Children’s epistemic reasoning about social inclusion of aggressive peers in a culturally diverse school

Moral reasoning in values education can promote a democratic way of life. It involves addressing behaviour expectations in responses to violence or bullying. There is increasing interest in how children make moral judgments about social inclusion within diverse cultural settings. Critical research highlights the relationship between epistemic cognition (views about the nature of knowledge and knowing) and reasoning. In this paper, we argue that this relationship is likely to be important in reasoning about moral values for inclusion in culturally diverse schools. However, we know little about how children in diverse educational settings reason about and enact school values for inclusion. Our study addresses this gap by examining primary school children’s epistemic reasoning about the social inclusion of peers with a focus on justifications for inclusion/exclusion of aggressive peers. Twenty-six children (10–11 years old) from one culturally diverse school community in Australia were asked to illustrate (drawings) and reflect on (15–20 minute interviews) a conflict situation involving exclusion from play. The findings showed that most children reasoned about including/excluding others based on a ‘one right answer’ pattern which reflected an explicit focus on following the school rules. Fewer children moved ‘beyond right answers’ to show transition towards perceiving multiple perspectives in their reasoning about inclusion/exclusion. Implications for values education are discussed.     

Supporting Teachers to Customize Curriculum for Self-Directed Learning

Journal of Science Education and Technology - Guiding teachers to customize curriculum has shown to improve science instruction when guided effectively. We explore how teachers use student data to...     

Investing in Leaders and Leadership to Secure a Desirable Future

Investments in the select few who already are or will become academic leaders are essential but insufficient. Investments also need to be made in collective leadership because leadership is an activity or function, not merely a person. Both good leaders and collective leadership are needed in the never-ending journey toward selective excellence. A review of the challenges and opportunities manifest in the internal and external environments for higher education supports this claim and five others. First, there are certain non-negotiable strategies. Second, every leadership strategy is an intervention. Third, contingent leadership with multiple strategies is nearly mandatory. Fourth, organizational readiness for change is an enduring priority. Finally, leadership is founded on disciplinary stewardship. To thrive, kinesiology must be both a fortress discipline and an adaptive, connected discipline. Keeping the best of specialization, while combating fragmentation, stewardship must be firmly connected to faculty career identities and structures provided by existing and newly-configured sub-disciplines.     

Student perceptions of peer assessment: an interdisciplinary study

Peer assessment provides students with multiple benefits during their learning process. The aim of our study is to examine students’ perception of peer assessment. Questionnaires were administered before and after the peer-assessment process to 416 students studying 11 different subjects in four different fields taught at the University of Girona. Results suggest that students have a positive predisposition towards this methodology, both before and after its implementation. Students perceive it as a both motivating and recommended methodology that facilitates the acquisition of learning at different levels. As for its limitations, students highlight the responsibility that comes with it and a certain amount of distrust in fellow students’ abilities to peer-assess.     

In a daily time–place learning task,time is only used as a discriminative stimulus if each daily session is associated with a distinct spatial location

It is difficult for rats to acquire daily time–place (TP) learning tasks. One theory suggests that rats do not use time of day as a stimulus signaling a specific response. In the present study, we tested rats’ ability to use time of day as a discriminative stimulus. A fixed-interval procedure was used in which one lever provided reinforcement on a FI-5-s schedule in morning sessions, and the same lever provided reinforcement on a FI-30-s schedule in afternoon sessions. Because only one place was used in this paradigm, the rats could only use time of day to acquire the task. Mean responses during the first 5 s of the first trial in each session indicated that the rats did not discriminate between the two sessions. In Phase II, a different lever location was used for each of the two daily sessions, which meant that both spatial and temporal information could be used to acquire the task. The rats readily acquired the task in this phase, and probe trials indicated that the rats were using a combination of spatial and temporal information to discriminate between the two different trial types. When the spatial cue was removed in Phase III, rats no longer discriminated the two sessions, suggesting that time can only be used as a discriminative stimulus when each daily session is associated with a distinct spatial location.     

Circulatory effects of fluid loss and fluid intake during exercise

Abstract

Cardiorespiratory responses to two levels of exercise (133 and 200 W) on a bicycle ergometer were measured in nine subjects before and after a 1‐h outdoor run of 12.8 km completed in ambient temperatures of 20–25° C. After the run, the subjects showed a mean weight loss of 1.49 kg; the laboratory exercises produced higher mean levels of O2 consumption than before the run (1.91 and 2.66 1 min‐1 compared with 1.80 and 2.46 1 min‐1) and higher mean heart rates (141 and 158 beats min‐1 compared with 115 and 140 beats min‐1); and lower levels of stroke volume (83 and 85 ml compared with 109 and 101 ml) and of cardiac output (11.6 and 13.3 1 min‐1 compared with 12.6 and 14.1 1 min‐1). Five subjects were studied in a similar way on a second occasion when they consumed 1.25 1 of a dextrose‐electrolyte solution during the first 45 min of the outdoor run. Differences in the exercise variables measured before and after the outdoor run were now small or insignificant. It is postulated that in the first study uncompensated loss of body water reduced plasma volume and cardiac filling, thus reducing stroke volume and cardiac output. Such changes jeopardize body temperature regulation during exercise.