Workplace learning as a spiritual practice

This paper reviews the literature on workplace and transformational learning to explore how spirituality can be accessed to encourage individual growth through the development of critical awareness while providing a sense of direction in the workplace as part of organisational learning. In communities and societies where organisations may have replaced religious institutions as centres for adult learning, the workplace continues to respond to the universal need for community and support. These elements are related to spiritual values. Still, leaders of organisations need to consider values that underlie typical workplace activities and recognise how collective engagement and workplace interactions direct personal development and ground identity. Providing opportunities to reflect on meaning and direction at work supports a transformative approach to learning and leadership that promotes cooperative working conditions, conscious behaviour and informed citizenship through encouraging attitudes of critical awareness, praxis and collective engagement in workplace interaction.     

Making Research Relevant in Preservice Early Childhood Teacher Education

Increasingly, researchers, teacher educators and governmental agencies underline the need for early childhood professionals to be able to conduct and use relevant research in their practice. In contrast, early childhood teachers tend to draw exclusively on practical advice rather than research evidence to evaluate and develop their teaching. To address these contradictions in expectations, recently developed preservice early childhood teacher education programs have included a core research subject that aims to foster an appreciation of the value of research and its contributions to professional practice. This study examines the effectiveness of teaching and learning approaches designed to make research relevant to undergraduates at an Australian regional university by tracking students' changing views about research during a one-semester teaching period. The findings of this study show that relevant learning experiences, such as designing and conducting a simple research project, modeling research, collaborative inquiry, focused reading, and organizing a research conference, significantly changed student perceptions of the relevance of research to their teaching and their future role as early childhood professionals.     

"Birds of a Feather…": Behavioral Concordances and Preferential Personal Attraction in Children

The purpose of this study was to assess the extent to which preferential personal attraction was associated with behavioral similarity among newly acquinted children. Participants included 69 focal children, selected from a sample of 236 7-year-old children who met, for the first time, in same-sex quartets ( n = 59) for a free-play session. Within each of these quartets, a "discriminating child" was identified; this child expressed a clear preference for one of his or her playmates over one other of her or his quartet playmates. Preference was determined sociometrically after the children became acquainted during free play. The results indicated that "discriminating" children were more behaviorally similar to preferred playmates than to nonpreferred playmates both in terms of cognitive play style and social participation. Implications of the findings are discussed in terms of the relation to the acquaintanceship process.     

Student–Faculty Interaction in Research Universities: Differences by Student Gender, Race, Social Class, and First-Generation Status

This study examined whether the effects of student–faculty interaction on a range of student outcomes—i.e., college GPA, degree aspiration, integration, critical thinking and communication, cultural appreciation and social awareness, and satisfaction with college experience—vary by student gender, race, social class, and first-generation status. The study utilized data on 58,281 students who participated in the 2006 University of California Undergraduate Experience Survey (UCUES). The findings reveal differences in the frequency of student–faculty interaction across student gender, race, social class and first-generation status, and differences in the effects of student–faculty interaction (i.e., conditional effects) that depended on each of these factors except first-generation status. The findings provide implications for educational practice on how to maximize the educational efficacy of student–faculty interaction by minimizing the gender, race, social class, and first-generation differences associated with it.

Women planning to major in computer science: Who are they and what makes them unique?

Despite the current growing popularity of the computer science (CS) major, women remain sorely underrepresented in the field, continuing to earn only 18% of bachelor’s degrees. Understanding women’s low rates of participation in CS is important given that the demand for individuals with CS training has grown sharply in recent years. Attracting and retaining more women to high-paying fields like CS may also help narrow the gender pay gap. Further, it is important that women participate in developing new technology so that technology advances serve the needs of both women and men. This paper explores the background characteristics, career aspirations, and self-perceptions of 1636 female first-year college students in the United States who intend to major in CS and compares them with 4402 male CS aspirants as well as with 26,642 women planning to major in other STEM sub-fields. The findings reveal a unique profile of women who pursue the CS major and notes many significant differences between men and women in CS and between women in CS and those in other STEM fields. For instance, women in CS tend to earn lower high school grades than women in other STEM fields, but earn higher SAT verbal scores. They also rate themselves higher than men in CS and women in other STEM fields on measures of their artistic ability, but rate themselves lower on other self-ratings, including academic and leadership ability. Further, women in CS are more likely to be undecided in their career plans than men in CS and women in other STEM fields. Understanding the unique characteristics of women in CS will help inform policies and recruitment programs designed to address the gender gap in computing.     

A study of the presence of evolutionary protoconcepts in pre-high school textbooks

Abstract Elementary and middle school science texts were analyzed for the presence of evolutionary protoconcepts, which are defined as topics that prepare students to study evolution in later years. Elementary and middle school texts were content-analyzed for protoconcepts in both life science and earth science. Seventeen concepts considered important for student understanding of evolution were gleaned from the misconception literature and used to review the life science texts. Concepts used to analyze other texts were chosen by exploring all texts used in the analysis for any topics that might qualify as evolutionary protoconcepts, thus generating grounded theory. Coverage of evolutionary protoconcepts varies considerably among published textbooks. We recommend using this analysis when considering textbooks for adoption and for supplementing texts currently in use. We also recommended this type of analysis of textbooks for inclusion of other topics of interest to science education research.     

The new challenge: An ethnically integrated enrichment program for gifted students

The New Challenge Program was established at the University of Texas‐Pan American's School of Education to provide enrichment experience for gifted children in the Lower Rio Grande Valley of South Texas. Over 125 students in grades K‐12 participate each spring in a course of their choosing designed to explore creativity or foster specialized interests, such as Videography, Engineering in the Real World, Discovering the Art in You, Blood and Guts, and Rocketry and Aviation. The majority of the gifted students in this program are Mexican Americans and are classified as economically disadvantaged. The New Challenge Program staff developed an informal system for selecting and preparing the experts who teach these courses to provide a learning environment that works for all gifted children and a curriculum that is thematic and expands upon the academic content that they learn in school.     

How a Learning Community Enhances Individual Learning in a Graduate Distance Education Program

Little empirical research is currently available on Jewish distance learning, a nascent but growing field of practice. By way of qualitative case study methodology, this research explored the learning experience of a group of adult learners participating in a Jewish education Master's degree program that is offered by way of videoconferencing technology. A key finding was that the learning community constituted an informal learning context, fostering openness to new perspectives, appreciation of collaborative learning, and critically reflective thinking. The study sheds light on the unique cultural vestiges that enhance Jewish learners' shared spirit or desire for community, and their motivation and ability to create it in a distance learning program, as well as on what facilitates and/or hinders learning. The principle recommendation was that to enhance learning, educators in videoconferencing programs should work toward making the learning community a visible entity, and should facilitate collaborative learning opportunities for students both within and across sites.     

Before studying in the humanities,what do students need?

What enables success for students studying in the humanities can be a contested space; dependent not only on the view taken on the content and purpose of specific subjects, but also on the nature of teaching and learning. This paper examines the process of redeveloping an elective unit in a Tertiary Enabling Programme to prepare students for study in undergraduate humanities areas. The research involved consulting with academics from different disciplines in a regional university and analysing their views on what enhances student success. These discussions are reviewed in light of literature on best practice in teaching and learning for foundation and first-year university students, particularly exploring Pierre Bourdieu’s notion of extending ‘cultural capital’ while expanding ‘habitus’ to emerge confidently into the field of academic life. We conclude that fostering students’ awareness of personal perspective on historical and contemporary events, alongside encouraging awareness of the constructed nature of meaning in particular events is central to developing the kind of thinking valued by lecturers in humanities subjects.     

Equity and educators enacting The Australian Early Years Learning Framework

The mandated learning framework, Belonging, Being & Becoming: The Early Years Learning Framework for Australia is part of a suite of reforms currently being undertaken in early childhood education in Australia. All educators working in direct contact with young children from birth to the age of five are required to use the Framework or an approved alternative. The reforms are aimed at achieving higher quality and greater equity of early childhood education throughout Australia. This article contemplates the equity of the Framework when the workforce required to use it is diverse and ranges from those who are degree, associate or diploma qualified, to becoming qualified. It considers the implicit construct of the ideal professional practitioner in the policy and the social justice effects of the policy. The article concludes that political concerns about a certain group of educators have been reduced to matters of technical efficiency and that as a consequence, the values of social justice and equity for this group have been subsumed to align with dominant economic imperatives.