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.     

Literacies through media: identity and discourse in the process of constructing a web site

In this research note we explore how children construct their identity in the context of a literacy practice: developing written and audio-visual texts in small-group situation to be published on the Internet. Through their dialogue, a shared identity is growing on the context, and every children create an identity as member of a community in which is included [Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice. Learning meaning and identity. Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press].Methodologically we have adopted, on one hand, an ethnographic perspective (Atkinson et al., 2001) and, on the other, an action-research perspective [Reason, P., & Bradbury, H. (Eds.) (2001).Handbook of action research. London, Thousand oaks Sage]. We analysed the data collected in five groups in an after-school workshop, during a one-month period with eight two-hour sessions. It is particularly important to compare the history of every group creates a different identity for its page.Our findings illustrate how the participants, with their multiple identities [Gee, J.P. (1999). An introduction to discovers analysis. Theory and method. London, NewYork: Routledge], generate a collective identity orientated to a common audience writing as a group, and negotiating during their dialogue. We analyse how these multiple identities turn into a shared identity that, finally, is shown in the product (the Web site).The discussion of our results reveals how the process of creating the web pages, in the situation described above, depends on the shared construction of meanings among the participants. Writing on the Internet about the media facilitates multiple dialogues and provides opportunities to educate children in the use of multiliteracies.     

Students' perceptions of fairness in peer assessment: evidence from a problem-based learning course

This paper describes the experience of peer assessment in a problem-based learning course in a Portuguese university, and presents the results of a survey of 120 students who attended the course over seven semesters. Cluster analysis revealed that students group into two distinct clusters with significantly different experiences of peer assessment. Although the larger cluster (70%) expressed a positive experience, the other group perceived peer assessment results and final marks to be unfair, and reported incidents of friendship-marking and conflict arising from peer assessment. Results show that perceptions of fairness (both regarding peer assessment and final marks) are very much associated with those problems. We reflect on these findings to explore implications for practice as well as future research.     

The Hybrid Construction of Sexuality in Mexico and its Impact on Sex Education

As is now widely established, sexuality is a historically and culturally specific social construction. In Mexico, such construction has been dominated by different institutions and discourses at different times. From pre-Hispanic times to today, this article traces the ideas that main institutions, like the Catholic Church, have ingrained in Mexican sexual culture and shows how they have changed over time. At present, sexuality has become a contested arena?like never before?in which very diverse discourses contend for hegemony. Formal sex education has not been alien to this debate, in which religion, medicine, gender equity discourses and ethics seem to have a differential input in curricula and textbooks. This article discusses the expression of this tension in formal sex education in Mexico.     

Latin American immigrant women and intergenerational sex education

People of Latin American descent make up the largest and fastest-growing minority group in the USA. Rates of pregnancy, childbirth, and sexually transmitted infections among people of Latin American descent are higher than among other ethnic groups. This paper builds on research that suggests that among families of Latin American descent, mothers have a particularly strong influence on the sexual attitudes and behaviours of their children, yet that parents of Latin American descent communicate less with their children about sex than parents of other ethnic groups. It examines the messages about sex women received as children in their countries of origin, and how these messages and their views of the USA influence the sexual education women provide for their children. On the basis of data from focus groups, we suggest that, in spite of the persistence of sexual silence, some women's self-reflective analyses of their own sexual education as well as their views of the USA as a sexually more open society contribute to their views of silence as dangerous and trigger more open communication with sons and daughters. Mothers hope to break the cycle of unwanted pregnancy by speaking with daughters about the consequences of menstruation and with sons about contraception.     

¿Cómo desarrollar secuencialmente el conocimiento fonológico?

A partir de una revisión de los procesos que requiere la “conciencia fonológica”, necesaria para la lectura, se proponen aquí una serie de actividades para desarrollarla.     

Structure of cartoons,narrative skills and perception of values/countervalues in primary school / Estructura de los dibujos animados,habilidades narrativas y percepción de valores/contravalores en Educación Primaria

Abstract

This study analyses whether narrative skill and the perception of values/countervalues among students in primary school vary according to the structure (narrative vs non-narrative) of the episodes of fiction viewed, the grade age (third and sixth, 8–12 years old), sex and attentional level. With this purpose in mind, quantitative and qualitative methodologies were implemented. The most noteworthy results include the higher narrative skill and perception of values/countervalues of students in the sixth grade of primary school and those who viewed an episode with a narrative structure. The conclusion is that when addressing narrative skills and the education in values/countervalues from the formal and informal spheres, special importance should be attached to the structure of the fiction contents, given that it can to some extent help students make the messages meaningful in terms of values and countervalues.     

Agents control in intelligent learning systems: The case of reactive characteristics

Intelligent learning systems (ILSs) have evolved in the last few years basically because of influences received from multi-agent architectures (MAs). Conflict resolution among agents has been a very important problem for multi-agent systems, with specific features in the case of ILSs. The literature shows that ILSs with cognitive or pedagogical agents are prone to arbitration methods, where as ILSs with reactive agents are much in favor of control mechanisms. For these kind of systems, different control types are proposed based on the different stimuli that these agents will receive. These stimuli are aspects to be evaluated during the teaching/learning process such as: (1) error analysis, (2) learning styles, (3) analogies, (4) social aspects, etc.

The paper reviews several ILSs, related to our work; different control mechanisms are proposed to solve the agents' intervention conflicts. Finally, the use of several mechanisms is exemplified by the results of a specific ILS.