Embracing equity and excellence while constructing science teacher identities in urban schools: Voices of new Teachers of Color

We explored how new Teachers of Color grappled with equity and excellence as they were constructing science teacher identities while learning to teach in a teacher education program committed to equity, justice, and excellence, and eventually teaching in urban schools where inequities and injustices persist. The theoretical framing, compiled from various bodies of literature, weaved together what we consider as essential parts of teacher identity construction and provided a lens with which to examine how conceptions of equity and excellence that the study participants were constructing meshed with their multiple identities, considerations on legitimate knowledge production, and dialectical relationships with which they grappled. Using transcendental phenomenology, we learned from and with three Black and Latinx teachers and their narratives. The teachers intertwined similarly and differently their evolving conceptions of equity and excellence into their evolving science teacher identities as they engaged in forms of contentious local practice and reflected on their experiences as science Teachers of Color teaching predominately Students of Color. Their multiple identities were meshed with histories of larger institutions—science, schooling, and society—and together these were shaping their conceptions of equity and excellence. The intermingling of equity and excellence, which was guiding the curricular and instructional decisions they were making in their classrooms, was also linked to what they considered as legitimate knowledge production in science classes and what counted as knowledge that their students needed to know at different times. The various dilemmas defined by opposing poles with which they were grappling also functioned as scales on which their coordinated equity-excellence unit of meaning was forming. Based on the study, we offer insights into practices that science teacher educators may consider as they prepare new teachers, and work with practicing teachers, to embrace and coordinate equity and excellence in their ever-developing science teacher identities.     

Analysis of muscular activity and dynamic response of the lower limb adding vibration to cycling

Vibration in cycling has been proved to have undesirable effects over health, comfort and performance of the rider. In this study, 15 participants performed eight 6-min sub-maximal pedalling exercises at a constant power output (150W) and pedalling cadence (80 RPM) being exposed to vibration at different frequencies (20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70 Hz) or without vibration. Oxygen uptake (VO2), heart rate (HR), surface EMG activity of seven lower limb muscles (GMax, RF, BF, VM, GAS, SOL and TA) and 3-dimentional accelerations at ankle, knee and hip were measured during the exercises. To analyse the dynamic response, the influence of the pedalling movement was taken into account. The results show that there was not significant influence of vibrations on HR and VO2 during this pedalling exercise. However, muscular activity presents a significant increase with the presence of vibration that is influenced by the frequency, but this increase was very low (< 1%). Also, the dynamic response shows an influence of the frequency as well as an influence of the different parts of the pedalling cycle. Those results help to explain the effects of vibration on the human body and the influence of the rider/bike interaction in those effects.