Exploring relationships between playspaces, pedagogy, and preschoolers’ play-based science and engineering practices

This manuscript reports the results of a research study exploring the ways in which physical space and teacher pedagogy are related to preschoolers’ engagement with science and engineering practices while at play. Using the Science and Engineering Practices Observation Protocol (SciEPOP), researchers captured children’s engagement with the eight science and engineering practices identified in the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). This study explores relationships between specific playspaces, materials, and pedagogical strategies, and children’s patterns of engagement with particular science and engineering practices during free play. There are notable differences in the spaces, materials, and pedagogies children encounter across the four participating preschools, and these differences suggest significant gaps in children’s opportunities to engage in and deepen their enactment of science and engineering practices. The authors present evidence in support of adaptive, personalized strategies for deepening children’s engagement with science through play, and raise questions about equity in early science learning environments that have implications both nationally and internationally for science education research, practice, and policy.

Using Science Standards to guide the development of high school linguistics

As the linguistics community is pushing for more introductory classes to be taught at the high school level, it is useful to create a course framework. This framework can help provide structure for a potential Advanced Placement (AP) test and course as well as help interested teachers create successful proposals to add linguistics to their school’s course offerings. Rather than reinventing the wheel, I suggest that the existing Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) are an ideal starting point. Although not a science in the traditional secondary school sense, there is considerable overlap in methodology. Using the language of science can help those unfamiliar with linguistics see that it is the systematic study of language rather than just language learning, as well as help students transfer some of the skills and knowledge of practices that they already know from previous classes. This paper serves as an introduction to NGSS and the connections between the existing science standards and methodologies with the goal of demonstrating their usefulness for creating standards for linguistics.

Scientific Practices in Science Education Publications: An Analysis of Research Contexts

Scientific Practices play a central role in the Next Generation Science Standards, influencing the standards of more than 70% of students in the United States. Therefore, a view of what has been studied about Scientific Practices in Science Education, globally in the last decade is relevant. Thus, 44 articles from international journals in Science Education in the last decade (2010-2019) were analyzed. This review focuses on the specific research contexts of these articles. The research objectives were: I) To identify in which contexts the authors carried out research involving Scientific Practices and II) To critically discuss the research contexts of Scientific Practices and find research gaps. For this, a systematic literature review was conducted, guided by Bardin's Content Analysis (2011) and the guide to a systematic review by Okoli (2015). Regarding the contexts, six categories were identified: Scientific Practices and teaching proposals (C1); Scientific Practices and distinct theoretical frameworks (C2); Scientific Practices and students (C3); Scientific Practices and assessments (C4); Scientific Practices and teachers (C5); and Scientific Practices and the curriculum (C6). There was a predominant trend to relate Scientific Practices and teaching proposals (38.6%) and Scientific Practices and different theoretical frameworks (22.7%), totaling more than 61% of the analyzed articles. Research gaps have been identified, such as the need for further research on the relationship between Scientific Practices and students (learning) and Scientific Practices and teachers (teaching). Research in this regard can help to clarify: How have students engaged in Scientific Practices? How can teaching be organized to promote Scientific Practices? And what are the relationships between Scientific Practices, school subjects and specific content? The findings of the study revealed that a greater diversity of research contexts is necessary to fully understand the connections between Scientific Practices and the many dimensions involved in Science Education. It was found that there is a need for more research that addresses Scientific Practices as its main focus, considering the importance the concept is given in guiding documents.

Ugovorna odgovornost liječnika u rimskom pravu

The paper explores the emergence of contractual liability of physicians in Roman law. Although medicine was in its rudimentary form, the question of the nature of medical liability was problematized as early as the antiquity, when the principle of a physician’s responsibility for negligence, but not necessarily for the ultimate success of a treatment, developed. After initial considerations aimed at identifying who was to be recognised as a physician and what qualifications had to be met in order to be considered a part of the medical profession, through the analysis of legal sources, the central part of the paper aims to determine the legal nature of the contract and, accordingly, the legal protection available to the patient. The final part of the paper examines the preconditions for medical liability, as well as compensation, and concludes with a review of the basic principles that laid the foundation for further development of a physician’s liability for damage caused by a violation of medical science standards.

Beads and ‘Biomes

The issue of antibiotic resistance among bacterial pathogens is often misunderstood. Here, we present an activity that debunks misconceptions regarding microorganisms, such as bacterial pathogens, and addresses how antibiotics work. We propose this activity be incorporated into middle or high school classrooms addressing both this real-world issue and elements from the Next Generation Science Standards. Students are encouraged to use hands-on experiences toward hypothesis development and testing to better understand how antibiotic resistance is spread among bacterial pathogens and commensals. Over half of the students who participated in this activity self-reported that they were likely to share the information they learned outside of their classroom, reflecting real-time impacts on science stewardship in students. This activity also presents students with an issue that has clear action items they can undertake to effect positive change.

An Attachment Point for Meaningful Musculoskeletal Learning

A robust understanding of body systems is elusive for many students. For instance, musculoskeletal structures and mechanisms often remain abstract and difficult for students to truly understand, even when teachers provide visual representations and accurate anatomical and physiological information. This article (1) presents a lesson for teaching about the musculoskeletal system by having students develop and build a physical model of an arm and (2) describes how teachers can use this experience to promote a deep understanding of the role of muscles, ligaments, and tendons in movement. This concrete learning experience and resulting arm model establishes a foundation for developing a more robust understanding of anatomical, physiological, and general biological principles. This lesson sequence also embeds questions that overtly draw students’ attention to important features of scientific models, which is an important nature of science issue appearing in the Next Generation Science Standards. The instructional sequence has been utilized as the foundation of an entire musculoskeletal unit in an elective anatomy and physiology course for ninth grade students, and it can easily be adapted for use in a middle school life science class or a general high school biology course.