Reconciliation through dialogical nostalgia in post-conflict societies: a curriculum to intersect

The curriculum has been proposed as a powerful means with the potential to initiate social transformation. It reflects the dominant social, economical and political discourses and for this reason it seems reasonable to situate reconciliatory discourses in relation to the curriculum. Whilst curriculum scholars mostly agree that we need to seek new directions and ways of understanding curriculum, there is little consensus about the direction the field should take. Two particular issues that this article addresses are the tendency of curriculum practitioners to tackle social issues at a symptomatic level instead of considering the roots of the problems, and the over-emphasis on the political dimension with little or no attention given to the ethical dimensions of the curriculum. In an attempt to develop new ways of understanding curriculum and enabling social change, I explore nostalgia as a way to stimulate dialogue over competing narratives. To facilitate this exploration, I draw on the notion of the ethical turn in the study of curriculum and the theory of intersectionality. Examples from South Africa are used to develop the argument. I conclude by situating the discussion in the context of other post-conflict societies where reconciliation is needed.     

Running economy and effort after cycling: Effect of methodological choices

ABSTRACT

Prior exercise can negatively affect movement economy of a subsequent task. However, the impact of cycling exercise on the energy cost of subsequent running is difficult to ascertain, possibly because of the use of different methods of calculating economy. We examined the influence of a simulated cycling bout on running physiological cost (running economy, heart rate and ventilation rates) and perceptual responses (ratings of perceived exertion and effort) by comparing two running bouts, performed before and after cycling using different running economy calculation methods. Seventeen competitive male triathletes ran at race pace before and after a simulated Olympic-distance cycling bout. Running economy was calculated as V?O₂ (mL?kg^?1?min^?1), oxygen cost (EO₂, mL?kg^?1?m^?1) and aerobic energy cost (E_aer, J?kg^?1?m^?1). All measures of running economy and perceptual responses indicated significant alterations imposed by prior cycling. Despite a good level of agreement with minimal bias between calculation methods, differences (p < 0.05) were observed between E_aer and both V?O₂ and EO₂. The results confirmed that prior cycling increased physiological cost and perceptual responses in a subsequent running bout. It is recommended that E_aer be calculated as a more valid measure of running economy alongside perceptual responses to assist in the identification of individual responses in running economy following cycling.     

Escape from the Skinner Box: The case for contemporary intelligent learning environments

Intelligent Tutoring systems (ITSs) and Intelligent Learning Environments (ILEs) have been developed and evaluated over the last 40 years. Recent meta-analyses show that they perform well enough to act as effective classroom assistants under the guidance of a human teacher. Despite this success, they have been criticised as embodying a retrograde behaviourist technology. They have also been caught up in broader controversies about the role of Artificial Intelligence in society and about the entry of big data companies into the education market and the harvesting of learner data. This paper concentrates on rebutting the criticisms of the pedagogy of ITSs and ILEs. It offers examples of how a much wider range of pedagogies are available than their critics claim. These wider pedagogies operate at both the screen level of individual systems, as well as at the classroom level within which the systems are orchestrated by the teacher. It argues that there are many ways that such systems can be integrated by the teacher into the overall experience of a class. Taken together, the screen-level and orchestration-level dramatically enlarge the range of pedagogies beyond what was possible with the “Skinner Box.”     

Self-directed learning characteristics: making learning personal,empowering and successful

Due to the speedy emergent investigation in self-directed learning (SDL) over the past 40 years, SDL is an education technique used progressively within tertiary institutions. SDL can be well-defined in terms of the amount of accountability the student accepts for his or her own learning. The self-directed students regarding learning take control and apply self-determination to learn what they view as imperative for themselves. The amount of control the students are keen to take over their own learning will depend on their assertiveness, aptitudes and personality characteristics. The article thus explores what individual features and characteristics can define the student who is involved in SDL; What capabilities and characteristics need to be grasped by the students who are involved in SDL? Therefore, the objective of the article was to identify characteristics of the self-directed learner in the context of teacher education. Based on our conclusion, it is clear that teacher-students should challenge themselves within this process of SDL development to participate in SDL opportunities. The characteristics of SDL teacher-students must be strengthened to promote their self-directedness with regard to learning and it is also the lecturer’s task to create a class atmosphere of SDl to inculcate and develop SDL characteristics in students.     

An investigation of sex differences on incidental memory for verbal and pictorial material

Previous research has sometimes claimed a female advantage on tasks of incidental memory. However, it is uncertain whether the sex difference was due to the incidental, or to the heavily verbal, nature of the tasks used, since women are known to have better verbal memory than men. The current study asked whether a female superiority would be found under less verbally-loaded conditions. No sex difference was found on two different pictorial tasks, both of which measured incidental memory for the content of complex scenes. In contrast, a female advantage was observed across both incidental and intentional conditions when easily labeled stimuli were used. This advantage was eliminated on the incidental condition when the effects of intentional verbal memory were controlled for. These findings strongly suggest that previous reports of a female advantage on incidental memory may have been due to the choice of verbalizable stimuli.     

A Sort of Statistics Lesson

A classroom practical activity for sorting lists of numbers is described, leading to some statistical analysis.     

Can we augment web responses with telephonic responses to a graduate destination survey?

The 2010 Western Cape graduate destination survey utilised a sequential mixed-mode design in which an initial web survey was augmented with an equivalent telephonic survey. This article examines mode effect in the Western Cape survey in terms of overall effect size and the bearing it had on the main outcome of the study. Standardised residuals and Cramér’s V are used to determine mode effect across two scenarios, a full sample vs. a subsample, and using two categorical questions with different numbers of response categories. Overall effect size appears to be small in the first question, but increases noticeably together with non-responses in the second question that has many more response categories. Web responses to alumni or graduate destination surveys can perhaps be augmented with telephonic responses if necessary, provided response categories are kept to a minimum, and interviewers are trained properly and monitored for possible interviewer misbehaviour. The benefit of obtaining larger samples should then also outweigh the benefit of using web surveys alone.