Enhancing concept comprehension in a web-based course using a framework integrating the learning cycle with variation theory

Concept comprehension is an important foundation for more complex thoughts. To enhance concept comprehension, teachers of traditional classrooms have been using instructional strategies and specific course designs, which have been proven effective. It initiates a hypothesis that integrating instructional strategies in the course designs of an e-learning system would improve the effectiveness of concept comprehension. The purpose of this study is to propose a framework that integrates the learning cycle with variation theory in the course design of a web-based e-learning system to prove the hypothesis. A pretest and posttest quasi-experimental design is employed to test whether the framework is feasible. Two types of web-based courses are designed for the experiments: a course designed according to a science textbook and another course designed using the framework. The participants in this study were 120 fifth-grade students in Taiwan. The results of the experiments show that the average scores of the experimental group, using the course designed with the framework, are significantly higher than that of the control group, using the course designed without any instructional strategy, on comprehension of course concepts. This confirms that the coherent, explicit and systematic framework is feasible for designing web-based e-learning courses for effectively enhancing concept comprehension as well as the evidence to prove the hypothesis.     

Voting rights,anti-intersectionality,and citizenship as containment

ABSTRACT

This piece argues that dominant histories of U.S. suffrage have misremembered the history of voting rights legislation as one of steady social progress and multicultural inclusion. By contrast, I consider landmark legislation affecting voting rights such as the 19th Amendment and the Dawes and Magnuson Acts as strategies of containment that that expand but also continue to police the racialized gender norms of U.S. citizenship. These legal reforms, while providing potential channels for redistributions of power and resources, also perpetuate anti-intersectional (Brandzel) vocabularies that impose single-axis frameworks (Crenshaw) onto understandings of citizenship and civic inclusion. While acknowledging the partial and contingent gains made by suffrage movements, I offer a counternarrative of U.S. voting rights as means of managing and maintaining colonial dominance. I argue that the settler-colonial nation state continues to restrict the decision-making capacities of those marginalized by race, indigeneity, gender, sexuality, and/or disability through a vast network of administrative practices that must be analyzed in concert with voting rights.     

Networking dual-surveillance/dual-pair-tele-paths for critical urban areas

Providing a reliable and efficient communication infrastructure for critical regions is generally a strategy used to enhance regional safety or to sustain regional development. For such purposes, the spider-web network is prototyped as a cellular telecommunication infrastructure for its advantages including being interference-free, possessing fault-tolerance, having security management, and countering radio‘s multipath effects. Besides, it is used to develop area-based-street-SCADA (supervisory control and ...     

益母草的染色体数目

Leonurus japonicus Houtt. [L. heterophyllus Sweet, L. artemisia  (Lour.) S.  Y. Hu]  is one of the most important traditional Chinese medicines used as a remedy for gynaeco- logical disease since ancient times.  A cytological investigation on the species was carried out and the materials for chromosomal examination were collected from 26 localities in 20 provi- noes and autonomous regions of this country.  The number of chromosomes in root tip cell of the species was found to be 20 on the whole (Tab. 1:1), agreeing with those reported by Ma and al.[2] and probably by Chuang and al.[3] as well.      The genus Leonurus L. is variable in its  chromosomes with an aneuploidy of x=9, 10 and 12.  The present authors would propose that the primitive basic number of chromosome in the genus is 9, and thus both 10 and 12 are derived, for: (1) among the 9 species (including 1 sub- species) heretofore cytologically examined, x=9 occurring in 66.7%, x=10 occurring in 22.2%, while x=12 occurring only in 11.1%; (2) in generaclosely related to the genus under considera- tion, such as Panzeria, Galeobdolon and Lamium x=9 being the sole basic number.      But L. japonicus exhibits a mixoploidy of 2n=20 (occurring at the rate of 53.30% of the total amount of cells examined), 2n=18 (30.70%), and 2n=16 (15.99%) in our work. (Table 1).  Since the original basic number of  chromosome of the genus is 9 as proposed above, 2n= 20 would be considered as a derived one and the occurrence of 2n=18 probably suggests an early evolutionary trend of 2n=18→20 of the pecies in question.     

Couple-stress Effects Near an Interior Hole of an Infinite Elastic Plane Subjected to a Concentrated Force

Couple-stress solutions are obtained near the hole boundary of an infinite elastic plane subjected to a radial concentrated force at x = b, y = 0,under the restriction of r/b<-0.2 and b/l?;-10. Here r and l are the distance from the center of the hole to the point of interest and a characteristic length (couple-stress constant). At r = a, θ = ±π2, the stress ratio of the couple-stress solution to the classical one for the current problem is slightly lower than one of the Mindlin problem (1) for some values of v, except for v = 0.5 where they are equal. The dimensionless stress σ&#x0302;_θθ is found along the hole boundary.     

Reflective learning in a Chinese MBA programme: scale assessment and future recommendations

The purpose of this study was twofold: (1) to use Chinese MBA students to validate the expanded reflective learning continuum and address the concerns raised in this regard in business education; (2) to determine whether the continuum concept holds true in a non-western culture and whether the reflective learning continuum remains a powerful force in MBA students’ learning outcomes in China. A total of 232 MBA students in China completed a three-page questionnaire that included all question items set out in the work of Peltier, Hay, and Drago. The translation/back-translation technique was employed in order to achieve a semantic, conceptual and normative equivalent relative to the original English version. The results yielded by this study and its predecessors suggest that (1) reflective learning is a multi-dimensional concept in nature, and (2) the reflective learning continuum could take on a similar picture across various social and cultural contexts. This study extends the work of Peltier et al. on reflective learning continuum in the context of Chinese higher education. Given the increased need for internationalisation of business education and the paucity of studies examining educational needs across cultures and nationalities, the results drawn from the Chinese MBA student sample provide valuable information about the degree to which Chinese MBA students take on problem-based and explorative approaches from school.