A Technology‐Enhanced Unit of Modeling Static Electricity: Integrating scientific explanations and everyday observations

What trajectories do students follow as they connect their observations of electrostatic phenomena to atomic‐level visualizations? We designed an electrostatics unit, using the knowledge integration framework to help students link observations and scientific ideas. We analyze how learners integrate ideas about charges, charged particles, energy, and observable events. We compare learning enactments in a typical school and a magnet school in the USA. We use pre‐tests, post‐tests, embedded notes, and delayed post‐tests to capture the trajectories of students’ knowledge integration. We analyze how visualizations help students grapple with abstract electrostatics concepts such as induction. We find that overall students gain more sophisticated ideas. They can interpret dynamic, interactive visualizations, and connect charge‐ and particle‐based explanations to interpret observable events. Students continue to have difficulty in applying the energy‐based explanation.     

Viewing Michigan’s digital future: results of a survey of educators’ use of digital video in the USA

Digital video is a growing and important presence in student learning. This paper reports the results of a survey of American educators in Michigan (n = 426) conducted in spring 2008. The survey included questions about educators’ attitudes toward the streaming and downloadable video services available to them in their schools. The survey results showed that educators mainly used digital video to introduce and to conclude learning experiences. These educators, who predominantly used the Web‐based unitedstreaming ^TM digital video service, relished the service’s content breadth, short clips and potential to foster instructional innovation. However, many survey respondents reported concerns about internet connection bandwidth, projection capabilities and lack of end‐user control over on‐demand download and manipulation. Educators viewed school‐level Information and Communications Technology policies, bandwidth capacity and lack of support personnel as the causes of these difficulties. Because little research has been done on the implementation of digital video services in US schools, the conclusions of this study may provide direction for educators, researchers and policy‐makers who use a variety of digital video platforms and services.     

Wild botanic gardens as valuable resources for innovative environmental education programmes in Latin America

Wild botanic gardens consist of natural or semi-natural land remnants immersed in large urban areas or botanic gardens, which are managed for purposes of biodiversity preservation and public recreation. In Latin America, they tend to be affected by budget limitations; however, they serve as valuable resources that permit the development of innovative environmental education programmes. Specifically, we are considering the appropriateness of implementing critical environmental education and socio-constructivist programmes. As for practical considerations, it is important to include diverse epistemologies, and therefore, strategies or procedures characteristic of science teaching, such as problem-based learning, together with other characteristics of social activism and popular education initiatives, such as assemblies or meetings, and others characteristic of more traditional and indigenous worldviews, such as celebrations of the earth. In this way, Latin American wild botanic gardens may play a role in constructing environmentally responsible societies and the nurturing of a culture of reflective inquiry.     

Encoding of spatial information in images of an outdoor scene by pigeons and humans

Pigeons and adult humans searched for a 2-cm² unmarked goal in digitized images of an outdoor scene presented on a touch-screen monitor. In Experiment 1, the scene contained three landmarks near the goal and a visually rich background. Six training images presented the scene from different viewing directions and distances. Subsequent unreinforced tests in which landmark or background cues were removed or shifted revealed that pigeons’ search was controlled by both proximal landmarks and background cues, whereas humans relied only on the proximal landmarks. Pigeons’ search accuracy dropped substantially when they were presented with novel views of the same scene, whereas humans showed perfect transfer to novel views. In Experiment 2, pigeons with previous outdoor experience and humans were trained with 28 views of an outdoor scene. Both pigeons and humans transferred well to novel views of the scene. This positive transfer suggests that, under some conditions, pigeons, like humans, may encode the three-dimensional spatial information in images of a scene.     

Infant responsivity to curvature.

The reactions of 112 10-month-old male infants to the property of curvature were examined using a habituation paradigm with lever pressing as an instrumental response. 4 levels of curvature (straightt line, minimal curve, moderate curve, large curve) each served as a standard (habituation) stimulus and as a transformation stimulus in 9 separate experimental conditions. Results revealed a greater initial dishabituation of reinforced instrumental responding in those conditions crossing the curved/straight boundary; furthermore, this initial dishabituation was sustained throughout the transformation phase of the experiment in those conditions which involved changes from straight to curved, but not curved to straight. Results are interpreted as implying a special attention-recruiting value for curvature in 10-month old infants.     

Attitudes and learning disabilities: A literature review for school psychologists

Most LD students spend the major part of the school day within the regular classroom. Research, however, supports the rejected status of these students. The purpose of this presentation is to: (a) review research pertaining to the feelings professionals and peers have about learning disabled students, and (b) review those factors that may be important for consideration when attempting to modify these perceptions. School psychologists should address the attitudinal issues with a knowledge and basic conceptualization of various strategies that may be utilized to initiate attitude modification programs.     

AI新时代面向文化遗产活化利用的智慧数据生成路径探析

生成式人工智能引爆AI新时代,新技术不断涌现并快速迭代更新,AI技术应用呈现出百花齐放、百家争鸣的繁荣发展局面。借助AI发展东风,智慧数据的生成进入了高效、深化、多模态集成的新阶段,提升了数据驱动的文化遗产活化利用创新手段和创新形式的丰富度与可行性。本文旨在探索面向文化遗产活化利用的智慧数据生成路径。首先,从AI技术视角,对文化遗产智慧数据的内涵与价值进行回顾并知新;其次,系统分析从多元异构数据资源中生成智慧数据的典型做法;再次,以羌年为例,探讨非遗活态文化的智慧数据生成思路。最后,总结归纳AI赋能文化遗产智慧数据生成路径的四点参考策略：(1)抓住AI赋能机遇,补齐数据基础设施短板,加强数据资源体系建设;(2)尽快开展馆藏数据资源的“大语言模型+知识库”结合工作,实现智能分析与计算增强;(3)鼓励更广泛的文化遗产数据开放与共享,支持活化利用的创新应用;(4)确保可信的智慧数据。图3。表1。参考文献68。     

‘Low income doesn't mean stupid and destined for failure': challenging the deficit discourse around students from low SES backgrounds in higher education

The discourse around students from low socio-economic backgrounds often adopts a deficit conception in which these students are seen as a ‘problem’ in higher education. In light of recent figures pointing to an increase in the number and proportion of these students participating in higher education [Pitman, T. 2014. “More Students in Higher ed, But it's no more Representative.” The Conversation 28: 1–4] and an absence of evidence to support deficit thinking, this deficit discourse requires re-examination. Qualitative data from 115 interviews carried out across 6 Australian universities as part of a national study reveal that, contrary to the conception of these students as a ‘problem’, students from low SES backgrounds demonstrate high levels of determination and academic skills and that they actively seek high standards in their studies. This paper critically examines deficit conceptions of these students, drawing on findings from qualitative interviews with 89 successful students from low SES backgrounds and 26 staff members recognised as exemplary in their provision of teaching and support of students from low SES backgrounds. Drawing on these findings, this paper challenges the deficit discourse and argues for a more affirmative and nuanced conception of students from low SES backgrounds.