The Fictions of (English) Cricket: From Nation to Diaspora

This paper examines the fictional representations of cricket and argues that they contribute to a definition of the game. It examines the fictions of cricket, showing that they construct the game into a most distinct English fiction. Literary treatment of cricket must further be read in the context of the transformations of the game in the nineteenth century, with the rise of athleticism as an ideology, and its role in the training of the colonial administration. The argument then concentrates on the decolonzsation, and perhaps the ‘defictionalization’, of cricket through the writings of C. L. R. James and Ashis Nandy. Finally, it turns to recent fictional perceptions of cricket, in particular to Romesh Gunesekera's The Match as well as Joseph O'Neill's Netherland, and argues that they emphasize the diasporic nature of the game.     

Overcoming Barriers: School Principals and SROs Collaborating to Create a Safe School Environment

Relationships between school administrators and School Resource Officers (SROs) are particularly important with the current emphasis on school safety. The majority of research in this area focuses on the effectiveness of SRO programs; however, there is a dearth of research involving the relationship between school administration and SROs. Understanding the need to overcome some of the existing barriers such as cultural and mission differences between the two organizations should enhance the possibility of creating an effective partnership. Focusing on the essential aspects of the interagency relationships in the context of school emergency readiness should allow this important partnership to be successfully implemented. This examination of the interagency relationship is important in navigating the barriers that exist in this dynamic relationship.     

Example of good practice of a learning environment with a classroom response system in a mechanical engineering bachelor course

Results of a successful pilot study are presented, in which quizzes are introduced in a second year bachelor course for mechanical engineering students. The pilot study course entailed the basic concepts of mechanical vibrations in complex, realistic structures. The quiz is held weekly using a SharePoint application. The purpose of the quizzes is to repeat important course material, give instantaneous feedback (i.e. formative assessment), stimulate peer instruction and, as a consequence, increase the students’ comprehension of the basic concepts taught in the course so that their deeper understanding of the subject matter improves. Students can earn half a point bonus, on a scale from 0 to 10, on top of their exam mark if they correctly answer 55% of all the quiz questions. The efficacy of the pilot study is determined by investigating the percentage of students that pass the course on their first attempt, i.e. the first time pass rate, and asking students for feedback through questionnaires. The first time pass rate of the students in the pilot study groups has, on average, increased significantly in comparison to groups in which the quizzes are not performed. Students indicated that the feedback from the quizzes helps them to identify gaps in their knowledge. Therefore, the pilot study is considered effective.     

Dialectical Features of Students’ Argumentation: A Critical Review of Argumentation Studies in Science Education

This paper explores the challenges of using the Toulmin model to analyze students’ dialogical argumentation. The paper presents a theoretical exposition of what is involved in an empirical study of real dialogic argumentation. Dialogic argumentation embodies dialectical features — i.e. the features that are operative when students collaboratively manage disagreement by providing arguments and engaging critically with the arguments provided by others. The paper argues that while dialectical features cannot readily be understood from a Toulminian perspective, it appears that an investigation of them is a prerequisite for conducting Toulminian analysis. This claim is substantiated by a detailed review of five of the ten most significant papers on students’ argumentation in science education. This leads to the surprising notion that empirical studies in the argumentation strand — even those studies that have employed non-dialectical frameworks such as the Toulmin model — have implicitly struggled to come to terms with the dialectical features of students’ discourse. The paper finally explores how some scholars have worked to attend directly to these dialectical features; and it presents five key issues that need to be addressed in a continued scholarly discussion.     

Is It Time for a Sixth Dimension of Multicultural Education?: Resistance and Praxis in Challenging Times

The impact of the election of a new U.S. president and his far right ideology and agenda has reverberated across the entire world. This new reality calls for all critical equity-seeking educators; multicultural, social justice, culturally responsive, and others to be reflective and engage in deep thinking on ways to respond. Within a framework of advocacy and resistance, drawing on lessons of the past, my own experiences and research, this article offers some practical suggestions that others hopefully can build on. It seeks to connect a critical multicultural education framework to identifiable practices in schools and communities that challenges neoliberal approaches to education; xenophobia, racism, and other forms of structural oppression; argues that the actions and practices of multicultural educators must be explicit and generative in ways that make theory usable.     

COLLABORATION FOR A CURRICULUM OF CARING: THE ZEITGEIST IS RIGHT

Recent catastrophic school shootings have drawn worldwide attention to issues of gun control and mental health. In the wake of these tragedies, more and more schools have begun to adopt school‐wide social and emotional learning (SEL) programs. However, we have few examples of what it looks like to integrate SEL skills into content curricula. What's more, teachers and support professionals are ill‐equipped to engage in the collaborative work necessary to effectively integrate the teaching of SEL into academic content. The collaboration described herein highlights an interdisciplinary collaboration among university faculty and graduate students from school psychology and English education to collaboratively design and evaluate standards‐based secondary English curricula that foreground SEL and themes of care.     

Theory of mind may be contagious, but you don't catch it from your twin

The theory-of-mind abilities of twins, children with nontwin siblings, and only children were compared to investigate further the link between number and type of siblings and theory-of-mind abilities. Three- to 5-year-old children with nontwin siblings outperformed both only children and twins with no other siblings, twins who also had other siblings outperformed twins who did not, and children with at least 1 opposite-sex sibling outperformed children with only same-sex siblings. Twins performed significantly better when asked about the false beliefs of their twins than they did when asked about the false beliefs of their friends. Results are discussed in terms of potential mechanisms that may account for the twin and sibling effects.     

Learning from our own lessons: pre-service teachers’ narratives of teaching as an experiment

Pre-service teachers need to develop habits of mind that allow them to grow as new teachers. This article describes an elementary mathematics methods course in which teaching as an experiment was used a framework for pre-service teachers to participate in action research by developing learning goals, observing and analyzing student thinking, hypothesizing and enacting teaching strategies, and reflecting on the effectiveness of a lesson. Through analysis of reflections and lesson plans, the article explores three groups of pre-service teachers’ reflections on teaching as well as their confidence across the semester. By treating lessons as experiments, the pre-service teachers were able to develop appropriate teaching responses over time as well as gain confidence in their abilities.     

Training Future Scientists: Predicting First-year Minority Student Participation in Health Science Research

Using longitudinal data from the UCLA Cooperative Institutional Research Program (CIRP) and Your First College Year (YFCY) surveys, this study examines predictors of the likelihood that science-oriented students would participate in a health science undergraduate research program during the first year of college. The key predictors of participation in health science research programs are students’ reliance on peer networks and whether campuses provide structured opportunities for first-year students even though only 12% of freshmen in the sample engaged in this activity. These experiences are particularly important for Black students. The findings inform efforts to orient students at an early stage, particularly under-represented minorities, toward biomedical and behavioral science research careers.