谁动了我的奶酪?

这个奶酪是什么? 在我们的生命中,我们都有一些想获得的东西--一份工作、一段关系、金钱、房子和家、自由、健康、获得认同、精神上的平静,或者是我们喜欢的活动,像是打高尔夫或是阅读。在这个故事中,"奶酪"是一种隐喻,代表了我们想要的这些东西,也就是吸引着嗅嗅、匆匆、哼哼和吱吱的这些东西,这些东西使他们快乐,充实了他们的存在。我们每个人对于我们的奶酪是什么都有自己的见解,我们追求它们,因为我们相信这些东西能使我们快乐。     

No “fear of flying”? Worrals of the WAAF,fiction, and girls’ informal wartime education

Abstract

This article focuses on the series of 11 books about a young female pilot, Worrals of the WAAF, by W.E. Johns, creator of Biggles. The Worrals books were published from 1941 when recruitment for the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force was falling. Johns chose to ignore that the WAAF supported pilots through their work on the ground and did not themselves fly. The article discusses how historians of education can draw on fiction in order to identify aspects of informal education, especially during wartime, when so many children’s formal schooling was disrupted or non-existent. Drawing on Erica Jong’s 1970s metaphor of “flying” as representative of female freedom, it is possible to read Worrals’ character as a role model for teenage girls. The conundrum of why Johns chose to put Worrals in the WAAF, rather than in Air Transport with the likes of Amy Johnson, is further explored in the light of evidence that a number of WAAF were seconded to the SOE. It concludes that fiction read alongside a range of other evidence offers a rich source for the historian engaged in a search for the gendered nature of education beyond the classroom.     

Family Instability and Young Children's School Adjustment: Callousness and Negative Internal Representations as Mediators

This study examined the mediating roles of children's callousness and negative internal representations of family relationships in associations between family instability and children's adjustment to school in early childhood. Participants in this multimethod (i.e., survey, observations), multiinformant (i.e., parent, teacher, observer), longitudinal study included 243 preschool children (M_age = 4.60 years) and their families. Findings from the lagged, autoregressive tests of the mediational paths indicated that both children's callousness and negative internal representations of family relationships mediated longitudinal associations between family instability and children's school adjustment problems over a 2‐year period (i.e., the transition from preschool to first grade). Findings are discussed in relation to the attenuation hypothesis (E. J. Susman, 2006) and emotional security theory (EST; P. T. Davies, M. A. Winter, & D. Cicchetti, 2006).     

The Transition to Reaching: Mapping Intention and Intrinsic Dynamics

The onset of directed reaching demarks the emergence of a qualitatively new skill. In this study we asked how intentional reaching arises from infants' ongoing, intrinsic movement dynamics, and how first reaches become successively adapted to the task. We observed 4 infants weekly in a standard reaching task and identified the week of first arm-extended reach, and the 2 weeks before and after onset. The infants first reached at ages ranging from 12 to 22 weeks, and they used different strategies to get the toy. 2 infants, whose spontaneous movements were large and vigorous, damped down their fast, forceful movements. The 2 quieter infants generated faster and more energetic movements to lift their arms. The infants modulated reaches in task-appropriate ways in the weeks following onset. Reaching emerges when infants can intentionally adjust the force and compliance of the arm, often using muscle coactivation. These results suggest that the infant central nervous system does not contain programs that detail hand trajectory, joint coordination, and muscle activation patterns. Rather, these patterns are the consequences of the natural dynamics of the system and the active exploration of the match between those dynamics and the task.     

Testing a motivational model of achievement: How students’ mathematical beliefs and interests are related to their achievement

Blackwell et al. (Child Development 78(1):246–263, 2007) tested a motivational model of achievement in which an incremental theory of intelligence leads to learning goals and positive effort beliefs, which leads to fewer ability-based, helpless attributions, and more positive strategies, which leads to improved grades. In the present study, we tested this model by using a different population, using domain-specific items, comparing the results across gender, including “interest” as another variable in the model, and assessing the impact of achievement as an antecedent and outcome variable in the model. Participants included 163, mostly White, ninth-grade Algebra students from a suburban school in southwest Virginia, USA. We established that the model had a relatively good fit to the data and all paths were statistically significant when achievement was used as both an antecedent and outcome variable. The standardized path coefficients were consistent with those reported by Blackwell et al. and the model was invariant across genders. Furthermore, we documented that interest could be included as another mediating variable in the model. The results of this study provide evidence to support the validity of the relationships between the constructs in the Blackwell et al. model for the population examined.     

Developing an Online Support Community for Pre-service Teachers at East Carolina University

This article discusses the planning and initial research behind the design of an online support community for pre-service teachers. This community is initially being designed to support pre-service teachers with their technology integration efforts during their student teaching experiences, but may also grow to serve special teaching cohorts in high need areas of eastern North Carolina. Included is a presentation of pre-service teacher usability preferences and desired functionality.     

Experiences of instructors in online learning environments: Identifying and regulating emotions

In an effort to expand existing research on the barriers of instructors experience in online learning environments (OLEs), a qualitative study was conducted at a large mid-Atlantic university. Six instructors teaching in different OLE formats (e.g., asynchronous, hybrid, and synchronous via videoconferencing) participated in two focus groups in order to explore their emotional experiences and ways to regulate the emotions when teaching in OLEs. The overarching themes included emotions of feeling (a) restricted, (b) stressed, (c) devalued, (d) validated, and (e) rejuvenated. The article also provides practical strategies on how participating instructors attempted to manage the challenging emotions. A consensus among all participants is that continuous dialog in a community of practice about strategies to enhance OLEs is imperative.     

The Controversy Over Controversies: A Plea for Flexibility and for “Soft‐Directive” Teaching

A controversy rages over the question of how should controversial topics be taught. Recent work has advanced the “epistemic criterion” as the resolution to this controversy. According to the epistemic criterion, a matter should be taught as controversial when contrary views can be entertained on the matter without the views being contrary to reason. When an issue is noncontroversial, according to the epistemic criterion, the correct position can be taught “directively,” with the teacher endorsing that position. When there is a legitimate controversy, the view should be taught “nondirectively,” with the teacher remaining neutral. In response, Bryan Warnick and Spencer Smith argue that the proponents of the epistemic criterion fail to recognize the multidimensional nature of what it means to learn to be rational. Recognizing this complexity undermines the link between the epistemic status of the controversy and directiveness of one's teaching, suggesting more flexibility in how teachers approach controversial issues. It also implies the need for a new category of teaching, which Warnick and Smith call “soft‐directive” teaching.     

Emancipating subjects in science education: taking a lesson from Patti Lather and Jacques Rancière

This paper extends the conversation started by Patti Lather in her forum response to “Neoliberal ideology, global capitalism, and science education: engaging the question of subjectivity”, in terms of engaging the thought of Jacques Rancière. Rancière can offer (science) educators a more definitive example of (possible) emancipatory political subjectivities. His notion of radical equality can also aid in developing new pedagogical spaces in science education. This latter point is taken up in the concluding sections of this short essay.