Early Preservice Teachers’ Experiences of the Environment: A Case Study of Participation in a Community Outdoor Event

2017 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 81-96 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wilhelmina van Rooy

AbstractClean Up Australia Day is the country's largest community-based environmental annual event when participants work in teams to remove rubbish from their local environment. This article describes an interpretive study in which a sample of preservice primary teachers’ (n = 30) responses to questions about their involvement in the event were evaluated to determine their developing knowledge and understanding about environmental and sustainability issues. The study evaluated a university assessment task for its ability to identify and challenge preservice primary teachers’ views as consumers of manufactured products, environmental citizens, and future teachers. The data were drawn from students’ written work that formed part of the assessment task. Results indicate that students found participation in this community event to be a significant, valuable part of their learning about the environment that contributed to their understanding about sustainability and highlighted the power of positive community participation as a force for good.

Author(s):  
Wendy Nielsen ◽  
Annette Turney ◽  
Helen Georgiou ◽  
Pauline Jones

AbstractThe construction of dynamic multimedia products requires the selection and integration of a range of semiotic resources. As an assessment task for preservice teachers, this construction process is complex but has significant potential for learning. To investigate how weaving together multiple representations in such tasks enables learners to develop conceptual understanding, the paper presents an indicative case study of a 2nd-year preservice primary (K-6) teacher who created a digital explanation on the topic of ‘transparency’ for stage 3 children (ages 11–12). We focus on data gathered during the 3-h construction process including artefacts such as images, online searches, websites accessed and paper records used for planning; the digital explanation as product; audio and video capture of the construction process and pre- and post-construction interviews. Using multimodal analysis, we examine these data to understand how meanings are negotiated as the maker moves iteratively among multiple representations and through semiotic choices within these representations to explain the science concept. The analyses illustrate the complexity of the construction process while providing insight into the creator’s decision-making and to her developing semiotic and conceptual understandings. These findings allow us to build on the concept of cumulative semiotic progression (Hoban & Nielsen, Research in Science Education, 35, 1101-1119, 2013) by explicating the role of iterative reasoning in the production of pedagogic multimedia.


2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-80
Author(s):  
Yuko Yamane

This study attempts to describe the realities of participatory development projects in western Kenya, where severe soil degradation has occurred, using participatory observation methods. Six aid organizations administered development projects for environmental rehabilitation in the area; however, less than 10% of study area residents participated in project activities. This article argues that this lack of participation was fuelled by a disjuncture of understanding between aid organizations, community-based development organizations, and area residents about project purposes and goals. It suggests that in order for participatory development projects to be successful all stakeholders must understand and take ownership of the project. People who the aid organization called “community” often turned out to be a collection of unconnected people. In addition, not everyone who was involved participated out of a desire to stop soil erosion. Many people were not directly impacted by the gullies and their motivation for participation was purely for economic reasons. Thus, growing seedlings and planting them was seen more as a source of income than as a way to repair and restore the local environment. Such motivations need to be considered when creating participatory development projectsKeywords: participatory development, community development, environmental rehabilitation, Luo, Kenya


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Miriam Hamilton ◽  
Anne O’ Dwyer ◽  
Aisling Leavy ◽  
Mairéad Hourigan ◽  
Claire Carroll ◽  
...  

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (5) ◽  
pp. 479-487
Author(s):  
Sawpheeyah Nima ◽  
◽  
Yupa Somboon

There are several medical drug addict treatment methods used by physicians and other health professionals worldwide. The community-based treatment and care for drug use and dependence have increased in popularity. However, little is known about whether or how Islamic spirituality model could be incorporated into formal treatment in the Muslim community. This study aimed to explore the Islamic integrated model for drug addict treatment and rehabilitation on Kratom use among Muslim adolescents in Krabi Province, Thailand. The focus group discussion and in-depth interview were carried out in chief officer, the staff of treatment service volunteers, program leaders, and families and friends of addicts during October 2017-December 2018. The results revealed that the implementation of integrated Islamic religious learning in the drug therapy session to grow the spiritual religiosity and lower relapse among Muslim youth who were previous kratom addicts. The Islamic faith-based treatment model could be declared the evidence of kratom recovery in community level.


Author(s):  
Lu Xiao ◽  
Trina Joyce Sajo

Librarian 2.0 adopts user-centered approach. This paper reports the case study of a community-based participatory approach for training librarian 2.0. The findings suggest that this approach allows the students to practice user-centered interactions, identify and integrate the user’s needs into design decisions, and develop ways of collecting the user’s feedbacks.Les bibliothécaires 2.0 adoptent une approche centrée sur l’utilisateur. Cet article présente une étude de cas sur une approche participative et communautaire visant à former les bibliothécaires 2.0. Les résultats suggèrent que cette approche permet aux étudiants d’interagir avec les usagers, d’identifier les besoins, de les intégrer dans leur processus décisionnel et de développer des moyens de recueillir les commentaires des usagers. 


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 368-384
Author(s):  
Lucinda Grace Heimer

Race is a marker hiding more complex narratives. Children identify the social cues that continue to segregate based on race, yet too often teachers fail to provide support for making sense of these worlds. Current critical scholarship highlights the importance of addressing issues of race, culture, and social justice with future teachers. The timing of this work is urgent as health, social and civil unrest due to systemic racism in the U.S. raise critiques and also open possibilities to reimagine early childhood education. Classroom teachers feel pressure to standardize pedagogy and outcomes yet meet myriad student needs and talents in complex settings. This study builds on the current literature as it uses one case study to explore institutional messages and student perceptions in a future teacher education program that centers race, culture, identity, and social justice. Teaching as a caring profession is explored to illuminate the impact authentic, aesthetic, and rhetorical care may have in classrooms. Using key tenets of Critical Race Theory as an analytical tool enhanced the case study process by focusing the inquiry on identity within a racist society. Four themes are highlighted related to institutional values, rigorous coursework, white privilege, and connecting individual racial and cultural understanding with classroom practice. With consideration of ethical relationality, teacher education programs begin to address the impact of racist histories. This work calls for individualized critical inquiry regarding future teacher understanding of “self” in new contexts as well as an investigation of how teacher education programs fit into larger institutional philosophies.


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