The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning as collaborative working: a case study in shared practice and collective purpose

The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) has yet to fully enter the mainstream of life in higher education. In this case study, we consider a specific network focused on the reform of engineering education. The network involves global collaboration within the discipline of Engineering and is based around curricular activity that affects entire departments or groups of staff. We suggest that SoTL should pay greater attention to collaboration that addresses substantive disciplinary purposes, further embodying these purposes through spaces, motivations and capacities for action in the disciplinary and departmental setting. We frame our argument around a theoretical model of collaborative working in higher education and go on to offer a synoptic overview of ways to articulate common purpose around teaching and learning at large. Our account highlights potential drivers for such collaborative activity in other settings. In this way, we offer a means for others to develop the collective commitments, structures and understanding needed to mainstream SoTL within specific disciplinary or departmental settings.     

A Review of: ““Doing School”: How We Are Creating a Generation of Stressed Out,Materialistic, and Miseducated Students”

The views of Jewish education articulated by Rosenzweig in his essays “It is Time” and in “The Opening of the Lehrhaus” are quite different. So different, in fact, that an account of how one mind can produce such different accounts is necessary. Following the lead of a 1950’s popular television quiz show, the authors ask “Will the Real Franz Rosenzweig Please Stand Up?” The authors end by exploring how the tensions within Rosenzweig's educational thinking can yield new insights into the contemporary challenges of Jewish education.     

Graphic Novels as Tools for Teaching Complexity About Israel

ABSTRACT

Building on the established idea that to provide students with a full portrait of Israeli society and history, educators must introduce greater complexity into their Israel curriculum, the following paper explores three recently published graphic novels about Israel and considers how each offers opportunities for considering Israel in more nuanced ways. The paper is grounded in recent research about Israel education and empirical studies about graphic novels in education. Each of the three texts highlights aspects of Israeli society that are less frequently addressed in curriculum about Israel and therefore provide opportunities for presenting students with primary sources that directly grapple with the complexities of Israeli society.     

Instructions to adopt an external focus enhance muscular endurance

The influence of internal (movement focus) and external (outcome focus) attentional-focusing instructions on muscular endurance were investigated using three exercise protocols with experienced exercisers. Twenty-three participants completed a maximal repetition, assisted bench-press test on a Smith's machine. An external focus of attention resulted in significant (p < .05) improvements in performance compared to the internal focus of attention, but not the control condition. Seventeen participants completed repetitions to failure at 75% 1-RM on free bench press and squat exercises. In both tasks, externally focused instructions resulted in significantly greater repetitions to failure than control and internal focus conditions (p < .05). These results support previous research showing beneficial effects of externally focused instructions on movement efficiency.     

Design Principles for Augmented Reality Learning

Augmented reality is an emerging technology that utilizes mobile, context-aware devices (e.g., smartphones, tablets) that enable participants to interact with digital information embedded within the physical environment. This overview of design principles focuses on specific strategies that instructional designers can use to develop AR learning experiences. A review of the literature reveals the following three design principles as instructive: 1. Enable and then challenge (challenge): 2. Drive by gamified story (fantasy); and 3. See the unseen (curiosity). These design principles can also be viewed as an attempt to either leverage the unique affor- dances of AR or minimize the limitations of the medium as reported in the literature (Dunleavy & Dede, 2014). As the field matures and more research teams explore the potential of AR to enhance teaching and learning, it will be critical to determine the design techniques that optimize the unique affordances of AR, minimize the limitations of the medium, and ultimately enhance learning across the curriculum.     

罗宾·威廉姆斯:白天不懂夜的黑

罗宾·威廉姆斯的离世突然而毫无预兆。或者说,在世人眼中,他不应该以这种方式突然离开人们的视线。我们只记得他欢乐的模样,哪怕在严肃的剧情片或是晦暗不明的惊悚片,我们也期待他有那么一两句幽默台词能引得观众捧腹大笑。所以我们不断发问:他看上去那么乐观开朗、没心没肺,怎会以自杀的方式了却自己的一生呢?殊不知镁光灯之外的他,终生与酒精、毒品以及抑郁症纠缠,台上的欢笑不过是他的职业需求,嘴角牵扯的笑容根本没有到达眼底     

Citation bias in otolaryngology systematic reviews

Objective:Reproducibility of systemic reviews (SRs) can be hindered by the presence of citation bias. Citation bias may occur when authors of SRs conduct hand-searches of included study reference lists to identify additional studies. Such a practice may lead to exaggerated SR summary effects. The purpose of this paper is to examine the prevalence of hand-searching reference lists in otolaryngology SRs.Methods:The authors searched for systematic reviews published in eight clinical otolaryngology journals using the Cochrane Library and PubMed, with the date parameter of January 1, 2008, to December 31, 2017. Two independent authors worked separately to extract data from each SR for the following elements: whether reference lists were hand-searched, other kinds of supplemental searching, PRISMA adherence, and funding source. Following extraction, the investigators met to review discrepancies and achieve consensus.Results:A total of 539 systemic reviews, 502 from clinical journals and 37 from the Cochrane library, were identified. Of those SRs, 72.4% (390/539) hand-searched reference lists, including 97.3% (36/37) of Cochrane reviews. For 228 (58.5%) of the SRs that hand-searched reference lists, no other supplemental search (e.g., search of trial registries) was conducted.Conclusions:These findings indicate that hand-searching reference lists is a common practice in otolaryngology SRs. Moreover, a majority of studies at risk of citation bias did not attempt to mitigate the bias by conducting additional supplemental searches. The implication is that summary effects in otolaryngology systematic reviews may be biased toward statistically significant findings.     

The Commodity Flow of U.S. Children's Television

This article argues that commodity flow is a defining characteristic of children's television programming, and that this flow of commodity and corporate-brand images builds into the genre a relatively coherent selling ethos. Three-hour blocks of programming, recorded on two different Saturday mornings for several broadcast and cable networks, were analyzed to highlight commodity flow within and between networks. This flow of commodities on children's television indicates a blurring of the distinction between content and promotional forms and illustrates the high level of commercialism targeted at this audience.