Demand driven education through the delivery of interactive learning materials within the domain of Environmental Law: Design and research findings

This article describes the results of a research and development project within the domain of Environmental Law. Based on the need to adapt the learning material of the course to several target groups, an Interactive Learning Environment (called WindMill) was developed and tested in a long‐lasting field test.

The WindMill system starts with an intake procedure which guides the student to select the most suitable course variant. After the intake is completed and processed, a study planner provides the student with the necessary information and functions to study the selected course variant The study planner indicates which themes of the printed course materials should be studied and it gives an estimation of the required study load for each theme. Moreover, WindMill provides a large number of embedded support devices (ESDs), which are meant to support the student while studying the printed course materials.

The innovative course Environmental Law was tested with 35 students divided into two conditions, during a period of four months, and in a real life study setting. The control students (n =15) studied the full printed version of the course (basic content and workbook exercises). The experimental students (n = 20) also studied a part of the course from printed materials (basic content). The workbook, however, was substituted by the interactive WindMill system (intake and ESDs).

The field test showed no clear difference in test results between the two conditions. In both conditions more than 80% achieved the final test In general, the students appear to respond positively to the possibility that they can choose course variants which are adapted to some of their individual characteristics (juridicial prior knowledge and professional background). Furthermore, the students’ responses were positive on the printed basic content and were fairly positive on the ESDs. The experimental students were rather positive on the design and the contents of WindMill Especially, the clarity and overview of the study planner was highly appreciated.     

The Internal Structure and Ecological Context of Coparenting: A Framework for Research and Intervention

Research on coparenting has grown over the past decade, supporting a view of coparenting as a central element of family life that influences parental adjustment, parenting, and child outcomes. This article introduces a multi-domain conception of coparenting that organizes existing research and paves the way for future research and intervention. This article advances a conceptualization of how coparenting domains influence parental adjustment, parenting, and child adjustment. An ecological model that outlines influences on coparenting relationships, as well as mediating and moderating pathways, is described. Areas of future research in the developmental course of coparenting relationships are noted.     

Teachers and the State 1900‐30

This article explores the relationship of teachers to the State during the first decades of this century. It argues that teachers had a particular ideological, political and economic role within the State. It takes issue with the recent studies of Ozga & Lawn which have invested teachers’ trade union militancy with an anti‐statist politics. This article employs a different approach to explain teachers’ politics, especially those of feminist teachers. Exploring the objective and subjective relationship of teachers to the State, the article concludes that teachers’ strategies were statist.     

The influence of an intensive in-service workshop on pedagogical content knowledge growth among novice chemical demonstrators

This study examined the influence of an intensive chemical demonstration workshop on fostering pedagogical content knowledge growth among science teachers identified as novice chemical demonstrators. The two-week summer workshop was designed around four training elements considered important to effective teacher in-servicing: theory, modeling, practice, and feedback. Clinical interviews served to probe various aspects of novice demonstrators' pedagogical content knowledge prior to and after the workshop. The interview protocols were analyzed using the methods of taxonomic, componential, and theme analysis. Differences in pre- and postworkshop clinical interview responses suggested growth in novices' representational and adaptational repertoires for demonstrating fundamental topics in chemistry. This growth was reflected in the increased number of chemical demonstrations and demonstration variations on each of the target chemical concepts that the novice demonstrators discussed after the in-service intervention. Their interview responses also suggested an increased awareness of the complexity of several chemical demonstrations, how these complexities could interfere with learning, and how simplified variations of the chemical demonstrations could promote science concept understanding. The research findings suggest that science teachers' pedagogical content knowledge in chemistry can be enhanced through intensive, short-term in-service programs.     

Utilizing Video Conferencing to Introduce an International Perspective to Foundation Practice

Video conferencing has much potential to enrich international social work education. In this educational initiative, video conferencing was used to deliver a joint foundation social work practice class to students attending an MSW degree program both in the United States and in Ireland. Student feedback indicated that they gained an appreciation of the global nature of social work practice. They reported a deeper understanding of shared theoretical perspectives in relation to client engagement, and of the differences in many fields of practice. Students recommended additional opportunities for international discourse using both synchronous and asynchronous distance education methods.     

Maledizione! or the Perilous Prospects of Beethoven's Patrons

It is tempting to conjecture that the Viennese aristocrats who provided financial support to Beethoven were afflicted by a curse. At the very least, their tales demonstrate the risks that beset even the most privileged members of their society at the onset of the nineteenth century. Here we recount the lot of six of the composer's most readily recognized supporters – Archduke Rudolph, the Princes Kinsky, Lichnowsky andLobkowitz, Count (later prince) Razumovsky and Count Waldstein. Two of them suffered serious accidental occurrences (Kinsky's fatal fall from a horse and the Razumovsky conflagration, about which more will be said presently), the Archduke was apparently forced by arthritis to give up his beloved musical activity and five of the six (as well as other Beethoven patrons) underwent severe financial reverses, at least one of them, Waldstein, dying in poverty. In good part, these misfortunes were attributable to a combination of bad luck and the behavioral propensities of the individuals in question. But behind this story there are also the economic circumstances of the Habsburg Empire at the beginning of the nineteenth century, which constituted a threat to the wealth of the nobility in general. This paper offers some material on this more general subject as well as its biographical observations on some of Beethoven's most significant patrons.     

Crossing borders in educational innovation: Framing foreign examples in discussing comprehensive education in the Netherlands, 1969–1979

In the Netherlands, crossing borders to study comprehensive schools was an important strategy in the 1970s, a decisive period for the start and the end of the innovation. According to policy-borrowing theory, actors that engage in debating educational issues are framing foreign examples of comprehensive schooling to convince their audiences. Framing therefore became the leading concept behind our study of the intellectual debate, examined through the leading Dutch scientific journal Pedagogische Studiën (Educational Studies), and the public debate, examined through recordings of television programmes. Assuming that those debates were influential in the political middle school process, our analyses show that foreign examples indeed functioned as a framing device in the form of legitimisation, glorification, sensationalisation and caution. However, the impact of framing differed. In the phase of cross-national attraction, the reform-minded perspective in the scholarly debate had a stimulating effect on the development of the plans, but little influence on the governmental decision-making process. This contrasts with the frames that were brought forward by television programmes. Although the negative frames, such as “a factory-made sausage”, were rejected by the programmes, such frames could linger in people’s minds as a means to interpret ideas about middle schools. At the end of the 1970s, the middle school was reduced to a minor feature of educational policy and, eventually, the middle school experiments were brought to a close. As a result, the foreign solution of introducing comprehensive education was never transferred to the Netherlands.     

Teaching Religion in Public Schools: Review of Warren A. Nord,Does God Make A Difference?

In this review of Warren Nord's Does God Make a Difference? Taking Religion Seriously in Our Schools and Universities, Walter Feinberg provides a detailed analysis of Nord's argument that the study of religion should be constitutionally mandated as a corrective to the overwhelmingly secular course of study offered in contemporary public schools and universities. Nord bases his claim on both constitutional and educational grounds. His constitutional argument is that, due to their secular bias, schools fail in their requirement to take a neutral stance toward religion; he contends that this creates a school environment hostile to religion that thus requires a legal remedy. Nord's primary educational argument is that religion courses are needed to counterbalance the secular bias dominant in public schools and universities. Feinberg delineates how Nord's constitutional argument fails and how his educational argument has serious flaws and contradictions. According to Feinberg, a stronger argument for mandating courses on religion in schools would be that because public schools exist in a religiously infused environment, it is important for students to be exposed to alternative understandings that promote reflection on and criticism of one's own beliefs, including religious beliefs. Feinberg concludes that if religion is to be taught in the public schools, it needs to be justified on civic rather than religious grounds.