Teaching with Interactive Simulations: One Small Contribution Toward Science Education for all

Many of the greatest challenges facing humanity in coming decades have a scientific component: energy needs, disease pandemics, water and food security, climate change, machine intelligence and many not yet imagined. The tendency has been to assume that the solutions to these challenges will be developed by scientists, engineers and technologists, but it is increasingly important that all citizens have sufficient understanding of science to participate in the democratic processes that are necessary to address major issues. Enhancing the science education of all citizens is a huge challenge in itself, and will require a very wide range of strategies and approaches. One small contribution can come from teaching approaches using new technologies, including interactive simulations. This paper briefly describes interactive simulations and an approach to teaching using them, and addresses evidence of the effectiveness of this approach. Outcomes showed significant learning gains, relative to a control group, that were not differentiated by gender, or for students at different levels of academic achievement, suggesting that this approach may be effective as one contribution toward science education for all

The Empty Centre : Power/Knowledge, Relationships and the Myth of \u27Student Centered Teaching\u27 in Teacher Education.

The notion of ‘student centred learning’ is a popular and influential one in education at all levels. Questions of exactly how this may be defined, and what it would look like in practice are, however, much more difficult to address. During second semester 1998, I was involved in teaching a Masters level unit on teacher action research to a group of middle school teachers. I placed a high value on the knowledge, values and experience of these students, and attempted to allow them considerable freedom to construct their own learning activities and assessment procedures. Some students accepted the offered challenges, and after some initial disorientation were able to construct powerful and valuable educative programs for themselves. Others, however, felt threatened by the perceived lack of structure and direction in the course, and felt that their time was being wasted. This paper explores my own experiences and ethical/theoretical commitments through discussion of contemporary reflective texts and narratives. It also addresses some of the complex meanings that may be ascribed to the phrase ‘student centred teaching’, and suggests that a teacher’s withdrawal from an intensive, controlling classroom role must be negotiated with students in ways that avoid the creation of an ‘empty centre’

School stories : weaving narrative nets to capture science classrooms.

Over the past two decades, constructivism has become an increasingly influential referent for the learning and teaching of science in schools. In the role of teacher-researcher, I conducted an intensive participant observational study in an innovative Australian middle school, where both the initial planning of the school program and the principal's vision for the school took constructivism as a key referent. The research activity involved team teaching for a total of two days per week for one school year (1996) with a group of five teachers who were attempting to implement constructivist-referenced innovations such as portfolio assessment, integrated curriculum and teacher collaborative planning in their teaching practice. I chose a narrative methodology including impressionist tales to both conduct and represent this research into my own and others' teaching practices and values - a 'novel' woven from those narratives forms Section Two of this thesis. In addition, five conjectures for further investigation emerged from the research: (1) one significant constraint to constructivist-referenced innovation is 'conceptual inertia' on the part of teachers, (2) students' epistemologies and expectations must be explicitly addressed where innovation is attempted, (3) the complexity of educational contexts extends beyond the mechanical details of schooling to the webs of expectations stakeholders bring to schools, (4) it is difficult for teachers with limited backgrounds in science to use constructivism as a referent in their science teaching, and (5) the narrative methodology chosen has value in providing a rich, complex account of schools, teachers and curricular innovations

When Christianity and homosexuality collide: understanding the potential intrapersonal conflict

Reconciling sexual orientation with religious and spiritual beliefs can be challenging for Christian homosexuals, since many Christian churches teach that homosexual behavior is sinful. A qualitative study of 10 male and 10 female Christian homosexuals was conducted via semistructured interviews. This article seeks to explore the potential conflict between Christianity and homosexuality faced by the respondents. Participants' life stories and experiences varied widely. A few respondents were unaffected by the potential conflict between Christianity and homosexuality, however, the majority were affected. Effects included depression, guilt, anxiety, suicidal ideation, and alienation. Implications of the findings for support personnel are included

High-performance p-type multicrystalline silicon (mc-Si): Its characterization and projected performance in PERC solar cells

© 2018 Elsevier Ltd Recent progress in the electronic quality of high-performance (HP) multicrystalline silicon material is reported with measurements and modeling performed at various institutions and research groups. It is shown that recent progress has been made in the fabrication at Trina Solar mainly by improving the high excess carrier lifetimes τ due to a considerable reduction of mid-gap states. However, the high lifetimes in the wafers are still reduced by interstitial iron by a factor of about 10 at maximum power point (mpp) conditions compared to mono-crystalline Cz wafers of equivalent resistivity. The low lifetime areas of the wafers seem to be limited by precipitates, most likely Cu. Through simulations, it appears that dislocations reduce cell efficiency by about 0.25% absolute. The best predictors for PERC cell efficiency from ingot metrology are a combination of mean lifetime and dislocation density because dislocations cannot be improved considerably by gettering during cell processing, while lifetime-limiting impurities are gettered well. In future, the material may limit cell efficiency above about 22.5% if the concentrations of Fe and Cu remain above 1010 and 1013 cm−3, respectively, and if dislocations are not reduced further