Incidence and risk for traumatic and overuse injuries in top-level road cyclists

All traumatic and overuse injuries occurring during an average period of 4 years (2002/09) in a group of 51 currently active road top-level cyclists were retrospectively registered through clinical interviews. Average age was 25.8 years. Average training and competition period was 28.3 ± 2.4 h a week. Only 8 cyclists (15.6%) were completely free from lesions during the period of study. The remaining 43 cyclists suffered a total of 112 lesions; however, 9 out of these were unrelated to their cycling practice. These 103 cycling-related injuries include 50 (48.5%) traumatic and 53 (51.5%) overuse injuries. Twenty-eight fractures were reported, the clavicle being the most frequently affected bone (11 cases). The 68.5% of overuse injuries were located in the lower limbs. Most overuse injuries (89.6%) occurred during the training period. According to the injury abbreviated scale (AIS), severe lesions were only found in 4 cases (8% of traumatic injuries). Overall injury rates were 0.50 per racer/year, 2.02 per studied racer, and 0.007 per 1000 km of training and competition. Active professional top-level cyclists are exposed to a high injury risk. According to the scarce previously published data the current study provides relevant information on the injury occurrence of still active top-level road cycling.     

On line Forums as a `Rescue Net' in an Open Inquiry Process

The Biomind program is a new open inquiry program for Israeli biology high school students. The Biomind program is facilitated by diverse activities of asynchronous on-line forums for teachers and students. This research aims to analyse the discussions that occurred over a period of three years in these forums, in order to obtain a picture of the benefits that virtual discussions hold for the implementation of the open inquiry program. The results presented in this article indicate that students required assistance mainly with searching scientific information, finding experimental techniques and procedures, and phrasing inquiry questions. The three most frequent areas that were discussed in the teachers' forum were technical and procedural aspects of experimentation, bureaucracy and phenomenon identification. In addition, issues such as inferring and discussing, logical progression of the inquiry process, scientific writing, teacher-student interaction, reflective thinking, affective points of view, and forum administration were raised in the forum discourses. The forum discourses create a learning community that contributes to the implementation of the Biomind program, and pinpoint the aspects that should be taken into consideration in the future.     

Exploring Israeli high school graduates’ explanations for the spread of the coronavirus

Educational Studies in Mathematics - The aim of this study is to explore Israeli high school graduates’ mathematical explanations for the spread of the coronavirus, given that the mathematics...     

The personal relationship between the kindergarten teacher and the parents as a mediator between cultures

The purpose of the study is to describe the teacher's personal connection with parents as an intermediary factor between cultures and to examine the implications for the future of the migrant group in the receiving society. The study is a qualitative study based on the phenomenological approach and involved five teachers working with African children. The findings show three categories: (1) social and cultural, (2) language, (3) behaviour and education. The contribution focuses on the importance of developing intercultural competence among the teachers and the importance of having a joint-personal dialogue in order to cope with migration challenges.     

Opportunities for learning given to prospective mathematics teachers: between ritual and explorative instruction

The mathematics education field, including prospective teacher education program, has seen a continuous effort to change teaching practices to be more cognitively demanding, conceptually oriented and student centred. Our goal in this study was to examine how certain underlying assumptions about mathematical learning, as reflected in a skilled instructor’s discourse, align with opportunities to learn. The data included a set of fully transcribed 11 lessons from an introductory algebra course. The method of analysis was built upon the communicational (commognitive) framework and included discerning between the instructor’s mathematizing and identifying talk. This framework was extended to quantify the instructor’s identifying talk over the whole set of lessons. Our findings showed that at the surface level, the instruction in the class seemed to align with “explorative” goals. On a deeper level, however, it was more aligned with “ritual” goals that are concerned with producing narratives about people, not about mathematics.     

Psychometric and Social Issues in Admissions to Israeli Universities

How are students selected for university in Israel? What does the Psychometric Entrance Test measure? How effective is the process of translating tests? What studies have been conducted on the tests?     

Academic self-efficacy,sense of coherence,hope and tiredness among college students with learning disabilities

Abstract

Some resilient students with LD succeed ‘against the odds’ and reach college. The goals of the study are to explore their resources and barriers during their studies. The relationships between academic self-efficacy (ASE) and personal resources (sense of coherence (SOC) and hope) among college students with learning disabilities (LD) will be examined. The sample consisted of 438 college students divided into two subgroups: 149 students with LD and 289 Non-LD students. Results indicated that college students with LD reported lower levels of ASE, as well as lower levels of hope subscales and SOC. Persistent challenges of early learning distress experienced by those students during school periods continue to be prevalent during their college years. The ASE was predicted by the personal resources, and the risk factor (tiredness lost its significance). The importance of personal resources (SOC and hope subscales) was further emphasised by the mediation model (PROCESS). They mediated the relationships between LD and ASE. These outcomes call for empowering interventional programmes in order to promote hopeful thinking and personal coherence.     

Structures of Constant Rate Word Problems: A functional approach analysis

Many recent projects have lately explored function-based approaches to algebra. For the last five years we developed and tested such an approach to algebra, the 'Visual Mathematics'¹ curriculum, in grades seven to nine. While teaching this curriculum we learned from our students' work that while functions form an important basis for solving various sorts of algebra word problems, they introduce some tension in dealing with other sorts of word problems. The data accumulated during our experiments led us to conjecture that viewing algebra rate problems through a function lens offers new ways to look at similarities and differences among word problems. This article presents a theoretical framework for a systematic investigation of the structures of algebra word problems and their relationship to function-based solutions. We think that for those who take a function approach to algebra, this paper suggests new insights into the categorization of word problems. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Constructing and Consolidating of Algebraic Knowledge within Dyadic Processes: A Case Study

Studies of knowledge constructing often focus on the analysis of a single episode, without considering enough the history of the learners, or the future learners' trajectories with regard to the concepts learned. This paper presents an example of knowledge constructing within the context of peer learning. We show how the design of the task and the tools available to the students afford the constructing of conceptual knowledge (the phenomenon of exponential growth and variation, as it is expressed in its numerical and graphical representations). We trace the constructing of knowledge through a series of dyadic sessions for a few months in a classroom environment. We show that knowledge is constructed cumulatively, each activity allowing for the consolidating of previous constructs. This pattern indicates the nature of the processes involved: knowledge constructing and consolidating are dialectical processes, developing over time, when new constructs stem from old ones already consolidated, which gain consolidation through the new construction, creating a new abstract entity. We also discuss the potential of the tool the students used (a spreadsheet program) to such processes of learning mathematics.