Teaching within a Curricular Zone of Safety: School Culture and the Situated Nature of Student Teachers' Pedagogical Content Knowledge

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to continue the theoretical delineation of the nature of pedagogical content knowledge. Two student teachers were observed teaching an elementary games and high school sport unit and interviewed in depth about their lessons, biography, pedagogical content knowledge, and aspects of the school culture. Data were analyzed by constant comparison and analytic induction. Trustworthiness was established through member checks and triangulation. In the high school, both student teachers tried to use extending and refining tasks, as they had in the elementary school. But, when confronted with aspects of the high school culture, both retreated to a curricular zone of safety relying on application tasks. This zone, the defining aspect of their pedagogical content knowledge of teaching sports, emerged from and was constituted by the relations among goals, capabilities, teaching, inadequate pedagogical content knowledge, and aspects of the school culture. It is argued that situated and cultural orientations contribute to psychological orientations currently used to delineate pedagogical content knowledge. A curricular zone of safety is offered as a concept that helped account for the emergence and persistence of particular ways of knowing content.     

Physiological Effects of Deep Water Running following a Land-Based Training Program

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine differences in knowledge representation and problem solutions in expert and novice youth baseball players. Ninety-four players in two age divisions, 7–8 years of age and 9–10 years of age, were assigned to three levels of expertise: high; average; and low skilled. Each subject participated in an interview session to elicit knowledge representation and solutions to five different defensive game situations. Interviews were transcribed and analyzed for content, solution to the problem, errors in problem solution, and qualitative trends. The frequency of advanced solutions to each of the five situations were analyzed in separate chi-square tests for age and expertise. Differences among the levels of expertise were found for the accuracy of solutions to three complex situations. Age was significant for only one situation. Patterns of knowledge content accessed during advanced and less advanced responses indicated both experts and novices were in a beginning stage of developing baseball knowledge structures. Errors in problem solutions indicated children had difficulty monitoring critical conditions and making correct inferences. Players' and teammates' ability to execute baseball skills seemed to influence the content and structure of tactical knowledge accessed during problem solution.     

‘To honor and glorify God’: the role of religion in one intercollegiate athletics culture

Numerous events have provided evidence that the cultural values and assumptions of intercollegiate athletic departments are often incongruent with those of their host institutions. This discrepancy has even been evident in Christian institutions which seek to integrate faith into the learning experience. Using the organizational culture perspective, this study sought to determine how religion influenced the culture of one intercollegiate athletics department. The study took place at a highly selective evangelical Christian college with a nationally competitive athletic department. Data were collected through interviews with 19 campus leaders, observation of cultural events and document analysis. Analysis occurred qualitatively through a process of theorizing. The results indicate that evangelical Christianity played a significant role in the athletic department's culture by constraining its membership, influencing its pedagogy and guiding department decisions. As a result, its values and assumptions were consistent with those of the overall campus culture. The reasons underlying this cultural integration offer coaches and administrators of all institutional affiliations the possibility that the organizational culture perspective can be used to create athletic programs that are more consistent with institutional values.     

The use of computers in K-12 schools in turkey

Through the determined efforts of MONE, more than one third of the existing 5,851 schools have at least one computer lab. It is clear that the number of computers in schools in Turkey will continue to increase.     

Higher prevalence of childhood sexual abuse among Latino men who have sex with men than non-Latino men who have sex with men: data from the Urban Men's Health Study

OBJECTIVE: The prevalence of childhood sexual abuse among Latino adult men who have sex with men who live in the US was estimated because a history of childhood sexual abuse increases HIV sexual risk behaviors and other negative health outcomes in adulthood. METHOD: The Urban Men's Health Study is a random-digit telephone probability survey of 2881 adult men who have sex with men (MSM) aged 18 years or older residing in San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago. Self-reported history of childhood sexual abuse was the main outcome measure gathered from 2692 MSM. RESULTS: A significantly higher proportion of Latino MSM reported sexual abuse before age 13 (22%) than did non-Latino MSM (11%). CONCLUSIONS: Latino MSM are twice as likely to report a history of childhood sexual abuse than are non-Latino MSM. Given the association between childhood sexual abuse and increased risk for HIV and other negative health outcomes, health providers must remain vigilant to the possibility of childhood sexual abuse histories among their Latino patients.     

Influences of Witnessed Affect on Information Processing in Children

Children between the ages of 5 and 10 years watched a videotape of a child having a routine medical exam. Embedded within the scenes were systematic variations of depicted facial affect shown by doctor and child. Measures were taken of autonomic reactions and information-processing errors in response to positive, neutral, and negative affective cues. For 5-6-year-olds, processing errors were greatest in the negative affect condition. Additionally, peak increases in heart rate (HR) and skin conductance level (SCL) were demonstrated by 5-6-year-olds in response to negative affect shown by the witnessed child; increases in HR were in turn predictive of processing errors. Older children (9-10 years) showed trends reflecting reduced processing errors in response to witnessed negative affect. It was suggested that younger children respond to salient threat cues with a "defensive" response pattern that is relatively adaptive at younger but not older ages.     

Transition to School: Developmental Trajectories and School Experiences

Because of the premium now placed on a formal education as well as the changing demographics of American society, school failure is now more costly than ever. Given that academic difficulties experienced by children are traceable to problems in underachievement that begin during the first years of early schooling, a thorough understanding of the transition-to-school process is needed. We suggest two principal assumptions in examining this transition-to-kindergarten period. First, multiple risk factors associated with certain child, family, and child care characteristics are expected to predict early school experience, both in and out of the classroom, and, thereby, social and academic success and failure in the early school years. Secondly, it is expected that day-to-day experiences in the classroom and on the playground will exacerbate or mitigate risk, resulting in some children performing better than would otherwise be expected and others functioning worse than anticipated. Thus, a critically important problem involves the identification of child, family, child care, and schooling factors and processes which account for risk being realized or not realized with regard to subsequent academic and school performance.     

Erstad,Ola (2013) Digital learning lives Peter Lang (New York & Bern) isbn 978‐1‐4331‐1163‐1 280 pp € 30.75 (paper and e‐book) http://www.peterlang.com/index.cfm?event=cmp.ccc.seitenstruktur.detailseiten&seitentyp=produkt&pk=78334&cid=448

Digital learning lives aims to describe a set of practices in school education and beyond that are well developed and based on digital technology. With rich examples from our digital lives, the author shows that digital natives should be able to go beyond spaces and places with which they are familiar. People closely interested in broadening the scope of digital learning and creativity should think of buying this. Gi‐Zen Liu     

Philips,Rob et al (2012) Evaluating e‐learning Routledge (New York & London) isbn 978‐0‐415‐88194‐4 207 pp £25.99 http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415881944/

This book seeks to formalise approaches to e‐learning by ensuring that e‐resource design is evaluated and appropriately supported by evidence. The book is aimed at academics who design e‐learning systems and need to devise scholarly evaluation research to assess their success. If this book's likely to relate closely to what you do, I suggest you borrow a copy so you can assess it for yourself. John G Hedberg