Active Learning and Teaching through Digital Technology and Live Performance: ‘Choreographic Thinking’ as Art Practice in the Tertiary Sector

This article is an interdisciplinary reflective response to an intensive studio learning and teaching experience involving artists, academics and postgraduate students. The authors of this article teach, research and practise in coding, digital design, dance, and virtual and live performance. As lecturers and students we reflect upon and propose future approaches to art practice in tertiary education informed by live performance, performance capture and studio‐based responses to digital and virtual platforms. We reflect on an innovative contribution to the field of research–teaching nexus as informed by digital and virtual data capture identifying the key element of immediacy in live performance and choreographic improvisation with systems. We reflect on practice‐based inquiry via the Choreographic Coding Lab (CCL) model – a dialogical negotiation between capture technology and interdisciplinary artists in industry and academia. How can we encourage potential studio inquiry as an adapted model in tertiary learning and teaching? Our interdisciplinary voices, presented as authors’ reflections, provide suggestions for future studio‐based, active learning contexts.     

Contextual influences on the interaction between conflicting memories in the rat

Contextual events redundant to the learning, in sequence, of passive and active avoidance were of one type for the former task and of another for the latter. During later testing, these contextual events were found to determine which of these acquired, conflicting dispositions would be manifested in behavior. Mutual interference in retention otherwise seen under similar circumstances seemed subordinate to the influence of the three types of contextual stimuli tested—drug (pentobarbital), compound (the experimental room in which conditioning took place), and a relatively unitary stimulus (a constantly sounding buzzer). The discussion considered the defining characteristics of a “contextual stimulus” and the mechanisms through which contextual events control the manifestation of learned behaviors and alleviation of interference in retention.     

Influences on Community College Students' Educational Plans

This study analyzed data from 285 students attending 5 community colleges to identify the institutional and college experience variables influencing end-of-first-year educational degree plans. Controlling for an extensive array of important confounding influences, the estimated average precollege degree plans of students at the community college one attended had significant, positive total and direct effects on an individual student's end-of-first-year overall educational degree plans and plans to obtain at least a bachelor's degree. In the prediction of end-of-first-year overall educational degree plans, there were significant conditional effects involving sex, race, and precollege degree plans.     

In the Name of Diversity: Education and the Commoditization and Consumption of Race in the United States

In exploring the relationship between cultural capital, symbolic violence and the diversification of the curriculum the notion of commoditization of race in higher education is developed. The term first and foremost emphasizes how students from “disadvantaged” racialized communities remain significantly under-represented at selective universities and colleges. Commoditization of race in higher education is also concerned with the potentially unequal terms of exchange between racialized communities, whose experiences and collective struggles are increasingly embodied in novels, poetry, non-fictional works, ethnographies, academic discourses, and programs of study, and the educational benefits associated with diversity at 4-year institutions accorded predominantly to white student bodies. In doing so, the paper demonstrates that race-based segregation initiated at the neighborhood and public school levels continues to inhibit racialized students from receiving quality higher education opportunities. Based on an analysis of the economic obstacles disproportionately affecting Black communities, the paper concludes by reiterating that unless selective universities and colleges are prepared to significantly enhance quality educational opportunities for students of color, even the most sincere expressions of support for affirmative action, multiculturalism and diversity will likely legitimate, rather than challenge, racial inequality in the foreseeable future. Gregory M. Anderson is an Associate Professor of Higher Education in the Teachers College at the Columbia University.     

Testing an individual systems model of response evaluation and decision (RED) and antisocial behavior across adolescence

This study examined the bidirectional development of aggressive response evaluation and decision (RED) and antisocial behavior across five time points in adolescence. Participants (n = 522) were asked to imagine themselves behaving aggressively while viewing videotaped ambiguous provocations and answered a set of RED questions following each aggressive retaliation (administered at Grades 8 and 11 [13 and 16 years, respectively]). Self- and mother reports of antisocial behavior were collected at Grades 7, 9/10, and 12 (12, 14/15, and 17 years, respectively). Using structural equation modeling, the study found a partial mediating effect at each hypothesized mediational path despite high stability of antisocial behavior across adolescence. Findings are consistent with an individual systems perspective by which adolescents' antisocial conduct influences how they evaluate aggressive interpersonal behaviors, which affects their future antisocial conduct.     

Enhancing Global Service-Learning with Partnerships as an Engagement Strategy for Christian Higher Education

Global engagement programming across higher education continues to expand as institutional leaders and practitioners strive to meet global citizenship and civic engagement outcomes. This article presents case study research on a global service-learning partnership, the “Christian University” (CU) Wheelchair Project, which has involved students in a three-semester course sequence that includes research under faculty guidance at a Kenyan school serving 300 children with disabilities. The coauthors participated with the CU students to address the following research questions: (a) What are the characteristics of a Christian Global Service-Learning project that involved partnerships? and (b) What are the observed expectations and impacts of this partnership in the local setting? The case study offers an example of a global service-learning partnership that is grounded in institutional and community input throughout the project's conception and implementation, as well as during assessment of the program. Analysis of the data revealed three components of this program as an effective model of a global service-learning partnership: (a) shared representation throughout the program, (b) valuing both student and community outcomes, and (c) additional perceived community benefits. Corbett and Fikkert's (2012 Corbett, S., &; Fikkert, B. (2012). When helping hurts: How to alleviate poverty without hurting the poor … and yourself. Chicago, IL: Moody. [Google Scholar]) relief-rehabilitation-development and Fraser's (2009 Fraser, N. (2009). Scales of justice: Reimagining political space in a globalizing world. New York, NY: Columbia University Press. [Google Scholar]) parity of participation frameworks were used to illustrate why it is necessary to intentionally develop partnerships where the local community can genuinely participate. Drawing from the related literature, the authors argue that global service-learning with partnership programs have the potential to move Christian higher education beyond simply service to transformative and sustained community collaboration in which social justice can be effectively enacted.     

PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS RELATED TO ACHIEVEMENT IN YOUNG ELITE FEMALE GYMNASTS

A sample of 162 young Australian elite and non elite competitive female gymnasts were administered the Sport Competition Anxiety Test for Children, the Coopersmith Self‐esteem Inventory, the Perceived Competence Scale for Children and the Children's Nowicki‐Strickland Internal‐External Control Scale. Stepwise discriminant function analysis showed that the elite gymnasts could be discriminated from non elite on the basis of higher levels of general, physical, and cognitive competence, and higher levels of self‐esteem. The results supported the findings of previous investigations and indicated clear differences in psychological factors between elite and non elite gymnasts.

     

A generative theory of textbook design: Using annotated illustrations to foster meaningful learning of science text

In three experiments, college students read a text explaining how lightning works and then took problem-solving transfer tests. Some students (integrated group) also viewed illustrations depicting the major stages in the formation of lightning that (a) were placed adjacent to corresponding text paragraphs and (b) contained annotations repeating the verbal cause-and-effect information from the text. Other students (separated group) viewed the same illustrations (a) on a separate page and (b) without annotations, after they had finished reading the text. The integrated group generated approximately 50% more creative solutions on transfer problems than the separated group, and this pattern was stronger for students who lacked experience in meteorology than for high-experience students. The positive effects of integrated illustrations depended on incorporating annotations (i.e., captions and labels) into the illustrations rather than placing illustrations close to corresponding paragraphs. Results were interpreted in light of a generative theory of multimedia learning which posits that meaningful learning requires constructing connections between visual and verbal representations of a system.     

Does father absence place daughters at special risk for early sexual activity and teenage pregnancy?

The impact of father absence on early sexual activity and teenage pregnancy was investigated in longitudinal studies in the United States (N = 242) and New Zealand (N = 520), in which community samples of girls were followed prospectively from early in life (5 years) to approximately age 18. Greater exposure to father absence was strongly associated with elevated risk for early sexual activity and adolescent pregnancy. This elevated risk was either not explained (in the US. study) or only partly explained (in the New Zealand study) by familial, ecological, and personal disadvantages associated with father absence. After controlling for covariates, there was stronger and more consistent evidence of effects of father absence on early sexual activity and teenage pregnancy than on other behavioral or mental health problems or academic achievement. Effects of father absence are discussed in terms of life-course adversity, evolutionary psychology, social learning, and behavior genetic models.