Reflective pedagogy: the integration of methodology and subject-matter content in a graduate-level course

This article presents a critical reflection on how we, instructors of a graduate-level course in higher education administration, sought to integrate theoretical and subject-matter content and research methodology. Our reflection, guided by autoethnography and teacher reflection, challenged both our assumptions about curriculum design and our process of designing and teaching the redesigned course. We found that our efforts to integrate course content and methodology differed from students’ prior experiences and resulted in a disconnection between their experience and the intended course learning objectives. Recommendations include understanding the degree program culture and students’ course expectations, using assignments that facilitate learning of both theory and methods, and balancing classroom discussion among theory, methodology, and the integration of the two.     

STEM learning research through a funds of knowledge lens

This article examines STEM learning as a cultural process with a focus on non-dominant communities. Building on my work in funds of knowledge and mathematics education, I present three vignettes to raise some questions around connections between in-school and out-of-school mathematics. How do we define competence? How do task and environment affect engagement? What is the role of affect, language, and cognition in different settings? These vignettes serve to highlight the complexity of moving across different domains of STEM practice—everyday life, school, and STEM disciplines. Based on findings from occupational interviews I discuss characteristics of learning and engaging in everyday practices and propose several areas for further research, including the nature of everyday STEM practices, valorization of knowledge, language choice, and different forms of engagement.     

Learning from children’s voice in schools: Experiences from Ireland

In Ireland there is progressive legislation on children’s participation in the education system. The Education Act 1998 advocates that school boards should involve students in the school and establish student councils in second-level schools. Since the publication of this legislation progress on realising students’ participation in schools has been slow. In 2006 the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child recommended that Ireland strengthen its efforts to enable children to express their views in schools and other educational institutions. The National Strategy on Children and Young People’s Participation in Decision-making (2015), the first to be produced internationally, commits to facilitating children and young people’s voice in the development of education policy, the running of schools and in other areas of school policy. This paper presents and discusses the results of qualitative participatory research with children and young people aged between 7 and 17 years, teachers and school principals, and parents, on their attitudes towards and opportunities for participation by students in schools in Ireland. The data reveal that students are keen to participate in school but recognise that their opportunities to do so are inadequate, that teachers understand participation very differently from students, and that parents have little knowledge of their children’s participatory experiences in school. It concludes that effective participation in schools requires policy, practical and cultural change.     

Kinesin KIF4A is associated with chemotherapeutic drug resistance by regulating intracellular trafficking of lung resistance-related protein

Multidrug resistance (MDR) is the major impediment to cancer chemotherapy. The expression of lung resistance-related protein (LRP), a non-ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporter, is high in tumor cells, resulting in their resistance to a variety of cytotoxic drugs. However, the function of LRP in tumor drug resistance is not yet explicit. Our previous studies had shown that Kinesin KIF4A was overexpressed in cisplatin (DDP)-resistant human lung adenocarcinoma cells (A549/DDP cells) compared with A549 cells. The expression of KIF4A in A549 or A549/DDP cells significantly affects cisplatin resistance but the detailed mechanisms remain unclear. Here, we performed co-immunoprecipitation experiments to show that the tail domain of KIF4A interacted with the N-terminal of LRP. Immunofluorescence images showed that both the ability of binding to LRP and the motility of KIF4A were essential for the dispersed cytoplasm distribution of LRP. Altogether, our results shed light on a potential mechanism in that motor protein KIF4A promotes drug resistance of lung adenocarcinoma cells through transporting LRP-based vaults along microtubules towards the cell membrane. Thus KIF4A might be a cisplatin resistance-associated protein and serves as a potential target for chemotherapeutic drug resistance in lung cancer.     

The extension of higher education by mass media

This article reports the development of a new phenomenon in the United States described here as national media courses. Such courses use one of the mass media — television, newspapers, radio or magazines — as the essential means of instruction, but supplement the learning thus derived with additional readings and other studies. Usually there are several contact sessions with an instructor to enable students, who otherwise study independently, to meet and exchange ideas or have curricular or administrative questions answered authoritatively. This academic concept uses one of the media designed to reach mass audiences to enable independent learning at times and places of most convenience to the adult audience which they are designed to serve. National media courses are originated at the University Extension at the University of California, San Diego and several other institutions. They are designed to be offered as college courses by two- and four-year post secondary institutions throughout the nation. Nearly one-third have taken advantage of their availability and over fifty thousand students have taken part in a single national media course.

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Zusammenfassung Dieser Artikel berichtet von der Entwicklung eines neuen Phänomens in den Vereinigten Staaten, das dort unter dem Namen national media courses bekannt geworden ist. Solche Kurse benutzen eines der Massenmedien — Fernsehen, Zeitungen, Radio oder Zeitschriften — als wichtigstes Unterrichtsmittel, ergänzen aber das dabei stattfindende Lernen durch zusätzliche Lektüre und andere Studien. Gewöhnlich finden etliche Kontaktsitzungen mit einem Instruktor statt, die die Studenten, die sonst unabhängig selbst lernen, befähigen sollen, sich zu treffen, und Gedanken auszutauschen oder sich Fragen des Curriculums oder die Verwaltung betreffend kompetent beantworten zu lassen. Dieses akademische Konzept benutzt eine für die Massenzuhörerschaft konzipiertes Massenmedium, um dem angesprochenen Kreis von Erwachsenen, für die es erdacht wurde, ein in Zeit und Ort angenehmes Lernen zu ermöglichen. National media courses kommen von der Fernabteilung der Universität von Kalifornien, San Diego, und einigen anderen Institutionen. Sie sollen als College-Kurse von postsekundären Institutionen mit drei- oder vierjähriger Studiendauer im ganzen Land angeboten werden. Beinahe ein Drittel der angesprochenen Institutionen hat sich dieser Möglichkeit bedient, und über fünfzigtausend Studenten haben an einem einzigen national media course teilgenommen.

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Résumé Cet article rend compte du développement d'un nouveau phénomène aux Etats-Unis décrit ici comme cours nationaux à l'aide de moyens d'information de masse. De tels cours se servent de l'un des moyens d'information de masse — la télévision, les journaux, la radio ou les magazines — comme procédé essentiel d'instruction, mais complètent l'apprentissage qui en résulte à l'aide de lectures additionnelles et d'autres études. Il y a habituellement plusieurs séances de contact avec un maitre permettant aux étudiants, qui autrement étudient indépendamment, de faire connaissance et d'échanger des idées ou de recevoir une réponse péremptoire aux questions administratives et à celles concernant les curricula. Ce concept académique se sert de l'un des média conçus pour atteindre les audiences des masses, de sorte à permettre un apprentissage indépendant, à des heures et des endroits convenant le mieux à l'audience adulte qu'ils se proposent de servir. Les cours nationaux à l'aide de média tirent leur origine de l'Extension Universitaire à l'Université de la Californie, San Diego et de plusieurs autres institutions. Ils sont conçus pour être présentés comme cours de collège par des institutions post secondaires d'une durée de deux à quatre ans à travers toute la nation. Presque un tiers a déjà tiré profit de leur disponibilité et plus de cinq mille étudiants ont pris à un cours unique national à l'aide de média.

     

A longitudinal study of attitudes of students and parents coincident with court-ordered school desegregation

Attitudinal data were collected for a sample of 492 parents and public school children before implementation of a metropolitan desegregation plan and for 2 years after implementation. The variables measured included racial attitudes, feelings out desegregation, and school-related attitudes. There were small but significant changes on 7 of the 11 measures, with most of the changes occurring during the first year. There were race and grade-level differences on some of the variables before desegregation, but race and grade level were generally not related to changes over time.This research has been supported by a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation, Division of Social Sciences.     

The formation experiment in the age of hypermedia and distance learning

Searching for an adequate method to investigate human development (especially the development of theoretical thinking) Vygotsky and his collaborators developed the causal genetic method. The basic idea of this method consists in the investigation of psychic functions and structures by their formation under controlled conditions (for instance via a formation experiment in classroom). But is this method also applicable in instructional settings using modern communications media?This paper is an attempt to find an answer to the question: By what means is the investigation of the formation of theoretical thinking realizable through the application of the causal-genetic method in instructional settings using hypermedia and distance learning? However, a closer examination of the question itself shows that there are three interrelated aspects, namely: the investigation and formation of theoretical thinking; distance learning using modern communications media; the causal-genetic method.It will be shown that in a formation experiment learning with a hyper-media-educational program, which is based on the theory of learning- activity, students reach a new level of cognitive development which is characterized by the growing ability of complex and dialectical thinking.     

Children with epilepsy in school: Special service usage and assessment practices

Special services usage and related assessment procedures were investigated for 50 students with epilepsy. Fifty‐six percent of students with epilepsy received special education services, with mental retardation designation and self‐contained placement common, especially among individuals with epilepsy plus a coexisting neurological diagnosis. Sixteen percent of participants had an “other health impairment” designation, and several of these were deemed eligible in at least one other special education category. The majority of students who had been evaluated were administered IQ, adaptive behavior, speech/language, and sensorimotor components, whereas few were assessed for executive or memory functions. Little information about antiepileptic drugs, their effects, or the actual manifestation of students' seizures appeared in special services school documents. Additional empirical information regarding services for children with chronic health conditions, such as epilepsy, is necessary to improve school psychologists' practice. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Psychol Schs 43: 169–181, 2006.     

Making the Case for Early Identification and Intervention for Young Children at Risk for Learning Disabilities

The early identification of children with learning disabilities (LD) is difficult but can be accomplished. Observation of key behaviors which are indicators of LD by preschool and kindergarten teachers can assist in this process. This early identification facilitates the use of intervention strategies to provide a positive early experience for children at risk for academic difficulties.     

THE USE OF COMPUTERS IN ASSESSMENT IN HIGHER EDUCATION

The use of the computer and in particular the micro‐computer, by the student provides the opportunity for a significant review of the syllabus and the way in which it is taught. The commercial use of the computer should make us re‐evaluate the content of certain syllabuses, particularly those dominated by mathematical modelling.

Structural Analysis, in the disciplines of Civil and Structural Engineering is a particular case in point since virtually all of the professional numerical analysis of structures is now carried out by a computer. If this is the case, we must seriously ask ourselves why we are teaching the students to carry out lengthy calculations which will never be used in practice.

The computer may be the engine of change for the syllabus content but it offers in return facilities for learning, particularly in formative assessment, unavailable before.

The student may use the computer to test various ideas about the way a structure works under various loading conditions and thereby acquire an understanding of structural behaviour which may not be available in the design office.