Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder

Edited by L Frank, P Engelke, T Schmid. Washington, DC: 2003, $30.00, pp 253. ISBN 1-55963-917-2

Sedentary behaviour is a major cause of poor health worldwide both through the direct effects of inactivity on health and indirectly via its contribution to obesity. Health and Community Design describes the role of the built environment as a potential contributor to physical inactivity …

https://jech.bmj.com/content/jech/59/3/250.3.full.pdf

Health and community design: the impact of the built environment on physical activity

Developing Focus Group Research. Politics, Theory and Practice.

SCHOOLS AND FAMILIES: CREATING ESSENTIAL CONNECTIONS FOR LEARNING SANDRA L. CHRISTENSON/SUSAN M. SHERIDAN (EDITORS) THE GUILFORD PRESS, NEW YORK, 2001 $32.00 ISBN 1-57230-654-8 Schools and Families: Creating Essential Connections for Learning is not just another "how to" of specific strategies for parent or family involvement. This book's orientation is the interface between family and school as the two primary socialization environments for children's learning. The authors call for a "new social contract" of shared responsibility between the home and school. After an examination of common assumptions, policies and practices related to family-school relationships, the book outlines key process variables important to positive home-school connections. These four process elements, approach, attitudes, atmosphere and actions, comprise the major chapters of the book, Helpful features of the book include lists of sample practices and personal inventories for educators and parents. Each chapter is a list of questions to consider that have practice implications. The appendices contain a checklist for quality indicators of national standards for parent/family involvement, examples of parent newsletter items, a teacher's perspective on communicating with families and an inventory for creating school-family connections based on the major process variables in the book. Chapter One describes the family-school relationship as a protective factor against poor student achievement. It reviews the National Education goals, school reform efforts and federal policies as well as Joyce Epstein's research and National PTA standards. The authors build a case for the argument that close family-school collaboration is a professional obligation of educators. Three critical issues facing families and school personnel, rights, roles and responsibilities, and resources, are presented as a guide to examining productive familyschool relationships. The authors then describe their four key process variables that help to conceptualize conditions necessary for optimal family-school relationships. Chapter Two discusses the first process variable of approach, which is the framework for interaction with families. The authors detail the significance of families to children's learning to build the argument that schools or teachers alone cannot help students achieve their full academic potential. Concisely presented conclusions from the research literature support this contention. Emphasis is placed on the student at the center of the relationship between school and home. Two societal concerns regarding students are the erosion of social capital and increases in student apathy for schoolwork. The authors feel these can be addressed with a genuine partner relationship. They give an excellent list of examples of school and family co-- roles emphasizing the shared-responsibility approach. A particularly helpful table lists ways to create conditions for student success with sections for "at home", "in school" and "within the community". Attitudes and perceptions of families and schools are addressed in Chapter Three. The authors discuss a "family-centered" school orientation which includes friendliness, positive ness, responsiveness, sensitivity to the whole family. They emphasize a "no-fault model" where blame is not placed on either the family or the school. Positive school and family attitudes are described, i.e., attitudes that cause barriers to effective relationships and the importance of perspective-taking. …

Schools and Families: Creating Essential Connections for Learning

Positive Youth Development Through Sport

Environments favorable to healthy lifestyles: A systematic review of initiatives in Canada.

The new Quebec curriculum is different from other curriculum reforms in that it is based on a competency approach, both cross-curricular and disciplinary. It thus means a move from knowledge-based to competency-based assessments which represents a real challenge to parents who may find it hard to understand learning assessments and their child’s report card. In this article, the authors focus on a recent effort aimed at piloting workshops to promote parents’ understanding of assessments. The article describes two case studies of workshops using an experiential learning approach conducted with parents of kindergarten and 6 th grade students. In general, the parents who participated as active learners reported more knowledge and understanding related to school assessment practices. They also felt more equipped for interacting with their children to monitor academic progress. The workshops represent a potentially effective way of communicating with parents regarding learning assessments to help them better understand the evaluation methods used by teachers.

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A Pilot Study Aiming to Promote Parents' Understanding of Learning Assessments at the Elementary Level.

Cette etude vise a examiner les perceptions des educateurs sous l’angle des connaissances, du role, du sentiment de competence et de la comprehension des parents en matiere d’evaluation des apprentissages, mises en relation avec des elements du contexte de vie familiale. Menee au moyen de trois entrevues de groupes realisees aupres d’educateurs (n = 27) travaillant dans deux ecoles primaires plutot defavorisees, l’etude a permis d’identifier les perceptions des educateurs orientees vers les besoins nombreux et varies des parents en matiere d’evaluation des apprentissages; parmi ces besoins est ressortie la necessite d’un accompagnement proximal avec les parents. La discussion se penche sur les points de convergence et de divergence qui se degagent du discours des participants. Elle permet de formuler quelques propositions de contenus d’outils ou d’ateliers en guise d’accompagnement parental susceptibles d’etablir une base de communication commune entre educateurs et parents entourant le processus d’evaluation des apprentissages afin de favoriser la reussite scolaire des eleves.

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Perceptions d’éducateurs à l’égard de parents en matière d’évaluation des apprentissages au primaire

In 2014, World Health Organization reported that more than 1.9 billion people were obese (World Health Organization, 2014). This epidemic is thought to cost $2 trillion globally every year (Dobbs et al., 2014). With the increase of the prevalence of obesity, there is a continuous search for effective obesity-prevention and health promotion strategies. In a Canadian university, Perusse-Lachance and colleagues (2010) showed that 22.9% of students and 37.3% of staff members were either overweight or obese. The purpose of this study was to examine the prevalence of obesity, healthy lifestyle habits, and healthy environments among students and employees of a Canadian university. Respondents were students and employees during the 2016 fall semester (October). A web based-survey assessing lifestyle habits, such as physical activity and nutrition, was sent by email to all students (n = 15,000) and employees (n = 1,500). In total, 1,989 students (12.1%) and 484 employees (33.6%) completed the questionnaire. All data were analyzed using SPSS. Results showed that 32.7% of students and 44.5% of employees were overweight. Results also revealed that 55.2% of students and 44.9 % of employees were considered physically inactive. Regarding vegetables and fruit, 81.2% of students and 79.4% of employees did not meet the Canadian recommendations. The herein results suggest that overweight and obesity can be important concerns in a well-educated sample and they can be associated with various health-related behaviors.

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Lifestyle and Health Habits of a Canadian University Community

Le but de l'etude est de decrire les perceptions de nouveaux enseignants en education physique et a la sante (EPS) a l'egard de l’insertion professionnelle et de leurs competences professionnelles. Au terme de leur formation initiale, seize finissants en EPS ont ete interroges lors d'entrevues individuelles semi-dirigees. Les resultats indiquent que les competences reliees a la conception et au pilotage des situations d'enseignement seraient les plus determinantes en debut de carriere, alors que celle relative a l’utilisation des technologies est jugee moins determinante. Interroges egalement sur le niveau de maitrise de leurs competences, ils considerent surtout etre a l'aise pour communiquer clairement avec les eleves et agir de facon ethique. Cependant l’evaluation des eleves et l’adaptation de l’enseignement pour les eleves presentant des besoins particuliers semblent etre moins bien maitrisees. Certaines perceptions convergentes et divergentes sont discutees a la lumiere d'une insertion professionnelle reussie et mises en relation avec la formation.

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Marie-Claude Rivard

Papers

Environments favorable to healthy lifestyles: A systematic review of initiatives in Canada.

A Pilot Study Aiming to Promote Parents' Understanding of Learning Assessments at the Elementary Level.

Perceptions d’éducateurs à l’égard de parents en matière d’évaluation des apprentissages au primaire

Lifestyle and Health Habits of a Canadian University Community

Perceptions de finissants en ÉPS au regard de l’insertion professionnelle