Engagement and learning through social software in finance: a retrospective on the Trading Room experience

The introduction of a social software blog space called the Trading Room in an undergraduate finance unit generated a great deal of activity to support student learning. A subsequent evaluation of this innovation, viewed through the lens of Activity Theory, demonstrated that students perceived high value in the opportunity it provided for them to reaffirm theories, obtain individualised feedback and benchmark their work against others. While assessment is generally seen as the carrot and the stick of learning; students in the study reported that they would still participate in reading and posting to the Trading Room even if there was no assessment requirement. Students did not see any value in the environment as a purely social space, reporting that they saw it primarily as a professional educational community. It would appear that just as there are different communities in the real world social space, there are also different types of communities in the online space.     

Effective conditioning of female soccer players

We compared the efficacy of three physical conditioning programmes provided over a 12 week period (24?h in total) on selected anthropometric and physical fitness parameters in female soccer players. Two of the groups received physical conditioning training in accordance with speed, agility and quickness (SAQ); one group used specialized resistance and speed development SAQ equipment (equipment group; n?=?12), while the other group used traditional soccer coaching equipment (non-equipment group; n?=?12). A third group received their regular fitness sessions (active control group; n?=?12). All three interventions decreased (P?<0.001) the participants' body mass index (?3.7%) and fat percentage (?1.7%), and increased their flexibility (+14.7%) and maximal aerobic capacity ([Vdot]O_2max) (+18.4%). The participants in the equipment and non-equipment conditioning groups showed significantly (P?<0.005) greater benefits from their training programme than those in the active control group by performing significantly better on the sprint to fatigue (?11.6% for both the equipment and non-equipment groups versus ?6.2% for the active control group), 25?m sprint (?4.4% vs ?0.7%), left (?4.5% vs ?1.0%) and right (?4.0% vs ?1.4%) side agility, and vertical (+18.5% vs +4.8%) and horizontal (+7.7% vs +1.6%) power tests. Some of these differences in improvements in physical fitness between the equipment and non-equipment conditioning groups on the one hand and the active control group on the other hand were probably due to the specificity of the training programmes. It was concluded that SAQ training principles appear to be effective in the physical conditioning of female soccer players. Moreover, these principles can be implemented during whole team training sessions without the need for specialized SAQ equipment. Finally, more research is required to establish the relationship between physical fitness and soccer performance as well as the principles underlying the improvements seen through the implementation of SAQ training programmes.     

Contextual Constraints on Memory Retrieval at Six Months

In 3 experiments, 6-month-old infants learned to move a mobile by kicking and were tested 1 to 21 days later for retention of the newly acquired memory as a function of the training and testing contexts. In Experiment 1, decreasing the relative distinctiveness of the training and testing context did not impair retrieval of the newly acquired memory. In Experiment 2, however, testing in a different context completely eliminated retention after delays of 1 and 3 days, when retention was otherwise perfect; after progressively longer delays, retention improved paradoxically. The familiarity or novelty of the test context was not a factor in the failure of infants to recognize the mobile in the altered context after 1 day. In Experiment 3, the effect of an altered context was assessed in a reactivation paradigm. After the training memory was forgotten, infants were presented with the original mobile as a reminder and were tested for retention of the training memory 1 day later. When either the reminding context or the testing context was different, they exhibited no retention. These findings reveal that memory retrieval at 6 months is highly specific to the setting in which the memory is acquired. We propose that infants learn what specific events are associated with what specific places prior to the age when they can locomote independently and acquire a spatiotemporal map of the relations between those places.     

‘I’m busy (and competitive)!’ Antecedents of knowledge sharing under pressure

This study considers the dilemma faced by employees every time a colleague requests knowledge: should they share their knowledge? We use adaptive cost theory and self-efficacy theory to examine how individual characteristics (i.e., self-efficacy and trait competitiveness) and situational perceptions (i.e., ‘busyness’ and perceived competition) affect knowledge sharing behaviours. A study was conducted with 403 students who completed a problem-solving exercise and who were permitted (but not required) to respond to requests for knowledge from people who were doing the same activity. Our results suggest that people who perceive significant time pressure are less likely to share knowledge. Trait competitiveness predicted perceived competition. This and low task self-efficacy created a sense of time pressure, which in turn led to people feeling ‘too busy’ to share their knowledge when it was requested. Perceived competition was not directly related to knowledge sharing. Implications for research and practitioners are discussed.     

Heterarchical coaching for continuing teacher professional learning and development: a transversal analysis of agency

Aligned with the development of human capital, in-service teacher education is globally conceived as a key lever in economic development. However, teacher education is also a critically important process to leverage teacher political awareness and social justice. This article provides a socio-materialist account of continuous professional development (CPD) that recognises the transversality of objects, space and bodies as a rich and complex assemblage. Investigations into agential matter are of increasing research interest. The authors use collective biography that draws on their CPD work with teachers in Aotearoa/New Zealand, to provide a ‘new material’ analysis of the multiplicitous nature of the agency of objects. Although agency in education is predominantly theorised in humanist terms, this article gives consideration to the co-constitutive nature of material objects in professional learning spaces. In particular, the research highlights the importance of material concerns in the relational and fluid dynamics of heterarchical coaching practices.     

The Democratic Imperative to Address Sexual Equality Rights in Schools

Issues of sexual orientation elicit ethical debates in schools and society. In jurisdictions where a legal right has not yet been established, one argument commonly rests on whether schools ought to address issues of same‐sex relationships and marriage on the basis of civil equality, or whether such controversial issues ought to remain in the private sphere. Drawing upon an antiperfectionist liberal framework, Dianne Gereluk argues that schools have an obligation to educate students in two important ways. First, students must develop an awareness and understanding of the range of acceptable and permissible ways of life that may lead to human flourishing. Second, students must understand the requisite protections and recognition afforded to individuals in a pluralist society.     

The quickening of the national spirit: Cecil Sharp and the pioneers of the folk-dance revival in English state schools (1900-26)

In December 2007 Newbattle Abbey College, Scotland’s only Adult Residential College, celebrated its seventieth anniversary. Its survival during this relatively short span has always been contingent. Its greatest crisis occurred in 1987, when the Scottish Office announced its intention to withdraw public funding from the college. This event reveals one of the problems to have dogged Newbattle from its beginning: its relative isolation from mainstream Scottish education. Its unusual size, structure and function all made it an important addition to mainstream education provision, but they also historically caused Newbattle to be both overlooked and underfunded. Yet the campaign to save Newbattle also reveals the extent to which the ideals associated with the college continued to resonate with important sections of Scottish society in the 1980s. This paper examines the debates concerning the role of residential non‐vocational education in Scotland from the 1960s to the ‘Save Newbattle’ Campaign of 1987–1989.     

Sustaining professional learning communities: Case studies

The purpose is to document the ongoing development of two schools in becoming professional learning communities and the effects of meaningful collaboration on teacher learning. The question that guides this research is: How does a school become a sustainable professional learning community? The theoretical framework is based on the work of Senge, Hord, Fullan, Hargreaves and Fink, and Stoll, McMahon and Thomas and includes the areas of professional learning community, change and sustainability. Finally, the study addresses the relationship between professional learning community and school culture. The methodology involves a qualitative case study approach designed to gain information regarding two emerging schools in their journeys toward developing learning community cultures. Findings reveal the stories of each school as they evolved as PLCs and the similarities and differences that emerged. Knowing that sustaining the culture of a PLC is complex, and not to be achieved without determination and growth, we look ahead at challenges to be addressed and further research to be conducted. Finally, we offer some concluding statements and attempt to relate findings to the literature on PLCs. The intent is to identify some of the intricacies in building cultures of learning for adults and students. As we have learned through these two stories, many things happen simultaneously, to greater or lesser degrees, at varying points in time over a period of years that seem to influence the development of a PLC. Such development seems so complex that to be able to describe discrete steps or stages is unlikely. Still we are beginning to see that some categories of activities and issues must be developed before others can emerge.