Promoting Community in Early Childhood Programs: A Comparison of Two Programs     

James P. Comer  Michael Ben-Avie 《Early Childhood Education Journal》2010,38(2):87-94

Every interaction within an early childhood program either promotes community or disrupts it. Therefore, excellent early childhood programs have in place a process that pulls the energies and abilities of all the members of the school community together so that everyone—children, educators, parents, and community members—develop well. In particular, healthy interactions between educators and families create the necessary conditions for the early childhood programs: (1) to impact the lifepaths of the families; and, in turn, (2) to engage the families in the work of improving the early childhood programs. In this article, research on the Jewish Early Childhood Education Initiative (JECEI) is presented. JECEI was selected for study because JECEI early childhood programs are characterized by healthy relationships, the capacity to successfully promote children’s learning and development, and the engagement of families in the work of school improvement.  相似文献   

Teaching and Learning Science for Transformative, Aesthetic Experience     

Mark Girod  Todd Twyman  Steve Wojcikiewicz 《Journal of Science Teacher Education》2010,21(7):801-824

Drawing from the Deweyan theory of experience (1934, 1938), the goal of teaching and learning for transformative, aesthetic experience is contrasted against teaching and learning from a cognitive, rational framework. A quasi-experimental design was used to investigate teaching and learning of fifth grade science from each perspective across an entire school year including three major units of instruction. Detailed comparisons of teaching are given and pre and post measures of interest in learning science, science identity affiliation, and efficacy beliefs are investigated. Tests of conceptual understanding before, after, and one month after instruction reveal teaching for transformative, aesthetic experience fosters more, and more enduring, learning of science concepts. Investigations of transfer also suggest students learning for transformative, aesthetic experiences learn to see the world differently and find more interest and excitement in the world outside of school.  相似文献   

Relative Age Effects are a developmental problem in tennis: but not necessarily when you’re left‐handed!     

Florian Loffing  Jörg Schorer  Steve P. Cobley 《High Ability Studies》2010,21(1):19-25

Relative Age Effects (RAEs), describing attainment inequalities as a result of interactions between biological age and age‐grouping procedures, have been demonstrated across many sports contexts. This study examined whether an additional individual characteristic (i.e., handedness) mediated RAEs in tennis. Relative age and handedness distributions of 1027 male professional tennis players ranked in the year‐end ATP Top 500 for 2000–2006 were analyzed. Relatively older players, born in the first two quartiles, were over‐represented for right‐handed players (86.56%), whereas no RAEs were found for left‐handers (13.44%). Findings seem to suggest that left‐handers in tennis gain advantages that circumvent the RAE problem.  相似文献   

Building an understanding of heat transfer concepts in undergraduate chemical engineering courses     

Katharyn E. K. Nottis Michael J. Prince Margot A. Vigeant 《美中教育评论》2010,(2):1-8,27

Understanding the distinctions among heat, energy and temperature can be difficult for students at all levels of instruction, including those in engineering. Misconceptions about heat transfer have been found to persist, even after students successfully complete relevant coursework. New instructional methods are needed to address these misconceptions. This pilot study examined whether researcher-developed and inquiry-based activities could increase conceptual understanding of heat transfer and alter common misconceptions. Twenty-two undergraduate chemical engineering students were assessed before and after instruction with inquiry-based activities using a ten-item concept inventory. Concept inventory questions were developed to assess students＇ performance on questions closely related to the inquiry-based activities and questions applying concepts in new contexts. Participants significantly improved their overall scores from pre-test to post-test. An examination of performance on individual items revealed significant improvement on half of those questions closely related to the instructional activities and half of those applying concepts in new but related contexts. Results are examined in light of the assessment and inquiry activities that were used, as well as the difficulty of the concepts. Educational implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.  相似文献   

Goal neglect and working memory capacity in 4- to 6-year-old children     

Marcovitch S  Boseovski JJ  Knapp RJ  Kane MJ 《Child development》2010,81(6):1687-1695

Goal neglect is the phenomenon of failing to execute the momentary demands of a task despite understanding and being able to recall the task instructions. Successful goal maintenance is more likely to occur in adults with high working memory capacity (WMC) who can keep rules mentally accessible while performing the task. The current study predicted that goal neglect would also be related to WMC in children. It assessed thirty-seven 4-year-old and twenty-eight 6-year-old children on the goal neglect version of the Dimensional Change Card Sort, and 3 tasks that measure WMC. As predicted, children with higher WMC scores were more likely to maintain goals adequately for task performance. The findings are consistent with a 2-factor model of working memory and its development.  相似文献   

Frontal Electroencephalogram Asymmetry, Salivary Cortisol, and Internalizing Behavior Problems in Young Adults Who Were Born at Extremely Low Birth Weight     

Louis A. Schmidt  Vladimir Miskovic  Michael Boyle  Saroj Saigal 《Child development》2010,81(1):183-199

The authors examined internalizing behavior problems at middle childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood and brain-based measures of stress vulnerability in 154 right-handed, nonimpaired young adults ( M age = 23 years): 71 (30 males, 41 females) born at extremely low birth weight (ELBW; < 1,000 g) and 83 (35 males, 48 females) controls born at normal birth weight (NBW). Internalizing behavior problems increased from adolescence to young adulthood among ELBW individuals. ELBW adults exhibited greater relative right frontal electroencephalogram activity at rest and more concurrent internalizing behavior problems than NBW controls. Being born at ELBW may have subtle influences on brain–behavior relations even in survivors without major impairments and evidence of these influences may not emerge until young adulthood.  相似文献   

Learner error,affectual stimulation,and conceptual change     

Michael Allen 《科学教学研究杂志》2010,47(2):151-173

Pupils' expectation‐related errors oppose the development of an appropriate scientific attitude towards empirical evidence and the learning of accepted science content, representing a hitherto neglected area of research in science education. In spite of these apparent drawbacks, a pedagogy is described that encourages pupils to allow their biases to improperly influence data collection and interpretation during practical work, in order to provoke emotional responses and subsequent engagement with the science. The usefulness of this approach is borne out quantitatively by findings from a series of three randomized experiments (n = 158) which show superior gains using this pedagogy that are still significant 2 and 3 years after the initial treatment. In addition, pupils who experienced more intense emotions during treatment demonstrated the most gains after 6 weeks. This research is one element of a large‐scale study of expectation‐related observation in school science whose findings impact generally on the proper consideration of empirical evidence and the learning of science content. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 47:151–173, 2010  相似文献   

The Value of Reanalysis: TV Viewing and Attention Problems     

E. Michael Foster  Stephanie Watkins 《Child development》2010,81(1):368-375

Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth ( N  =   1,159), this study reexamines the link between maternal reports of television viewing at ages 1 and 3 and attention problems at age 7. This work represents a reanalysis and extension of recent research suggesting young children's television viewing causes subsequent attention problems. The nonlinear specification reveals the association between television watching and attention problems exists—if at all—only at very high levels of viewing. Adding 2 covariates to the regression model eliminated even this modest effect. The earlier findings are not robust. This study also considers whether its own findings are sensitive to unobserved confounding using fixed-effects estimation. In general, it finds no meaningful relation between television viewing and attention problems.  相似文献   

Faculty perceptions of academic freedom at a GCC university     

Michael H. Romanowski  Ramzi Nasser 《Prospects》2010,40(4):481-497

Massive oil revenues are currently fueling a surge in the number of educational institutions in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, presenting leadership at all levels with many unprecedented questions. In particular, the growth and reform of higher education challenges the delicate balance between academic freedom and Arab cultural values. This paper describes faculty perceptions of academic freedom at a major GCC national university. Faculty members’ views and perceptions regarding academic freedom are presented based on interviews, questionnaire responses, and the authors’ own thoughts. Findings indicate that faculty members have complex and often contradictory understandings of academic freedom and related responsibilities and often engage in self-censorship. The authors discuss these findings by engaging in self-reflection regarding their own perspectives and personal experiences.  相似文献   

Can Long John Silver Save the Humanities?     

Michael Mendelson 《Children‘s Literature in Education》2010,41(4):340-354

Given the serious decline in the number of undergraduates majoring in the humanities in general, and literature in particular, teachers of Children’s Literature have a unique opportunity to serve their discipline by tapping the power of classroom dialogue to introduce students to the practical reasoning central to humanistic study. This essay takes Long John Silver, from Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island (1883), as a model for generating lively discussion that begins with literary matters but leads, with help from the teacher, to fundamental questions about the role of the humanities in students’ education and in their lives. In the process, the essay traces a pedagogical strategy that moves from matters of plot and character, to issues of ethics and judgment, to larger questions regarding approximate knowledge and sound reasoning about the complexities of the human condition. This inquiry focuses specifically on the charming but villainous Silver and the possible explanations for his escape at the end of the novel. But the ambiguity and fascination of his character are also catalysts for wide-ranging classroom discussion of a kind that Children’s Literature routinely promotes and sustains. Such discussion can provide broad, balanced insight into the nature and variety of critical understanding. As such, Children’s Literature and the pedagogy it supports serves to identify and enliven the benefits of humanistic study at a crucial moment of academic history.  相似文献