Heroes of resiliency and reciprocity: teachers’ supporting role for reconceptualizing superhero play in early childhood settings

Superhero play is a specialised form of fantasy play with considerable appeal to young children. During superhero play, children have opportunities to pretend and often to play different types of roles within a safe and caring environment. When guided appropriately in an early childhood classroom, superhero play gives young children opportunities to gain a sense of mastery and empowerment as well as developmentally appropriate benefits by improving language skills, problem-solving and cooperation with peers. By recognising and modelling the characteristics of resiliency and promoting kindness with peers during superhero play, teachers can encourage children to be kind and resilient heroes to classroom friends. As today’s classrooms increasingly include diverse members, it is important for young children to understand and appreciate the peers they play and learn with at school. The result may be a richer learning experience and may break down barriers that can produce unfairness, bullying and aggressive behaviours. This article explores the essence of superhero fantasy play along with its benefits for young children. In addition, the article examines the challenge of superhero play in classrooms for early childhood educators by exploring teachers’ roles in play. A new pedagogy for supporting superhero play is introduced, addressing spiritual and educational concerns by suggesting ways in which teachers can increase resiliency, encourage new friendships and build classroom community among peers during play and classroom activities.     

Encouraging and analyzing student questions in a large physics course: Meaningful patterns for instructors

In a large introductory physics course, structured weekly journals (weekly reports) regularly encouraged students to ask questions about the material. The resulting questions were collected for one quarter and coded based on difficulty and topic. Students also took several conceptual tests during the quarter. The reports contained more questions than typically observed in a college classroom, but the number of questions asked was not correlated to any measure of conceptual performance. Relationships among different types of questions and performance on these tests were explored. Deeper‐level questions that focus on concepts, coherence of knowledge, and limitations were related to the variance in student conceptual achievement. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 40: 776–791, 2003     

Screening for problem parenting: preliminary evidence on a promising instrument

This paper reports on efforts aimed toward the development of more effective procedures for identifying mothers who are at elevated risk for problems in parenting. We present data from two independent samples of known maladaptors and corresponding comparison mothers and report on our attempts to cross-validate a promising screening instrument composed of items that index social support and parenting attitudes. The resultant 20-item scale correctly identified over 90% of maladaptive and comparison mothers. When this scale was cross-validated on a second independent sample of maladaptors and comparison mothers, it was again almost 90% accurate. Issues concerning the field application of this promising instrument are discussed and its possible limitations are considered.     

Legacies in Black and White: The Racial Composition of the Legacy Pool

Selective universities regularly employ policies that favor children of alumni (known as legacies) in undergraduate admissions. Since alumni from selective colleges and universities historically have been disproportionately white, admissions policies that favor legacies have disproportionately benefited white students. For this reason, legacy policies lead to additional costs in terms of reductions in racial diversity. As larger numbers of minority students graduate from colleges and universities and have children, however, the potential pool of legacy applicants will change markedly in racial composition. This analysis begins with a review of the history and objectives of the preference for children of alumni in undergraduate admissions. We then consider the specific case of the University of Virginia and employ demographic techniques to predict the racial composition of the pool of potential legacy applicants to the university. Significant changes in the racial composition of classes that graduated from the University of Virginia from the late 1960s through the 1970s foreshadow similar changes in the characteristics of alumni children maturing through the next two decades.     

Good practices for student learning: Mixed‐method evidence from the Wabash National Study

Kathleen M. Goodman, Marcia Baxter Magolda, Tricia A. Seifert, and Patricia M. King review both quantitative and qualitative data to understand students' college experiences and provide powerful information to guide educators.     

Investigative interviews of alleged sexual abuse victims with and without anatomical dolls

Verbal and nonverbal responses by alleged victims of child sexual abuse were coded for length, amount of information, and the manner in which they were elicited by the interviewer. In 16 of the interviews, anatomical dolls were employed for the purposes of demonstration, whereas they were not used in another eight cases matched with respect to other characteristics of the children and the alleged events. Children interviewed with dolls provided an equivalent number of details and spoke as many words in the substantive portion of the interview as did children interviewed without dolls, and interviewers in the two groups used similar probes to elicit information. However, the average responses by the children were significantly longer and more detailed when dolls were not used. Children gave longer and more detailed responses to open-ended invitations when dolls were not used. Caution is necessary when interpreting these findings.     

TAKING ACCOUNT OF STUDENTS’ EMPLOYMENT EXPERIENCE IN A COURSE OF INITIAL TEACHER EDUCATION

This study focuses on an industrial, commercial and community experience programme within a full time, one year postgraduate teacher training course. Acknowledging the heterogeneous experiences brought to this course by the students, an attempt was made to detect links between the students’ prior experience and their experience of the industrial, commercial and community programme. The students completed questionnaires before and after a placement and the findings are described. These findings contribute to an evaluation of the programme and suggest a number of important questions for those responsible for designing teacher education courses.