The influence of imaging capacity on visual art skills

Imaging is a component of fundamental cognitive processes employed in a variety of cognitive activities. In particular, imaging is of special relevance to artistic skills. As part of our research on the relationships between mental images and the plastic arts, the influence of the imaging capacity in the visual art skills was investigated. Seventy-two fine arts students were administered the Vividness Of Visual Imagery Test and performed tasks testing spatial skill, spatial manipulation skill, and visual memory. Imaging capacity was associated with all three-task scores. We also found that women were more proficient in spatial tasks and spatial manipulation tasks than men. These results lead us to consider future studies with other tests of imaging capacity, with the aim of confirming and generalizing the relation between mental imagery and artistic skills. If the ability to create mental images is connected to artistic skill one would have to take this into account in the teaching of art and in designing programmes for mental image training.     

Third World Communication

COMMUNICATING IN POPULAR NICARAGUA edited by Armand Mattelart (International General, PO Box 350, New York 10013—$ 8.95, paper)

PHILIPPINE CARTOONS: POLITICAL CARICATURE OF THE AMERICAN ERA, 1900–1941 by Alfred McCoy and Alfredo Roces (Quezon City: Vera-Reyes, 1985, 370 pp.)

A HISTORY OF THE KOMIKS OF THE PHILIPPINES AND OTHER COUNTRIES (Quezon City: Islas Filipinas Publishing Co., 1985, 305 pp)

RURAL EDUCATIONAL BROADCASTING: A PHILIPPINE EXPERIENCE by Felix Librero (Laguna: University of Philippines—Los Banos, 1985 155 pp.)

THE MANIPULATED PRESS: A HISTORY OF PHILIPPINE JOURNALISM SINCE 1945 by Rosalinda Pineda-Ofreneo (Manila: Cacho Hermanos, 1984, 256 pp.)

PHILIPPINE MASS MEDIA: A BOOK OF READINGS edited by Clodualdo del Mundo, Jr. (Manila: Communication Foundation of the Philippines, 1986, 280 pp.)

THE PHILIPPINE PRESS: UNDER SIEGE by the National Press Club (Manila, Press Club, 1984, 1985, two vols)

MANUAL ON MEDIA EDUCATION by Vicente S. Froilan (Manila: Communication Foundation for Asia, 1985, 88 pp.)

MEDIA AND THE CHINESE PUBLIC: A SURVEY OF THE BEIJING MEDIA AUDIENCE, special issue of Chinese Sociology and Anthropology (Spring-Summer 1986, 200 pp.)

VIDEO PIRACY AND THE LAW by B.V. Gopal (New Delhi: Deep & Deep Publications, 1986, 160 pp.)

ASIAN PR by Vincent Lowe (Singapore: Times Books International, 1986, 208 pp.)

PUBLIC RELATIONS: THE MALAYSIAN EXPERIENCE (Kuala Lumpur: Institute of Public Relations Malaysia, 1986, 260 pp)

SELLING DREAMS: HOW ADVERTISING MISLEADS US by the Consumers' Association of Penang (Pengan, CAP, 1986, 149 pp.)

ABUSE OF WOMEN IN THE MEDIA by the Consumer's Association of Penang (Penang: CAP, 1982, 85 pp)     

Case Method in the Teaching of Food Safety

One of the fundamental aims of education is the integration of theory and practice. The case method is a teaching strategy in which students must apply their knowledge to solve real‐life situations. They have to analyze the case described and propose the best possible solution. Although the case may be written, the use of new information and communication technologies can develop the case plan in ways that would achieve greater realism and widen the possibilities for discussion. This paper describes our experience in implementing the case method to teach food safety in the Chair of Hygiene. At first this methodology was used to improve the teaching of good practices in food preparation, later practical work was implemented where small groups of students designed and carried out the microbiological analysis of suspected food. This practical work was presented online as a multimedia activity; students were given face‐to‐face and on‐line tutoring. Evaluation was based both on students’ performance and on a survey they had to answer. More than 92% of students regarded the methodology used for the understanding of the unit as sound. Professors collaboration on providing guidance and multimedia presentation were also positively assessed. The bringing together of face‐to‐face and virtual tasks and small‐group discussion of cases under professors guidance contributed to making good use of the positive aspects of this methodology in order to improve the understanding of problems which do not always have a single answer.     

Proposal for national targets in the framework of the European reduction goal for early school leaving

According to the European Commission’s “Europe 2020” strategy, the early school leaving (ESL) rate in European Union (EU) Member States must be reduced to a maximum of 10 per cent by 2020. This paper proposes a nonlinear distribution method based on dynamic targets for reducing the percentage of early school leavers. The aim of this method is to provide policymakers with alternatives in terms of transferring the EU-wide headline target to individual national targets. Weighting was based on four indicators: ESL rate, unemployment rate, expenditure on education as a percentage of the gross domestic product (GDP), and expenditure on schools per student. As a result, nine possible scenarios for ESL reduction have been constructed for each of the EU Member States in three groups: the whole EU up to June 2013 (EU27), EU Member States which joined before 30 April 2004 (EU15) and EU Member States which joined after 30 April 2004 (EU12). This method allows the European policy to be translated into specific national targets that would converge in the aggregate goal.     

Combination of logical conditions and arithmetic operations to assign a mark to a course based on multidimensional learning outcomes

Assessment is a notorious source of preoccupation for faculty and university governing bodies, especially when an institution initiates curricular reforms which shift the programme learning outcomes for knowledge to competencies. One obstacle to acceptance arises from a culture of quantitative assessment (often represented by a single mark), which is at odds with the concept of outcome assessment which is by essence subjective, qualitative and multidimensional. The method presented here is specifically concerned with learning activities where students need to demonstrate competency in learning outcomes of different natures. It describes a methodological framework that can be used in any programme that aims at developing multidimensional learners, but operates in a context where the final assessment product is a single quantitative grade. This method follows a classical approach to the evaluation of each learning outcome. It then proposes an innovative way of ranking students by categorising their overall performance based on conditions that reflect the integral nature of the learning process, to allow teaching staff to assign a range of marks for each student. Finally, a last step allows a quantitative ranking of students within each category, yielding a single quantitative mark for the course while remaining coherent with the learning goals.     

Conceptualizing sound as a form of incarnate mathematical consciousness

Much of the evidence provided in support of the argument that mathematical knowing is embodied/enacted is based on the analysis of gestures and bodily configurations, and, to a lesser extent, on certain vocal features (e.g., prosody). However, there are dimensions involved in the emergence of mathematical knowing and the production of mathematical communication that have not yet been investigated. The purpose of this article is to theorize one of these dimensions, which we call incarnate sonorous consciousness. Drawing on microanalyses of two exemplary episodes in which a group of third graders are sorting geometric solids, we show how sound has the potential to mark mathematical similarities and distinctions. These “audible” similarities and distinctions, which may be produced by incarnate dimensions such as beat gestures and prosody, allow children to objectify certain geometrical properties of the objects with which they transact. Moreover, the analysis shows that sonorous production is intertwined with other dimensions of students’ bodily activity. These findings are interpreted according to the “theory of mathematics in the flesh,” an alternative to current embodiment/enactivist theories in mathematics education.     

Collaborative design decision-making as social process

ABSTRACT

Collaborative design is recognised as being shaped by complex social, cognitive, material, and technical processes. In the case of design decision-making, however, the social dimension has yet to be fully understood as the product of the whole team dynamic rather than as simply the sum of the individual (cognitive) contributions. This paper examines the interactional work teams of first-time design students do that produces decisions in undergraduate engineering design projects. Close analysis of decision-making episodes, recorded in design meetings in a yearlong ethnographic study, reveals the joint social and situated work teams do to produce decisions. Students were found to do decision-making via three overlapping phases that were invariant across the database: (i) Design options emerge, (ii) teams orient to design options, and (iii) design decisions come off. This paper exemplifies these phases of decision-making as inherently – and not just incidentally – social, and illustrates how decisions are produced in novice design teams via these phases in multifarious ways. We argue for an explicit retrospective focus on the processes and consequences of team decisions following projects as an avenue for fostering the development of design judgment that engineering graduates will take into their professional practice.