The Big History Project and colonizing knowledges in world history curriculum

This empirical study uses content and frequency analysis to investigate how the Big History Project (BHP) online curriculum represents different racial and cultural groups within its units fusing science and history. The prevalence of a Western Civilizations perspective in curricula offers a challenging irony: that world history could be culturally irrelevant, or inaccurate, for non-Europeans. Drawing on Indigenous, postcolonial and critical social studies scholarship, this study offers a new framework identifying five attributes of a Eurocentric World History curriculum and uses it to analyze BHP. Findings reveal that BHP materials promote Eurocentrism through its content and source selections, across all five attributes of the framework. Implications for curriculum and pedagogy in the social and natural sciences are discussed.     

Dissonance Between Parent‐Selected Bedtimes and Young Children's Circadian Physiology Influences Nighttime Settling Difficulties

Nighttime settling difficulties (i.e., bedtime resistance, sleep‐onset delay) occur in about 25% of young children and are associated with attentional, behavioral, and emotional problems. We examined whether the timing of internal (endogenous) circadian melatonin phase (i.e., dim light melatonin onset; DLMO) and its relationship with parent‐selected bedtimes were related to nighttime settling behaviors. Fourteen regularly napping preschoolers (8 females; 30–36 months) participated in a 6‐day protocol (parent‐report of nighttime settling, actigraphic assessment of sleep onset latency, evening salivary DLMO). Average DLMO clock time was 07:40 p.m. ± 00:48 minutes, occurring 29 minutes ± 32 minutes prior to bedtime (lights‐out). Children with later DLMOs had longer sleep‐onset latencies (r = .62) and poorer success in falling asleep (r = ?.59). Children whose bedtimes were closer to their DLMO had longer sleep‐onset latencies (r = .72) and increased bedtime resistance (r = ?.54). We conclude that dissonance between parent‐selected bedtimes and children's circadian physiology may contribute to the development of nighttime settling difficulties in early childhood.     

Development of the ‘Museum Health and Social Care Service’ to promote the use of arts and cultural activities by health and social care professionals caring for older people

ABSTRACT

It is well documented that engagement in arts and cultural activities contributes to improving and maintaining the health and well-being of older people. Despite this, many health and social care professionals do not recognize or accept arts and cultural activities as relevant to their care remit. To address this, a team of 17 individuals comprising older service users, and staff from a range of health and social care, arts, and museum and archive services in North East England worked collaboratively to design and develop the Museum Health and Social Care Service (MHSCS). MHSCS is a resource and training package that reinforces the care and clinical benefits of arts and cultural activities to older people’s health and wellbeing, aimed at supporting health and social care professionals to acknowledge and use these activities as integral to care delivery.     

Project DyAdd: Implicit learning in adult dyslexia and ADHD

In this study of the project DyAdd, implicit learning was investigated through two paradigms in adults (18–55 years) with dyslexia (n?=?36) or with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD, n?=?22) and in controls (n?=?35). In the serial reaction time (SRT) task, there were no group differences in learning. However, those with ADHD exhibited faster RTs compared to other groups. In the artificial grammar learning (AGL) task, the groups did not differ from each other in their learning (i.e., grammaticality accuracy or similarity choices). Further, all three groups were sensitive to fragment overlap between learning and test-phase items (i.e., similarity choices were above chance). Grammaticality performance of control participants was above chance, but that of participants with dyslexia and participants with ADHD failed to differ from chance, indicating impaired grammaticality learning in these groups. While the main indices of AGL performance, grammaticality accuracy and similarity choices did not correlate with the neuropsychological variables that reflected dyslexia-related (phonological processing, reading, spelling, arithmetic) or ADHD-related characteristics (executive functions, attention), or intelligence, the explicit knowledge for the AGL grammar (i.e., ability to freely generate grammatical strings) correlated positively with the variables of phonological processing and reading. Further, SRT reaction times correlated positively with full scale intelligence quotient (FIQ). We conclude that, in AGL, learning difficulties of the underlying rule structure (as measured by grammaticality) are associated with dyslexia and ADHD. However, learning in AGL is not related to the defining neuropsychological features of dyslexia or ADHD. Instead, the resulting explicit knowledge relates to characteristics of dyslexia.     

The missing base molecules in atmospheric acid–base nucleation

Transformation of low-volatility gaseous precursors to new particles affects aerosol number concentration, cloud formation and hence the climate. The clustering of acid and base molecules is a major mechanism driving fast nucleation and initial growth of new particles in the atmosphere. However, the acid–base cluster composition, measured using state-of-the-art mass spectrometers, cannot explain the measured high formation rate of new particles. Here we present strong evidence for the existence of base molecules such as amines in the smallest atmospheric sulfuric acid clusters prior to their detection by mass spectrometers. We demonstrate that forming (H₂SO₄)₁(amine)₁ is the rate-limiting step in atmospheric H₂SO₄-amine nucleation and the uptake of (H₂SO₄)₁(amine)₁ is a major pathway for the initial growth of H₂SO₄ clusters. The proposed mechanism is very consistent with measured new particle formation in urban Beijing, in which dimethylamine is the key base for H₂SO₄ nucleation while other bases such as ammonia may contribute to the growth of larger clusters. Our findings further underline the fact that strong amines, even at low concentrations and when undetected in the smallest clusters, can be crucial to particle formation in the planetary boundary layer.     

Collaborative Tutor Development: Enabling a Transformative Paradigm in a South African University

Transformation policies in South Africa have seen higher education come under increasing pressure to broaden participation from historically under‐represented groups. This article focuses on the University of Johannesburg, South Africa, as a newly merged institution that is in the process of transforming from a formerly segregated academic context. Recently, student enrolments have become increasingly diverse in terms of cultural, socio‐economic and linguistic backgrounds, as well as the level of preparedness that students have for traditional higher education programs. These diverse backgrounds and levels of preparedness place unique expectations on lecturers and peer tutors. Furthermore, tutorial systems have come to play an increasingly pivotal role in student learning. The researchers argue that without incorporating tutor development into the mainstream disciplines, peer tutors will not be able to effectively act as facilitators of subject content and discourse. They propose that this research can constitute a model for integrating academic development practice within subject‐specific curricula via tutors. This is realized through a collaborative initiative that enables change.     

Using communities of practice as a tool to analyse developing identity in online discussion

In this article, we address the methodological implications of analysing online discussion boards with a focus on participants' changing identities. More specifically, we propose the use of a Communities of Practice framework as a heuristic method for considering how participants' contributions to online discussion play a role in changing who they become, as opposed to what they learn. We argue that many analyses of online communication fail to take account of learning as a change in identity – what/who the learner is (becoming) – and focus mainly on the opportunity for cognitive development – what they know. In doing so, we use a single case study from a discussion board for secondary-aged students of mathematics which acts as a ‘telling case’ before demonstrating what this might say about other contexts for online learning. We argue that this has important implications for both research into, and the design of, online education.     

A critical analysis of the role of wait time in classroom interactions and the effects on student and teacher interactional behaviours

Extending the pauses between teachers’ and students’ turns (wait time) has been recommended as a way of improving classroom learning. Drawing on the Conversation Analysis literature on classroom interactions alongside extracts of classroom interactions, the relationship between these pauses and the interactional behaviour of teachers and students is examined. Extended wait time is built in to classroom interactions because of the IRF (Initiation–Response–Feedback/Follow-up) framework that dominates these interactions. Extending wait time can lead to a variety of changes in the norms of classroom interaction. The structures of interactions in formal classrooms are used to explain the previous findings relating to the extension of wait time. It is also shown that different uses of extended wait time lead to different interactional norms and maintaining extended wait times may not be desirable. Consequently, the article argues for a more nuanced understanding of wait time, desired student behaviours and the interaction of the two.