Children's Estimations of the Sizes of the Continents

Curriculum changes in geography have focused increasing attention on children's knowledge and understanding of global spatial relationships. Map projections have become fashionable once more in geographical education, which also raises issues of the cartographic representation of the relative proportions of the land masses. In this study, 62 children were asked to estimate the sizes of the continents in relation to Europe, by selecting from a range of cut‐out continents of different sizes. The results indicate that the size of Asia was underestimated and the sizes of Australasia and Antarctica were overestimated. Possible reasons for this are discussed and some teaching approaches suggested.     

Delivering LIS education into Viet Nam: A narrative of teaching,interpreting, and translating

A team of academics from RMIT School of Business Information Technology were involved in delivering LIS training to staff at Can Tho University in Viet Nam who were to work in a newly developed Learning Resource Centre (LRC). The training materials were written in English and then translated into Vietnamese. RMIT staff then delivered the training face-to-face through interpreters. This paper records a narrative of the interaction between academics, students, translators, and interpreters. This narrative examines development, limitations, and successes of cross-cultural teaching and learning and offers a commentary from the point of view of academic participants in this project, particularly about the developing relationships between academics, translators, and interpreters. Examination of the impact includes some preliminary evaluation of the nature of the teaching experience and the development of culturally inclusive strategies and material.     

Comparison of mail and telephone methods of studying media contactors

Cable regulation should be based on the unique characteristics of cable, the rights of speakers to be as free as possible from government regulation, and a First Amendment theory that recognizes the public's right to a diverse marketplace of ideas. As a consequence, it is recommended that cable be defined as a limited public forum to include both the utility poles/conduits and the attached coaxial cable. This approach suggests that de facto monopoly franchise agreements and franchise fees are unconstitutional, but that limited access channel requirements such as one or two public access channels would be constitutional.     

Actors: From Audience to Provider

Abstract

This article describes and analyzes actors' experiences of distance learning systems in a wide variety of cultural and organizational contexts. In line with the project of this special series of issues, results of research, much of which is longitudinal, allow us to suggest answers to the following questions: Who are the actors of distance learning? How has their experience of learning systems evolved over the last thirty years? What roles have information and communication technologies (ICTs) played in this evolution? How do actors assess the effects of these learning systems on themselves, on the system itself, or on the organization? What are the future perspectives?     

INCREASING TEACHER TREATMENT INTEGRITY THROUGH PERFORMANCE FEEDBACK PROVIDED BY SCHOOL PERSONNEL

When implementing behavioral interventions in educational settings, some implementers need support to maintain high levels of treatment integrity. Performance feedback has a large body of research supporting it as a strategy for improving teachers’ implementation of classroom interventions. However, in most prior studies, performance feedback has been delivered by a researcher, not by a school staff member, which limits generalizability of results to applied settings. In this study, school personnel (i.e., internal consultants) assessed teachers’ treatment integrity when implementing a classwide behavioral intervention and, when low, provided performance feedback. Further, researchers assessed internal consultants’ treatment integrity and provided performance feedback as needed. Results indicate that internal consultants are able to assess and briefly increase teachers’ treatment integrity with performance feedback, although some teachers needed more support than did others. Likewise, internal consultants’ treatment integrity was fairly high initially, but required consistent performance feedback to increase treatment integrity levels toward the end of the study. Implications for research and practice are discussed.     

Moving on (part 1): The physics of power and curriculum history

This is the first of two papers that map (dis)continuities in notions of power from Aristotle to Newton to Foucault. They trace the ways in which bio-physical conceptions of power became paraphrased in social science and deployed in educational discourse on the child and curriculum from post-Newtonian times to the present. The analyses suggest that, amid ruptures in the definition, role, location and meaning given 'power' historically in various 'physical' and 'social' cosmologies, the naming of 'power' has been dependent on 'physics', on the theorization of motion across 'Western' sciences. This first paper examines some (dis)continuities in regard to histories of motion and power from Aristotelian 'natural science' to Newtonian mechanics.     

College Chemistry: how a textbook can reveal the values embedded in chemistry

This paper explores the norms, values and ethical attitudes that Linus Pauling wanted to convey to his students in his famous textbook College Chemistry. In this classic textbook, Pauling aimed to introduce beginners into the world of chemistry by presenting chemistry as a systematic science based on a collection of empirical data and a recent theoretical framework. In doing so, he expressed his epistemic and didactic choices clearly. College Chemistry therefore offers an ideal opportunity to examine some of the norms at the core of chemistry's 'moral economy'.     

Paving the Pathway: Exploring Student Perceptions of Professional Development Preparation in Doctoral Education

The breadth of doctoral education has expanded to include professional development activities in order to prepare students for academic and nonacademic careers. This mixed methods study focused on students’ perceptions of professional development opportunities at a Research One university. The findings suggest that most students feel prepared in scholarly-related activities; but they identify gaps in areas such as preparation for grant writing, teaching, and leading research teams. Statistically significant differences in perceived preparation were noted among disciplines. We offer suggestions for future research in doctoral professional development and recognize the need to expand and diversify centralized, institution-based resources so as to pave the pathway to successful careers for graduate students.     

Computer-Assisted Instruction on Study Skills

The study investigated the effectiveness of a computer-assisted instruction (CAI) study skills program on students’ behaviors and attitudes. The subjects were 88 students (experimental group) who completed the CAI program and 67 students (control group) who did not have access to the program. All subjects responded three times during the semester to the Survey of Study Habits and Attitudes inventory. Trend analyses revealed that during the semester the scores for the experimental group increased significantly and the scores for the control group decreased significantly. The findings showed that the CAI program can effectively present the information on effective study skills and how to develop such skills.     

Optical versus virtual: teaching assistant perceptions of the use of virtual microscopy in an undergraduate human anatomy course

Many studies that evaluate the introduction of technology in the classroom focus on student performance and student evaluations. This study focuses on instructor evaluation of the introduction of virtual microscopy into an undergraduate anatomy class. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with graduate teaching assistants (TA) and analyzed through qualitative methods. This analysis showed that the teaching assistants found the virtual microscope to be an advantageous change in the classroom. They cite the ease of use of the virtual microscope, access to histology outside of designated laboratory time, and increasing student collaboration in class as the primary advantages. The teaching assistants also discuss principal areas where the use of the virtual microscope can be improved from a pedagogical standpoint, including requiring students to spend more time working on histology in class.