Remote Teaching with Digital Video: A Trans-national Experience

This paper analyses the psychological, technical, administrative, organisational, institutional and general pedagogical problems encountered during Phase 1 (the trial phase) of a trans-European distance-learning project. Using basic-rate ISDN videoconferencing for remote interactive tutorials, Phase 1 involved the University of Wales Swansea and HEC Liège (Belgium), and provided practice in business English for Belgian students and business French for UK students of French and Business. The difficulties which have arisen during the phase have been many and varied, and not all could have been easily predicted from a review of the research literature. Solutions to some of them are suggested.     

Children's learning about the balance scale

We present a detailed look at children's learning about the balance scale. In our study, as children explored the balance scale, they acquired and built on special-case and context-specific knowledge. Before making general and context-independent observations, they made more local observations.We contrast our findings with two previous analyses of children's knowledge [Inhelder and Piaget, 1958; Siegler, 1978] about the balance scale in light of assumptions about the nature of knowledge and its acquisition. Educational implications of all three analyses are considered.     

Out of thousands and thousands of thoughts: Wandering the streets of the Hong Kong umbrella movement

Abstract

This essay discusses methods of pedagogy and educational philosophy stirred up by the Hong Kong Umbrella Movement/Occupy-Hong Kong Movement at the end of 2014. It situates these events as a way to envision a new type of public university. To this end, the essay proposes a model of ‘wandering scholarship,’ in which educators and activists walk through urban environments and use dialogic esthetics to reclaim them as ‘Commons.’ Wandering means a multisensory exploration and learning based on the historical concept of ‘psychogeography,’ a drifting through sites and interpellation of their embedded ideologies. As opposed to traditions of introspective wandering, this kind of ‘dialogic wandering’ is done within groups and encourages people to talk to fellow-walkers or random bystanders. As will be shown, these modes of wandering while addressing publics were pioneered in the 1960s student movements and also adopted in a unique manner by the young activists of the Umbrella Movement. Dialogic wandering leads to affective languages and embodied learning as opposed to modes of analytical reasoning and logic within higher education. To further study the impact of this aspect of social movements within a university curriculum, it will be shown by means of example how students can meaningfully adopt dialogic wandering to survey people’s affect and ideological positioning within environments.     

Dilemmas of Participatory Enquiry: a case study of method‐in‐action

The purpose of this paper is to problematize the notion of participatory enquiry as a legitimate form of educational evaluation. Using a case study of a new teacher education program the authors describe how they negotiated and enacted an alternative evaluation methodology within a traditional context. The evaluation process was intended to actively engage faculty members and students, as well as representatives of the educational system and the broader community, in self‐reflection and self‐evaluation of their own program. The authors then attempt to turn the methodology back on itself by critically analyzing their own participatory process in terms of a number of dilemmas that arose during the three‐year course of the evaluation. These dilemmas were addressed directly as political issues of method as a means of eliciting discussion and debate about the appropriateness of various forms of enquiry in the assessment and evaluation of higher education.     

Factors in the development of proportional reasoning strategies by concrete operational college students

This study was designed as a test for two neo-Piagetian theories. More specifically, this research examined the relationships between the development of proportional reasoning strategies and three cognitive variables from Pascual-Leone's and Case's neo-Piagetian theories. A priori hypotheses linked the number of problems students worked until they induced a proportional reasoning strategy to the variables of M-space, degree of field dependence, and short-term storage space. The subjects consisted of students enrolled in Physical Science I, a science course for nonscience majors at the University of Southern Mississippi. Of the 34 subjects in the study, 23 were classified as concrete operational on the basis of eight ratio tasks. Problems corresponding to five developmental levels of proportional reasoning (according to Piagetian and neo-Piagetian theory), were presented by a microcomputer to the 23 subjects who had been classified as concrete operational. After a maximum of 6 hours of treatment, 17 of the 23 subjects had induced ratio schemata at the upper formal level (IIIB), while the remaining subjects used lower formal level (IIIA) schemata. The data analyses showed that neither M-space and degree of field-dependence, either alone or in combination, nor short-term storage predicted the number of problems students need to do until they induce an appropriate problem-solving strategy. However, there were significant differences in the short-term storage space of those subjects who mastered ratio problems at the highest level and those who did not. Also, the subjects' degree of field-dependence was not a predictor of either the ability to transfer problem-solving strategies to a new setting or the reuse of inappropriate strategies. The results of this study also suggest that short-term storage space is a variable with high correlations to a number of aspects of learning such as transfer and choice of strategy after feedback.     

Dependency on elementary school caregivers: The role of parental intrusiveness and children's separation anxiety

A theoretical model of children's dependency on teachers and other caregivers in elementary school was tested and supported in this study. Based on attachment theory and social‐cognitive theory, parental intrusiveness and children's separation anxiety were hypothesized to heighten dependent behaviors with school caregivers. Families of children in Grades K–5 participated. Parent‐ and child‐report measures with good psychometric properties were employed. Parental intrusiveness and children's separation anxiety were associated with clingy, dependent relationships with school caregivers in cross‐informant correlational analyses. Intrusiveness and separation anxiety jointly accounted for 18%–29% of the variance in dependency scores. Results are consistent with attachment models of continuity between parent–child relationships and relations with other caregivers. Practice recommendations for teachers and school providers are given. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Psychol Schs 44: 823–837, 2007.     

Sex equity in mathematics and science education: Research-policy links

Despite the accumulation of a large body of research concerning effective sex equity practices in math and science, the lack of change in educational procedures suggests the need to reexamine the role of research in policy and program planning. This paper reviews the current research on sex equity in mathematics and science education, focusing on research in the categories of educator-student interaction, instructional context, and macrolevel demographics. Existing applications of current research to mathematics and science education programs are examined at regional, state, district, and individual school levels. Recommendations for future directions in policy and research are made, emphasizing the gaps in knowledge on each side. The paper ends with specific suggestions for strengthening the links between research and policy in the area of sex equity.     

Teaching Chronobiology and Sleep Habits in School and University

ABSTRACT— Early morning school schedules are in the opposite direction to the sleep–wake cycle in adolescence and early adulthood. This conflict leads to sleep deprivation and irregular patterns whose consequences are scarcely explored. This article discusses the effects of three educational experiences with high school students, parents, teachers, and medical students. The first experience was developed with high school students in Natal, Brazil, to determine whether sleep habits would improve with increased awareness. Positive effects were observed in some aspects of sleep knowledge and practices. In the second experience in Atlanta, GA, sleep education activities were presented to middle and high school teachers, parents, and students to emphasize the importance of sleep. In the third program in Murcia, Spain, undergraduate medical students were introduced to chronobiology of sleep by a practical exercise that pointed out to what extent they shared most of adolescent sleep characteristics. Educational chronobiological experiences about sleep are essential to develop healthy sleep habits in the general population, particularly in students.     

Birth order and sex of sibling as determinants of mother-infant interaction.

Mother-infant interaction was assessed on 32 first- and second-born siblings when each was 3 months old. Data were colleted during 2 6-hour naturalistic home observations using a modified time-sampling technique. The sample consisted of 4 equal-size subgroups of same and opposite sex sibling pairs. Results suggested that interaction between a mother and her infant varied depending on the birth order and gender of the infant. Mothers spent significantly less time in social, affectionate, and caretaking interaction (except for feeding activities) with their second borns than they had with their firstborns; this difference was greater if the second born was female. Certain patterns of maternal behaviors appeared to be stable from one sibling to the other. Different types of interaction between the mothers and their younger infants were related to attention-seeking behavior in the firstborn male and female siblings.