You and CO2: a Public Engagement Study to Engage Secondary School Students with the Issue of Climate Change

School students are growing up in a world with a rapidly changing climate, the effects of which will become increasingly apparent during their lifetimes. We designed and pilot tested “You and CO₂”, a STEAM program designed to encourage students to reflect on their personal impact on the environment, while also appreciating their place within society to bring about positive societal change. Over three interlinked workshops, students analyzed the carbon footprints of some everyday activities, which they then explored in more detail through interacting with a bespoke piece of digital fiction, No World 4 Tomorrow. The program culminated with students producing their own digital fictions, allowing them the freedom to explore the themes from the previous workshops with a setting and focus of their choice. We reflect here on the experience of running the You and CO₂ program and on the themes that emerged from the students’ original digital fictions.

     

Expectancies as mediators in the differential-reward conditional discrimination performance of pigeons

In a series of within-subject experiments employing a two-choice delayed conditional discrimination task, pigeons chose correctly more often when kind of correct choice and kind of reinforcer were perfectly correlated than when uncorrelated. Correct choice behavior fell to chance levels when the correlation was reversed or when it was removed by using only one kind of reinforcer. Implications for mediation theories are discussed, with the conclusion being that, although the possibility that instrumental mediators are present in this situation cannot be dismissed, the overall pattern of results indicates that classical mediators are of principal importance in this type of task.     

Doing critical cultural and ideological technology

The field of mathematics education is contested by different sub-cultures. The dominance of psychological approaches is challenged by sociological ones. Within the latter, consensus theory is the norm. A defect of this theory is its neglect of power, conflict and inequality in society. To remedy this there is a need for critical cultural and ideological technology (CCIT).An application of critical cultural and ideological technology (CCIT) is reported in the field of mathematics education. This involves identifying the ideologies about society which are to be found in curriculum materials, identifying the social location of the text and identifying possible actions. A step-by-step method is set out and applied to a particular classroom problem.     

Parenting Stress and Youth Symptoms Among Girls With and Without Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder

Objective. To examine the aspects of parenting stress—parental distress and parental stress due to dysfunctional interactions—reported by mothers of girls with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder in both childhood and adolescence and to understand their associations with internalizing and externalizing symptoms in adolescence. Design. The diverse sample comprised 120 girls with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and 81 age- and ethnicity-matched comparison girls, evaluated at ages 6–12 years and followed prospectively for 5 years. Basic demographics, oppositionality, childhood behavioral outcomes and symptoms, and key parenting practice were covaried in the analyses. Results. Longitudinally, parental distress during the participants’ childhood was positively associated with adolescent externalizing and internalizing behaviors, even when statistically controlling for parallel childhood behaviors. Parental stress due to dysfunctional interactions during adolescence was associated with contemporaneous adolescent depressive symptoms and externalizing behaviors, but parental distress was associated with only internalizing behaviors. With respect to moderation by diagnostic group, parental stress due to dysfunctional interactions (in childhood) was associated with adolescent internalizing symptoms only in girls with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. However, associations between parental distress in childhood and internalizing behaviors were stronger in the comparison than the ADHD sample. Conclusions. Minimizing early dysfunctional interactions might reduce internalizing behaviors in girls with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Interventions targeting parental distress may be beneficial for girls, regardless of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder status.     

Techne and Technical Communication: Toward a Dialogue

The classical Greek discourse on techne has much to offer technical communication teachers concerned about the relationship between theory and practice, but this potential has not yet been realized. Plato's and Aristotle's discussions about the relationship between techne and rhetoric, for example, encompass questions about the rhetorical goals of the speakedwriter and about the role of theory in teaching rhetorical art that are of continuing relevance to the modern discourse on technical communication. The aim of this article is to identify several points upon which a fruitful dialogue between ancient and modern discourses can begin. First, I supply some background on how the term techne was used up through the fourth century BCE. Then I discuss how the modern discourse on technical communication (including material from popular textbooks) both converges with and departs from Plato's and Aristotle's statements on the relationship between techne and rhetoric. Finally, I point out areas for further discussion as teachers of technical communication continue to reflect upon and refine their pedagogies.