Improvisation: An analytic tool for examining teacher–child interactions in the early childhood classroom

This article explores the use of improvisation (improv) as a lens for viewing and describing teacher–child interactions. The author describes the relationship between the principles of improv and the characteristics of responsive teaching, and how improv can be used as a lens for seeing relational activity. The author hypothesizes that improv would provide a valuable tool for understanding and describing what is happening between teachers and children. An in-depth case study was conducted of an experienced early childhood teacher in a play-based classroom. Analysis was done using both the codes derived from the teacher–child interaction literature and improv theory. Improv analysis offered a nuanced picture of what early childhood teachers are doing in practice. The findings revealed that using improv provides a lens for seeing teacher–child interactions as an ensemble activity and what the teacher is doing in terms of its usefulness to the activity. While this study focused on a single teacher in one classroom, the findings demonstrate the potential of an improv lens for developing and deepening our understanding of early childhood teaching.     

Axioms, Essences, and Mostly Clean Hands: Preparing to Teach Chemistry with Libavius and Aristotle

Andreas Libavius’ (c. 1555–1616) three part collection of letters, the Rerum chymicarum epistolica forma ... liber (1595–1599) is a particularly important text in fashioning the subject of chemistry as a demonstrative science and as a didactic discipline. Where Libavius’ Alchemia, which some have claimed to be the first textbook of chemistry, had mostly a humanist agenda, the Rerum chymicarum ... liber more directly sought to wrest the subject of “chemistry” away from Paracelsian adepts, and established the methodological basis for a specific form of knowledge suitable to the university. Making use of Aristotle’s Posterior analytics Libavius created a “floor-plan” for chemistry that integrated practical experience with natural philosophy, and could thus, he claimed, penetrate more deeply into the structure of nature than other academic disciplines.     

Teacher Candidates' Perspectives on the Value of a Site-Based Methods Course

Abstract

In the field of teacher education, the disconnect between university-based coursework and practical field experiences has long been a concern. To make teacher preparation coursework more meaningful, some programs partner with P-12 schools to offer site-based courses. Although situated learning for novices in practice-based professions makes sense, more research is needed to determine if, how, and why site-based courses in particular may be beneficial for teacher candidates’ (TCs) learning. In this study, we used surveys and interviews with TCs, who had taken the same site-based literacy methods course, to identify which aspects of the course they found most facilitative of connections between the course content and the field. Our findings suggest working with children in classrooms, course instructors’ involvement at the school, and opportunities to discuss and reflect upon their experiences immediately after they had been in the field were the primary features of a site-based course TCs found valuable.     

Putting Foucault to Work: Understanding Power in a Rural School

This case study uses the work of Michel Foucault to challenge the normalization of the principal's role and to examine the complex power relations of a rural school and community in the midst of a closure/consolidation and subsequent reopening as a charter school. In so doing, we move beyond analysis of best practices and toward a more theoretical approach to understanding the social interactions and subjectivities that constitute one rural school and its leadership. The analysis challenges commonsense assumptions that schools operate in neutral ways and that “best practices” exist outside of social and cultural constructs.     

Evaluating Continuing Resources: Perspectives and Methods from Science Librarians

Five science librarians share their experiences with the evaluation of continuing resources at an academic university and discuss implications caused by the evaluation process. Four of the authors were new to collection evaluations at the time of the Serial Evaluation Project. These new librarians faced many challenges, both personally and professionally, in dealing with the cancellation process. Although the differences in approaches to collection analysis are discussed somewhat, they are not a focus of the article.     

Memory Self-Efficacy,Aging, and Memory Performance: The Roles of Effort and Persistence

The relative importance of mental effort, as indicated by strategy use, and persistence as potential mediators of the memory self-efficacy (MSE)/memory performance relationship was investigated within a sample of 26 adults aged 65 years and older. It was found that persistence but not strategy use was predictive of performance on a free-recall task. Age-related declines were found in persistence, performance, and MSE but not in strategy use. Counter to expectation, neither strategy use nor persistence was significantly related to a global measure of MSE. These results highlight the importance in MSE research of distinguishing mental effort and persistence, of task-specific measures of MSE, and of considering age-related changes within the elderly population. Implications for MSE intervention programs are briefly discussed.