Embodying Teaching: A Body Pedagogic Study of a Teacher’s Movement Rhythm in the ‘Sloyd’ Classroom

The article draws on body pedagogics and considers that teaching and learning experiences and outcomes are directly related to the different characteristics of movement behaviour. In this article movement behaviour specifically centres on a sloyd (handicraft education) teacher’s walk through the classroom. The analysis illuminate the specific teaching use of the body as a spatial, temporal and situational movement rhythm in the classroom and how teachers and pupils tune into educational discourses by means of different body techniques. A wireless GoPro camera was attached to the teacher’s chest in order to gain detailed view of pupil–teacher–body–material–tool encounters and a specific visual perspective of the sloyd teacher’s walk. During a 2.5 years fieldwork, 25 wood–metal sloyd lessons were observed and recorded (circa 50 h of video). The study is informed by Dewey’s embodied theory of learning and focus the alternation between active and passive phases in the stream of experience. From such Deweyan perspective the rhythm of an activity for organising experience, is fundamental to the creation of intelligent moving habits. The results show the body pedagogic experiences, outcomes and means by highlighting the teacher’s (a) spatial path by describing mutual relationships between the material arrangement of the classroom, the teacher’s bodily movements and the pupils’ participation in the lesson, (b) temporal pace by his ‘flights and perchings’ through the lessons and how he moves from pupil to pupil and assignment to assignment, (c) specific pacts by describing body techniques and situated teacher–pupil encounters that terminate in an agreement about how to proceed.     

Associations between Profiles of Maternal Strengths and Positive Parenting Practices among Mothers Experiencing Adversity

SYNOPSIS

Objective . Few studies have explored associations between strength-based factors and positive parenting among mothers experiencing adversity. Adopting a person-centered statistical approach, we examined how patterns of maternal strengths relate to positive parenting practices. Design . Participants were 188 female primary caregivers (71% African American) who experienced intimate partner violence and/or were living with HIV. Women were recruited from community organizations in the Mid-Southern United States and completed measures of adaptability, spirituality, ethnic identity, social support, parent-child communication, community cohesion, and parenting practices. Latent profile analysis was used to generate classes of individual (adaptability, spirituality, education), relational (family support, friend support, parent-child communication about Substance Abuse, Violence, and AIDS/HIV), and contextual (ethnic identity, community cohesion) factors, in line with the social-ecological model of resilience. Associations between the classes and positive parenting practices were examined. Results . Three classes emerged: (1) Low Individual, Relational, & Contextual (LIRC; n = 18); (2) Low SAVA Communication (LSC; n = 30); and (3) High Individual, Relational, & Contextual (HIRC; n = 140). Mothers in the LIRC class reported lower parental involvement and less positive parenting practices than those in the HIRC class. Conclusions . Mothers who endorse increased individual, relational, and contextual factors utilize more positive parenting practices. Optimal clinical approaches to enhance parenting should target supports at multiple levels.     

Interdisciplinary education in comprehensive school： Can a deep understanding occur？

The authors investigate how disciplines at school. Interdisciplinarity can be addressing a topic that is too broad to be understanding of the topic, the process going an integrative approach can be applied to teaching of different defined as a process of answering a question, solving a problem or dealt with by a single discipline. In addition to an integrated on inside the learner interests the authors. Unsuspected abilities, development of new views of the world and new commitment may emerge. Constructivism and narration, together with the socio-cultural theory of learning, form the background of the teaching and learning processes. The curriculum will integrate between subjects and recommends work in small groups to develop students＇ social capacities. The collaborative problem-solving approach, while including telling and re-telling features, allows students of natural sciences to hypothesize and test hypotheses using scientific methods. The target audience of this paper is class teachers and subject teachers in comprehensive schools （Grades 1-9）. The research questions are： Do students that undergo integrative education work think and problem-solve in different ways compared to when partaking in standard instruction？ Can they develop a deep understanding of the topic they are studying？ The authors plan to present story re-telling and visualization activities in groups concerning one theme： eggs. The topic covers arts, foreign languages, mathematics and science. Such an approach strengthens students＇ understanding of the disciplines themselves. It is hoped that this work can be useful for teachers that are interested in giving their students a more holistic view of their life world.     

Activity Achievement Emotions and Academic Performance: A Meta-analysis

Educational Psychology Review - Achievement emotions are emotions linked to academic, work, or sports achievement activities (activity emotions) and their success and failure outcomes (outcome...     

Online discussion in schools: Towards a pedagogical framework

In this paper, we draw on Bernstein's [1996. Pedagogy, symbolic control and identity: Theory, research, critique. London: Taylor and Francis] notion of framing of pedagogical communication to propose a framework for use in specific literacy contexts. Here, we illustrate how this framework has emerged from an examination of text response online discussions in the English/Language Arts curriculum in primary and secondary school contexts ostensibly concerned with the development of critical literacies. We focus on the selection of the literary texts and the prompts around those, the pacing and sequencing of the discussion, and the way in which responses are negotiated online. Using this framework in two specific contexts, we find that the more mediated, but less interactive framing in one institutional context tends to support the development of desired critical literacy practices, while the less mediated but more interactive framing of the online discussions in the second context is less supportive of such literacy practices. We suggest that this analytical framework could be adapted for use in a range of online contexts in order to make more visible the extent to which the intended forms of literacy are realised and which interactional affordances are exploited in the process.     

Developing a Learning Progression of Buoyancy to Model Conceptual Change: A Latent Class and Rule Space Model Analysis

Research in Science Education - We applied latent class analysis and the rule space model to verify the cumulative characteristic of conceptual change by developing a learning progression for...     

Chemosensory-based contextual conditioning inHermissenda crassicornis

In two experiments, the marine molluskHermissenda crassicornis was exposed to context discrimination training. In one context, defined by the presence of a diffuse chemosensory stimulus (shellfish extract A), brief, unsignaled, unconditioned stimuli (USs; high-speed rotation) were presented; in a second context, defined by the presence of shellfish extract B, no USs were presented. Animals were then tested (at both 1.5 and 24 h) by exposing them to small pieces of the shellfish meat used to define the two contexts. The latency to strike at the meat served as an index of the context-US association. In Experiment 1, the latency to strike at the cue associated with rotation was reduced relative to both preconditioning strike latencies and the associatively neutral cue. However, in a two-choice test where the animals could approach the conditioned or neutral stimulus, the animals regularly avoided the stimulus paired with rotation. Moreover, if, following conditioning, the animals were presented with an unsignaled rotation in the conditioned context or the neutral context, the animals exhibited more effective defensive clinging (an unconditioned reflex normally elicited by rotation) in the conditioned context, suggesting that it “prepared” the animal for the aversive US. In total, these results demonstrate thatHermissenda is capable of making associations to diffuse background (contextual) stimuli. Moreover, the results suggest that pairing the chemosensory cue with an aversive US elicits a strike response inHermissenda when the animal is placed in forced contact with the cue and an active avoidance response when the animal can choose between that cue and a neutral cue.     

Efficacy of the Check & Connect Mentoring Program for At-Risk General Education High School Students

Although graduation rates are rising, the high school dropout problem remains a national crisis, and evidence-based information about interventions for at-risk students is critically needed. Prior research shows that Check & Connect, an individualized mentoring program, has positive effects on school persistence and progression for students with disabilities. This study examined the efficacy of Check & Connect with general education students who showed early warning signs of risk for dropping out of high school in a large urban district. The sample included 553 students with the lowest predicted probabilities of on-time graduation based on attendance, behavior, and course performance in Grades 8 and 9. Students were randomly assigned to receive a Check & Connect mentor for three years, starting in the summer after Grade 9, or not. Findings suggest the program was implemented with fidelity, except with students who left district schools. Check & Connect did not have any statistically significant impacts on measures of engagement, academic progress, the likelihood of dropping out, or graduation. These results are discussed in the context of other literature on mentoring and dropout prevention.     

Verbal information-processing capabilities and cochlear implants: implications for preoperative predictors of speech understanding

In this study, we examined preoperative verbal cognitive capacity in 11 deafened adults who were cochlear implant candidates and reexamined level of speech understanding after 6-8 months' experience with the implant. Verbal cognitive performance in the implant group was compared in a group of normal hearing subjects and in nonimplanted group of deafened adults. The three groups performed on par with each other with an exception: The individuals in the cochlear implant group and the nonimplanted group of deafened adults performed significatly worse than those of normal hearing in tasks in which use of internal speech is a key feature (i.e., rhyme judgement and lexical decision tasks). Postoperative observations of the implanted individuals' level of speech understanding suggest that it is possible to predict the level of speech understanding by means of a properative cognitive assessment. The characteristics of three verbal cognitive abilities prove to be critical indicators of 6 - 8 months' postoperative outcome: internal speech functioning, speed of verval information processing, and working memory capacity - the first factor proved the most decisive. We discuss the results with respect to direct versus indirect predictors of outcomes from cochlear implant operations and the effect of auditory deprivation on deafened adults' capability to process auditory information.