The difference biocultural “place” makes to community efforts towards sustainable development: Youth participatory action research in a marine protected area of Colombia

The Latin American concept of “(collective) biocultural heritage” arose from Indigenous knowledge and practices with respect to local natural resources and environment, including the food being hunted, the crops being grown, and the landscapes being created. The term is now used more widely to describe community practices, goals and priorities that are determined, maintained and managed by diverse cultural relationships with “place”. The study presented in this article investigated biocultural place relationships in connection with well-being and sustainability. In the context of learning and action for sustainability in Isla Grande, an island in a marine protected area of Colombia, this study targeted the significance of place to the everyday lives of Afro-Colombian youth – from their perspective. Beyond aiming to merely observe and collect data, the methodology included a research design which actively involved local youth and incorporated the aspect of place. The authors describe and reflect on the processes, learning and action that emerged throughout the research, as well as the study’s limitations. They discuss broad implications in terms of how place relationships influence research, and how research influences place relationships. Local implications include supporting the voice of youth in community efforts to re-imagine and transform place relationships in response to critical place issues such as climate change, top-down resource management, privatisation, commodification and growing environmental injustice.     

Beyond stigmatization of children with difficulties in learning

In the Albanian schools settings does not exist religious discrimination, neither gender discrimination, but there exists a discrimination, as unfair against children called ＂difficulty＂. The children who drop out of school are by far less numerous compared with those who start school, but who are not properly treated, so that they can progress the same as other children. The object of this article is the children with learning difficulties, the causes of these difficulties. One of the reasons, among many others, why this secret dropping out of school happens is also difficulty in learning that quite a few number of pupils have, which are not known to everyone, and consequently are not treated by all the teachers, or by the other people who surround the child, condemning him to a school failure and slim chances to succeed later in life. It has often been pointed out that to define the causes of these learning difficulties it is not an easy task. A large number of factors intermingle bringing about the hell of learning for some children. If it is impossible to intervene in different organic damages （even they in many cases can be prevented though）, at least those depending on people can be avoided by offering a favorable environment, showing fondness towards them and making efforts to help these children. Above all, the authors have to be willing, to know and be able to do this as parents and precisely as teachers.     

Pedagogical differences during a science and language intervention for English language learners

The purpose of this study was to compare and describe 8 fifth-grade classrooms by their teachers pedagogy during a quasiexperimental, longitudinal, and field-based project focused on increasing English language learners' (ELLs') achievement in science and language. The larger study found statistically significant and positive intervention effects in favor of the treatment group on measures of science and language achievement. This study adds an in-depth analysis of the teacher pedagogical practices contributing to students' science and language achievement as captured by an observational instrument used during the project. Results from the analysis show how treatment teachers, when compared to control teachers, focused on activities promoting verbal and written interaction among the students and dense cognitive language use during science inquiry instruction. The findings support the importance of effectively using language in the science classroom to improve ELLs' science and language achievement. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.     

Why Siblings Are Important Agents of Cognitive Development: A Comparison of Siblings and Peers

This study explored older siblings' and peers' influence on young children's cognitive development. Although we anticipated many similarities in siblings' and peers' influence, our principal goal was to test the hypothesis that siblings are unique agents of cognitive development. Young children, their older siblings, and an older, familiar peer first participated in an unstructured building session where each built their own construction. Then, one of the older children taught the younger child how to copy a model windmill. Finally, the younger child was given an individual posttest in which he or she copied the windmill. Although there were many similarities in older siblings' and peers' guidance, the results highlighted the uniqueness of the sibling relationship. In the unstructured building session, young children were more likely to observe, imitate, and consult their older siblings than their older peers, and older siblings were more likely than older peers to provide them with guidance spontaneously. In the teaching session, older siblings provided more explanations and positive feedback and gave learners more control of the task than older peers. However, older siblings' behavior was not independent from the learners', as young children often prompted the siblings' explanations and pressured them into giving them more control of the task. These differences in teaching and learning strategies affected young children's task mastery; Children taught by siblings obtained higher posttest scores than children taught by peers. The discussion interprets these findings within the context of shared and unique functions of siblings and peers in cognitive development and highlights the role of the learner in promoting his or her own development.     

Arthrospira maxima (Spirulina) prevents endoplasmic reticulum stress in the kidney through its C-phycocyanin

正Arthrospira maxima (Spirulina) is a cyanobacterium which is considered a nutraceutical because it has antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and cytoprotective properties in different renal disease models (RodriguezSánchez et al., 2012; Aziz et al., 2018; Memije-Lazaro et al., 2018).     

Towards learning analytics adoption: A mixed methods study of data-related practices and policies in Latin American universities

In Latin American universities, Learning Analytics (LA) has been perceived as a promising opportunity to leverage data to meet the needs of a diverse student cohort. Although universities have been collecting educational data for years, the adoption of LA in this region is still limited due to the lack of expertise and policies for processing and using educational data. In order to get a better picture of how existing data-related practices and policies might affect the incorporation of LA in Latin American institutions, we conducted a mixed methods study in four Latin American universities (two Chilean and two Ecuadorian). In this paper, the qualitative data were based on 37 interviews with managers and 16 focus groups with 51 teaching staff and 45 students; the quantitative data were collected through two surveys answered by 1884 students and 368 teachers, respectively. The findings reveal opportunities to incorporate LA services into existing data practices in the four case studies. However, the lack of reliable information systems and policies to regulate the use of data imposes challenges that need to be overcome for future LA adoption.