Instructor experiences with a social networking site in a higher education setting: expectations, frustrations, appropriation, and compartmentalization

Researchers and practitioners have suggested that the use of social networking sites in formal education may be a worthwhile endeavor. Toward this goal, emerging learning platforms have included social networking features. Nevertheless, empirical literature examining user experiences, and more specifically instructor experiences, with these tools is limited. In this qualitative study, we address this gap in the literature by reporting the experiences of five instructors who used a social networking platform in their courses. We find that instructors (a) had expectations of Elgg that stemmed from numerous sources, (b) used Elgg in heterogeneous ways and for varied purposes, (c) compartmentalized Elgg and used it in familiar ways, and (d) faced frustrations stemming from numerous sources. We note that the ways Elgg came to be used “on the ground” is contested and contrasts starkly with the narrative of how social software might contribute benefits to educational practice. In addition, we note that learning management systems may frame the ways through which other tools, such as social media and Elgg, are understood, used, and experienced.     

Reading the Word and Reading the World: The Impact of a Critical Pedagogical Approach to the Teaching of Criminology in Higher Education

Critical pedagogical approaches are underpinned by the principal that education is an inherently political process which should be concerned with enabling students to be reflective, independent, and critical thinkers. In this paper we argue that facilitating the development of a critical consciousness is an integral part of the teaching of critical criminology in higher education. We contend that it is essential if students are to recognize the broader social and political contexts of their own, and others’, lived experiences and thus be able to challenge political oppressions and domain ideologies. By drawing on a pilot study conducted with final‐year undergraduates from a university in the north west of England, the paper will demonstrate how a critical education (critical in terms of subject content, and teaching practice) can better enable students to develop both academically and, as importantly, with regard to their personal, social, and political consciousness.     

Denying Genetic Causality

This edited volume of essays presents a countermainstream view against genetic underpinnings for cancer, behavior, and psychiatric conditions.This edited volume is a project from the Council of Responsible Genetics, a private organization based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, whose mission, as stated on its website, includes as one of several goals to “expose oversimplified and distorted scientific claims regarding the role of genetics in human disease, development and behavior.” This book represents such an effort. Editors Krimsky and Gruber are chair and president/executive director, respectively, of the organization and appear to have solicited contributions to the book from affiliates and other colleagues. Fewer than half of the 16 chapters are written by active laboratory scientists, however, and as a result, the book suffers from arguments clouded by imprecise use of terminology and preconceptions about genes and their functions. One might consider this book, or parts thereof, for an advanced undergraduate genetics class in which positions counter to the mainstream scientific view are presented and evaluated, and in which students are challenged to critically assess the quality of support for all arguments.The general theme of this book is to question the role of genes (and reproducible molecular mechanisms, more broadly) in cancer, behavior, psychiatric disorders, evolution, and other phenomena. One chapter promotes the tissue organization field theory (TOFT) against the somatic mutation theory of cancer. TOFT was proposed by the chapter authors in 2011 (Soto and Sonnenschein, 2011 ) but has not found traction and has garnered little attention beyond an initial refutation (Vaux, 2011 ). The authors assert that cancer is a disease of development and tissue repair primarily from environmental exposures and independent of genetic changes. Most cancer researchers agree that environmental factors can trigger cell growth but that ensuing mutations complete the picture in the genesis of malignancies. This chapter would be a good starting point from which one could assign students to explore papers cited in the Cancer Genome Atlas database, a growing resource compiling cancer genome data and subsequent validation in other systems of the effects of mutations found. In another chapter, a nonscientist author asserts that “in only a small percentage of cases are genes notable contributors to breast cancer,” implying imprecisely that only rare inherited cancer predisposition is genetic, when in fact cancer stemming from somatic mutations is also gene based. To assert that cancer stems only from environmental effects, to the exclusion of genes, overlooks the intertwining of the two arenas—radiation induces somatic mutations, for example, and estrogen mimics trigger cell division, which sets the stage for additional new mutations during DNA replication. Open in a separate windowOther sections of the book argue a lack of evidence for genetic influence on behaviors and psychiatric conditions. One chapter centers on several refuted ideas of biology and behavior (for example XYY and monoamine oxidase genotypes associated with aggression), with the intended implication that all other biological connections to behavior must be suspect. A chapter on autism accepts but downplays a partial role of genetics in the disorder, while emphasizing environmental exposures. Students exploring this topic could examine the growing literature on de novo mutations found in autism patients (Huguet et al., 2013 ), among other autism studies, to see how interlocking causes of the disorder might best explained by the available data. In the context of disorders such as schizophrenia, the book does not acknowledge or address the literature reporting genetic associations with psychiatric predispositions. In a troubling instance, a cited reference is misrepresented as refuting a genetic connection to schizophrenia; the reference in question (Collins et al., 2012 ) actually reports genome-wide association studies showing linkage of schizophrenia to particular loci (just not to the genes originally suspected). The same research group the previous month reported copy number variations associated with schizophrenia (Kirov et al., 2012 ), but this finding was not cited. Psychiatric genetics is a rich area for students to explore, and the contrarian viewpoint of the book can provide a starting point to trigger students’ delving into the literature.Genetic Explanations: Sense and Nonsense includes two chapters with assertions counter to the neo-Darwinian synthesis of evolution. One claims, fairly misleadingly, that “a growing number of evolutionary biologists … believe that macroevolution was the result of mechanisms other than natural selection.” Another states that “not genomic DNA but epigenetic environmental influences … overwhelmingly affect our health and well being.” The idea that gene regulation via environmental and epigenetic effects is somehow not reducible to genes (and that genes are therefore not central to evolution) would be an interesting subject for students to explore in the literature to see what the data actually support.This book is recommended only for use in advanced classes centered on weighing evidence and dissecting arguments in scientific controversies. The book''s countermainstream assertion of a lack of significant genetic connection to cancer, autism, schizophrenia, and other phenomena provides multiple opportunities for students to explore the scientific literature surrounding such genetic connections.