aspects of their school identity that did not match who they aspired to be, as well as by gaining new resources to enact their desired identities. The examples provided demonstrate that integrating student voice in a science project can make participation in science a valuable tool in students' identity formation. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 43: 667–694, 2006