Encouraging and equipping students to engage critically with science in the news: what can we learn from the literature?

Many educational reforms have as one of their key goals the promotion of scientific literacy and they encourage engagement with science in the news as one aspect of this. The research indicates teachers using the news do so for a variety of reasons, sometimes with tangential links to the promotion of scientific literacy. Demonstrating the relevance of science to the world beyond the classroom or making links to socio-scientific issues and promoting discussion on ethical dilemmas are all seen as potential reasons for engaging with science–related news. However, media related issues are often not addressed. Increasingly the need for a more comprehensive approach, including, for example, teaching about media awareness in the context of science reporting, is highlighted. The steady growth of literature describing the use of science-related news along with research studies charting students’ responses to science news media has stimulated discussion and study of pedagogical issues and prompted this review. Key literature relevant to students’ engagement with science-related news reports has been contextualised and reviewed to identify core issues for teachers, teacher educators and curriculum planners. These are listed under the headings of curriculum, pedagogy and assessment, the implications are considered and directions for further research suggested.

Enhancing social work students’ learning experience and readiness to undertake practice learning.

This project set out to evaluate the effectiveness of social work education by analysing student perceptions of the strengths and limitations of their education and training on the Bachelor of Social Work, Queen’s University, Belfast (QUB) at different stages of their ‘learning journey’ through the programme.
The author’s primary aim in undertaking this study was to contribute evidence-based understanding of the challenges and opportunities students identified themselves within contemporary practice environments. A secondary aim was to test the effectiveness of key approaches, theories and learning tools in common usage in social work education. The authors believe the outcomes generated by the project demonstrate the value of systematically researching student perceptions of their learning experience and feel the study provides important lessons which should help to inform the future development of social work education not only locally but in other parts of the UK.