Humanizing Attendance Procedures

In instructional settings, educators are both the creator and the vehicle for that which seeks to be born: an academic legacy. Creating an enduring legacy begins with bringing to life the kind of academic environment that one truly wants to be a part of. Crafting a memorable legacy in the classroom requires authentic, sustainable relationships coupled with exemplary instructional practices that make a difference in lives of students including: professionalism, viewpoint diversity, impulse to learn, engaged questioning, and GRIT: “the engine of human accomplishment.”     

Stimulus specificity of concurrent recovery in the rabbit nictitating membrane response

Three experiments demonstrated that, following the extinction of an established conditioned stimulus (CS; e.g., tone), the pairing of an orthogonal stimulus from another modality (e.g., light) with the unconditioned stimulus (US) results in strong recovery of responding to the extinguished CS. This recovery occurred to about an equal degree regardless of whether or not initial training contained unambiguous stimulus—reinforcer relationships—that is, consistent CS—US pairings—or some degree of ambiguity, including intramodal discrimination training, partial reinforcement, or even cross-modal discrimination training (tone vs. light). Experiments 1 and 2 demonstrated that this recovery of responding was largely specific to the extinguished CS, but moderate generalization to other stimuli from the same modality did appear. The results are discussed with reference to alternative mechanisms applicable to learning-dependent generalization between otherwise distinct CSs. These models assume that such generalization is mediated by either a shared response, shared reinforcer, shared context, or shared hidden units within a layered neural network. A specific layered network is proposed to explain the present results as well as other types of savings seen previously in conditioning of the rabbit nictitating membrane response.     

The body and pedagogy: beyond absent,moving bodies in pedagogic practice

Following the corporeal turn in social theory, this paper explores how the body is implicated in pedagogic practice and leaning. Focusing on the body has usually been recognised as part of the regulative rather than instructional discourse in schools. Work has begun to redress the mind–body imbalance through the ‘corporeal device’ developed from Bernstein’s ‘pedagogic device’, the fundamental relay through which social inequalities are reproduced in schools. To properly recognise the way bodies act as pedagogic relays requires a robust understanding of persons as multi-sensorial acting beings. Examples for choreographic pedagogy are used to illuminate the complex and multimodal features of instructional discourse and to suggest how the moving body could be enlisted to enhance students’ access to formal academic discourses and better understand why some young people fail to achieve in schools.     

Climbing the Staircase: science education for the knowledge economy

Science and technology are widely regarded as the dominant drivers of transformation to a ‘knowledge’ economy and society — a transition in which higher education has a critical role. This paper reviews the influence of successive NZ governments intention to ‘proactively steer’ the tertiary education system towards the achievement of this critical role, and describes an initiative at the Auckland University of Technology (AUT) specifically designed to meet New Zealand's needs for a well trained, articulate and flexible workforce of scientists, engineers, technicians and support staff. The ‘staircasing’ model is the culmination of an effort to adapt, modify and extend traditional models of professional science and technology education to provide a mechanism for ‘life‐long learning’ through a flexible and responsive network of purpose‐built courses.     

Prospective teachers' initial conceptions about pupils' understanding of science and mathematics

Earlier reports have shown that prospective teachers' conceptions about teaching science to a high degree are resistant and do not change substantially during the teacher‐training programme. In our investigation we elucidate the prospective teachers' initial conceptions about pupils' understanding of science and mathematics. We applied ‘The Lesson Preparation Method' and used a phenomenographic approach in order to reveal the range of conceptions that the prospective teachers hold. A third of the prospective teachers did not consider pupils' conceptions when planning lessons. The rest of the 32 participants expressed awareness; some of the prospective teachers even referred to subject‐specific teaching experience. Also regarding the prospective teachers' conceptions about pupils' knowledge and beliefs, as well as about pupils' difficulties, there was a significant diversity. By raising these issues about pedagogical content knowledge the prospective teachers' conceptions can be extended and developed during the education.     

Inquiry-based learning in higher education: administrators’ perspectives on integrating inquiry pedagogy into the curriculum

Inquiry-based learning is one approach to improving the quality of undergraduate education by moving toward more student-directed, interactive methods of learning while focusing on learning how to learn. This paper deals with a missing component in the inquiry-related literature—the extra-pedagogical challenges of introducing and maintaining inquiry-based learning in the curriculum. Based in the collective experience of McMaster University, a mid-size Canadian university that has been a pioneer in inquiry pedagogy, the paper describes the challenges administrators faced in supporting the introduction of inquiry-based learning as components of traditional courses, as inquiry-based courses, and as inquiry-based degree programs. Derived from interviews, the paper presents a series of strategies and lessons for introducing and maintaining inquiry pedagogy in the curriculum. These lessons will be broadly useful to administrators, curriculum designers and faculty developers and should be widely applicable to institutes of higher education.     

Conversations about sexuality on a public university campus: perspectives from campus ministry students and leaders

Little is known about university campus religious organisations’ influence on students’ sexuality-related attitudes and behaviours. This study sought to better understand sexuality-related communication within the context of campus ministries by exploring students’ and campus ministry leaders’ conversational experiences at a public university in the south-east USA. Data sources included an online survey of undergraduates participating in student religious organisations (n = 57), focus groups with campus ministry students (n = 36), and individual interviews with campus ministry leaders (n = 19). Findings indicated student satisfaction with the focus and frequency of conversations about romantic relationships and sexual health within the context of campus ministries. However, both campus ministry students and leaders indicated discomfort in discussions of sexuality. Leaders acknowledged their need for better strategies to engage students; students focused on how to integrate religious messages about sexuality with messages from other sources. These findings suggest campus ministry leaders may benefit from focused training and support to communicate more effectively with college students about sexuality.     

Ohm’s law, Kirchoff’s law and the Drunkard’s walk

We change gears in this second part of the article and discuss one of the oldest problems in probability theory, viz. the simple random walk. The recurrence and transience of the random walk in different dimensions is later derived using the material from the first part.     

Bourdieu, 'Habitus', and Educational Research: Is it all worth the candle?

A recent critique of educational research published by the Office of Standards in Education has declared, largely on the basis of research reported in this journal, that Bourdieu- and particularly the concept of habitus- appears to have little to offer educational research. This proposition is considered in a critical evaluation of the origin of habitus in Bourdieu's work and its ability to fulfil its theoretical functions. It is concluded that there is no serious alternative but for those whose task it is to provide scientific accounts of social processes to engage with the concepts of disciplined thought - including that of Bourdieu.     

Conformity to masculinity ideology,a predictor of academic‐related attitudes and behaviors

Masculinity ideology is argued to be associated with academic outcomes. However, relatively few studies have examined these associations. This study examines the associations between masculinity ideology and academic skepticism, self‐presentation of low achievement, academic engagement, academic initiative, and self‐regulation, above and beyond academic self‐efficacy, among a diverse sample of urban youth. With a sample of 135 eighth‐grade students from a Northeastern middle school, 5 separate multiple hierarchical regression analyses were used to examine whether students’ endorsement of masculinity ideology predicted the criterion variables above and beyond academic self‐efficacy. The sample was comprised of 54 girls and 74 boys ages 12–14 years (M = 13.14; SD = .37). Results showed academic self‐efficacy significantly predicted academic engagement (B = 1.26; β = .53, p < .001; f² = .39), academic initiative (B = .98; β = .37; p < .001, f² = .16), and behavioral regulation (B = .61; β = .24; p < .05; f² = .09) and explained an additional 8 and 10% of the variance in self‐presentation of low achievement (B = .54; β = .33; p = .001; f² = .14) and academic skepticism (B = .56; β = .35; p < .001; f² = .15), respectively, over and above academic self‐efficacy. Gender, which was dummy coded and entered as a covariate, only predicted self‐presentation of low achievement. Findings from this study point to the need to foster positive academic outcomes through bolstering academic self‐efficacy and, perhaps more important, addressing masculinity ideology.