Leadership and Ambiguity: When Policy,Politics, and Truth Collide

This article discusses the need for chairs to recognize the changing and interconnected nature of postmodern times by engaging with policy makers, politics, and coalitions in this age of supercomplexity. Chairing a kinesiology department is a rewarding and complex position fraught with uncertainty; nevertheless, tolerating and planning for ambiguity and conflict can lead to creative solutions and a more cohesive workgroup. This discussion is designed to make department chairs aware of the problems related to ambiguity in government and business and their impact on university policies, as well as the importance of politics and coalitions to strengthen programs so that valuable resources for the department can be obtained. Solutions are discussed to dealing with conflict and uncertainty with colleagues and constituents to strengthen the bonds of loyalty and trust by attending to human problems caused by stress and frustration.     

Narrative Research Methodologies: Learning Lessons From Disabilities Research

Presenting research well with regard to persons with disabilities is as important as conducting research well. Disembodied, technical writing does not accurately represent the dramas of athletes, fans, and people who are trying to exist in damaged or violated bodies. Our stories are left incomplete if we omit the metaphoric and symbolic codes we use in narrating our subjective and personal realities. We invite kinesiology scholars to present the fragmented stories that abound in sport and physical activity through narrative research: realist tales, autoethnographies, poetry, fictional representations, and ethnodrama. We present examples and explanations of a variety of narratives that attempt to draw the reader into the subjective experience of others. They conclude that professionals in the sub-disciplines can learn lessons from disabilities researchers. They also posit that narratives provide avenues for multiple realities to be shared, people who would most likely never read social or behavioral research in kinesiology can be introduced to other ways of being in the world, and students who are interested in sport and physical activity can become better professionals.     

What Cognitive Benefits Does an Activity-Based Reading Strategy Afford Young Native American Readers?

The authors conducted 2 experiments with children from a reservation community. In Experiment 1, 45 third-grade children were randomly assigned to the following reading strategies: (a) “reread,” in which participants read each sentence of a story and then reread it; (b) “observe,” in which participants read sentences and then observed an experimenter move manipulatives as directed by the story; and (c) “activity,” in which participants read sentences and then moved manipulatives as directed by the story. In Experiment 2, 40 second-grade children were randomly assigned to either the reread or activity strategy. In both experiments, activity participants remembered more story content than did reread participants. In Experiment 1, the authors identified no memory differences between observe and activity strategies. When imagery instructions replaced the original strategies, Experiment 1 third-grade activity (and observe) participants recalled more story content than did reread participants, but Experiment 2 second-grade activity participants did not. The authors discuss the instructional benefits of activity-based reading strategies, along with developmental implications.     

COUNTERMEASURES TO IMPROVE THE DRIVING PERFORMANCE OF OLDER DRIVERS

A 2‐year study of the problems of older drivers (N = 105) was conducted by a team of researchers from the disciplines of traffic engineering, gerontology, physical therapy, occupational therapy, and driver education. The objective of the research was to develop and evaluate countermeasures to improve the safety of older drivers. During the first year, the problems of older drivers were examined and the following countermeasures designed: (a) physical therapy, (b) perceptual therapy, (c) driver education, and (d) traffic engineering improvements. In the second year, the effects of these countermeasures on the driving performance of older drivers were evaluated. All of the countermeasures improved the older adults’ performance. Combining driver education with physical or perceptual therapy tended to increase the improvement in driving performance, but none of the increases were statistically significant (s > .015). The countermeasures provided an average improvement in driving performance of 7.9%. Analysis indicated that traffic engineering improvements would be most cost‐effective on high‐volume roadways and the other countermeasures would be most cost‐effective on low‐volume roadways.     

WHAT ADOLESCENTS KNOW ABOUT AGING

Increasing the amount of contact with older adults is often proposed as a way to inform young people about aging. This study compares adolescents’ knowledge of aging with the amount and quality of contact they have with an older adult and compares adolescents’ knowledge of aging in 1978 with their knowledge in 1985. The results indicate that adolescents are very misinformed or uninformed about aging and older adults. Profiles of the responses on individual items from Palmore's “Facts on Aging” reveal qualitative differences associated with gender, degree of contact, and changes over time in the nature of the adolescents’ knowledge of aging. How adolescents perceive older adults and the implications this has for educational efforts are discussed.     

Mentoring empowers gifted/Learning disabled students to soar!

The Wings Mentor Program, established by the Division of Accelerated and Enriched Instruction of Maryland's Montgomery County Public Schools, was developed to provide additional support to students with gifts who also have learning disabilities (GAD) and highly able students who were not succeeding in the classroom. Students realize their creative and intellectual potential when paired with mentors who nurture them by increasing their knowledge and skills in an area of interest. The mentors, who have a background in education and/or experience working with children, are carefully screened and selected based on their knowledge in a specific field, and their ability to share their skills with young people. Mentors communicate with the classroom teachers so that the successful strategies can be transferred and applied to the classroom setting. The article includes an analysis of the program's components, the mentor/student/teacher partnership, and training practices.     

Controlware for Learning Using Mobile Robots

One of the main problems faced within departments of computer science is how to encourage students to use their algorithmic and programming skills in the real-life context. This paper deals with control technologies for higher education. We define controlware as a toolkit for creating the control part of a mobile robot in interactive learning environments and educational micro-worlds. Intelligent behavior of mobile robots is created through the composition of constituent control units. The overall behavior of a mobile robot is half cooperative and half-competitive realization of the goals of the control units. To construct this composition behavior and resolve the corresponding conflicts, a partially ordering priority arbitration subsystem is defined. It is shown that the suggested approach links educational processes both in a control curriculum and an intelligent robotics curriculum. We hope that the spreadsheet-based controlware will make the mobile robots lear ning environment an accepted educational practice tool in computer science.     

教育如何适应未来——以美国教育为背景的探讨

教育如何为21世纪中叶的经济发展培养劳动力?本文从人力资本理论出发,探讨了教育如何提高以前未具体讨论过的工人能力.扩展的人力资本理论认为,受教育水平较高的工人之所以生产能力较高是因为其有能力在资源分配、适应新技术新组织形式方面做出复杂的决定,有能力对常规工作之外的不可预见的情况作出恰当的反应.而这些特征是不能被传统的学校考试所测量出来的.本文还回顾了有关内生增长理论和教育生产的外部性的研究进展.实证研究一致表明,更长的受教育年限具有独立于考试成绩之外的经济回报,即便教育年限是因义务教育年限的延长而延长的.最近的证据显示,在影响教育成就和劳动生产率的因素中,人际的、内省的技能是非常重要的;然而不同于认知能力,这些因素却被以往的研究所忽略.因此,本文建议大力提高劳动者的教育成就,尤其是那些边缘群体,重点培养劳动者的适应性,并提出了均衡发展适应性的几个具体维度.     

Strategic leadership for large‐scale reform: the case of England's national literacy and numeracy strategy

Both ‘strategic’ and ‘distributed’ forms of leadership are considered promising responses to the demands placed on school systems by large‐scale reform initiatives. Using observation, interview and survey data collected as part of a larger evaluation of England's National Literacy and Numeracy Strategies, this study inquired about sources of leadership, the distribution of leadership functions across roles and how such distribution could also provide the strategic coordination necessary for successful implementation of such an ambitious reform agenda