The Role of Everyday Contexts in Learner‐centred Teaching: The practice in Namibian secondary schools

This paper reports on the use of out‐of‐school everyday contexts in Namibian science classrooms. This use is portrayed against the backdrop of an explicit educational philosophy of learner‐centred teaching. Data were collected through audio‐taped teacher–learner interactions and non‐participant field notes in 29 junior and senior science classes taught by 12 teachers in six schools. An existing typology was applied to classify episodes of use of everyday contexts and identify teachers’ pedagogic strategies for their use. The results show that more everyday contexts are used in junior secondary than in senior secondary classes, that only a limited range of types of everyday contexts are used at both levels, and that their use often follows theoretical exposition or teacher questioning. These findings are related to three interpretations of learner‐centred teaching. Recommendations for a fuller implementation of learner‐centred teaching are made.     

Finding her way: a beginning teacher's story of learning to honour her own voice in teaching

This article examines the ways in which a collaborative action research design became the lens by which a classroom teacher and two university teacher educators examined the practice of a novice during her second year of teaching. Together the three authors tell a story of a young woman's struggle to find and honour her voice as a new teacher. Three overarching themes were identified from the date, including university preparation, formal/informal support networks and finding and honouring her voice. Findings revealed that the collaborative nature of this research provided for unintended praxis for all researchers. Ultimately, the teacher's quest for voice and ultimate articulation of self-as-teacher emerged as a result of her participation in this collaborative inquiry.     

Concentric left ventricular morphology in aerobically trained kayak canoeists

The aim of the present study was to test the hypothesis that upper body aerobically trained athletes (kayak canoeists) would have greater left ventricular wall thickness, but similar left ventricular diastolic chamber dimensions, compared with recreationally active and sedentary men. Ultrasound echocardiography was used to determine cardiac structure and function in highly trained kayak canoeists (n?=?10), moderately active (n?=?10) and sedentary men (n?=?10). The septal and posterior left ventricular walls were ～0.2?cm thicker in kayak canoeists (P?<?0.05), and left ventricular mass was 51% and 32% greater (P?<?0.05) in canoeists than in the sedentary and moderately trained participants, respectively. There were no differences in left ventricular chamber dimension, suggesting that the kayak canoeists had a concentric pattern of left ventricular adaptation to aerobic upper body training. Scaling the data to body composition indices had no effect on the outcome of the statistical analysis. There were no differences in resting Doppler left ventricular diastolic or systolic function among the groups. Ejection fraction was lower in the kayak canoeists, but the magnitude of the difference was within the normal variability for this measurement. Thus aerobically upper body trained athletes demonstrated a concentric pattern of cardiac enlargement, but resting left ventricle function was not different between athletes, moderately active and sedentary individuals.     

Step width alters iliotibial band strain during running

This study assessed the effect of step width during running on factors related to iliotibial band (ITB) syndrome. Three-dimensional (3D) kinematics and kinetics were recorded from 15 healthy recreational runners during overground running under various step width conditions (preferred and at least ± 5% of their leg length). Strain and strain rate were estimated from a musculoskeletal model of the lower extremity. Greater ITB strain and strain rate were found in the narrower step width condition (p < 0.001, p = 0.040). ITB strain was significantly (p < 0.001) greater in the narrow condition than the preferred and wide conditions and it was greater in the preferred condition than the wide condition. ITB strain rate was significantly greater in the narrow condition than the wide condition (p = 0.020). Polynomial contrasts revealed a linear increase in both ITB strain and strain rate with decreasing step width. We conclude that relatively small decreases in step width can substantially increase ITB strain as well as strain rates. Increasing step width during running, especially in persons whose running style is characterized by a narrow step width, may be beneficial in the treatment and prevention of running-related ITB syndrome.