The evolution of the MasAgro hubs: responsiveness and serendipity as drivers of agricultural innovation in a dynamic and heterogeneous context

ABSTRACT

Purpose: Little is known about effective ways to operationalize agricultural innovation processes. We use the MasAgro program in Mexico (which aims to increase maize and wheat productivity, profitability and sustainability), and the experiences of middle level ‘hub managers’, to understand how innovation processes occur in heterogeneous and changing contexts. Design/methodology/approach: We use a comparative case study analysis involving research tools such as documentary review, key informant interviews, focus group discussions, and reflection workshops with key actors. Findings: Our research shows how a program, that initially had a relatively narrow technology focus, evolved towards an innovation system approach. The adaptive management of such a process was in response to context-specific challenges and opportunities. In the heterogeneous context of Mexico this results in diverse ways of operationalization at the hub level, leading to different collaborating partners and technology portfolios. Practical implications: MasAgro experiences merit analysis in the light of national public efforts to transform agricultural advisory services and accommodate pluralistic agricultural extension approaches in Latin America. Such efforts need long-term coherent macro level visions, frameworks and support, while the serendipitous nature of the process requires meso-level implementers to respond and adapt to and move the innovation process forward. Originality/value: This paper contributes to the debate on how to operationalize large programs by showing that the innovation support arrangements enacted in the field should allow for diversity and have a degree of flexibility to accommodate heterogeneous demands from farmers in different contexts as well as continuous changes in the politico- institutional environment.     

Guided portfolio writing as a scaffold for reflective learning in in-service contexts: a case study1

Language is widely recognized as an inescapable mediating tool for professional learning, and with this text we want to contribute to a better understanding of the particular role that guided writing can play in in-service professional reflective learning. We analysed one pre-school teacher’s written portfolio, the construction of which was guided to scaffold deep thinking about (and the transference of theory into) practice during participation in an in-service program about language education. Our case study shows that the writing process sustained robust learning about professional knowing, doing and learning itself: The teacher elaborated an integrative ethical understanding of the discussed theory, fully experienced newly informed practices and assessed her own learning by using theory to confront her previous knowledge and practices. Throughout the portfolio, the learning stance revealed by her voice varied accordingly. The study illustrates the potential of guided writing to scaffold reflective learning in in-service contexts.     

Teaching Chronobiology and Sleep Habits in School and University

ABSTRACT— Early morning school schedules are in the opposite direction to the sleep–wake cycle in adolescence and early adulthood. This conflict leads to sleep deprivation and irregular patterns whose consequences are scarcely explored. This article discusses the effects of three educational experiences with high school students, parents, teachers, and medical students. The first experience was developed with high school students in Natal, Brazil, to determine whether sleep habits would improve with increased awareness. Positive effects were observed in some aspects of sleep knowledge and practices. In the second experience in Atlanta, GA, sleep education activities were presented to middle and high school teachers, parents, and students to emphasize the importance of sleep. In the third program in Murcia, Spain, undergraduate medical students were introduced to chronobiology of sleep by a practical exercise that pointed out to what extent they shared most of adolescent sleep characteristics. Educational chronobiological experiences about sleep are essential to develop healthy sleep habits in the general population, particularly in students.     

Employing the Urban Education Typology Through a Critical Race Spatial Analysis

The urban education typology put forth by Milner (Urban Educ 47(3):556–561, 2012) offered a conceptual demarcation of three different, yet interconnected types of urban school districts (i.e., urban intensive, urban emergent, and urban characteristic). Nearly one decade after Milner’s seminal urban education typology, few empirical or conceptual articles have operationalized this typology across multiple school districts in one region. We enter this scholarly space to reaffirm the typology and its utility in identifying the conditions that create varying educational inequities and transformative opportunities. Through a critical race spatial analysis, we attempt to capture, crystalize, and expand Milner's typology by examining a multitude of data points and intentionally drawing on geospatial data from five linked school districts in Harris County, Texas. Our findings, as viewed through lenses of Critical Race Theory and the Chicana Feminist conceptual framework known as borderlands, accentuate two major implications; (1) while there are physical spaces of restriction inside and around schools and school districts, regularly school districts contend with identical challenges despite their urban education typology categorical classification; and (2) when employing the urban education typology, it is imperative that researchers deeply contextualize the physical, temporal, historical, social, and racialized spaces that schools and school districts exist in.

     

Experiences Situating Mathematical Problem Solving at the Core of Early Childhood Classrooms

Our goal in this article is to discuss the importance of problems in early childhood education for the child’s development and engagement with the mathematics existing in childhood culture. Our assumption is that an important task for young children’s education is to create a democratic and critical environment, in which multiplicity of perspectives is celebrated, along with diversity of concepts and practices, with movement between imaginary and real worlds. In light of this, the goal of this article is to defend a perspective for curriculum and for the role of the mathematics educator, promoting the learning of mathematics through problem solving in early childhood years. In order to discuss and illustrate this perspective we describe the pedagogical practices of two teachers who teach 4- and 5-years-olds, who create for their students an environment rich in problem solving and investigations. In both classrooms, all children individually succeeded in sharing their unique solutions and new knowledge constructed as a result of their inquiries. The experience provides evidence that problem solving affords children the opportunity to raise conjectures, to discuss possibilities and to draw conclusions, even if partial ones, that are then vetted by the group as the authors share their solutions. In this way, the work with problem solving nurtures cooperative learning and promotes the exploration of a diversity of ideas.     

Dream Big: Exploring Empowering Processes of DREAM Act Advocacy in a Focal State

This original, qualitative research analyzed in-depth interviews with five undocumented, college-age, Latino DREAM Act advocates in a single state. An organizational empowerment framework was utilized to explore processes allied with such advocacy. Four emergent themes transcended the data inductively: (1) Challenging Social Injustice, which pertains to participant motivations for involvement; (2) Inherent Connection, which pertains to the unique personal experiences among DREAM-ers; (3) Combatting Internalized Stigma, which pertains to overcoming the shame or embarrassment of an undocumented identity; and (4) Civic Literacy, which pertains to political proficiencies that participants acquired throughout their DREAM Act involvement. Implications are discussed.     

Factors (not) affecting what students do with computers and internet at home

This paper presents the results of an analysis of secondary students’ computer use, aimed at understanding how different factors influence the profile of activities carried out by students with computers. The analysis is based on the data from a national study aimed at measuring students’ Information and Communication Technology (ICT) skills for learning. A factor analysis was carried out to categorize students’ activities with computers and several indexes were constructed to define the comparison groups. Finally, a multiple linear regression analysis was performed to explain the frequency of the activities. Results show that students with access to computers at home mainly perform activities categorized as Socializing, Academic, Gaming and Production and that although the absolute frequency of these activities differs across groups, the profiles of computer use are surprisingly similar for groups based on students’ socio-economic group, experience with ICT, and self-confidence in the use of ICT. The only variable that discriminates user profiles is gender. Based on these findings, it can be claimed that Chilean secondary students with access to computers at home tend to show a rather homogenous computer-use profile, once access is equated.