Innovative activities for teaching anatomy of speech production

Courses in anatomy have traditionally relied on lectures and cadaver dissection laboratories. In speech and hearing sciences, there tends to be less access to cadavers than in medical schools and other allied health professions. It is more typical to use anatomical models, diagrams and lecture slides. Regardless of the resources available, anatomy is a subject that lends itself to hands‐on learning. This article briefly reviews teaching methods and describes a variety of innovative activities to enhance learning of anatomical concepts and clinical relevance of anatomy for speech production. Teaching strategies and activities were developed to capitalize on students' multimodal learning preferences as revealed by responses to a survey administered to 49 undergraduates in the beginning of an anatomy of speech production course. At the end of the semester, students completed a second survey. A five‐point Likert scale was used to assess the usefulness of each activity as a learning tool or level of clinical relevance and the level of enjoyability. The responses were overwhelmingly positive with level of usefulness and level of clinical relevance rated higher on average than the level of enjoyment. Anat Sci Educ 3:234–243, 2010. © 2010 American Association of Anatomists.     

Studying activities that take place in speech interactions: a theoretical and methodological framework

The paper proposes a theoretical and methodological framework based on a pluralistic, concerted approach to the study of activities that take place in and through speech interactions. The framework has a general scope, applying to any collective activity taking form through language interactions. It contributes to a fuller understanding of the dynamics of activity and the emergence of the phenomena observed. The framework fits a constructivist and interactionist paradigm. It allows an approach to different dimensions of the activity: communicational, functional, discursive and interlocutory. The theories, models, concepts and methods chosen to address each of the dimensions are presented. From the study of a collaborative philosophical inquiry produced in the first year of a French primary school, we illustrate the use of the framework and show how it can be enriched according to the nature of the activity studied and researchers’ aims.     

Some relationships between speech defects,musical disability,scholastic attainment and maladjustment

Aristotle coined the term entelechy to describe the processes of nature. Burke extends entelechy to the realm of human symbolic action. Burke implicitly recognizes the possibility of a type of entelechy that might be called psychotic entelechy as early as his first book of criticism. Although Burke does not use the term psychotic entelechy, the concept exists implicitly in Burke's discussion of entelechy.

Biblical scholar James D. Tabor claims that the 1993 Branch Davidian disaster could have been avoided. Burkean entelechial methods are used here to critique the socio‐political tragedy known as Waco. Burkean‐style methods of curing psychotic entelechy were actually being used to attempt to avert the tragedy.     

走入生物新课程中的几点体会

1 教学中要转换角色,改变已有的教学行为 面对新课程,教师首先要转变角色,确认自己新的教学身份.美国课程学家多尔认为,在现代课程中,教师是"平等中的首席".作为"平等中的首席",教师要成为学生学习活动的组织者、指导者、参与者.     

关于新教材编写的几点认识--从《金属与金属矿物》教材的编写比较说起

本文根据《全日制义务教育化学课程标准(实验稿)》，从内容、学习方式、编写形式、学习评价等角度对由课程标准研制组和人民教育出版社分别编写的两种教科书中的“金属和金属矿物“部分进行了比较，并对新教材编写进行了讨论。     

中学化学新教材编写的若干思考

教育在综合国力的形成中处于基础地位 ,国力的强弱越来越取决于劳动者的素质 ,取决于各类人才的质量和数量 ,这对于培养和造就我国二十一世纪的一代新人提出了迫切的、更高的要求。教育改革的根本目的是提高民族素质 ,多出人才 ,出好人才。上海课改二期工程要贯彻教育要“面向现代化、面向世界、面向未来”的思想和党的教育方针 ,体现“以学生发展为本”的精神 ,坚持以培养创新精神和实践能力为重点的素质教育方向。“以学生发展为本”是上海中小学课程教材改革二期工程提出的重要思想和行动口号 ,“以学生发展为本”是指以学生为主体 ,让学…     

新锐职业：蕴藏新的培训需求

多元的社会，人们的职业观较以前是大不同了，原来倡导，“我是革命一块砖，哪里需要哪里搬”，现在却说，“谁动了我的奶酪？”     

Basic research in speech and lateralization of language: Some implications for reading disability

Basic research in speech and the lateralization of language is shown to illuminate the problems of reading and some of its disabilities. First, it is pointed out how speech, or language for the ear, differs markedly from reading, or language for the eye. Though the sounds of speech are a very complex code and the optical shapes of written language are a simple cipher or alphabet on the phonemes, we all perceive speech easily but read only with difficulty. Perceiving speech is easy because, as members of the human race, we all have access to a special physiological apparatus that decodes the complex speech signal and recovers the segmentation of the linguistic message. Reading is hard because the phonemic segmentation, which is automatic and intuitive in the case of speech, must be made fully conscious and explicit. The syllabic method supplemented by phonics (used with certain reservations) is suggested for remediation of segmentation problems. Second, it is posited that since the sounds of speech are processed differently from non-speech sounds, the two should not be diagnosed and remediated interchangeably. Third, it is shown that the relationships among cerebral lateralization for language, handedness and poor reading can now be studied more meaningfully because of the recent development of new techniques. A truism often heard in the opening lecture of graduate classes in education is that we have few answers to the problems that beset us, only questions. In the field of reading, the difficulty may be owing at least in part to our impatient attempts to find immediate solutions for the teacher and the student in the classroom, and our consequent neglect of basic research. I should like to suggest today how knowledge of basic research in related disciplines may lead to clues for improving beginning reading instruction and the lot of the disabled reader—if only by affording us a deeper understanding of the reading process. Paper based on a talk given at the Twenty-first Annual Conference of The Orton Society, Washington, D.C., November 14, 1970.     

Private speech in two preschools: Significance of open-ended activities and make-believe play for verbal self-regulation

Contextual influences on private speech were examined in two preschools differing in the learning environments they provide for children. Observations of 3- to 5-year-olds were made during free-choice periods in a Montessori and a traditional (play-oriented) program. Consistent with Vygotsky's theory that make-believe play serves as a vital context for the development of self-regulation, the incidence of private speech was much higher during open-ended activities, especially fantasy play, that require children to determine the goal of the task, than during closed-ended tasks with predetermined goals. In line with previous research, the more direct involvement, or external regulation, teachers displayed, the lower the rate of children's private speech. In addition, transitions (as opposed to involvement in activities) were linked to reduced private speech, whereas engagement with peers, in the form of associative play, predicted greater self-directed language. Diminished make-believe play, greater teacher direct involvement, and heightened time spent in transitions largely accounted for the lower incidence of private speech in the Montessori compared with the traditional preschool. Contextual factors also contributed to a drop in private speech at age 5. Implications for fostering children's verbal self-regulation during early childhood are considered.     

优化问题的新步长法则

The step-size procedure is very important for solving optimization problems. The Armijo step-size rule, the Armijo-Goldstein step-size rule and the Wolfe-Powell step-size rule are three well-known line search methods. On the basis of the above three types of line search methods and the idea of the proximal point methods, a new class of step-size rules was proposed. Instead of a single objective function f, f ＋1/2（x - xk）^TBk（x-Xk） was used as the merit function in iteration k, where Sk is a given symmetric positive definite matrix. The existence of the steplength for the new rules was proved. Some convergence properties were also discussed.     

Some new approaches to research and development funding

Some new approaches to research and development funding, adopted by the United Kingdom's National Development Programme in Computer Assisted Learning are described. The five-year, £2.5 million National Programme, sponsored by seven Government departments, was set up in 1973 at a time of widespread concern about government R & D funding. The funding strategy of the Programme is described in the hope that it might apply to the funding of other educational innovations. Four unusual features are discussed in detail, the aim of the Programme; the role of the Programme directorate in cooperative funding; the approach to evaluation; and the emphasis on project management.The main aim of the Programme, from which all other policy and management decisions derived, was the institutionalisation of innovation. The Programme directorate, by contrast to the central staff of research councils, was active and interventive in the formulation of policy, the design and selection of projects, and their evaluation. A cooperative approach to funding was adopted which permitted projects to combine national and local interests, in an effort to avoid the over-centralisation of some of the large schools curriculum development projects in the UK and the USA, and the parochialism of some higher education research funding. A major evaluation device used in the National Programme was the midterm evaluation of projects. Projects were step-funded for one or two years in the first instance, with continued funding dependent on the outcome of the midterm evaluation. A further novel feature of the evaluation was the existence of independent educational and financial evaluation. Project management skills were considered important in the Programme, and various techniques were adopted, such as virement, to improve project management and control.