Optimism as a Candidate Health Asset: Exploring Its Links With Adolescent Quality of Life in Sweden

This study aims to understand the role that optimism could play in the context of a health asset approach to promote adolescent health-related quality of life (HRQOL). Adolescents (n = 948), between 11 and 16 years old from a medium-sized rural town in Sweden, answered questionnaires measuring optimism, pessimism, and HRQOL. The findings indicate a significant decrease in optimism and a significant increase in pessimism between early and midadolescence. The study has allowed us to present associational evidence of the links between optimism and HRQOL. This infers the potential of an optimistic orientation about the future to function as a health asset during adolescence and by implication may provide additional intervention tool in the planning of health promotion strategies.     

Different patterns of university students’ integration of lecture podcasts,learning materials,and lecture attendance in a psychology course

Lecture podcasts are considered an efficient means for passing on learning contents to students, most notably in lectures with large numbers of students. Here, the lecturer’s presentation, combined with lecture slides, is recorded and broadcasted in video form. The present study investigates how students organize learning when they have the choice of different representations of content: face-to-face lectures, lecture recordings as video podcasts, and additional text material. Latent class analysis identified three groups with different patterns of integration of these representations of content: (1) students who focused on podcasts; (2) students who made little use of the different representations of content; (3) students who occasionally made use of the different learning opportunities. Students in group 1 with a focus on podcasts achieved best. They devoted more time to learning and made diligent use of a variety of learning strategies such as note-taking, generating summaries, or rehearsing with the podcasts. The results suggest providing different representations of content to take into account differences in learners’ preferences and abilities. They speak in favor of podcasts, especially in lectures with a large audience. However, the results also show a group of learners who make minimal use of the various representations of content. Instructional measures should be taken to engage and support these students.     

Towards conceptual coherence in the research on mathematics learner identity: a systematic review of the literature

We examine the case of a lesson planning session within the context of professional development for dialogic instruction, and the lesson enacted following this session, which was intended to provide opportunities to 11th and 12th grade algebra students to explore polynomial functions in terms of their roots and linear factors. Our goal was, through the close analysis of the planning and enactment of the lesson, to gain deeper understanding of how the two participants were framing mathematical learning and how such different frames may explain the disparity between the planned lesson and its outcome. The analysis and discussion point to the complexities of supporting teachers in transitioning from a “doing” frame to an “exploring” frame.     

Zur Diskussion über die Konvergenz ökonomischer und pädagogischer Prinzipien betrieblicher Personal-und Organisationsentwicklung

Die These von der Konvergenz ?konomischer und p?dagogischer Prinzipien betrieblicher Personal-und Organisationsentwicklung findet in der Erziehungswissenschaft einflussreiche Verfechter. In diesem Beitrag werden vier Kritikpunkte zum Literaturstand bezüglich der Konvergenzdebatte entwickelt und n?her erl?utert. Um den Diskussionsstand weiter zu entwickeln, wird ein theoretisches Konzept vorgestellt, das die Schw?chen der kritisierten Ans?tze vermeidet. Die individuelle Kompetenzentwicklung der Besch?ftigten wird als Voraussetzung dafür gesehen, dass dem Betrieb ein umfangreiches Kompetenzspektrum zur Verfügung steht. Damit der Betrieb dieses Kompetenzspektrum nutzen kann, müssen Bedingungen gegeben sein, unter denen die Besch?ftigten einen Nutzen in der Anwendung ihrer Kompetenz sehen. Sind diese gegeben, erh?ht sich die Wahrscheinlichkeit für eine dauerhafte Leistungskraft des Betriebs, was wiederum Voraussetzung dafür ist, dass Besch?ftigte im Rahmen ihrer Arbeit individuelle Kompetenz entwickeln und anwenden k?nnen. Die Tragweite dieses Ansatzes besteht darin, dass eine Operationalisierung von Konvergenzbedingungen über neuere Theorien aus der Lehr-Lern-Forschung m?glich wird.     

The effectiveness of virtual and augmented reality in health sciences and medical anatomy

Although cadavers constitute the gold standard for teaching anatomy to medical and health science students, there are substantial financial, ethical, and supervisory constraints on their use. In addition, although anatomy remains one of the fundamental areas of medical education, universities have decreased the hours allocated to teaching gross anatomy in favor of applied clinical work. The release of virtual (VR) and augmented reality (AR) devices allows learning to occur through hands‐on immersive experiences. The aim of this research was to assess whether learning structural anatomy utilizing VR or AR is as effective as tablet‐based (TB) applications, and whether these modes allowed enhanced student learning, engagement and performance. Participants (n = 59) were randomly allocated to one of the three learning modes: VR, AR, or TB and completed a lesson on skull anatomy, after which they completed an anatomical knowledge assessment. Student perceptions of each learning mode and any adverse effects experienced were recorded. No significant differences were found between mean assessment scores in VR, AR, or TB. During the lessons however, VR participants were more likely to exhibit adverse effects such as headaches (25% in VR P < 0.05), dizziness (40% in VR, P < 0.001), or blurred vision (35% in VR, P < 0.01). Both VR and AR are as valuable for teaching anatomy as tablet devices, but also promote intrinsic benefits such as increased learner immersion and engagement. These outcomes show great promise for the effective use of virtual and augmented reality as means to supplement lesson content in anatomical education. Anat Sci Educ 10: 549–559. © 2017 American Association of Anatomists.     

Spanglish,Bilingualism, Culture and Identity in Latino Children’s Literature

This paper examines the ways in which Latino children’s literature portrays cultural models of bilingualism and identity affiliations based on language and cultural practices. We focus attention the messages in seven children’s books about practices of and attitudes toward Spanglish, standard Spanish, and individual and societal bilingualism. In addition, we analyze how characters construct their cross-cultural identit(ies), based their language use and engagement in local and transnational cultural themes. Using assertions based on cultural model analyses, we show how portrayals evident in these books inform and are informed by larger cultural models of being bilingual and belonging to Latino bilingual communities in the U.S.     

Improving Conceptual Understanding and Representation Skills Through Excel-Based Modeling

The National Research Council framework for science education and the Next Generation Science Standards have developed a need for additional research and development of curricula that is both technologically model-based and includes engineering practices. This is especially the case for biology education. This paper describes a quasi-experimental design study to test the effectiveness of a model-based curriculum focused on the concepts of natural selection and population ecology that makes use of Excel modeling tools (Modeling Instruction in Biology with Excel, MBI-E). The curriculum revolves around the bio-engineering practice of controlling an invasive species. The study takes place in the Midwest within ten high schools teaching a regular-level introductory biology class. A post-test was designed that targeted a number of common misconceptions in both concept areas as well as representational usage. The results of a post-test demonstrate that the MBI-E students significantly outperformed the traditional classes in both natural selection and population ecology concepts, thus overcoming a number of misconceptions. In addition, implementing students made use of more multiple representations as well as demonstrating greater fascination for science.     

Problems in the planning of higher education

With the growing demand for places in German universities, the present system of allowing entrance to everyone who holds the Abitur has become unsatisfactory. This paper looks at ways of controlling the size of the higher education system and allocating resources from the viewpoint of economic theory.Three ideal type educational planning models are sketched, one of which - a market model - is argued to have the greatest advantages. It would involve a state credit scheme for students with repayments via a graduate tax; student fees would provide all or most of the universities' funds. It would remove the inequity of the present system which involves a transfer of income from today's (relatively poorer) earners to tomorrow's, and from those with lower earning potential to those with higher. Since students would be in a position to choose the most satisfying and/or cheapest courses of study and would find it easier to change courses if they wished, it would reward cost-saving and student-satisfying innovation. By providing more finely graded levels of qualification within subject areas, it would reduce the extent to which jobs are ordered hierarchically in an irrational and inefficient way; and the universities would respond more flexibly to changes in labour market demands.This is a translation, with minor amendments, of a paper published in Fundamental Problems of Infrastructure Planning for Growing Economies, Proceedings of the Conference of the Society for Social Policy, Innsbruck, 1970, Berlin: Verlag von Duncker und Humblot, 1971. It is reproduced here by arrangement with the publisher. The article was translated into English by David Webster.     

Using and rejecting peer feedback in the science classroom: a study of students’ negotiations on how to use peer feedback when designing experiments

Background: Research on peer assessment has noted ambiguity among students in using peer assessment for improving their work. Previous research has explained this in terms of deficits in the student feedback, or differences in student views of what counts as high-quality work.

Purpose: This study frames peer assessment as a social process in the science classroom. The aim is to explore peer assessment in science education as social practice in order to contribute to an understanding of the affordances and constraints of using peer assessment as a learning tool in science education.

Design and Method: The study was conducted in four lower secondary school classes, school years 8 and 9, in two different schools. An intervention study was designed focussing on the topic of experimental design. It involved the students in a process of peer assessment where they designed experiments individually, and then exchanged their designs, conducted each other’s experiments, provided feedback to each other and revised their original design after discussing the feedback in groups. Data were collected in the form of audio recordings of student discussions and written work.

Results: The results show that, although not all peer feedback resulted in revisions, peer feedback was useful to the students in group interaction when negotiating quality in their work.

Conclusions: To conclude, the potential for using peer assessment in science education should not only be evaluated through the students’ revisions but also in terms of in what ways the feedback constitutes interactional resources for defining quality in student work.     

Intra-active entanglements: What posthuman and new materialist frameworks can offer the learning sciences

This paper examines what new materialist and posthumanist frameworks can offer learning science research in diverse maker learning environments. We explore what is gained by grappling with the entanglements between humans, non-humans and more-than-humans. To do this, we draw on Karen Barad's ethico-onto-epistemology and agential realism where she redefines connections to the shared world by attuning to the entangled matter that is created within intra-actions. We use this framework across four international cases: digital media camps, a university-level classroom-based makerspace, a Saturday outdoor makerspace workshop and a classroom-based museum makerspace. Each case study attends to how intra-actions enact agential forces in maker education research—forces that posthuman and new materialist frameworks help us see. In so doing, these case studies challenge many of the assumptions prevalent in the learning sciences about mattering and its implications in research sites.