Education, Social Interaction, and Material Co-presence: Against Virtual Pedagogical Reality

A crucial role of the educator, we contend, is to motivate students to want to feel the pain that all cognitive growth requires. This challenge, we will suggest, makes a certain form of conflict essential to the pedagogical relationship, a conflict which requires copresence in shared physical space. If we are correct, then on-line contexts are not conducive to education. Virtual environments permit the exchange of useful (and useless) information, but the absence of genuine, felt human contact limits their educational value, even when they provide highly mediated social interactions.     

Analysis and conservation of modern modeling materials found in Auguste Rodin's sculptures

Prior to the exhibition Portrait-making, Rodin and his models (2009), the Rodin museum wanted to restore two busts of Hanako and Clemenceau. Interestingly, these two sculptures contain pieces of modern modeling materials (MMMs) invented at the end of the nineteenth century as an alternative to clay or waxes. The poor state of conservation of the two portraits made any handling and exhibition impossible. Accordingly, the purpose of this article is twofold: to contribute to technical art history and conservation. Elemental and chemical analyses were done on samples from 12 sculptures (SEM–EDX, FTIR, GC–MS, GC–FID, XRD, synchrotron-based µXRF, µXANES, and µFTIR) aimed at identifying the composition of MMMs used by Rodin on plaster sculptures and establishing hypotheses about the origins of their degradation. This thorough study of their composition and degradation was necessary to implement an appropriate restoration plan. The development of conservation protocols adapted to such materials is rarely documented. Different tests were performed on mock-ups (pH, solubility, adhesion, consolidation, and cleaning). In particular, a protocol based on laser cleaning was developed and successfully applied to remove superficial dust and crusts so that the sculptures regained their original aspect.     

Cooperative learning: a relevant instructional model for physical education pre-service teacher training?

Background: One of the key questions of physical education teacher educators (PETE) programmes refers to whether future teachers are prepared to build knowledge and skills to feel self-efficacious in teaching physical education (PE). This issue concerns the instructional model of teaching used to help PE pre-service teachers to master both pedagogical knowledge and motor skills. According to this twofold challenge, the direct instruction (DI) is mainly used for pre-service teacher training. Beyond this traditional model, other instructional models as cooperative learning (CL) approach arise in the initial PE teacher education. Nevertheless, surrounding attempts at innovation, little information related to the instructor’s role. Under the social cognitive perspective of self-efficacy and instructional competency building, more information is currently expected with regard to the strategies the instructor uses to scaffold the mastery of skills for PE pre-service teachers’ effective teaching.

Purpose: The purpose of this article is to consider whether PE pre-service teachers are trained during short training sessions aimed to discover new physical activities. We examine the influence of a scaffolding procedure (CLS design) on PE pre-service teachers’ knowledge, skills and self-efficacy in comparison to a CL and a DI experience. This leads to consider to what extent this instructional support provided by the instructor would help pre-service teachers to perceive themselves as self-efficacious to teach contents in PE.

Participants and design: After a pre-test, sixty-nine PE pre-service teachers were randomly assigned to one of the three following conditions: CL (14 males and 7 females); CLS (20 males and 8 females) or direct instruction condition (DI; 12 males and 8 females). For the training session a selected CL procedure (Jigsaw) [Aronson, Elliot, and Shelley Patnoe. 1997. The Jigsaw Classroom: Building Cooperation in the Classroom. 2nd ed. Wokingham: Addison-Wesley Educational]) was used to split CL and CLS participants into mixed-sex teams, whereas DI participants practiced the same exercises in dyads. According to the training conditions, the same instructor provided different information to participants along the three 2-hour instructional sessions with regard to: (a) warm-up (DI), (b) CL organization (CL), and (c) scaffolding integrated into a CL implementation (CLS).

Data collection: A Pre-test/post-test design was used to consider PE pre-service teacher’s motor skill, knowledge for practice, and self-efficacy improvements. The post-test also examined participants’ pedagogical knowledge.

Findings: The results showed that the participants in the three conditions progressed on performance, knowledge for practice, knowledge for teaching, and self-efficacy. Although no difference was found in self-efficacy between the three training conditions over time, significant differences appeared on pedagogical knowledge or/and motor skills with an advantage for the CL and CLS participants, respectively.

Conclusion: Although short training sessions dedicated to discovering new sports stay problematic for teacher professional development, implementing CL pre-service teacher training designs would be a relevant alternative. Instructional knowledge would be developed mainly when they have explicitly access to information concerning the teacher intervention. Nevertheless, such a scaffolding procedure integrated into CL training designs would need to be applied repeatedly to various physical activities to have an impact on pre-service teachers’ self-efficacy.     

Ethyl Silicate for Unbaked Earth Tablets Conservation: Evaluation of the Physico-mechanical Aspects

ABSTRACT

Preservation of cuneiform tablets made with clay minerals is an ongoing conservation issue. A treatment based on TEOS consolidation has been used since 1996 at the Louvre museum. The characterization of the tablets pointed out kaolinite, illite, and smectite as the three main clay minerals constituting the objects. In this research, the physico-mechanical aspects of the treatment are investigated. The penetration depth of the TEOS solution and the gradient induced are quantified using laboratory samples. TEOS treatment preserves the macroscopic swelling and the vapour transfer properties, but modifies the clay’s affinity to moisture. Elastic properties are gradually improved for all clays, but only kaolinite’s strength increases significantly. The impact of TEOS treatment on the natural behaviour related to the respective structure of the clays is considered, and the amount of kaolinite required to create adequate reactions appears to be of interest for conservation treatments.     

A Developmental Study of the Self-Prioritization Effect in Children Between 6 and 10 Years of Age

Self-biases are well described in adults but remain poorly understood in children. Here, we investigated in 6–10 year-old children (N = 132) the self-prioritization effect (SPE), a self-bias which reflects, in adults, the perceptual advantage for stimuli arbitrarily associated with the self as compared to those associated with other persons. We designed a child-friendly adaptation of a paradigm originally introduced in adults by Sui, He, and Humphreys (2012) in order to test whether the SPE also occurs in children and if so, to determine its evolution with age. A robust SPE was obtained from the age of 6, and this effect was similar-sized in our four age groups. These findings are discussed with reference to the development of the self during childhood.     

Le Logiciel ‘Derive’ comme revelateur de phenomenes didactiques lies a l'utilisation d'environnements informatiques pour l'apprentissage

In this article, we address the issue of integration of computer environments in the mathematics secondary curriculum, by referring to the results of a research project carried out with the software DERIVE. Firstly, we present the research project and its theoretical framework, secondly, we evidence some didactical phenomenas linked to the DERIVE transposition of mathematical knowledge and learning processes in this environment which, in our opinion, play a crucial role in integration issues.This revised version was published online in September 2005 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

The breadth of peer relationships among preschoolers: an application of the Q-connectivity method to externalizing behavior

Preschoolers' (M(age) = 48.7 months) social breadth (the number of peer children interact with and the frequency of these interactions) and the relations between breadth and externalizing behaviors were examined using the Q-connectivity method. After considering age, sex, and classroom effects on social breadth, children's externalizing behaviors were studied in relation to levels of social breadth across variations in frequency of exposure to peers and to patterns of decline in social breadth. Externalizing preschoolers occasionally interacted with most of their classmates. However, their individual peer networks moderately to rapidly became selective, and they engaged in repeated interactions with a relatively small number of peers. Although there were no sex effects, significant age and classroom effects were obtained.