Patterns of contingent teaching in teacher-student interaction

The present study aimed at investigating the process of scaffolding in a naturalistic setting with focus on a key aspect of scaffolding, namely contingency. Three Social Studies teachers in innovative prevocational schools were observed and interviewed. A coding scheme for the measurement of scaffolding was developed which revealed different patterns of contingent and non-contingent teaching amongst the teachers. In general these teachers of innovative schools showed little contingent teaching. Not adapting the support to students' current understanding and barely diagnosing the students' understanding appeared to be characteristic of this scarcity of non-contingent teaching.     

Understanding the association between future time perspective and self-regulated learning through the lens of self-determination theory

The present cross-sectional research examined a process underlying the positive association between holding an extended future time perspective (FTP) and learning outcomes through the lens of self-determination theory. High school students and university students (N = 275) participated in the study. It was found that students with an extended FTP regulated their study behaviour on the basis of several internal motives, including feelings of guilt and shame (introjected regulation), personal conviction (identified regulation) and interest (intrinsic motivation). The association with identified regulation was strongest and the association with intrinsic motivation fell below significance when controlling for identified regulation. Moreover, introjected and identified regulation emerged as mediators accounting for the association between FTP and cognitive processing. Further, to the extent that FTP engenders an internally pressuring mode of regulation it was found to be indirectly negatively associated with determination/metacognitive strategy use. In contrast to FTP, a present fatalistic and present hedonic time-orientation yielded more negative motivational and learning correlates. The link between FTP and self-determination theory is discussed.     

Several complex variables are better than just one

In this popular expository article, we discuss some important ways in which complex analysis in more than one variable is different from complex analysis in one variable. Analytic continuation in several variables is contrasted with that in one variable, and the notion of psuedoconvexity is defined. Hartogs phenomenon and the Levi problem are also discussed in an informal way.     

M K Chandrashekaran (1937–2009)

Maroli Krishnayya Chandrashekaran, Editor of Journal of Biosciences (from 1991 to 1997) and Resonance (from 2003 to 2005), was a biologist who stood out from his peers as much on account of the quality of his contributions as because of his style. He made major contributions to our understanding of the interplay between time and the living world (which also became the title of a book he wrote). This article aims to bring together aspects of his life and work.     

States of matter

All of us have read about solid, liquid and gaseous states of matter in school. Are these the only states of matter? What distinguishes different states of matter from each other?     

Why and how mathematicians read proofs: an exploratory study

In this paper, we report a study in which nine research mathematicians were interviewed with regard to the goals guiding their reading of published proofs and the type of reasoning they use to reach these goals. Using the data from this study as well as data from a separate study (Weber, Journal for Research in Mathematics Education 39:431–459, 2008) and the philosophical literature on mathematical proof, we identify three general strategies that mathematicians employ when reading proofs: appealing to the authority of other mathematicians who read the proof, line-by-line reading, and modular reading. We argue that non-deductive reasoning plays an important role in each of these three strategies.