Pre-service teachers’ attempts at debating contemporary issues in science education: A case study from Botswana

This paper constitutes an attempt to explore trends, issues and challenges that emerge when three different cohorts of pre-service teachers debate contemporary issues in science education at the University of Botswana. Apart from the author's experience of teaching the course, the impetus for this study also comes from a growing interest in the contemporary literature in the need for teachers who, in the context of globalization and knowledge economy, are ‘self-reforming’ through continually addressing the key issues of their profession. Unfortunately, the current situation is such that this burden of interrogation falls heaviest on teachers, despite their lack of skills in undertaking the task.     

The power of the ‘object’ to influence teacher induction outcomes

In this paper we explore newly qualified New Zealand secondary teachers’ varied accounts of induction. We claim that multiple interpretations of objectives for induction programs are a significant source of this variation. With reference to an activity system framework, we identify four primary objects of induction that were represented in the induction accounts as follows: ‘orientation to learning about the context’, ‘fitting into the school’, ‘completing registration requirements’, and ‘becoming a professional inquirer’. Whilst teachers would be expected to experience all of these objects within their induction experiences, the balance and emphases of these objects within programs varied considerably.     

An experimental study evaluating professional development activities within a state funded pre-kindergarten program

This paper describes the implementation and evaluation for scaling up a comprehensive early childhood teacher professional development program into 11 communities across 2 years with funding through state legislative actions. The comprehensive program had four major components based on results from a previous multi-condition random assignment study across four states. The previous results demonstrated that the most optimum approach for supporting children??s school readiness included: (1) teacher on-line professional development with facilitation, (2) classroom mentoring, (3) implementation of a research-based curriculum, and (4) technology-driven progress monitoring that informed instruction. The comprehensive professional development program was evaluated in a new state program designed to bring childcare, Head Start, and public school pre-kindergarten together into integrated partnerships. In Year 1, 220 teachers serving 3834 children were randomly assigned to either receive the comprehensive program or not. Teachers who served as controls in Year 1 received the program in Year 2, and those who received the program in Year 1 participated for an additional year in Year 2, allowing for examination of the effects of one versus 2 years of participation. The program improved teachers instructional practices relative to controls, and a second year of participation resulted in greater gains in children??s language and literacy. Results support the need for well-integrated, comprehensive professional development for early childhood educators.     

Math-gender stereotypes in elementary school children

A total of 247 American children between 6 and 10 years of age (126 girls and 121 boys) completed Implicit Association Tests and explicit self-report measures assessing the association of (a) me with male (gender identity), (b) male with math (math-gender stereotype), and (c) me with math (math self-concept). Two findings emerged. First, as early as second grade, the children demonstrated the American cultural stereotype that math is for boys on both implicit and explicit measures. Second, elementary school boys identified with math more strongly than did girls on both implicit and self-report measures. The findings suggest that the math-gender stereotype is acquired early and influences emerging math self-concepts prior to ages at which there are actual differences in math achievement.     

Now You See Me – Now You Don't: Journalists’ Experiences With Surveillance

If democracy is a platform for many voices, and the voices of the many, journalists serve democracy by bringing these voices to the forefront of governance by asking difficult questions to those in power. It can be argued that journalists engage in the broader form of surveillance of power from below, or sousveillance [Mann, Steve, and Joseph Ferenbok. 2013. “New media and the power politics of sousveillance in a surveillance-dominated world.” Surveillance and Society 11 (1-2): 18–34.], which aims towards a form of relative equilibrium. In democracies, the institutional system of checks and balances forms the basis on which journalism pursues its watchdog function. This paper explores the experiences of journalists with surveillance and their impact on journalists’ sense of freedom to fulfil their watchdog role. The paper contributes to increasing research interest in “journalism after Snowden” by addressing the intangible conditions under which journalists may or should work, and ultimately also how widely accepted standards of democratic liberties are challenged.     

Mean-square integral input-to-state stability of nonlinear impulsive semi-Markov jump delay systems

In this paper, the problem of mean-square integral input-to-state stability of nonlinear impulsive semi-Markov jump delay systems is investigated. By using stochastic Lyapunov functions together with Razumikhin technique, some sufficient conditions for mean-square integral input-to-state stability for a class of nonlinear impulsive semi-Markov jump delay systems are developed. In particular, the results obtained generalize and complement some recent literature. Finally, some numerical examples are given to show the effectiveness and advantages of the proposed techniques.     

Bowling ball dynamics revealed by miniature wireless MEMS inertial measurement unit

This paper presents a novel sensor technology to deduce the dynamics of a bowling ball. The sensor, a miniature wireless inertial measurement unit (IMU), incorporates MEMS accelerometers and angular rate gyros, a microcontroller, a low power RF transceiver, and a rechargeable battery. When embedded in a bowling ball, the IMU transmits the acceleration and angular velocity data that define the dynamics of the ball starting with the bowler’s delivery and its motion in the lane. Example results from professional bowlers illustrate how this technology can be used to assess bowler skill and ball performance. For instance, the IMU accurately measures the spin dynamics of the ball which are crucial to develop the ball “hook.” An analysis of ball dynamics in the lane is distilled to a measurable “hook potential” metric for further assessing bowler skill. Finally, the sensor presented herein is believed to be the world’s smallest, wireless IMU. This highly miniaturized and wireless design will enable parallel training systems for many sports, including basketball, baseball, crew, cricket, golf, fly fishing, soccer, softball, tennis, rowing, among others.     

Fusing different information retrieval systems according to query-topics: a study based on correlation in information retrieval systems and TREC topics

To evaluate Information Retrieval Systems on their effectiveness, evaluation programs such as TREC offer a rigorous methodology as well as benchmark collections. Whatever the evaluation collection used, effectiveness is generally considered globally, averaging the results over a set of information needs. As a result, the variability of system performance is hidden as the similarities and differences from one system to another are averaged. Moreover, the topics on which a given system succeeds or fails are left unknown. In this paper we propose an approach based on data analysis methods (correspondence analysis and clustering) to discover correlations between systems and to find trends in topic/system correlations. We show that it is possible to cluster topics and systems according to system performance on these topics, some system clusters being better on some topics. Finally, we propose a new method to consider complementary systems as based on their performances which can be applied for example in the case of repeated queries. We consider the system profile based on the similarity of the set of TREC topics on which systems achieve similar levels of performance. We show that this method is effective when using the TREC ad hoc collection.     

An exploratory study on academic staff perception towards blended learning in higher education

Education and Information Technologies - As the years progresses, higher education has move towards implementing Blended Learning (BL) which is a combination of face-to-face and online mode of...