Clarity,consistency and communication: using enhanced dialogue to create a course-based feedback strategy

This article examines the outcomes of a study across four discipline areas in order to develop course-based assessment strategies in closer cooperation with students. Second-year students (n = 48) from different disciplines were engaged in two phases of activity-orientated workshops. Phase 1 sought their perceptions of feedback. Phase 2 saw students design a proposed strategy to present to the respective staff teams. We discuss the emerging themes which appeared to be very similar amongst this diverse cross section of students: a lack of faith in marking consistency; the need for clear guidelines and criteria; the greater use of positive feedback language; and a close association with tutors. The emergence of strategies specific to each course is discussed, along with the alignment of the outcomes of this approach with pedagogic knowledge. It is suggested that enhanced dialogue enabled staff and students to develop a common understanding, and gave impetus to improving assessment feedback practices. Outcomes recommended here include changes to practice such as a team approach to feedback development, the content and style of feedback, developing the usefulness of feedback for future work and the need for teams to periodically revisit staff development in this area.     

Using technology to explore mathematical relationships: a framework for orienting mathematics courses for prospective teachers

The technological revolution that has finally permeated K-12 education has direct implications for modern teacher educators whose “Hippocratic oath” is to best prepare future teachers for twenty-first-century classrooms. The goal of this article is to suggest that the heart of sound technological implementation is to encourage students to use whatever tools are available to explain the mathematical relations that underlie what they observe on the screen. We suggest ways in which Mishra and Koehler’s construct of Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge may be customized to provide a framework for guiding prospective teachers’ efforts to develop and assess lesson plans that use technology in novel and effective ways. Data are presented in the form of two contrasting case studies to illustrate the differing degrees to which prospective mathematics teachers leveraged technology to teach themselves and their future students to explain the mathematics behind various topics.     

Lighting design by the interflection method

Proposed international terminology¹ used in the paper is as follows: pharos F = luminous flux (lumen), pharosage D - luminous flux density (lumen m^?2, helios H = generalized brightness (pharosage per unit solid angle, expressed in blondels).     

Modeling with light

The problem of making solid objects appear as they are—three-dimensional—is largely a matter of lighting. The subject occurs in the education of children, in the illumination of statuary, in photography, and in television; and the treatment has been almost entirely qualitative and empirical.This paper attempts to raise the problem to the quantitative level by introducing a numerical modeling ratio and by showing how the lighting can be predetermined by calculation to give any desired modeling, without recourse to the cut-and-try methods prevalent in the past.     

Proposed standard solar-radiation curves for engineering use

A wealth of data on sunlight has been obtained by astrophysicists, meteorologists, and others; but this information has been scattered through the literature and has not been generally available to engineers.The present paper correlates some of the data and specifies a proposed standard spectral-distribution curve for sunlight outside the atmosphere. Methods are given also for the calculation of the spectral irradiation curve for any elevation above sea level and for any air mass, and these methods lead to proposed standard curves to be used in engineering calculations dealing with direct sunlight at sea level.These curves are checked against independent data on total irradiation, ultraviolet irradiation, illumination, and color temperature. In all cases, the agreement between calculated and experimental results gives confidence in the validity of the proposed curves for various engineering applications.