Product Quality Assurance Project for Teaching of Food Analysis

ABSTRACT: Two of the challenges in teaching Food Analysis are bringing relevance to the various chemical and physical analyses discussed and exposing students to the realities of quality assurance in the food industry. In a project to help meet those objectives, each student, with the assistance of a "resource person" from the food industry, completes the project as if he or she is responsible for the quality assurance analyses of a specific food product in a food company. The student identifies the chemical, physical, sensory, and microbial analyses for raw ingredients, in-process products, and the finished product. The project requires the student to participate in related class discussion, prepare a final written report, and make a brief class presentation. Analysis of survey data showed the project was more than moderately relevant or useful to former students working in the food industry, and related directly to the initial or current positions of most former students.     

Explicit Theory of Mind Is Even More Unified Than Previously Assumed: Belief Ascription and Understanding Aspectuality Emerge Together in Development

Existing evidence suggests that children, when they first pass standard theory‐of‐mind tasks, still fail to understand the essential aspectuality of beliefs and other propositional attitudes: such attitudes refer to objects only under specific aspects. Oedipus, for example, believes Yocaste (his mother) is beautiful, but this does not imply that he believes his mother is beautiful. In three experiments, 3‐ to 6‐year‐olds' (N = 119) understanding of aspectuality was tested with a novel, radically simplified task. In contrast to all previous findings, this task was as difficult as and highly correlated with a standard false belief task. This suggests that a conceptual capacity more unified than previously assumed emerges around ages 4–5, a full‐fledged metarepresentational scheme of propositional attitudes.     

An intervention approach for children with teacher- and parent-identified attentional difficulties

Using a multimodal and multi-informant method for diagnosis, we selected 33 children by teacher and parent nomination for attention and work completion problems that met DSM-IV criteria for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Of the 33 children in this group, 21 participated in the initial intervention, and 12 were placed in an ADHD control group and received the intervention after pre- and posttesting. A similarly selected group of 21 children without difficulties in attention and work completion served as a control group. Each child was assessed on pre- and posttest measures of visual and auditory attention. After an 18-week intervention period that included attention and problem-solving training, all children in the intervention and control groups were retested on visual and auditory tasks. Children in both ADHD groups showed significantly poorer initial performance on the visual attention task. Whereas the ADHD intervention group showed commensurate performance to the nondisabled control group after training, the ADHD control group did not show significant improvement over the same period. Auditory attention was poorer compared to the control group for both ADHD groups initially and improved only for the ADHD intervention group. These findings are discussed as a possible intervention for children with difficulties in strategy selection in a classroom setting.     

On the status of critical theory

Critical theory, while remaining in part a scientific social theory, is not just a scientific theory. The nature and distinctiveness of its criticalness is depicted. The logical status of a rationally reconstructed Habermasian critical theory is displayed, defended from some traditional criticisms (including charges of historical idealism), and contrasted with both historical versions of critical theory and purely scientific theories. Whether the critical theory articulated and defended is Habermasian, or a more historicized critical theory, in either case it is argued that it provides a sound basis forideologiekritik against postmodernist scepticism.     

Digital technologies for promoting “student voice” and co-creating learning experience in an academic course

“Student voice” (SV) refers to listening to and valuing students’ views regarding their learning experiences, as well as treating them as equal partners in the evaluation process. This is expected, in turn, to empower students to take a more active role in shaping their learning. This study explores the role played by digital technologies in creating a space for SV in academia. The qualitative study was conducted in an academic course, which combines face-to face, synchronous lessons with a variety of asynchronous self-directed and group learning activities. The participants were 54 Master’s students in education. We analyzed the pedagogical design of the course, as well as interpretations of teaching, learning, assessment, and the role of technology as experienced and presented by the students. The findings demonstrated that students functioned as co-designers of the course content, co-creators of teaching and of their own learning experience. Students perceived the requirements of active learning, teamwork, and community participation (i.e., an advanced way of conveying SV—leadership; Mitra International handbook of student experience in elementary and secondary school, Springer Publishers, The Netherlands, 2007), as both challenges related to overload and stress, and benefits related to the gains of meaningful learning, innovative pedagogical design, and diverse instructional methods. The equalization effect of the digital environment, which diminishes status cues changed the power dynamic, promoted students’ active participation and their pedagogical partnership with the instructor. Based on the findings, our conceptualization of SV and its implications for academia includes: (1) co-design of content, (2) co-teaching, (3) co-creation of learning experience and outcomes, and (4) embedded co-assessment for learning.     

How to stay becoming – living up to the code of conduct in a sports class

In this article we show how a hybridisation of elite sport and school in lower-secondary education in Denmark produces a particular kind of learning subject with dual tracks for development, and we ask what kind of actions the students apply in order to stay becoming along both tracks. We apply theoretical conceptions of ‘becoming’ inspired by Brembeck and Johansson that allow us to understand how the sports students live up to the code of conduct of the sports classes. The article is based on an ethnographic study carried out in four schools located in four regions of Denmark. We argue that the hybrid obliges students to follow a narrow developmental track with an ambitious goal of performing in both sport and school, and that the hybrid is threatened when a sports student prioritises either sport or school while he/she is still enrolled in the class.