New Visuality in Art/Science: A Pedagogy of Connection for Cognitive Growth and Creativity

New visuality in art/science pedagogies challenges teachers to rethink their curriculum and the role of digital new media in facilitating conceptual thinking and the role of the creative representation of knowledge. Recent neuroscientific research on cognition, perception, memory, and emotion inform and provoke implications for 21st-century learning. Analysis of student artwork uncovers pedagogical challenges for teachers. Teachers use visual learning and its forms of higher process thinking to allow students to make cognitive connections with images, giving them the capacity to integrate concepts for the communication of art/science learning. Examples of student learning from years 3–5 and 15–17 illustrate these ideas.     

Unmasking complexities involved in operationalising UPE policy initiatives: Using the ‘fCUBE’ policy implementation in Ghana as an exemplar

In most parts of the world today, the goal of providing all children with free and Universal Primary Education (UPE) has received broad national and international support and some educational systems have evolved from predominantly ??fee-charging?? towards ??fee-free?? status in recent times. In Ghana, for example, the endorsement of Education for All (EFA) and millennium development goals (MDGs) agreements coupled with commitment to internal constitutional reforms have resulted in the initiation of the Free Compulsory Universal, Basic Education (fCUBE) policy. Dishearteningly however, in many low-income countries (including Ghana), verbal commitments to these laudable social goals do not appear to be translated into the needed changes in policy and practice. This article draws on a case study of the fCUBE policy implementation to provide insights into the complexities involved in operationalising UPE policy initiatives in sub-Saharan Africa. The methodological approach involved the critical discourse analysis of interviews with Ghanaian education officials who mediate policy at the ??meso-level??. Owing to the commitments of the fCUBE policy to enhancing the educational opportunities and outcomes for the socially and economically disadvantaged, the paper sees it (i.e. the fCUBE policy) as deeply rooted in social democracy. However, it is argued that as long as there is a blurring in meaning of the intentions encapsulated in its title, primary education in Ghana cannot be said to be ??free??, ??compulsory?? and ??universal??. It is concluded that accentuating policy purposes in low-income countries is not inherently problematic but that the challenges lie with how the intentions and provisions of policy are conceptualised and operationalised in context.     

浅谈军训学生思想政治教育工作的开展

思想政治教育是大学学生工作的一根红线,贯穿于学生工作的始终。学生军训工作作为学生工作的一项重要内容,应充分发挥学生思想政治教育的先导作用,充分激发学生强烈的爱国主义情感。通过对军事知识学习与军事训练的有机结合,综合调动学生知、情、意三个方面的认知体验,从而构建一个立体的思想政治教育模式。