Film choices for screening literacy: the ‘Pygmalion template’ in the curriculum as contact zone

This study discusses the representation of (the) literacy (myth) in popular movies and a teaching and research project on cinematic literacy narratives. It attempts to reveal the existence of a powerful ‘Pygmalion template’ in contemporary movie culture. Focusing on a discourse or culture clash ‘Pygmalion movies’ simultaneously contribute to the discursive construction and deconstruction of the literacy myth. Because of their polysemic character, these films offer fertile grounds for inquiring into the problematic nature of literacy acquisition and discourse or culture clashes. Inviting pre‐service teachers to reflect on these issues, the authors created a curriculum as contact zone in which films are used as a primary source of knowledge and insight together with students’ movie analyses and interpretations, personal narratives, and theoretical readings. This exploratory study of on‐line discussion groups revealed the students’ contradictory and competing movie readings. Organizing the curriculum as a contact zone deepened the students’ and one’s own understanding of literacy as an ideological site of struggle in (movie) culture.     

The Cuban Model for Higher Education of Older Adults: Generativity,Social Commitment,and Collaborative Work

The present work is an approach to study the Cuban model for educating the elderly, and its aim is to describe the main features of the experience developed by this country. The University of the Third Age is more than three decades old in Latin America, but none of the countries in the region can show a state educational policy regulating and orienting its development. Cuba is the only country that has designed an educational program for older adults at a national level. The model is the most outstanding one among the rest of the countries in the American continent. This research is based on documentary analysis and interviews held with leaders and managers of the Chair for Older Adults, who were located in different towns of Cuba. Results led to a reconstruction of a set of dimensions of the Cuban model, such as the process of institutionalization, syllabus organization, the process of expansion and universalization, and educators' training strategies for elders. Finally, bearing in mind the features of Cuban political organization and gerontological positions, it was possible to draw the future evolution and challenges faced by the Cuban model for educating older adults.     

Sharing,Talking, and Learning in the Elementary School Science Classroom: Benefits of Innovative Design and Collaborative Learning in Computer-Integrated Settings

Impact on student achievement of randomly assigned students working individually or collaboratively in mixed- and matched-gender pairs at a computer on predetermined science tasks was investigated. Collaborative dyads shared a computer and screen as each operated an independent keyboard and mouse. A mixed gender control group working individually at their respective computers was used for comparison purposes. A software application was designed to facilitate collaborative work and track the quantity of text written by users and their respective use of time. A final written assessment was conducted to compare the level of academic achievement between the control group and the experimental. A significant difference in academic achievement resulted.     

Actividad conjunta y habla: una aproximación al estudio de los mecanismos de influencia educativa

Resumen

El artículo presenta las principales opciones teóricas y metodológicas de un proyecto de investigación cuyo objetivo principal es el estudio de algunos mecanismos de influencia educativa que se manifiestan en, o actúan a través de, la interacción profesor/grupo de alumnos y adulterino. Utilizando como punto de partida el concepto de interactividad, término acuñado para designar las formas de organización de la actividad conjunta en torno al contenido o tarea que están llevando a cabo los participantes, se analizan dos mecanismos de influencia educativa: la cesión y el traspaso progresivos del control y la responsabilidad y la construcción progresiva de sistemas de significados compartidos.     

Canadian and US adult learning (1945–1970) and the cultural politics and place of lifelong learning

This essay examines adult learning in Canada and the USA (1945–1970). It explores this emergence in relation to moves to establish academic adult education as a cultural force that could help citizen learners to negotiate a way forward amid the collision of instrumental, social, and cultural change forces altering life, learning, and work in the emerging postindustrial society. In this regard, it focuses centrally on lifelong learning as an idea designed to have broad appeal in rapid-change postindustrial culture. In particular, it attempts to explicate a cultural politics of lifelong learning, which academic adult educators hoped would give the field a higher profile within what they perceived to be an emerging change culture of crisis and challenge. Two key factors are considered in these deliberations. First, this essay explores the relationship between public education (understood as schooling for children) and adult education. It takes up how this problematic relationship interfered with a post-war turn to lifelong learning. Second, it examines the shift in the meaning of the social in understanding adult education as social education in postindustrial society. It argues that the post-war discourse of democracy delimited this meaning, locating the social predominantly within a concern with preserving the dominant culture and society.     

Intervención en estrategias de comprensión: un modelo basado en el conocimiento y aplicación de la estructura del texto

Resumen

En dos estudios complementarios se analizó la implantación y posterior evaluación de un programa de instrucción en alumnos con diferente grado de habilidad lectora. Este programa incidía básicamente en estrategias que requerían para su aplicación un conocimiento expreso sobre la estructura del texto. En un primer estudio, los 72 alumnos de 1.° de BUP que tomaron parte (36 con buen nivel y 36 con un pobre nivel de comprensión) se distribuyeron equitativamente en tres grupos: un grupo experimental y dos grupos control. A todos los grupos se aplicaron dos pruebas de recuerdo libre: inmediato y demorado (7 días). Los resultados indicaron una mejora sustantiva de los lectores que fueron entrenados en este programa respecto a sus compañeros homólogos de los grupos control, en la comprensión y recuerdo de la información relevante (macroestructura). En un segundo estudio, se evaluó el grado de transferencia de lo aprendido a situaciones nuevas. Los resultados indicaron que los sujetos entrenados en este programa experimental mostraron esta misma habilidad para organizar su recuerdo en textos cuya estructura organizativa no había sido previamente instruida.     

The Development and Application of Distance Learning Courses on the Internet

This paper presents the methodology, results and difficulties encountered in the development and delivery of a course through the Internet. The course, which is about the application of information technology to education, is being delivered using the AulaNet environment, which is groupware for the creation, participation and maintenance of Web-based courses. A model for group work is provided. This paper also shows how this kind of environment can be used to provide support, and to facilitate and manage cooperative learning.     

From the Blackhand Side: Twitter as a Cultural Conversation

Increasing commercial industry concern about corporate underwriting of public television productions has focused attention again on the overall funding situation in public broadcasting. Here the author, a doctoral student at Temple University's School of Communications and Theater, provides a broad introduction to the background, problems, and prospects for foundation support of non‐commercial broadcasting in the U.S. In a forthcoming second part of this article, she will focus specifically on the commanding role of the Ford Foundation, biggest giver in the field.