A Complexity Approach Toward Mind–Brain–Education (MBE); Challenges and Opportunities in Educational Intervention and Research

In the context of an educational or clinical intervention, we often ask questions such as “How does this intervention influence the task behavior of autistic children?” or “How does working memory influence inhibition of immediate responses?” What do we mean by the word influence here? In this article, we introduce the framework of complex dynamic systems (CDS) to disentangle the meaning of words such as influence, and to discuss the issue of education and intervention as something that takes place in the form of complex, real‐time, situated processes. What are the applied implications of such a CDS framework? Can we use it to improve education? Five general principles—process laws—are introduced, which can be used to guide the way we formulate research questions and methods, and the way we use the results of such research. In addition, we briefly discuss a project in progress, in which we ourselves attempt to apply the process laws that govern educational activities. Finally, we report about a discussion about the usability of the process laws, both in educational research and in the classroom, as was held during our workshop at the Mind, Brain, and Education Conference, November 2014.     

Narrative authority vs. perjured testimony: Courage,vulnerability and truth

This paper outlines a method for describing and analysing discursive practices in education. Discourse analysis exposes and clarifies the discursive practices by which and through which all aspects of education are carried out. An analysis of representative “classic” texts of radical educational theory was undertaken in order to study the discursive construction of knowledge. The case‐studies reveal a discursive operation of recontextualization,where a paradigm‐shift away from the functionalist discourse of education is effected. This operation involves “translating” the categories of “education” and “schooling” from their familiar discursive contexts to a new context where they enter into new relations with unfamiliar terms and categories. The radical education critique and the knowledge organized around and through it fall into a pattern which echoes the sermon genre of the jeremiad, which facilitates the construction of knowledge in terms of the gap between “full humanity” [Freire] or the Jeffersonian ideal [Bowles and Gintis] and the actual present state of alienation. Radical discourse in effect both constructs that gap and determines the means by which it can be closed.     

Reasons for giving reasons: an expert‐expert clinical analysis of science teaching for non‐academic students 1

This paper concerns the importance of providing reasons and evidence when making claims as a teacher. Two teaching contexts are explored: a nonacademic science classroom and a clinical supervision setting. An expert teacher is seen at work in a nonacademic science classroom. This is an especially significant context in which to find “task‐reasons” and “science‐reasons” since students rarely appear to have access to reasons for what they do or say in such classrooms. The teacher and a colleague, both experts at clinical analysis of teaching, are observed examining and analysing the teaching. This is the setting for developing “interpretation‐reasons” regarding the conduct and events of teaching. The expert‐expert clinical supervision situation is seen as sharpening the requirement for sound, credible interpretation‐reasons beyond that of the more common expert‐novice interaction.

     

Process,Orientation, and System: The Pedagogical Operation of Utopia in the Work of Paulo Freire

Recent years have witnessed a renewed interest in utopianism within educational theory. In this essay, Darren Webb explores the utopian pedagogy of Paulo Freire in the context of what one commentator has dubbed “the educational comeback of utopia.” Webb argues that Freire's significance lies in the way he embraced both “utopia as process” and “utopia as system.” This is significant because the contemporary rejuvenation of utopianism has extended only so far, embracing utopia conceived as an open‐ended process of becoming but shying away from utopia conceived as the delineation of a normative vision to be struggled for and won. Webb outlines the pedagogical operation of utopia as process, cognitive‐affective orientation, and system, and he argues that Freire was right in insisting that each is constitutive of effective educational practice.     

Teaching Lean Principles in Nonmanufacturing Settings Using a Computer Equipment Order Quotation Administrative Process

As organizations continue to expand their implementation of Lean practices, business schools and corporate training organizations have developed numerous games and simulations aimed at teaching Lean concepts in manufacturing settings. However, simulations have lagged behind the most recent adaptations of Lean outside of the factory in services, and more specifically, in office settings. In this article, we present a Lean simulation game, referred to as “Computer Solutions, Inc.” that provides participants with hands‐on experience in applying Lean principles in a nonmanufacturing setting. The simulation takes place in the order‐quote department at “Computer Solutions, Inc.,” a company that specializes in designing customized computer solutions for small businesses. The order‐quote process is purely office‐based and involves such activities as collecting information, processing information, filling out documents, and forwarding those documents to different parts of the organization. This simulation is implemented as a “pencil‐and‐paper” exercise that can be performed by students in the classroom. Our simulation brings some unique benefits that are often missing from current Lean manufacturing‐based simulations. It involves multiple rounds of Lean improvements that can span several weeks, providing students a chance to identify wastes and to make a thoughtful application of Lean tools and techniques. Students also get to experience the challenges of group dynamics that are often present in team‐based improvement efforts.     

Teaching Lean Six Sigma within A Supply Chain Context: The Airplane Supply Chain Simulation

Lean six sigma is a management methodology that firms can employ to achieve substantial improvement in supply chain performance. However, few pedagogical exercises facilitate students’ use of a comprehensive set of lean six sigma principles within a supply chain context. We describe the Airplane Supply Chain Simulation that helps students understand how lean six sigma concepts may be leveraged to improve supply chain performance. The basis of this simulation is a four‐tier supply chain, consisting of suppliers (two tiers), a manufacturer, and a customer, that produces three models of paper airplanes to meet randomly distributed customer demand. In the first of three successive runs, a highly structured simulation is executed in which supply chain roles are well defined, material flows are convoluted, and a “push” production strategy is followed. The first simulation as the “current state” and, for the second and third simulation runs, challenge competing student teams to leverage lean six sigma concepts to develop a “future state” that enables the fulfillment of all customer orders at the lowest cost. Results based on statistical analyses of survey response data from 194 MBA students show that the Airplane Supply Chain Simulation is an effective participative, team‐based learning tool.     

人工智能在教育应用中的伦理风险与理性抉择

教育是人类社会文明发展的重要领域,人工智能在教育领域的应用,对教育产生了革命性的影响;同时,也给教育伦理带来了一系列风险和挑战。人工智能在教育应用中导致的伦理困境和可能面临的伦理风险,主要表现在人工智能与教育主体的权利嬗变、算法推荐与学生个性的发展异化、人工情感与人机互动的情感危机、智能感知与教育数据的价值困境这四个方面。为了防范和消除这些伦理风险,“以人为本”“以德为先”“以法为界”是人工智能在教育应用中的理性选择,教育责任则是“可信赖的人工智能应该做什么”伦理准则的实践指向。     

Children’s Typically‐Perceived‐Situations of Force and No Force in the Context of Australia and Korea

Typically‐Perceived‐Situation (TPS) refers to the situation rising spontaneously in an individual’s mind when she/he first thinks of a phenomenon or concept. The purpose of this study is to go well beyond the many studies that describe conceptions of force and explore children’s TPS of “force is acting on a thing” and “force is not acting on a thing”, and to do this in the differing contexts of Australia and Korea. Data were collected by drawings and written explanations from 145 Grade 6 Australian children and 150 Grade 6 Korean children. These data showed some significant differences between the Australian children’s and Korean children’s TPSs. For example, considering the whole context of children’s TPS, the contexts of “someone pushes or pulls something” and “someone/something is floating in the air or not moving because there is no gravity” were the most frequent ones, as a “force” and as a “no force” situation respectively, in the case of Australian children, while “a sort of energy is provided into someone/something and they can be active/working” and “a sort of energy is not provided into someone/something and they cannot be active/working”, were most frequent in the case of Korean children. These differences are very likely the consequence of different everyday meanings for the word “force” in the two cultures. In addition, it appears that these children’s TPS affect their judgement of “force” and “no force”.     

Let the Questions Be Your Guide: MBE as Interdisciplinary Science

From its inception, the field of Mind, Brain, and Education (MBE) has been conceived as an interdisciplinary science, and with good reason: The phenomena the field aims to understand often arise from interactions among multiple factors, span levels of analysis, and are context dependent. In this article, we argue that to reach its potential as an interdisciplinary science—and in order to explain such complex phenomena—MBE must be fundamentally organized around meaningful, discipline‐spanning questions, and the questions must determine tools and research methods (not the other way around). Using examples from three central questions in MBE—“who,”“when,” and “how”—we highlight the limits of single disciplines, and the value of a question‐driven interdisciplinary approach in MBE, with respect to questions that can be asked, the perspectives that can be considered, and the array of methods, tools, and models that can be made available. We believe that the future is bright for MBE, and that the field has a unique opportunity to provide meaningful answers to some of the most difficult questions in education today. However, realizing this potential depends on, as a first step, allowing the questions themselves to drive the field's work moving forward.     

President's Introduction: Religious Education for Peace and Justice

This article gives an overview of “practical theology” as an emerging paradigm, and discusses problems and possibilities in using the paradigm for religious education of “Generation X” in a postmodern context. The article posits that a postmodern sensibility does not imply the cognitive capacity for a truly postmodern style of meaning‐making. Drawing on Robert Kegan and the author's teaching experience with young adults, the article raises the caution that Generation X may not be prepared developmentally for postmodern educational approaches. Possibilities for using practical theological elements such as story, playfulness, and making connections are raised in relation to this age‐group.     

博士生跨学科课程实施:内在逻辑、现实困境与突破路径

在国家大力实施创新驱动发展战略和知识生产模式转型背景下,实施跨学科课程对提高博士生培养质量具有很强现实意义。在实施博士生跨学科课程中,需要遵循知识体系中“博大”与“精深”的平衡、教学过程中“个体”与“团体”的互动、教学内容中“教学”与“科研”的协同三对逻辑关系。囿于传统博士生教育的路径依赖影响和博士生跨学科课程的内在逻辑衍生出的现实需要制约,高校实施博士生跨学科课程面临诸多困境。从成立跨学科组织、以实践为导向开展教学、改进课程评价机制、完善学术交流平台等几个方面提出了我国高校博士生跨学科课程实施的突破路径。     

From School Effectiveness and School Improvement to Effective School Improvement: Background,Theoretical Analysis,and Outline of the Empirical Study

School effectiveness and school improvement have different origins: school effectiveness is more directed to finding out “what works” in education and “why”; school improvement is practice and policy oriented and intended to change education in the desired direction. That means that in the orientation on the outcomes, input, processes, and context in education, school effectiveness and school improvement also have much in common. In the project Effective School Improvement (ESI), the merger of the 2 traditions has been pursued. In the theoretical part different orientations have been analysed and combined in a model for effective school improvement. Based on this analysis the framework is developed for the analysis of the case studies on school improvement projects in the participating countries.     

Disinterested,disengaged, useless: Conservative or progressive idea of the university?

There is evidence aplenty of academics' increasing incorporation into the life and fate of their university's brand, just as it is clear that university structures and incentives generally are dependent upon increasingly competitive resource capture under tightened managerial ideologies of institutional commitment (albeit by way of innumerable “consultation” and “responsibilisation” mechanisms). In that context, it becomes important to re‐think and re‐imagine the very “idea of the university”, especially now that images and imperatives around the Engaged University are a) omnipresent and b) convene a whole range of entirely disparate activities, governed by very different intellectual rationales. While hardly wishing to be “against” university involvement in the “wider world”, this article critically questions the new metaphysic of Engagement, and the discursive framings and traps that sustain it. In an age when perhaps only paradox and counter‐intuitive gesturing seem to work as prompts towards thinking otherwise, I make the case that some “traditionalist” ideas of higher education can be part of a reasserted “progressivist” social ethics.     

How to do things without words: The taken‐for‐granted as speech‐action

Taken‐for‐granteds (TFGs), or uncoded propositions, seem to be as vulnerable to Janguage‐action analysis as is speech. The present essay provides some beginnings to such analysis. Taken‐for‐granteds are described in a brief literature review as being constituted of reflexive relations of patterns and parts‐the parts are micro‐details of messages; the patterns are frames. Following Goffman, a line of research called “frame analysis” is proposed to describe TFG use. Several areas of inquiry are sketched briefly, including: alignment talk, analysis of frame genres, male‐female conversation, and patterns of myth.     

Computational Thinking,Between Papert and Wing

The pervasiveness of Computer Science (CS) in today’s digital society and the extensive use of computational methods in other sciences call for its introduction in the school curriculum. Hence, Computer Science Education is becoming more and more relevant. In CS K-12 education, computational thinking (CT) is one of the abused buzzwords: different stakeholders (media, educators, politicians) give it different meanings, some more oriented to CS, others more linked to its interdisciplinary value. The expression was introduced by two leading researchers, Jeannette Wing (in 2006) and Seymour Papert (much early, in 1980), each of them stressing different aspects of a common theme. This paper will use a historical approach to review, discuss, and put in context these first two educational and epistemological approaches to CT. We will relate them to today’s context and evaluate what aspects are still relevant for CS K-12 education. Of the two, particular interest is devoted to “Papert’s CT,” which is the lesser-known and the lesser-studied. We will conclude that “Wing’s CT” and “Papert’s CT,” when correctly understood, are both relevant to today’s computer science education. From Wing, we should retain computer science’s centrality, CT being the (scientific and cultural) substratum of the technical competencies. Under this interpretation, CT is a lens and a set of categories for understanding the algorithmic fabric of today’s world. From Papert, we should retain the constructionist idea that only a social and affective involvement of students into the technical content will make programming an interdisciplinary tool for learning (also) other disciplines. We will also discuss the often quoted (and often unverified) claim that CT automatically “transfers” to other broad 21st century skills. Our analysis will be relevant for educators and scholars to recognize and avoid misconceptions and build on the two core roots of CT.

     

否定极性副词“一点儿”的句法及语用考察

基于北京大学CCL语料库,采用描写和解释相结合的方法,对副词“一点儿”进行分析。结果表明,“一点儿”为否定极性副词,强制性地要求用于否定语境,且为严格、非自由、非黏着否定极性副词。在句中作状语,有两类典型固化的否定句法槽,常与“也”“都”共现。用在否定句中表全量否定,可增强语势,凸显前景信息以及强调主观认识。     

Teaching Information Systems Management Skills: Using Integrated Projects and Case Studies

University courses in Computer Science (CS) and Information Systems (IS) are often criticized by industry for concentrating on conceptual learning while failing to provide their students with experience and grounding in managerial skills. This paper describes and discusses an innovative course In this paper the term “course” will be used to refer to a single integrated unit of study. In New Zealand such units are often referred to as “papers”. These courses can be combined together, according to various rules, to form a “course of study” which will lead to a qualification. At Massey University, a degree is comprised of 24 such courses.structure which has been developed in order to ground the teaching of IS management theory in its local context by interlinking practical projects and case studies in local organizations. The student projects are used to generate a large “cross-sectional” case study which describes several IS management problems that are occurring simultaneously in the same organization. Students are required to integrate their analysis of the problems and to recommend an appropriate series of responses which will tackle all the situations. The paper describes the rationale and organization of the course, the results of an evaluation of its effectiveness, and discusses some of the problems that were encountered during its implementation.     

Paedophilia,Sexual Desire and Perversity

Abstract

In our society adults who are guilty of having sex with prepubescent children often have a paedophile disposition. This paper first criticises the justifications that are given by paedophiles for having sex with children. Part of this criticism is a brief analysis of “sexual desire” and “erotic”. Next, the question is raised whether paedophile activities can ever be morally permissible. Using the principles of mutual consent and non‐exploitation as touchstone, the question is answered in the negative. Finally, it is examined whether paedophile desires can be regarded as perverse. In order to deal with this issue a moral conception of perversions is proposed.     

Brain‐Based Learning and Educational Neuroscience: Boundary Work

Much attention has been given to “bridging the gap” between neuroscience and educational practice. In order to gain better understanding of the nature of this gap and of possibilities to enable the linking process, we have taken a boundary perspective on these two fields and the brain‐based learning approach, focusing on boundary‐spanning actors, boundary objects, and boundary work. In 26 semistructured interviews, neuroscientists and education professionals were asked about their perceptions in regard to the gap between science and practice and the role they play in creating, managing, and disrupting this boundary. Neuroscientists and education professionals often hold conflicting views and expectations of both brain‐based learning and of each other. This leads us to argue that there are increased prospects for a neuroscientifically informed learning practice if science and practice work together as equal stakeholders in developing and implementing neuroscience research.     

The Procedurally Directive Approach to Teaching Controversial Issues

Recent articles on teaching controversial topics in schools have employed Michael Hand's distinction between “directive teaching,” in which teachers attempt to persuade students of correct positions on topics that are not rationally controversial, and “nondirective teaching,” in which teachers avoid persuading students on topics that are rationally controversial. However, the four methods of directive teaching discussed in the literature — explicit directive teaching, “steering,” “soft‐directive teaching,” and “school ethos endorsement” — make rational persuasion problematic, if not self‐defeating. In this essay, Maughn Rollins Gregory argues that “procedurally directive teaching” offers an alternative to such approaches because it derives from the intention to guide inquiry rather than to persuade. He demonstrates that the conceptual frameworks of perfectionism and antiperfectionism, which have been proposed for directive teaching on same‐sex marriage, can instead be used to generate open questions for student inquiry, as can a third, civil rights framework. Given these considerations, Gregory maintains that pedagogical guidance on this topic should be procedurally directive rather than substantively directive. Further, the fact that legal, political, and ethics scholars disagree about which framework is more appropriate to the issue of same‐sex marriage indicates that such arguments cannot be dispositive of the pedagogical issue of how to frame classroom discussions about it. Rather, students should inquire into this meta‐level framing dispute for themselves.