The Falls Creek Project

Abstract

Four student-led investigations conducted as part of the NSF-funded Explorations from an Aerial Perspective program demonstrate how participatory action research can provide a framework for realizing environmental education goals. Students conducted the investigations–which focused on community land-use issues–in cooperation with teachers, nonformal educators, and community members. On the basis of the results of their research, the students organized activities that engendered positive changes in their local environments.     

Evaluating Environmental Education in the Context of a Junior High School State Studies Program

Abstract

This article discusses and offers solutions to three basic problems that environmentalists have encountered while teaching environmental ethics. The solutions include interdisciplinary study and research projects, teaching an intuitive understanding of the interrelatedness of the ecosystem, and a general, dynamic code of behavior for living an environmentally ethical lifestyle.     

Pupil's reactions to open-plan

The article compares first-hand biographical evidence from four generations of one family who attended the same primary school over a period of 85 years (1916–23, 1947–53, 1981–83, 1996-present day). The evidence is used to examine ways in which practice in an English primary school has and has not changed during that period, and considers some of the possible reasons for this apparent regular reversion to older forms of ‘elementary schooling’.     

What we talk about when we talk about education: the private and public educational talk of teachers in schools

One of the central challenges for a school is the creation of a public discourse which expresses the shared purpose of the school community, without losing the multiple and different voices within the teaching staff. In this article we report on the generative potential of educational conversation, when it is structured around questions which allow teachers to reflect on their best teaching selves in past practice and to project those selves into future situations. We suggest that within the staff, the public relating of teaching narratives, and the reflective conversation to which they give rise, constitutes a public and collective form of enquiry into teaching and learning. We argue that reflective conversation is dependent upon critical listening, where the listener is open to what is being said, but is also prepared to ask questions that open up the topic of teaching and learning in ways that are revelatory for both speaker and listener.     

Differential Contributions of Development and Learning to Infants' Knowledge of Object Continuity and Discontinuity

Sixty infants divided evenly between 5 and 7 months of age were tested for their knowledge of object continuity versus discontinuity with a predictive tracking task. The stimulus event consisted of a moving ball that was briefly occluded for 20 trials. Both age groups predictively tracked the ball when it disappeared and reappeared via occlusion, but not when it disappeared and reappeared via implosion. Infants displayed high levels of predictive tracking from the first trial in the occlusion condition, and showed significant improvement across trials in the implosion condition. These results suggest that infants possess embodied knowledge to support differential tracking of continuously and discontinuously moving objects, but this tracking can be modified by visual experience.     

Transformative power of the learning object debate

This article examines the significance of how learning objects have come to be conceptualized and utilized, particularly in higher education. While many articles critique the term and its origins, an examination of the role metaphor plays in our conceptualization of ‘data’, ‘information’ and ‘learning objects’ helps us move beyond a fixation on the term to its promise and challenges. Although much has been written about how learning objects should be developed, accessed and stored, much less has been written about how they should be designed and used. This quest for understanding of the role learning objects will play in the future of learning leads to new strategies which encompass such issues as a reusability, knowledge management, efficient infrastructure design and innovative course design.     

Evaluating STAR – a transformative learning framework: interdisciplinary action research in health training

Transformative learning aims to awaken students to issues of injustice, and to promote their critical analysis of assumptions, beliefs and values that lead to and sustain social inequities, so that they may become agents of social change. This paper introduces the Sensitise Take Action and Reflection (STAR) framework, which encapsulates transformative learning principles, as a tool for educators to enhance student health professionals’ capacity and preparedness to address health inequities they are likely to encounter in their future practice. Using an action research methodology within a three-cycle process, STAR was trialled and evaluated by an interdisciplinary team of health educators (n = 25) in an Australian university. Disciplines included: nursing, nutrition and dietetics, public health, occupational therapy and paramedic science. Data were gathered via individual interviews, focus group discussions and field notes, and were analysed inductively, with member-checking of emerging themes to ensure interpretive rigour. The results of this research suggest that STAR is easily understood by users, has relevance for health professional education, and holds promise for producing desired educational outcomes within and across health disciplines. Furthermore, this project could be considered a model for fostering inter-professional collaboration in health education, research and practice.     

Determining Gain of Selected Learnings in Science Using a Specific Biological Unit

The purpose of this study was to investigate the factor structure of an inventory designed to sample preservice teachers’ opinions about children’s nature and needs, classroom discipline, subject matter, and appropriate teacher behavior. Image component analysis yielded three interpretable factors. The first two factors, accounting for most of the variance, tend to confirm earlier findings that “progressivism” and “traditionalism” are independent attitudinal dimensions, rather than opposite poles of a single continuum.