Silence speaks: Whiteness revealed in the absence of voice

In this hybrid article, the author attempts to weave together the theoretical implications of whiteness theory and a theorizing of silence on teacher education practices, research with her own students that explored these implications, and reflections on her own pedagogical practices and location as a white teacher educator teaching about race and diversity. In teacher education courses intended to explore issues regarding the implications of diversity in schools, silence is often encountered in work with white students who have not examined their identity in the context of a racial discourse. This article explores the nature and intent of these racially inhabited silences that emerged in two teacher education courses comprised predominately of white preservice teachers.     

First-Year College Students’ Conflict with Religion and Science

This study took place during a First Year Seminar course where 20 incoming college freshmen studied the central topic of the nature of science within the context of biological evolution. The instructor researched students’ understandings in the nature of science as they progressed through the course by examining a variety of qualitative and quantitative data including class writings, pre- and post-test selected items from the VOSTS (Views on Science-Technology-Society), and interviews. The intended outcomes of the course were to reduce the number of student misconceptions in the nature of science and to ease student apprehension when learning about evolution. Data were analyzed to determine whether students were moving toward a more generally accepted idea of the nature of science or toward another type of misconception.     

Emergence of the Link Between the Approximate Number System and Symbolic Math Ability

Experimentally manipulating Approximate Number System (ANS) precision has been found to influence children’s subsequent symbolic math performance. Here in three experiments (N = 160; 81 girls; 3–5 year old) we replicated this effect and examined its duration and developmental trajectory. We found that modulation of 5-year-olds’ ANS precision continued to affect their symbolic math performance after a 30-min delay. Furthermore, our cross-sectional investigation revealed that children 4.5 years and older experienced a significant transfer effect of ANS manipulation on math performance, whereas younger children showed no such transfer, despite experiencing significant changes in ANS precision. These findings support the existence of a causal link between nonverbal numerical approximation and symbolic math performance that first emerges during the preschool years.     

Effect of acquisition rates on off‐task behavior of kindergarten students while learning sight words

Assessing a student's acquisition rates (ARs) is a reliable way to determine how many new words should be taught in one lesson without reducing retention. Exceeding a student's AR can result in frustration and problem behaviors. The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of AR on the off‐task behavior of kindergarten students while participating in a commonly used sight‐word instruction video. Participants included 39 kindergarten students whose ARs were assessed before showing the sight‐word video. Behavior was measured as on‐ and off‐task using momentary time‐sampling with 10‐s intervals. Results indicated that students' time off task increased after exceeding their ARs, with a noticeable immediate increase. The implications and limitations of these results are discussed.     

Femininity,Homoeroticism and Heterosexuality in Yin Jianling’s Female Coming-of-Age Narratives

Children's Literature in Education - This article reads contemporary Chinese children’s author Yin Jianling’s novels The Paper Puppy (Zhiren) and Orange Fish (Juzi Yu) alongside her...     

Touching creativity; a review and early pilot test of haptic tooling to support design practice,within a distance learning curriculum

ABSTRACT

Machine haptics has been shown to assist and enhance human–computer interactions. Research from previous studies in the field of haptics has focused on developing a user’s sense of realism of touch when using a haptic device. This paper examines the use of haptics for education, specifically for creative online education. The paper is presented in two parts. First, a review of literature was conducted and used to aid the rationale and underpin the design of a pilot test. Second, a pilot test was designed using a single-point kinaesthetic haptic device with a haptic rendered interface, to support the assembly of a virtual design prototype. The pilot test proved to be extremely valuable in creating and developing a rich virtual environment for non-sighted and sighted participants to use. The results from the initial pilot test showed that although users were positive about their experience of using the haptic device, there were improvements to be made to the interface to enhance the user experience in the next phase of testing.     

Ghostwriters guaranteeing grades? The quality of online ghostwriting services available to tertiary students in Australia

Ghostwriting is difficult to detect, it has the potential to be high quality, and universities do not currently have adequate policies in place to police it. Determining the quality of the ghostwriting services available to tertiary students is of vital importance because underestimating the potential for students to use these services to pass their courses affects universities’ ability to detect their use and counteract their prevalence. This study examines the service being advertised to students by the 30 top-ranked ghostwriting websites. The study examines the quality of the service being offered by purchasing 2 essays from 13 of these businesses, 1 undergraduate and 1 postgraduate. These essays were graded by three academics who believed they were grading real student papers. The results of the study are alarming because they imply that had these essays been submitted to a university, the majority of them would have passed without any plagiarism detected.