The Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers

The overall mission of the Conservatoire national des arts et métiers—(CNAM) [National Conservatory of Industrial Arts and Trades] is outlined. One of its centers, the Centre national de l'entrepreneuriat—(CNE) [National Center for Entrepreneurship] is described in greater detail. In particular, this center offers various services, notably training and retraining, to small entrepreneurs, including distance training via a virtual training system, @ppui^©. It also offers a range of entrepreneurial consultation services to small and to very small businesses and to regional institutions.     

Infants of depressed mothers show "depressed" behavior even with nondepressed adults

To determine whether the "depressed" behavior (e.g., less positive affect and lower activity level) of infants noted during interactions with their "depressed" mothers generalizes to their interactions with nondepressed adults, 74 3-6-month-old infants of "depressed" and nondepressed mothers were videotaped in face-to-face interactions with their mothers and with nondepressed female strangers. "Depressed" mothers and their infants received lower ratings on all behaviors than nondepressed mothers and infants. Although the infants of "depressed" versus nondepressed mothers also received lower ratings with the stranger adult, very few differences were noted between those infants' ratings when interacting with their mother versus the stranger, suggesting that their "depressed" style of interacting is not specific to their interactions with depressed mothers but generalizes to their interactions with nondepressed adults as early as 3 months of age.     

Manufacturing education: the commercial development of educational products for schools

By designing products that ultimately structure meaning in lessons, the industry that produces teaching materials for schools shapes teaching practice and everyday learning situations in schools across geographical borders. The design and development of such learning resources is a professional practice that has hitherto received very little academic attention. This lacuna is addressed in our paper, which presents an analysis of this aspect of educational practice based upon insights gained from ethnographic research. Light is shed upon specific ways of addressing and guiding pupils, teaching staff, and customers, which result from processes of negotiation between representatives of different professions including scientists, teachers, publishers and distributors. These processes ultimately provide classrooms with products that have been shaped by ideas about schooling. It becomes clear that the development of such materials is shaped by multiple perspectives on school education. As an exemplary case study, we describe in detail the process by which such materials make well-known, everyday phenomena abstract or ‘alien’ so that they can then be recontextualised and presented anew – as phenomena to be understood with the aid of school-taught knowledge.     

Choose Your Evidence

Science & Education - Schooling traditionally affords students more experience in learning and practicing procedures than in identifying what a situation calls for. When asked to choose...     

Developing conceptual understanding in ray optics via learning with multiple representations

A particular difficulty in physics learning is the fact that pupils’ “intuitive” concepts are often resistant to instruction. This article reports empirical results from two related studies within an interdisciplinary project of physics education and educational psychology in ray optics. Two different kinds of treatment groups (TG A and TG B), both targeted at widespread pupils’ intuitive concepts (N?=?511), were compared with the results of a control group (CG C) learning with conventional tasks (N?=?218) provided by a related study II. Pupils in TG A) of study I worked on cognitively activating tasks related to widespread intuitive concepts in ray optics explicitly requiring them to deal with multiple representations. Pupils in the TG B) of study I worked on the same intuitive concepts, but without the cognitively activating representational component. TG A) and B) were compared with each other and with CG C) learning with conventional tasks. The results indicated that tasks addressing widespread intuitive pupils’ concepts improved conceptual understanding significantly more than conventional tasks. There was evidence of a significant intermediate effect showing medium-term stability.     

Librarians Use of Web 2.0 in UK Medical Schools: Outcomes of A National Survey

Using the results of an Email survey, this paper reviews the use of Web 2.0 technologies by librarians working in UK Medical Schools. Web 2.0 has been hailed as an innovation for facilitation of two way communication on the net, and it is, therefore, timely to measure how effectively librarians are capturing this opportunity for increased student engagement. The social nature of Web 2.0 can be particularly appropriate for undergraduate medical students who fit their studies around the unsocial hours and geographical isolation of clinical placements. This paper will investigate library use of blogs, Facebook, and Twitter. Consideration will also be given as to whether they facilitate a more collabroative library service or if they leave undergraduate medical students swamped with yet more information to manage.     

Do students need to be taught how to reason?

In this theoretical essay, the author addresses the existence of divergent evidence, portraying both competence and lack of competence in a fundamental realm of higher order thinking - causal and scientific reasoning - and explores the educational implications. Evidence indicates that these higher order reasoning skills are not ones that can be counted on to develop naturally among students exposed to a traditional curriculum. Instead, it is argued, such skills warrant attention in their own right as legitimate and significant educational objectives.