Impact of Georgia's Pre-K Program on Kindergarten through Third Grade Teachers

The Georgia Prekindergarten Program (Pre-K), established in 1993, provides Georgia's fouryear-old children with high quality preschool experiences in order to prepare them for kindergarten. Immediate gains resulting from Pre-K can be lost if teachers in later grades are not prepared to capitalize on the increasing capabilities of students. To sustain the positive effects of the Pre-K program, teachers in later grades need both to recognize that students are better prepared for school and to adapt their instructional practices to take advantage of their students' increasing capabilities. Research implies that teachers adopt practices in their classrooms relative to how their beliefs match assumptions inherent in new programs. Thus, this study investigates teacher awareness of the impact of Pre-K on students, teacher beliefs about instructional practices, current instructional practices, and the relationship between beliefs and practices.The Council for School Performance launched this study to examine the implications of the Pre-K program for teachers of children in kindergarten through third grade. Through a survey of teachers in Georgia, the Council has found that teachers believe that the Pre-K program has positively affected students in elementary school, despite observations that students are, overall, changing for the worse. The majority of teachers believe in child-centered instructional practices, but this belief has not been adopted into their own instructional practices. Overall, teachers are as likely to use child-centered practices as they are to use teacher-directed activities

Australian adolescents\u27 motor competence and perceptions of physical activity outcomes

Benefits that are generally associated with physical activity include enjoyment of the activity, expectation of positive benefits, intention to exercise, perceived fitness or health self-efficacy, intrinsic motivation, and positive physical self-perceptions (Sallis & Owen, 1999). In the Australian context where motor skill is highly valued, the ability to participate in play, games, and sports is likely to be particularly important in the socialization process of adolescents, such as their opportunity for reaffirming friendships and gaining social support from significant others. To be competent at movement would seem a clear advantage in order to experience quality of life through physical activity. However for adolescents who have poor motor competence, whose past experiences in sporting contexts have been less positive, future engagement in physical activity may not be viewed as so worthwhile. From a theoretical perspective motor competence has been closely linked to positive self-perceptions (Harter, 1999; Nicholls, 1990) and feelings of self-efficacy (Bandura, 1997). Furthermore, the choices individuals make are directly related to their expectancies for success, and subjective values they place on the options they perceive to be available (Eccles, Barber, & Jozefowicz, 1999). Empirical findings with adolescents (Cantell, Smyth, & Ahonen, 2003; Poulsen, Ziviani, Cuskelly, & Smith, 2007) suggest that level of motor competence is associated with psycho-social outcomes that in turn influence the intrinsic motivation to engage in physical activity. Even with marginal motor difficulties, adolescents perceive greater barriers to exercise (Rose, Larkin, Hands, & Parker, 2008) but there is little known of how adolescents with low motor competence perceive outcomes of future engagement in physical activity differently to their better coordinated peers. Their difficulties are not only frequently overlooked but are compounded by not experiencing the joy of participation and benefit from the healthy outcomes of physical activity so important to quality of life. Furthermore, there is evidence that movement difficulties experienced in childhood do not go away and there are often physical and psycho-social difficulties extending into adulthood (Cantell, Smyth, & Ahonen, 2003). In our study we proposed that adolescent girls and boys who differ in level of motor competence will also differ in their perceptions of benefits gained from any future engagement in sports and physical recreation. These proposed differences especially may be evident in physical and social evaluative settings where according to Harter (1999) adolescents are particularly vulnerable. She found that subgroups experiencing motor difficulties are likely to have a diminished view of their physical selves and be unwilling to participate in physical activities. If little positive benefit is perceived from participation there are strong implications for physical health associated with low energy expenditure and for overall quality of life. Considering that gender is linked to academic, occupational and recreational choice (Eccles et al., 1999) and that socialization for girls in sport often differs from that of boys (Coakley, 2007), girls may view their future in physical activity as less rewarding. This might have implications not only for girls but particularly for those girls who also lack competence in movement. Boys also may experience disadvantage if their motor competence does not reach the expectations of a sport oriented society (Poulsen et al., 2007). Our purpose here was to examine the likelihood of experiencing positive or negative outcomes from engaging in physical activity in adolescent boys and girls who differed in level of motor competence

A Summer Academy Program for Prospective Teachers: Model Teaching Experiences

This article describes the project, A Summer Academy Program for Prospective Teachers: Model Teaching Experiences, of the Oklahoma Teacher Education Collaborative (O-TEC), one of the nation’s Collaboratives for Excellence in Teacher Preparation (CETP). To recruit highly qualified teachers in science and mathematics, O-TEC institutions promote a program of summer academies that provide prospective teachers with opportunities to become familiar with effective teaching methods. During the academy, high school juniors and seniors explore inquiry-based teaching strategies, exemplary curricula, science and math content, and state and national standards in math and science education-all under the tutelage of mentor teachers, a Master-Teacher-in- Residence, and university faculty. The prospective teachers have opportunities to put into practice what they learn about effective teaching. For two weeks, the prospective teachers experience teaching science lessons to elementary children from neighboring school systems. These experiences help the prospective teachers perceive the challenges and rewards of teaching at a pivotal time in their lives. This material is based upon the summer academy program supported in part by the Oklahoma Teacher Education Collaborative, the National Science Foundation, and Southwestern Oklahoma State University. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Oklahoma Teacher Education Collaborative, the National Science Foundation, and Southwestern Oklahoma State University

Preliminary study to investigate the Delboeuf illusion in ring-tailed lemurs (Lemur catta): Methodological challenges

Visual illusions are commonly used in animal cognition studies to compare visual perception among vertebrates. To date, researchers have focused their attention mainly on birds and mammals, especially apes and monkeys, but no study has investigated sensitivity to visual illusions in prosimians. Here we investigated whether lemurs (Lemur catta) perceive the Delboeuf illusion, a well-known illusion that occurs when subjects misperceive the relative size of an item because of its surrounding context. In particular, we adopted the spontaneous preference paradigm used in chimpanzees and observed lemurs’ ability to select the larger amount of food. In control trials, we presented two different amounts of food on two identical plates. In test trials, we presented equal food portion sizes on two plates differing in size: If lemurs were sensitive to the illusion, they were expected to select the food portion presented on the smaller plate. In control trials, they exhibited poor performance compared to other mammals previously observed, being able to discriminate between the two quantities only in the presence of a 0.47 ratio. This result prevented us from drawing any conclusion regarding the subjects’ susceptibility to the Delboeuf illusion. In test trials with the illusory pattern, however, the subjects’ choices did not differ from chance. Our data suggest that the present paradigm is not optimal for testing the perception of the Delboeuf illusion in lemurs and highlight the importance of using different methodological approaches to assess the perceptual mechanisms underlying size discrimination among vertebrates

Liturgical Traffic in Culture: Gridlock, Beginning Drivers, Detours, and DUI

(Excerpt) In the Sunday New York Times from March 16, 1997 a short piece with accompanying picture offered a report on a weekly liturgy at St. Mark\u27s Episcopal Cathedral in Seattle, a liturgy which is very popular with young people. Entitled The Faithful Are Casual at This Sunday Service, the article concerns a forty-year tradition of doing sung compline in a space which is almost totally dark except for about fifteen male singers, bedecked in cassock and surplice, who stand dimly lighted at portable choir desks. Young people hurry to the 9:30p.m. service to sit in the pews, lie prone on their backs or in fetal position, some kissing each other, both those straight and those gay. Ushers carry calligraphic signs that urge silence and no whispering. It\u27s a kind of date night, attendees say, and it is well-liked because the service is not preachy but offers both anonymity and community. A former liturgist at the cathedral reflected that in our culture we do things regarding love and spirituality better by candlelight, at night

Reid and Condillac on Sensation and Perception: A Thought Experiment on Sensory Deprivation

In order to illustrate the difference between sensation and perception, Reid imagines a blind man that by ‘some strange distemper’ has lost all his notions of external objects, but has retained the power of sensation and reasoning. Reid argues that since sensations do not resemble external objects, the blind man could not possibly infer from them any notion of primary qualities. Condillac proposed a similar thought experiment in the Treatise on Sensations. I argue that Condillac can reach a conclusion opposite to that of Reid only by assuming that some particular collections of sensations do indeed resemble the qualities of external objects. Reid had considered a similar case in a manuscript, but he again notices that such complex collections sensations do not resemble the qualities of external objects