Learner-generated drawing as a strategy for learning from content area text

Learner-generated drawing is a strategy that can improve learning from expository text. In this paper, a model of drawing construction is proposed and the experimental design tests hypotheses derived from this model. Fourth and sixth grade participants used drawing under three experimental conditions with two conditions including varying degrees of support. On a problem solving posttest, both supported drawing groups scored higher than the non-drawing Control group. Although the grade by condition interaction was not significant, there was a strong trend in this direction. When sixth grade participants were considered independently, participants in the most supported drawing condition also obtained higher problem solving scores than those who drew without support. There were no significant condition effects for fourth grade nor were there any significant effects on a multiple-choice recognition posttest. Results were consistent with hypotheses and are discussed in light of the proposed theoretical framework.     

Classroom learning and achievement: how the complexity of classroom interaction impacts students’ learning

Background: Complexity models have provided a suitable framework in various domains to assess students’ educational achievement. Complexity is often used as the analytical focus when regarding learning outcomes, i.e. when analyzing written tests or problem-centered interviews. Numerous studies reveal negative correlations between the complexity of a task and the probability of a student solving it.

Purpose: Thus far, few detailed investigations explore the importance of complexity in actual classroom lessons. Moreover, the few efforts made so far revealed inconsistencies. Hence, the present study sheds light on the influence the complexity of students’ and teachers’ class contributions have on students’ learning outcomes.

Sample: Videos of 10 German 8th grade physics courses covering three consecutive lessons on two topics each (electricity, mechanics) have been analyzed. The sample includes 10 teachers and 290 students.

Design and methods: Students’ and teachers’ verbal contributions were coded manual-based according to the level of complexity. Additionally, pre-post testing of knowledge in electricity and mechanics was applied to assess the students’ learning gain. ANOVA analysis was used to characterize the influence of the complexity on the learning gain.

Results: Results indicate that the mean level of complexity in classroom contributions explains a large portion of variance in post-test results on class level. Despite this overarching trend, taking classroom activities into account as well reveals even more fine-grained patterns, leading to more specific relations between the complexity in the classroom and students’ achievement.

Conclusions: In conclusion, we argue for more reflected teaching approaches intended to gradually increase class complexity to foster students’ level of competency.     

Signing in: knowledge and action in nursery teaching

Based on fieldwork conducted in two day care centres in Denmark, this paper explores knowledge and action as relational and intertwined phenomena in nursery teaching. Engaging with perspectives from actor network theory, emphasis is put on the socio-material distribution of knowing and acting. That is, how the nursery teacher becomes part of knowledge and action through an assemblage of various elements, such as packed lunches, children, noises, crumbs, another nursery teacher and a bucket. A notion of the sign is developed in which signs can be gestures, words or artefacts stabilised in a web of relations, hereby signalling the kinds of relations that are important to attend to. ‘Signing in’ is a way of becoming part of these relations. Against this background, this paper critically addresses ambitions to professionalise the field of early childhood education and care, questioning the divide between knowledge and action on which such initiatives are based.     

Are Good Characters Better for Us? The Effect of Morality Salience on Entertainment Selection and Recovery Outcomes

Two experiments examined whether one’s moral self-perception affects the selection of content (Study 1) and whether exposure to different character types results in any recovery benefits (Study 2). Study 1 found that individuals were more likely to select films featuring good characters and morally ambiguous characters than films featuring bad characters regardless of their moral self-perceptions. Study 2 found that individuals whose vices were made salient relaxed and psychologically detached more after reading stories featuring good characters and MACs than after reading a bad character story, whereas those whose virtues were made salient experienced an equal level of recovery benefits regardless of character type. Findings thus indicate that morality salience does not affect selection of content featuring different character types, but it does affect the recovery outcomes one experiences after narrative exposure.     

Communicative Functions of the Museum Lobby

In a time with a heightened focus on how museum architecture and exhibition design shapes the museum visit, the entrance space of museums, the museum lobby, is remarkably absent from the museum literature and research. Still, the museum lobby is the first encounter visitors have with the museum and the last impression that they take home and share with others. This article analyzes museum lobbies as communication spaces in order to identify the different functions afforded by such spaces. In an explorative study of five Danish museum lobbies, we offer a preliminary categorization of these functions that can be compared at a general level. Concrete examples will be used to discuss general issues such as the adaptive borders of lobby spaces and the counteracting effects of design. We suggest that the preliminary categorization provided here can form a foundation for further studies resulting in practical suggestions for design improvements.     

The 2011 Bower Award and Prize for Achievement in Science presented to George Church,Harvard Medical School

George Church receives the 2011 Bower Award and Prize for Achievement in Science for innovative and creative contributions to genomic science, including the development of DNA sequencing technologies, and for his subsequent efforts to promote personal genomics and synthetic biology.     

Is there a right time for gender-just peace? Feminist anti-war organising revisited

ABSTRACT

This paper addresses the question of totalising gender-power relations that have led to and shaped the wars of the 1990s in Yugoslavia and the emerging ethno-national states on the ‘periphery’ of Europe. I argue that the same type of gender-power relations continue to dominate the region, notably Serbia, and to perpetuate gender inequalities and gender-based violence (GBV) in its many everyday and structural forms, causing profound levels of human insecurity. This analysis aims to set in motion a debate around how to tackle these continuing gender inequalities and GBV in post-war societies. In so doing, I propose a shift from focusing on the hierarchy of victimisation that has characterised much of the feminist analyses, activism, and scholarly work in relation to these (and other) conflicts, to a relational understanding of the gendered processes of victimisation in war and peace, that is – of both women and men. Such an approach holds a potential to undermine the power systems that engender these varied types of victimisation by ultimately reshaping the notions of masculinity and femininity, which are central to the gender-power systems that generate gender-unjust peace.