Lunar outpost agriculture

America's long-term commitment to a new Space Exploration Initiative has focused attention on the basic requirements for establishing a permanently manned lunar outpost and, ultimately, a martian one. High among these is the development of Regenerative Life Support Systems--with lunar agriculture an essential component--to provide a high level of self-sufficiency.     

Associations of student temperament and educational competence with academic achievement: The role of teacher age and teacher and student gender

We examined associations of teacher-perceived student temperament and educational competence with school achievement, and how these associations were modified by students’ gender and teachers’ gender and age. Participants were 1063 Finnish ninth-graders (534 boys) and their 29 Mother Language teachers (all female) and 43 Mathematics teachers (17 male) from a population-based sample. All temperament and educational competence traits were associated with both grades, but more clearly with Mathematics. Boys received systematically lower Mother Language grades but higher Mathematics grades than girls. Teacher gender had no effect on school grades, while teacher age had an effect only on Mother Language.     

Online Teaching and Self-Efficacy to Work With Suicidal Clients

We used an experimental design to evaluate the impact of three online teaching strategies on students' self-efficacy to work with suicidal clients. Results showed that the three strategies, informed by adult learning and social learning theory, were equally effective. Implications for programs preparing students for suicide intervention roles are discussed.     

Counter from the cathedra: Democratic School Workers Association redefining teachers’ political agency in Finland 1973–1989

Finnish school teachers are unlike their colleagues in many countries, for their ethos and skills have traditionally formed the basis for a profession which has been very loyal to the state and to the changing educational ideologies of the government. Critical historical periods of wars and social revolutions have, however, produced – to a small degree – different kinds of tendencies. This article discusses the political agency of comprehensive and upper secondary school teachers by looking at a particular point of rupture in the Finnish “master narrative” of a neutral and impartial teacher image. As an example of a counter-narrative, the paper presents a small leftist teacher association called the Democratic School Workers Association (Demko) which existed between 1973 and 1989. Demko’s manifesto texts are analysed with the help of A.J. Greimas’ actantial model in order to find the possible kind of political agency that is constructed for teachers. The analysis shows a major change between the 1970s and 1980s. The early Demko narrative draws from the vocabulary of the neo-leftist student movement, inviting progressive teachers to join the “common struggle”. Demko aims at lobbying the more established political actors, whereas individual agency is shackled by the ideals of monolithicity and unanimity. In the 1980s, along with the fading of societal radicalism, Demko’s narrative evolves into a more polyphonic space for identity debates. Political agency is transferred from the collective to individuals who are supposed to critically reflect Demkoian ideals against their everyday praxis. All in all, Demkoian narrative is interpreted as having enriched the gamut of “possible discourses” in the era of the early Finnish comprehensive school. With its distinctively socio-political orientation, Demko tested the boundaries of the political agency of Finnish teachers.     

Associations of temperament traits and mathematics grades in adolescents are dependent on the rater but independent of motivation and cognitive ability

The current study examines associations between self- and teacher-rated temperament traits (activity, inhibition, negative emotionality, persistence, distractibility, and mood) and mathematics grades. The sample includes 310 ninth grade students (mean age 15.0) from several schools in Finland. Analyses were conducted with multilevel modeling. Except for mood, all temperament traits were associated with math grades independent of motivation and standardized cognitive ability test performance (intelligence). However, some relations were found only for teacher-reports and some only for student-reports. The rater dependent differences are of interest and emphasize a need for data from multiple raters before drawing conclusions on how temperament relates to school grades. The results suggest that temperament should be taken into account in schooling and in teacher education.     

Challenges and promises of overcoming epistemological and methodological partiality: Advancing engineering education through acceptance of diverse ways of knowing

The purpose of this paper is to explore some challenges and promises when the epistemological diversity embedded in qualitative research traditions is introduced to research communities with one dominant research paradigm, such as engineering education. Literature is used from other fields and empirical data are used from engineering education, including the practices of the European Journal of Engineering Education and the Journal of Engineering Education, with the expectation that the ideas that are presented are relevant to a broad range of education disciplines. A number of challenges are identified as the epistemological diversity of qualitative research is introduced to the primarily positivist field of engineering education. Ultimately, embracing epistemological diversity holds the promise of researchers being able to ask: ‘What questions and answers become possible from these newly created positions and what can be learned from these alternative approaches?’.     

Metaphors as a way to explore qualitative data

Qualitative data can allow us to see multiple meanings and realities of human experiences. Sometimes the variations of realities makes interpretation challenging. This article provides examples of how metaphors, related to the life history context, "extend horizons of insight and create new possibilities" (Morgan, 1997, p. 351) to view the participants, the researcher, and the story of research as well as to add to the knowledge about Finnish scientists' creative processes. Metaphors connect different layers of text (academic story (normal font), personal story (bold font), and the meta-story) and tease out a story of research with multiple faces, changing stages, views, and alternative interpretations. I do not look for conclusions or a single definition of creativity. Rather, I ask questions and trouble the "category of creativity", addressing methodological issues of educational research.     

Cute,creepy and sublime unnamed childhood monstrosities

ABSTRACT

Strangers, Gods, and monsters are all names for the experience of alterity and otherness within and amongst us. We need monsters in our lives. In this paper we use philosophy as a method to explore language, developmental and cultural instabilities, and terrifying (and discursive) monstrosity located within children's literature and childhood contexts. Philosophy as a method serves as an engagement, an ethical relationship with monstrous thoughts, and as an opening to the philosophical thinking of everyday practices of childhood play (i.e., through objects, practices, language, text, and images). Alongside and through cute, creepy and sublime notions of monsters in children's literature children become monsters–monsters become children. We draw from Derrida's notions of hospitality and hostility and Deleuze and Guattari's deterritorialization of minor literature as well as from literature on monsters, monstrosities, and ugliness. We argue that different representations of childhood monstrosity can help educators and other adults to see the ‘productive’ in childhood otherness, to consider the always present ‘childhood undecidable’ (simultaneous presence of cute and creepy) and the generative in infinitely unknown and unrecognizable childhood objects and discourses.