Female and minority experiences in an astronomy-based science hobby

Cultural Studies of Science Education - Despite policy changes and targeted outreach, issues of underrepresentation persist for women and minorities in science fields. Previous research has...     

The Impact of an Inquiry-Based Geoscience Field Course on Pre-service Teachers

The purpose of this quasi-experimental study was to determine the effects of a field-based, inquiry-focused course on pre-service teachers?? geoscience content knowledge, attitude toward science, confidence in teaching science, and inquiry understanding and skills. The field-based course was designed to provide students with opportunities to observe, compare, and investigate geological structures in their natural environment and to gain an understanding of inquiry via hands-on learning activities designed to immerse students in authentic scientific investigation. ANCOVA and MANCOVA analyses examining differences in outcome measures between students in the field experience (n?=?25) and education students enrolled in the traditional, classroom-based course (n?=?37) showed that students in the field course generally had significantly higher scores. Results provide evidence of the value of the field and inquiry-based approach in helping pre-service teachers develop the needed skills and knowledge to create effective inquiry-based science lessons.     

Interdisciplinary Research: Practising the In‐Between

This article will demonstrate that practice‐led photographic research offers an example of dialogical encounter. Through recourse to an outline of my own practice and the experience of completing a practice‐led doctoral thesis, the article will account for photographic practice and interdisciplinary research in terms of dialogism. This will demonstrate that visual research is a productive nexus: it does not simply concern itself with the products of creative practice, but is a generative space itself. The article will also discuss interdisciplinarity from a personal perspective on practice‐led research, which, over time, has developed into an interdisciplinary mode of working. The radical notion of the dialogical self will be considered with specific reference to interdisciplinarity and practice‐led research. The dialogical encounter will also be considered in relation to transformative learning encounters and what is at play in learning through practice, an encounter which places its protagonists at risk. However, far from being a negative state of affairs, this interstitial space in which the researcher/learner/teacher is lost and found is in fact a highly productive place in which to be.     

Teacher education at the intersection of race and ability

Cultural Studies of Science Education - In this dialogue with Phillip A. Boda’s Conceptualizing the margins into science education praxis: disability as case in point, I would like to...     

Sharing Books and Learning Language: What do Latina Mothers and Their Young Children Do?

This study examined low-income, Spanish-speaking, immigrant Latina mothers' book sharing behaviors in relation to their children's vocabulary. Participants were 47 3-year-old children and their mothers. We addressed two research questions: (a) What interactive behaviors are evident when low-income immigrant Latina mothers and their 3-year-old children look at books together? (b) For these children and their mothers, which book-sharing behaviors are related to children's expressive language? Overall, our results indicated that mothers were involved in several kinds of interactions with the books. They enhanced their children's attention to the printed text, promoted interaction or conversation with their children about what was in the books, and somewhat less often, used more complex literacy strategies. Mothers who did these things most had children with the largest vocabularies even when mothers' vocabulary was taken into account. Implications for designing interventions for similar families are discussed.     

Effects of a read aloud intervention on first grade student vocabulary,listening comprehension,and language proficiency

Reading and Writing - We examine the effects of a read aloud replication intervention designed to improve the vocabulary, comprehension, and expository and narrative language outcomes of first...     

Exploring metacognitive strategy use during note-taking for students with learning disabilities

This mixed-methods study analysed over 200 interviews from 20 seventh-grade students with learning disabilities (LD). Students were instructed how to use a note-taking intervention during science lectures. The interview analyses were supported by pre- and post-intervention quantitative data. Data suggest that the intervention helped students identify important information; systematised the process of listening to, interpreting and using that information; and offered students a means by which to organise the information they were hearing. A discussion about metacognition and attention explores how these processes altered students’ awareness of their own learning, as well as how they equipped students with a new strategy for holding onto and translating information from their science lectures into a useful set of notes. These findings have implications for how theorists conceptualise the relationship between metacognition and attention and how teachers use scaffolding to support the learning of students with LD.     

Challenging Traditional Sex Role Stereotypes in Careers Education Broadcasts: the reactions of young secondary school pupils

The ways in which television presents images of male and female roles to the young have recently been subjected to much scrutiny and criticism. Educational television has the scope to contribute to changes in the balance of sex role portrayal but little is known of the likely effects of modifications. This paper reports an experimental study of young secondary school pupils’ reactions to careers education materials in which men and women are shown in occupations traditionally associated with the opposite sex. Children viewing counter‐stereotyped programmes are found to be no less stereotyped in their career beliefs than peers viewing a ‘traditional’ programme or controls who view no programme. The results are discussed in terms of the resilience of sex role and career beliefs in early adolescence and it is concluded that intervention attempts will need to be more extensive and more protracted.