Learning experiences in a giant interactive environment: insights from The Cube

In November 2012, Queensland University of Technology in Australia launched a giant interactive learning environment known as The Cube. This article reports a phenomenographic investigation into visitors’ different experiences of learning in The Cube. At present very little is known about people’s learning experience in spaces featuring large interactive screens. We observed many visitors to The Cube and interviewed 26 people. Our analysis identified critical variation across the visitors’ experience of learning in The Cube. The findings are discussed as the learning strategy (in terms of absorption, exploration, isolation and collaboration) and the content learned (in terms of technology, skills and topics). Other findings presented here are dimensions of the learning strategy and the content learned, with differing perspectives on each dimension. These outcomes provide early insights into the potential of giant interactive environments to enhance learning approaches and guide the design of innovative learning spaces in higher education.     

Teaching,learning and the curriculum 1: The influence of content in science

Summary There are already a number of important criteria upon which topics for inclusion in science curricula should be selected and sequenced. We have recommended two additional criteria: the topic's potential for effecting conceptual change, and its potential for generating metacognitive training. Among other things, Science curricula should foster intellectual development. Such development is often a slow process of change, where new experiences, skills and understandings build on, modify and extend existing ones. Thus, topics should be evaluated in terms of their relation to existing Children's Science and to the students' metacognitive abilities. Evaluation of the appropriateness of a particular topic in a curriculum sequence should be based on such factors as its conceptual concreteness, the number and breadth of models which can be invoked, the concreteness of corroboration of results, and its predictive power. Conjointly, evaluation should take into account the nature, scope and complexity of the associated metacognitive demands. If selected carefully, topics in the science curriculum will do more than progressively sample the universe of content areas. They will develop each students ability and desire to engage in effective, independent learning.     

Ex vivo expansions and transplantations of mouse bone marrow-derived hematopoietic stem/progenitor cells

To examine the effects of co-culture with bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells on expansion of hematopoietic stem/progenitor cells and the capacities of rapid neutrophil engraftment and hematopoietic reconstitution of the expanded cells, we expanded mononuclear cells (MNCs) and CD34⁺/c-kit⁺ cells from mouse bone marrow and transplanted the expanded cells into the irradiated mice. MNCs were isolated from mouse bone marrow and CD34⁺/c-kit⁺ cells were selected from MNCs by using MoFlo Cell Sorter. MNCs and CD34⁺/c-kit⁺ cells were co-cultured with mouse bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) under a two-step expansion. The expanded cells were then transplanted into sublethally irradiated BDF1 mice. Results showed that the co-culture with MSCs resulted in expansions of median total nucleated cells, CD34⁺ cells, GM-CFC and HPP-CFC respectively by 10.8-, 4.8-, 65.9- and 38.8-fold for the mononuclear cell culture, and respectively by 76.1-, 2.9-, 71.7- and 51.8-fold for the CD34⁺/c-kit⁺ cell culture. The expanded cells could rapidly engraft in the sublethally irradiated mice and reconstitute their hematopoiesis. Co-cultures with MSCs in conjunction with two-step expansion increased expansions of total nucleated cells, GM-CFC and HPP-CFC, which led us to conclude MSCs may create favorable environment for expansions of hematopoietic stem/progenitor cells. The availability of increased numbers of expanded cells by the co-culture with MSCs may result in more rapid engraftment of neutrophils following infusion to transplant recipients. Project supported by NIH-Blood, Heart & Lung (National Institute of Health, USA, IR 01 4L70593-01) and Zhejiang Provincial Science Foundation (No. 011103397), China     

Student Performance and the Cost of Failure

This paper examines student performance and calculates the theoretical cost of academic failure by Australian undergraduates, using factors implicit in government funding formulae. In order to survive, higher education institutions have had to diversify their funding base and at the same time the government appears now to perceive its contributions as a subsidy to university students, rather than as being an investment in society's broad human infrastructure. The demand for accountability has increased, and output-based funding is much discussed. The ultimate university output is student success, and governments could place a monetary value on this in a very direct way. This paper takes a methodological approach in analysing the cost of failure.     

University Teachers' Conceptions of Memorising in Learning Science

This paper describes what a sample of university teachers in science conceive to be the role of memorising and the relationship between memorising and understanding in their disciplines. Sixteen, purposively selected university teachers were interviewed in depth. The university teachers were from three disciplines--mathematics, physiology and physics. Analysis of the data was undertaken from a phenomenographic perspective (Marton, 1988) and indicates a set of conceptions of memorising including memorising as rote learning for reproduction, as facilitating learning--a way to progress--and as a key component of the learning process. Opposing views of the relationship between memorising and understanding were expressed; these were viewed either as unrelated processes or as dynamically interwoven.     

Contentious dialogue: University presidential response and the 2016 U.S. presidential election

ABSTRACT

In recent years, technology has made it possible, and at times critical, for college and university presidents to increase their campus-wide public communication. However, there is little research that analyses these frequent and timely presidential communications. Using grounded theory, this study took steps to fill this gap by analysing the unprecedented response campuses had to the 2016 United States presidential election of Donald Trump. The analysis focused on the responses of presidents from the fifty state flagship universities and found emergent themes of unity, contentious election, negative event, university values, civil dialogue, services offered, and emotional rhetoric, while also finding significance in whether the letters were sent proactively or reactively.     

The Effects of Special Education Support on Young Australian School Students

Determining the effectiveness of many special education interventions is most difficult because of the practical and ethical limitations associated with assigning participants to a control or non-treated group. Using Longitudinal Study of Australian Children data, this article utilised eight different propensity score analysis methods to determine if a cohort of young primary school children receiving special education services significantly improved their literacy and numeracy skills, social skills and their behaviour, two years after the commencement of the special service, in comparison to a “matched” group of students who did not receive special education support. The children receiving special education support performed statistically significantly less well than the different matched groups across all outcome measures. This result is consistent with the findings from two similar studies in the US and calls into question the effectiveness of special education services for the majority of Australian students with additional needs.     

Attitudes to reading at ages nine and eleven

A survey was conducted with the aim of identifying attitudes towards reading amongst upper primary pupils, and establishing whether these attitudes had changed over the five‐year period from 1998 to 2003. A sample of 5076 pupils in Years 4 and 6 completed questionnaires. Attitudes were generally positive, but declined somewhat between the younger and older of these age groups. A sub‐sample of 2364 of these pupils were in the same schools where the same questionnaire had been completed in 1998. Enjoyment of reading had significantly fallen over the five years, whilst confidence as readers had significantly increased over the same period. The changes may be related to the introduction of the National Literacy Strategy, but other explanations are also possible.