Blocking with serial and simultaneous compounds in a trace conditioning procedure

Blocking of conditioned suppression in rats was studied in three experiments using serial and simultaneous compounds in Pavlovian trace conditioning procedures. Experimental groups were first given trace conditioning trials with a 2-sec stimulus (A) presented at least 60 sec before an electric grid shock US. Next, both experimental and control groups received reinforced trials with a compound stimulus (AB). Both A and B were 2 sec in duration and were presented at least 60 sec before the US. For some groups during AB training, the A stimulus preceded the B stimulus; for others, B preceded A; for still others, A and B occurred simultaneously. Conditioning was subsequently assessed separately to both A and B. The results were as follows: First, varying the interval between the onset of A and the US during A training appeared to produce significantly different levels of conditioning to A but did not detectably affect A’s ability to block conditioning to B. Second, blocking was observed in both simultaneous and serial procedures. Third, in the serial procedure, A blocked conditioning to B whether it preceded B or followed B in the AB compound. Fourth, in tests given after AB conditioning, the experimental and control groups suppressed similarly to A. The relevance of these results to the conditioning model of Rescorla and Wagner (1972) and to Mackintosh’s (1975b) theory of attention are discussed.     

Readiness, Instruction, and Learning to be a Kindergartner

As children enter school they learn to take on the role of student. This qualitative study describes how the children in one classroom learned what it meant to be a kindergartner in the context of a community meaning of readiness for school. Analysis of classroom observations and parent, teacher, and student interviews indicate that this school community held a coherent meaning of readiness. This meaning provided the framework for instructional activities and served to help parents understand their children as students. Finally, it helped to frame students' interpretations of their first public school experience through their involvement in classroom tasks.     

Towards an indigenous science curriculum

The recent development of a national science curriculum in Māori opened up space to contest whose knowledge and whose ways of knowing are included. This paper outlines the background to the curriculum development work in Aotearoa New Zealand with respect to the indigenous Māori people and science education. Concern is expressed about the fitting of one cultural framework into another and questions are raised about the approach used in the development of the science curriculum. Further research in the area of language, culture and science education is discussed along with how Māori might move forward in the endeavour of developing a curriculum that reflects Māori culture and language. This paper forms part of an MEd thesis. For a fuller analysis of the development of “Te Tauākī Marautanga Pūtaiao: He Tauira” (Draft National Science Curriculum in Māori) see McKinley (1995) in the references. See alsoSAMEpapers 1995 (Hamilton, New Zealand: Centre for Science, Mathematics and Technology Education, University of Waikato).     

Guidelines for portfolio preparation: Implications from an analysis of teaching portfolios at the University of Florida

An analysis of 73 portfolios, prepared by University of Florida faculty as part of the Teaching Improvement Program competition, revealed tremendous variability in the quantity, quality, and coherence of the evidence presented to support claims of excellence in teaching. By analyzing portfolios prepared by faculty members representing different colleges and different types of teaching assignments, the researchers developed seven common guidelines for portfolio construction.Dorene Doerre Ross is Professor of Education and Coordinator of Elementary Teacher Education Programs at the University of Florida. She earned her doctorate from the University of Virginia. Dr. Ross conducts research in the areas of diversity and elementary teacher education. Elizabeth Bondy is Associate Professor of Education at the University of Florida. She earned her Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Florida. Dr. Bondy teaches and conducts research in the area of elementary teacher education. Lynn Hartle is Assistant Professor of Education at the University of Florida. She earned her doctorate from Pennsylvania State University. Dr. Hartle conducts research in early childhood education with a particular interest in playgrounds. Linda Leonard Lamme is Professor of Education at the University of Florida. Her Ph.D. is from Syracuse University. Her areas of interest include children's literature and language arts, as well as teacher education in those fields. Rodman Webb is Professor of Education and teaches courses in educational foundations and qualitative research methods at the University of Florida. He earned a doctorate in the Sociology of Education from Rutgers University. His research interests include democratic management, institutional change, and the micro-politics of schools.     

Adopting an active learning approach to teaching in a research-intensive higher education context transformed staff teaching attitudes and behaviours

The conventional lecture has significant limitations in the higher education context, often leading to a passive learning experience for students. This paper reports a process of transforming teaching and learning with active learning strategies in a research-intensive educational context across a faculty of 45 academic staff and more than 1000 students. A phased approach was used, involving nine staff in a pilot phase during which a common vision and principles were developed. In short, our approach was to mandate a move away from didactic lectures to classes that involved students interacting with content, with each other and with instructors in order to attain domain-specific learning outcomes and generic skills. After refinement, an implementation phase commenced within all first-year subjects, involving 12 staff including three from the pilot group. The staff use of active learning methods in classes increased by sixfold and sevenfold in the pilot and implementation phases, respectively. An analysis of implementation phase exam questions indicated that staff increased their use of questions addressing higher order cognitive skills by 51%. Results of a staff survey indicated that this change in practice was caused by the involvement of staff in the active learning approach. Fifty-six percent of staff respondents indicated that they had maintained constructive alignment as they introduced active learning. After the pilot, only three out of nine staff agreed that they understood what makes for an effective active learning exercise. This rose to seven out of nine staff at the completion of the implementation phase. The development of a common approach with explicit vision and principles and the evaluation and refinement of active learning were effective elements of our transformational change management strategy. Future efforts will focus on ensuring that all staff have the time, skills and pedagogical understanding required to embed constructively aligned active learning within the approach.     

Shaping and Being Shaped by Environments for Learning Science

Environments of learning often remain unnoticed and unacknowledged. This study follows a student and myself as we became aware of our local environment at MIT and welcomed that environment as a vibrant contributor to our learning. We met this environment in part through its educational heritage in two centennial anniversaries: John Dewey’s 1916 work Democracy and Education and MIT’s 1916 move from Boston to the Cambridge campus designed by architect William Welles Bosworth. Dewey argued that for learning to arise through constructive, active engagement among students, the environment must be structured to accommodate investigation. In designing an environment conducive to practical and inventive studies, Bosworth created organic classical forms harboring the illusion of symmetry, while actually departing from it. Students and I are made open to the effects of this environment through the research pedagogy of “critical exploration in the classroom,” which informs my practice of listening and responding, and teaching while researching; it lays fertile grounds for the involvement of one student and myself with our environment. Through viewing the moon and sky by eye, telescope, airplane, and astrolabe, the student developed as an observer. She became connected with the larger universe, and critical of formalisms that encage mind and space. Applying Euclid’s geometry to the architecture outdoors, the student noticed and questioned classical features in Bosworth’s buildings. By encountering these buildings while accompanied by their current restorer, we came to see means by which their structure and design promote human interaction and environmental sustainability as intrinsic to education. The student responded creatively to Bosworth’s buildings through photography, learning view-camera, and darkroom techniques. In Dewey’s view, democracy entails rejecting dualisms endemic in academic culture since the Greek classical era. Dewey regarded experimental science, where learners are investigators, as a means of engaging the world without invoking dualism. Although Dewey’s theory is seldom practiced, our investigations cohered with Deweyan practice. We experienced the environment with its centennial philosophy and architecture as educational agency supportive of investigation that continues to evolve across personal and collective history.     

Differences in Social Adjustment and Classroom Behavior Between Children Retained in Kindergarten and Groups of Age and Grade Matched Peers

Children are routinely retained in kindergarten because of perceived academic and social difficulties. The current study compared retained children with matched samples of age and grade mates using teacher ratings as an index of their social and academic skills. Retained children showed decreased conduct problems and shy-anxious behavior over time compared to a matched set of initial kindergarten age-mates. Compared to a matched group chosen during the repeated year, retained children did not differ on problem behaviors but showed lower tolerance for frustration and poorer work habits at the end of first grade. Compared to themselves over two and a half years, retained children showed reductions in behavior problems and task orientation while their tolerance for frustration and peer relations remained unchanged.