Learning the Colonial Past in a Colonial Present: Students and Teachers Confront the Spanish Conquest in Post-Conflict Guatemala

In Guatemala, three centuries after Spanish conquest and in the wake of more than three decades of internal conflict, the framers of the 1996 Accord for a Firm and Lasting Peace placed educational reform at the center of efforts to make peace with this contentious past. This article, based on a multisite qualitative study, describes how Guatemalan teachers, working within an ostensibly standardized national curriculum aimed at creating a common historical narrative, differed in their presentation of Spanish colonialism. In the social studies classrooms of two different settings, a private school serving affluent Ladino students and a public school serving low-income indigenous students, young people constructed usable pasts amid distinct approaches to this era. In the first, a static, fixed version of colonial history distanced these young people from their indigenous cocitizens; students described the colonial era as part of a completed and distant past. In the second classroom, the teacher framed colonialism as an enduring part of students’ lives; students articulated the continued reach of the colonial era through language loss, structural inequality, and cultural devaluation. In this postconflict setting, curricular attempts to use historical study to create a new, unified, national identity were met with local challenges embedded in distinct historical memories.     

Development and validation of a low cost blood filtration element separating plasma from undiluted whole blood

Clinical point of care testing often needs plasma instead of whole blood. As centrifugation is labor intensive and not always accessible, filtration is a more appropriate separation technique. The complexity of whole blood is such that there is still no commercially available filtration system capable of separating small sample volumes (10-100 μl) at the point of care. The microfluidics research in blood filtration is very active but to date nobody has validated a low cost device that simultaneously filtrates small samples of whole blood and reproducibly recovers clinically relevant biomarkers, and all this in a limited amount of time with undiluted raw samples. In this paper, we show first that plasma filtration from undiluted whole blood is feasible and reproducible in a low-cost microfluidic device. This novel microfluidic blood filtration element (BFE) extracts 12 μl of plasma from 100 μl of whole blood in less than 10 min. Then, we demonstrate that our device is valid for clinical studies by measuring the adsorption of interleukins through our system. This adsorption is reproducible for interleukins IL6, IL8, and IL10 but not for TNFα. Hence, our BFE is valid for clinical diagnostics with simple calibration prior to performing any measurement.     

Anatomists provide the foundation for learning pathophysiology

The need for interdisciplinary graduate training programs which prepare students to conceptualize the application of their research in clinical settings continues to grow. Though several programs have been cultivated to address this need, demand still outweighs supply. The following describes a curriculum developed with the intent of incorporating medical knowledge into a PhD graduate training program. Development of this Molecular Medicine program by the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine in collaboration with Case Western Reserve University was funded by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute "Med into Grad" initiative. The core curriculum of this program begins with a foundation in Human Physiology and Disease course in which anatomy faculty introduce students to a basic overview of gross anatomy structure and function. This course is followed by five fundamental basic science courses, a composite course focusing on principles of clinical and translation research, a course on laboratory techniques and three, 12-week research rotations. In the second year of the program, students begin their dissertation research, complete their qualifying examination, and partake in an individually tailored Clinical Experience course. Interdisciplinary graduate programs like this provide another venue for faculty in anatomical sciences to help aspiring translational scientists relate basic science knowledge to human pathophysiology and health.     

Weak Ties in Networked Communities

Communities with high levels of social capital are likely to have a higher quality of life than communities with low social capital. This is due to the greater ability of such communities to organize and mobilize effectively for collective action because they have high levels of social trust, dense social networks, and well-established norms of mutuality (the major features of social capital). Communities with “bridging” social capital (weak ties across groups) as well as “bonding” social capital (strong ties within groups) are the most effective in organizing for collective action. People who belong to multiple groups act as bridging ties. When people with bridging ties use communication media, such as the Internet, they enhance their capability to educate community members and to organize, as needed, for collective action. This article summarizes evidence from stratified household survey data in Blacksburg, VA, showing that people with weak (bridging) ties across groups have higher levels of community involvement, civic interest, and collective efficacy than people without bridging ties among groups. Moreover, heavy Internet users with bridging ties have higher social engagement, use the Internet for social purposes, and have been attending more local meetings and events since going online than heavy Internet users with no bridging ties. These findings may suggest that the Internet—in the hands of bridging individuals–is a tool for enhancing social relations and information exchange, and for increasing face-to-face interaction, all of which help to build both bonding and bridging social capital in communities.     

Teacher support of student engagement in early childhood: embracing ambivalence through playworlds

Ambivalence is a relatively little advanced concept for studying young people’s engagement in education. We present a case study in which a teacher of a kindergarten-first-grade classroom works within an activity called a playworld to engage a child who had been excluded from certain classroom practices, after having been perceived by his teachers as disengaged and disruptive. Playworlds are defined as adult–child joint play activities inspired by Vygotsky’s theories of play, art, and imagination. We argue that when the teacher embraced this child’s ambivalent participation, ambivalence itself appeared to be an important component of an evolving process of personally meaningful engagement. We showcase those elements of the playworld activity that may support early childhood teachers in embracing ambivalence.     

A theoretical framework for building online communities of practice with social networking tools

This paper proposes a theoretical framework as a foundation for building online communities of practice when a suite of social networking applications referred to as collective intelligence tools are utilized to develop a product or solutions to a problem. Drawing on recent developments in Web 2.0 tools, research on communities of practice and relevant theories of learning, and the authors' own action research experience in collaborative knowledge creation utilizing Web 2.0 tools, this paper discusses a learning community's spiraling process as it moves from a given sociocultural context through discourse, action, reflection, and reorganization toward socially mediated metacognition.

Un cadre théorique pour construire des communautés de pratique en ligne en utilisant des outils de maillage social

Cet article propose un cadre théorique sur lequel édifier des communautés de pratique en ligne lorsqu'on utilise, pour mettre au point un produit ou des solutions à un problème, une série d'applications destinées à la construction de réseaux humains et connues sous le nom d'outils d'intelligence collective. En s'appuyant sur les évolutions récentes des outils Web 2.0, sur les recherches sur les communautés d'usage et les théories de l'apprentissage pertinentes ainsi que sur l'expérience propre aux auteurs en matière de recherche action sur la création collaborative de savoir en utilisant le Web 2.0, le présent article examine le processus en spirale d'une communauté d'apprentissage qui part d'un contexte socio culturel donné et qui passe par le discours, l'action la réflexion et la réorganisation pour atteindre la métacognition reposant sur la médiation humaine.

Ein Theorierahmen für den Aufbau von “Online‐Communitives of Practice” mit Hilfe von Anwendungen für Social Networking

In diesem Beitrag wird ein theoretischer Rahmen als Grundlage für den Aufbau von Online‐Praxis‐Gemeinschaften vorgestellt, wenn eine Reihe von Social Networking Anwendungen, auf die man sich als kollektive Intelligenz‐Tools beziehen kann, benutzt wird, um ein Ergebnis oder eine Problemlösung zu entwickeln. Wenn man den neuesten Entwicklungsstand bei den Web 2.0 tools mit einbezieht, die Forschung im Kommunikationsbereich, die relevanten Lerntheorien und die eigenen Forschungen und praktischen Erfahrungen des Autors in der Benutzung von Web 2.0‐Anwendungen auf dem Gebiet der gemeinschaftlichen Wissensermittlung, belegt dieses Papier den spiralförmigen Prozess beim Bewegen von einem bestimmten soziokulturellem Kontext aus durch Diskurs, Aktion, Reflektion und Reorganisation hin zu sozial vermittelter Metaerkenntnis.

Un marco teórico para la construcción de comunidades de práctica en línea con herramientas de creación de redes sociales

Este artículo propone un marco teórico como base para la construcción de comunidades de práctica cuando se utiliza una serie de aplicaciones sociales en redes (conocidas como herramientas de inteligencia colectiva) para desarrollar un producto o solucionar tal o tal problema. Basandose en las evoluciones recientes de las herramientas Web 2.0, en las investigaciones sobre las Comunidades de Uso y las teorías del aprendizaje más pertinentes así como en la experiencia propia de la investigación/acción por parte de los autores sobre la creación colaborativa de conocimiento a través del uso de herramientas Web 2.0, este artículo examina la evolución « en espiral » de una comunidad de aprendizaje que sale de un contexto socio cultural determinado y pasando por el discurso, acción, reflexión, alcanza la metacognición basada en la mediación humana.     

Maternal employment and parent-infant interaction at one year

The purpose of this study was to ask if parent-infant interaction differs in middle-class families with employed and homemaker mothers. Home observations of mother, father, and infant were carried out on weekday evenings, and observations of mother and infant as a dyad were performed during the daytime. Findings indicated group differences in the mother-father-infant context only, in which infants in the homemaker-mother group smiled and laughed more and were engaged more often in mutual looking and object play. Furthermore, daughters in the employed-mother group, but sons in the homemaker-mother group, received more parental stimulation encouraging their attention of objects.     

Collaborative Multimedia

Six natural history institutions contributed video and other images to produce a single multimedia exhibit about famous paleontology sites throughout the United States. In Mesozoic Monsters, Mammals and Magnolias, users can view videos of the original excavation of each of the sites and also play computer games relating to each location. This project provides a model for how collaboration among museums can reduce the cost of multimedia exhibits while improving quality and making them available to wider audiences.