Of dogs and martyrs. Sherrington,Richards, Pavlov and Vygotsky

I. A. Richards' psychological account of the poet's experience was central to his The principles of literary criticism. He aimed to ‘rehabilitate’ English criticism through perspectives gained from scientific discoveries in psychology after the Great War. A chief source for this was the work of the neurophysiologist, C. S. Sherrington. The title of this piece refers to a remark made by Sherrington to the Russian physiologist, Ivan Pavlov: ‘the animal [a dog] seemed to me in a state of persecution best comparable with that of a Christian martyr’. Paradoxically, Vygotsky retold the story within a critique of Pavlov's limiting accounts of human behaviour. Richards' picture of the complexity of the poet's experience—the balancing of conflicting impulses—also relied on an essentially reductive account of behaviour, in which the ‘extraordinary’ quality of the poet's experience is traceable to the workings of the brain and the nervous system. In contrast, Vygotsky offered a powerful picture of semiotically mediated consciousness, dependent on human agency and purpose. The story restores neglected European historical perspectives to a key development in English studies.     

Children's Theories of the Self

This article provides a theoretical review of the developmental origins of children's “folk theories” about the nature of the self, linking theoretical developments in philosophy with empirical discoveries from developmental psychology. The article first reviews children's views about the material nature of the self, outlining evidence that children naturally think about the self as distinct from the body. It then discusses children's understanding of the persistence of the self over time and, finally, explores children's views about conflict within the self. Together, these findings suggest that preschoolers possess stable, coherent, and predictive theories about the nature of the self that are stable across individuals, early emerging, and in some cases undergo interesting developmental change.     

Moving Beyond Collaboration: Re-describing research relationships with classroom teachers

Drawing on my own difficult experience as a well-intentioned educational researcher working in collaboration with an elementary school teacher, this article highlights some of the dilemmas and complexities of collaboration with classroom teachers. Specifically, I raise questions about a previously underexplored yet surprisingly powerful factor in collaborative educational research: the language we use to talk about research relationships. I offer an interpretation of a recent 'collaborative' study that positions our difficulties as a conceptual-language problem rooted in our severely limited vocabulary for discussing and understanding research relationships. I conclude the article with a call for the development of a richer, fuller range of terms to describe research currently labeled 'collaborative'.     

Computer-graphics and the literary construct: a learning method

This paper describes a third-year undergraduate module, Text Through Images (TTI; known at first as Texts with Computers) which ran for some years in the School of English, University of Exeter, UK. Instead of using only words, TTI students made their own computer graphics both to discover and to describe literary structures in texts of their choice. The results were surprising: whatever their “academic” ability, students on this course regularly produced genuinely original literary perceptions, and their natural creativity was released. The module's innovative methods are eminently transferable to other disciplines. This paper is designed to be read in conjunction with a website: for further details, go to http://www.blackwellpublishers.co.uk/asp/journal.asp?ref=0007-1013 presenting a selection of students' graphics produced on the course; these appear by generous permission of their makers, who hold copyright. The reasons for the module's success are elusive. Perhaps students feel unfettered by the attitudes associated with traditional verbal expression, the absence of preconceptions about the new process enabling them to bypass old habits of thought. Perhaps the interplay of word and image is particularly fruitful because images and words activate different areas of the brain. It may be that the computer creates the illusion of distance between design and designer, so that the latter feels less personally exposed than when drawing on paper. Perhaps success lies in the combination of individual freedom and on-screen group work, or on the way in which students are enabled to make small but publishable original discoveries. Educational psychologists may be able to explain why the mix works (it has been suggested that it represents a “constructivist/generative learning strategy that Dave Jonassen terms ‘elaboration’”) but more importantly, teachers may find the model useful. What interests me about the module is not the structure of the teaching, but the way in which the use of diagramming apparently enables the learner productively to bypass previous mental conditioning about how literature works, and what is acceptable in analysing it.     

Patterns of Understanding

In this phenomenological study, seven veteran elementary schoolteachers explored how they were able to make accurate and timely decisions about their students' mathematical understanding. These teachers provided rich mathematical environments for their students and made accurate diagnostic judgments about the development of students' knowledge in these environments. Nevertheless, at first it was difficult for them to describe the kinds of evidence they used in assessing their children's thinking. They engaged in a recursive process of watching, individually reacting to, and discussing videotaped sessions of math activities in their classrooms and sharing stories about their observations of children. Through this process, patterns of recognizable phenomena emerged that the teachers had implicitly perceived and interpreted as indicators of children's understanding. These patterns included changes in children's demeanor, extending a concept into new discoveries, making spontaneous modifications rather than simple imitations, using a process in new contexts, feeling confident in using shortcuts, being able to explain ideas to others, and showing high engagement and focus during activities.     

Early Constraints on the Imagination: The Realism of Young Children

The imagination of young children has notable constraints. The outcomes and possibilities that they imagine rarely deviate from the everyday regularities they have observed and remembered. Their reality-based imagination is evident in a variety of contexts: early pretend play, envisioning the future, judgments about what is possible, the instructive role of thought experiments, tool making, and figurative drawing. Overall, the evidence shows that children’s imagination helps them to anticipate reality and its close alternatives. This perspective invites future research on the scope of children's thinking about counterfactual possibilities, their ability to make discoveries about reality on the basis of thought experiments, and the ways in which cultural input can expand the scope of the possibilities that they entertain.     

Evolution of Novice Programming Environments: The Structure Editors of Carnegie Mellon University

Abstract

Beginning in the early 1980s, the Computer Science Department at Carnegie Mellon University developed and used three generations of novice programming environments. The focus of these systems was to apply, advance and tune structure editor technology in support of the teaching and learning of computer programming. The use of these pedagogical systems in Carnegie Mellon's introductory programming courses provided feedback and inspiration to guide the projects. This paper tracks the evolution of the programming environments and courses, documenting important lessons and discoveries about novice programmers and the environments that support them.     

Unruly Desires and a Love Worth Wanting: A serious look at Wilson's

In this paper I appraise John Wilson's ideal of (erotic) love between equals. Although I allow that the ideal is intriguing, one that leads to good conversation (in bed and out of it), in the end it is one I cannot endorse. My assessment of Wilson's ideal focuses on queries about who can count as equals and who takes responsibility for whose unruly sexual desires. I also note a particular moral peril associated with his ideal of intimacy. I find this peril in Wilson's suspicion of appeals to self-respect and integrity as grounds for refusing to meet sexual demands.     

Teaching,learning and the brain

The brain is the seat of our consciousness and the prime organ of learning. Recent discoveries by neuro-scientists have begun to reveal how it works. These findings are of great significance to educationalists and could revolutionise our ideas about teaching and learning. One area of particular interest concerns how the brain changes with age, the nature of learning and the importance of early childhood experiences. There are also grounds for questioning the present bias in the school curriculum and the way that education is currently organised.     

经脑科学透视的儿童早期教育之误识与误行

对神童的误解是低估了儿童大脑发展的潜能;拔苗助长是错误地使用了儿童大脑发育的关键期;重智力轻情绪是无视"杏仁核"的巨大作用;"遗传决定大脑"是对早期经验决定神经细胞网络连接格局,进而影响大脑潜能及其功效的无知;"随便教育"是无视脑科学成果的启迪,是造成人脑资源流失与荒废的"罪魁"。     

“Latino night”: Performances of latino/a culture in northwest Ohio

It's something they can relate to. You know, assimilate. They go there, talk in Spanish, not worry about it, drink, have fun, do it all in a language they're accustomed to, or at least with people they feel more comfortable with. I guess that's why a lot of them come Monday nights from these distances. That's what I was trying to explain to Chris. If you have a Latino night it's going to be successful because us as Latinos don't have a lot of options for us to go or places for us to go.     

History of mathematics: illuminating understanding of school mathematics concepts for prospective mathematics teachers

The use of the history of mathematics in teaching has long been considered a tool for enriching students’ mathematical learning. However, in the USA few, if any, research efforts have investigated how the study of history of mathematics contributes to a person's mathematical knowledge for teaching. In this article, I present the results of research conducted over four semesters in which I sought to characterize what prospective mathematics teachers (PMTs) understand about the topics that they will be called upon to teach in the future and how that teaching might include an historical component. In particular, I focus on how the study and application of the history of solving quadratic equations illuminates what PMTs know (or do not know) about this essential secondary school algebraic topic. Additionally, I discuss how the results signal important considerations for mathematics teacher preparation programs with regard to connecting PMTs' mathematical and pedagogical knowledge, and their ability to engage in historical perspectives to improve their own and their future students' understanding of solving quadratic equations.     

Developmental dyslexia: A review of biological interactions

The discovery of biological substrates underlying medical conditions is an important step for their better understanding and for the design of appropriate medical therapies. In the case of developmental dyslexia pedagogic treatment may fail, thus creating a group of individuals in whom medical approaches may be entertained. The biological substrate(s) of developmental dyslexia has yet to be specified, although a few clues are beginning to emerge. In this review I consider the issue of cerebral dominance and brain asymmetry, the development of the cerebral cortex and examples of aberrancy, and diseases of the immune system, all of which relate to recent anatomical and epidemiological findings in developmental dyslexia. These discoveries have been able to lead to the creation of testable hypotheses which, after appropriate experimental work, are apt to enhance our current understanding of this and other developmental learning disorders.     

Us and them: Finding irony in our teaching methods

This paper reports a collaborative project to explore our work as teacher educators, an effort to reconstruct a stance for ourselves in relation to our students. Our analysis is aligned with feminist post-modern perspectives, involving a reflexive representation of our teaching identities. To collect these expressions, we kept a real-time dialogue journal, sitting together weekly over the course of a semester, writing to each other in conversation about our ongoing interactions with students. We reviewed these written records looking for contradictions in our talk about our students and our methods of instruction. This paper shares our discovery of the ironic in our desires for authoritative knowledge, effective methods, coherent organization, and harmonic relationships that mirrored our students' requests of us. We suggest the importance of planting seeds of irony alongside our teaching recommendations, so that our students might recognize and embrace the limitations of our authority. I wonder about the value in talking about what concerns us in our teaching. The labels we dredge up get us to the same old places where we win, students struggle, and colleagues don't get it. Well, I don't usually get it either. I mean, I think you can get used to an audience and figure out how to address it, and that might get you good course evaluations. But to what end? (Hinchman, 9 September 1995).     

Issues in researching self-regulated learning as patterns of events

New methods for gathering and analyzing data about events that comprise self-regulated learning (SRL) support discoveries about patterns among events and tests of hypotheses about roles patterns play in learning. Five such methodologies are discussed in the context of four key questions that shape investigations into patterns in SRL. A framework for this review is provided by a model that structures SRL in terms of: conditions of a task, operations, products generated by operations, evaluations of work and standards used in evaluations (COPES; Winne in Journal of Educational Psychology, 89, 397–410, 1997). Four recommendations are made for future work on SRL as patterned activity: prune models of SRL with experimental tests, explicitly include goals in data, ensure learners have options for SRL by training them in tactics and strategies, and provide learners access to accurate displays about the events and patterns that comprise SRL.     

Autonomy,Candour and Professional Teacher Practice: A Discussion Inspired by the Later Works of Michel Foucault

Autonomy is considered to be an important feature of professionals and to provide a necessary basis for their informed judgments. In this article these notions will be challenged. In this article I use Michel Foucault's deconstruction of the idea of the autonomous citizen, and his later attempts to reconstruct that idea, in order to bring some new perspectives to the discussion about the foundation of professionalism. The turning point in Foucault's discussion about autonomy is to be found in his proposal for an ethics of the self. This ethics invites a break with the normalising discourses of modernity. As I see it, this makes it particularly relevant to a discussion about the principles of professionalism. The conception of parrhesia is central. I use the role of the teacher to illustrate my arguments.     

Constructivism: Sound theory for explicating the practice of science and science teaching

Critics praise applications of constructivism in science pedagogy, but they argue that constructivism is severely impaired and hopelessly flawed as a theory. Flawed theory should not be employed to explain innovative practice. My purposes are twofold. First and foremost, I present a case to support my own and others' assertions that constructivism is a sound theory with which to explain the practice of science and science pedagogy. In accomplishing my primary purpose, I also fulfill my secondary purpose, to respond to constructivism's critics. My argument is presented in three parts. In Part 1, I delineate the epistemological ground with a brief synopsis of the purpose, nature, and orientation of radical and social constructivism. I then offer a synthesis of their foundations. In Part 2, I offer a constructivist account of five long-standing epistemological issues, including truth, solipsism, experience, instrumentalism, and relativity. Truth is the center piece of the argument, and I show how constructivism avoids the root paradox by embracing truth as coherence. Next, constructivism is shown to be a rejection of solipsism. Then, an account of experience based in neurophysiological theory, emergent properties, and the brain as a parallel data-processing organ is provided to support constructivism's inside-out view of experience, in which meaning making occurs within individual minds and in communities of individuals. In the final segment of Part 2, I present a constructivist account of relativity which focuses on physicists' acceptance of relativity, its translation to constructivist epistemology, and constructivists' request for silence regarding ontology. Response to critics' objections are also presented at appropriate points throughout Part 2. In the third part, I present constructivism as an epistemological foundation for a cybernetic perspective of knowing. I then summarize the value of constructivism in explaining and interpreting the practice of science and science pedagogy. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 35: 501–520, 1998.     

Formations of Mexicana ness: Trenzas de identidades multiples Growing up Mexicana : Braids of multiple identities

As California's complexion and social panorama changes in color and class so must the directions for writing ethnicity and social analysis. This qualitative study seeks to break out of paradigmatic insulation by proposing innovative perspectives and directions for creating subversive narratives about our own realities. It also seeks to inform current social analysis about Mexicana quality of life and about educationalpolicy on Mexicana educacion (education of the whole person) and school cultures. This article examines how Mexicana identities are created, shaped, and developed through the construction of narratives. I interpret these with the analytical tools of trenzas that ''braids'' critical race theory and multidimensional feminist frames, platicas (popular conversations) and cultural intuition, and the engagement of myself, the researcher, and the young Mexicanas participating in the study. By claiming our space and voicing our feelings and meanings about language, Aztlan culture and identity, and womanhood, we correct stereotypic representations that render Mexicanas vulnerable and dismissed from U.S. civic life and public education. In light of the missing discourse about young Mexicana identity formations, this research makes possible trenzas ''braids'' of multiple identities and tools for transforming educational research, curriculum, and the building of education partnerships.     

Hong Kong Higher Education, 1981–2001: public policy and re-emergent social stratification

In this paper I first place the development of Hong Kong's higher education in the larger context of education and governance histories. Next I describe one of the deepest policy quandaries for Hong Kong's government in charting the futures of its higher education system: whether to view the ultimate benefits of higher education for individuals in terms of ‘sponsored’ versus ‘contest’ mobility. I then turn to evidence from HK census data about the changing distribution of opportunity for higher education. I discuss trends in educational stratification since 1981, focusing most attention on changes in the opportunity for post-secondary and, especially, for university education to the Bachelors' degree level. I discuss methods for the use of Hong Kong's 1981, 1991 and 2001 census, and I present bivariate and multivariate analysis of the changing impact of family cultural and material resources on the odds of continuing and attending education at the university level. From 1991 to 2001, census data suggest there was a reversal of a trend towards greater equality of opportunity that was observed between the 1981 and 1991 census. I conclude by relating the findings from these analyses to future higher education planning in Hong Kong.