Curriculum forms: On the assumed shapes of knowing and knowledge

Historically, the logico-rational mode of argumentation co-evolved with particular mathematical systems and particular geometrically-informed manners of interpreting experience and perception. We examine some of the ways these geometries continue to shape the sensibilities, practices and structures of much of curriculum discourse, in spite of the well-developed critiques of their associated logics. We draw on fractal geometry, a new field of mathematical study, to illustrate the pervasiveness and the constraining tendencies of classical geometries. We develop the suggestion that fractal geometry is a mathematical analogue to such discourse fields as post-modernism, post-structuralism and ecological theory. We attempt to show how, through the visual metaphor of a fractal image, conventional theories of knowing and knowledge might be seen as not only compatible, but as nested in and suggestive of one another. We briefly examine how fractal geometry can complement and inform other emergent sensibilities in curriculum, in particular, those discussions critical of the linear structures associated with classical logic.     

Effects of Instructor Speech Rate on Student Affective Learning,Recall, and Perceptions of Nonverbal Immediacy,Credibility, and Clarity

Although research indicates that speech rate affects perceptions of speaker credibility as well as persuasiveness and information recall, research has failed to address how instructor speech rate affects student perceptions and learning. This study randomly assigned basic communication course students to one of three speech rate conditions (slow, moderate, fast), using a videotaped lesson by an instructor. Findings revealed significant differences for credibility, affective leaning, and nonverbal immediacy, but did not reveal significant differences for recall or clarity. Implications for instructional practice and suggestions for future research are discussed.     

General Communications

Brent D. Ruben, ed. Communication Yearbook 2 (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Books (Rutgers), 1978---$24.95)

Eric A. Havelock and Jackson P. Hershbell, eds. Communication Arts in the Ancient World (New York: Hastings House, J978---$12.50)

Kit Laybourne and Pauline Cianciolo's Doing the Media (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1978---$6.95, paper, with both library and trade hardbacks also available)

Periodicals: just begun under the (temporary) auspices of the Institute of Communication Research (122B Armory, University of Illinois, Champaign, Ill. 61820)

Warren K. Agee, Phillip H. Ault, and Edwin Emery's Introduction to Mass Communications (New York: Harper & Row, 1979---$7.95, paper)

Godwin C. Chu and Brent Cassan, Modern Communication Technology in a Changing Society: A Bibliography (1977, 162 pp., $1.50)

Syed A. Rahim, et al. Planning Methods, Models, and Organization: A Review Study for Communication Policy Making and Planning (1978, 260 pp., $3.00):     

Asynchrony: Intuitively valid and theoretically reliable

The Columbus Group definition of giftedness is considered within a wider framework of theories of self. Traditions of environmental influence on development, together with motivational drive, conceptualize the experience of children of high intellectual potential. It is argued that, as described in the definition, asynchrony represents this interaction, with implications for self‐definition. This article analyzes archival data collected on 535 high IQ children (IQ ≥ 126) at the CHIP (Children of High Intellectual Potential) Foundation (Australia). The purpose was to identify patterns of behavior that could be interpreted as evidence of asynchronous development. Five such patterns were found related to home/school contexts. These were anxiety, self‐critical, overly sensitive, easily upset and easily frustrated, with depression evident in adolescents. Although the analysis is limited and exploratory only, some further research directions are suggested.     

Behavioral assessment of communication competency and the prediction of cross-cultural adaptation

This study explores the relationship between interpersonal and social behaviors and patterns of success and failure in cross-cultural adaptation. Seven interpersonal communication skills often mentioned as being important to cross-cultural adaptation were studied: empathy, respect, role behavior flexibility, orientation to knowledge, interaction posture, interaction management and tolerance for ambiguity. For each dimension, behavioral observation indices were developed. Following a week-long predeparture training program, behavioral assessments were made on these dimensions for each person in a group of technical advisors and spouses assigned to two-year postings in Kenya. One year later, an in-the-field follow up study was conducted to assess shock dynamics, psychological adjustment, and vocational and interactional effectiveness of these individuals. Comparisons of pre and post-test measures indicated that each of the focal dimensions predicted patterns of success and failure in adaptation with varying degrees of adequacy. These results and implications for further research, and cross-cultural training and selection, are explored in the final section of the article.     

A simple classroom teaching technique to help students understand Michaelis-Menten kinetics

A new, simple classroom technique helps cell biology students understand principles of Michaelis-Menten enzyme kinetics. A student mimics the enzyme and the student's hand represents the enzyme's active site. The catalytic event is the transfer of marbles (substrate molecules) by hand from one plastic container to another. As predicted, increases in marble concentration increase the number of marbles transferred per unit time (initial rate, V(0)) until the turnover number becomes rate limiting and V(0) approaches the maximum velocity (V(max)), as described by the Michaelis-Menten equation. With this demonstration, students visualize an important concept: the turnover number is constant and independent of marble concentration. A student assessment of this exercise showed that it helped students visualize the turnover number and V(max) but not K(m), the marble concentration at which V(0) is one-half V(max). To address the concept of K(m), we use supplemental laboratory and lecture exercises. This exercise with plastic containers and marbles is equally suited to demonstrate the kinetics of carrier-mediated membrane transport. We conclude that this exercise helps students visualize the turnover number and V(max) and gives students important insights into the kinetic parameters used to characterize the catalytic activity of enzymes and membrane transporters.     

Exploring the deep-level reasoning questions effect during vicarious learning among eighth to eleventh graders in the domains of computer literacy and Newtonian physics

This paper tested the deep-level reasoning questions effect in the domains of computer literacy between eighth and tenth graders and Newtonian physics for ninth and eleventh graders. This effect claims that learning is facilitated when the materials are organized around questions that invite deep-reasoning. The literature indicates that vicarious learners in college student populations show greater pretest to posttest learning gains when presented with deep-level reasoning questions before each content sentence, than when deep-level questions are omitted, or when learners interact with an intelligent tutoring system. This effect holds for vicarious learners across grade levels and domains.     

Multiple methodologies: using community-based participatory research and decolonizing methodologies in Kenya

In this project, we examined the development of a sustainable inclusive education system in western Kenya by combining community-based participatory research (CBPR) and decolonizing methodologies. Through three cycles of qualitative interviews with stakeholders in inclusive education, participants explained what they saw as foundational components of how to create more inclusive primary school classrooms utilizing existing school and community resources. The combination of CBPR and decolonizing methodologies, along with other project factors ultimately led to more inclusive placements for primary students with disabilities. We highlight this increase enrollment of students with disabilities in primary schools with excerpts from qualitative interviews with participants. In addition to the increase of the number of students with disabilities accessing schools for the first time, we found many methodological tensions inherent in this research. Such challenges included: researcher positionality, researcher outsider status, decolonizing approaches to language, and disseminating results in meaningful, ethical, and culturally appropriate ways.     

Federal funding and the rate and direction of inventive activity

Leveraging a new measure of patent citation trees (Corredoira and Banerjee, 2015), we demonstrate that research funded by the federal government is associated with more active and diverse technological trajectories. Our findings tie government funding to breakthrough inventions. The differences are especially evident at the upper percentiles of the distribution of long term patent influence and stem primarily from research conducted outside the federal government and sponsored by the DOD, HHS and NSF. Government funded patents are inputs into a broader range of technologies. Additional analyses indicate that federal programs invest in some technological areas that private corporations eschew, and federally funded university patents are in different technological classes than non-federally funded university patents. In this sense, the government may play an irreplaceable role in the rate and direction of inventive activity.“Generally speaking, the scientific agencies of Government are not so concerned with immediate practical objectives as are the laboratories of industry nor, on the other hand, are they as free to explore any natural phenomena without regard to possible economic applications as are the educational and private research institutions.” - Vannevar Bush, Science the Endless Frontier”, 1945.