EDUCATION ABOUT AGING: A RATIONALE

Based on a review of studies on children's and adolescents’ attitudes and conceptions about aging and older people and on studies analyzing media content such as children's literature, textbooks, and public television programs to determine how older persons are portrayed, a rationale is provided for systematic education about aging in the public schools of the United States.     

Measuring gifted adolescents' implicit theories of creativity

This paper examines the structure of implicit theories of creativity in a sample of gifted adolescents and describes the development and use of the Creative Self Checklist and the Creative Individual Checklist, adjective checklists designed to assess endorsement of creativity‐related personality and behavioral attributes. Findings indicate that the gifted rate aspects of risk‐taking and inquisitiveness as primary facets of their own creativity while defining artistic abilities and energy and motivation as important parts of creativity in others. This study also assessed the role that these implicit theories play in the display of creative behaviors with regard to both performance on creativity tests and participation in creative hobbies. Findings indicate that while performance on creativity measures is predictive of creative hobby participation, greater self‐endorsement of beliefs that are positively related to creativity also significantly predict creative behaviors.     

Examining primary schools' physical education coordinators' pedagogical content knowledge of games: are we just playing as this?

A detailed insight into how the current educational climate influences the pedagogical decisions made by primary school teachers when teaching games is limited. Studies examining the pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) of teachers within physical education have revealed its close relationship with specific forms of subject knowledge. In recognition of this, Veal and MaKinster's framework of general, domain and topic-specific PCK was employed to examine 12 primary school teachers' PCK of games. It was concluded that when personal experiences of pedagogy and content knowledge are unchallenged and reinforced by teachers' training and continuing professional development (CPD) programmes, very narrow topic-specific PCK results. This PCK was characterised bythe inseparable paring of constricted pedagogical strategies and limited content knowledge. When teachers do not integrate this very narrow topic-specific PCK with other types of PCK, it has significant repercussions upon the planned curriculum and learning experiences offered to pupils.     

Principles of Play: a proposed framework towards a holistic overview of games in primary physical education

The playing of games has been a long standing tradition in physical education. Yet despite its history, the teaching of games within primary physical education lessons remains something of a weakness. This is most evident through a continued focus upon skill acquisition and a lack of fostering of a real ‘tactical understanding’ of game play. Despite attempts to rectify this issue through the development of instructional models, a lack of conceptual clarity remains. This paper proposes a framework that goes some way to rectify this ambiguity by proposing to focus upon what are referred to as ‘Principles of Play’. It is recommended that this approach should become the focus when conceptualising what constitutes primary games lessons.     

Avoiding the Perils of “Teacher-Proof” Online Design: A Content Analysis

This content analysis explored how previously validated Web-based inquiries (WBIs) for science instruction are designed and to what extent they match the proposed teacher-support guidelines of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Examined WBIs implemented few recommended teacher-support mechanisms. This article explores the reasons why so few mechanisms were supported and proposes ways to enhance the curricular usefulness of WBIs by incorporating more recommended mechanisms.     

The influence of content knowledge on teaching and learning in Traditional and Sport Education contexts: an exploratory study

Background: Our understanding of the role in which content knowledge (CK) can strengthen instructional models and how that knowledge matters for professional development is limited. It is contended that mere use of an instructional model is insufficient to impact psychomotor learning in meaningful ways.

Purpose: This study was conducted to investigate how a teacher's enacted pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) differed as a function of CK and Sport Education (SE), and to investigate the relative contribution of CK and Sport Education on student learning in terms of swimming performance.

Methods: Four intact classes comprising 88 secondary school students (age: 16–17 years) were randomly assigned to a Traditional, an Sport Education, a Traditional-CK, and a SE-CK group. All classes were taught by the same teacher during a 10-day unit of instruction in the front crawl.

Results: Results showed that the teacher's PCK differed as a function of improved CK. For verbal representations, the amount of cues in the Traditional-CK and SE-CK groups increased about sixfold compared to the Traditional and the SE group. For visual representations, more partially incorrect demonstrations were observed than correct demonstrations in the Traditional and the SE group. More mature and developmentally appropriate tasks were observed in the Traditional-CK and the SE-CK group compared to the Traditional and the SE group. Students in the Traditional-CK and SE-CK groups demonstrated a significant reduction of their amount of strokes on 50?m compared to the Traditional group. A significant interaction effect revealed a larger increase in swimming performance in the CK groups compared to the Traditional and the SE group. Finally, students in the SE group swam significantly more laps than their counterparts in the other groups.

Discussion and conclusion: These results show the impact on student learning when CK was added to both Traditional and Sport Education conditions and contribute to the literature for pre- and in-service teachers. The Sport Education model did not contribute to students’ swimming performance. Students in the Traditional and the SE group did not get the same quality of instruction as students in the Traditional-CK and SE-CK conditions. The latter groups received content that was presented differently both as a presentation and in terms of the actual task. In short, students in the Traditional and Sport Education conditions experienced the content differently than those in the Traditional-CK and SE-CK conditions. These instructional differences resulted in students in the Traditional-CK and SE-CK conditions improving their swimming performances in terms of technical efficiency and in terms of 50?m times.     

Putting students first: Promoting lives of purpose and meaning

Institutions that successfully educate students to lead “the good life” attend to their campus's culture, curriculum, cocurriculum, and community.The authors of this article explore nuances of these four C's.