Degree pictures: Visualizing the university student journey

Abstract

The field of learning analytics is progressing at a rapid rate. New tools, with ever-increasing number of features and a plethora of datasets that are increasingly utilized demonstrate the evolution and multifaceted nature of the field. In particular, the depth and scope of insight that can be gleaned from analysing related datasets can have a significant, and positive, effect in educational practices. We introduce the concept of degree pictures, a symbolic overview of students’ achievement. Degree pictures are small visualizations that depict graphically 16 categories of overall student achievement, over the duration of a higher education course. They offer a quick summary of students’ achievement and are intended to initiate appropriate responses, such as teaching and pastoral interventions. This can address the subjective nature of assessment, by providing a method for educators to calibrate their own marking practices by showing an overview of any cohort. We present a prototype implementation of degree pictures, which was evaluated within our School of Computer Science, with favourable results.     

The impact of multisensory instruction on learning letter names and sounds,word reading,and spelling

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether the use of simultaneous multisensory structured language instruction promoted better letter name and sound production, word reading, and word spelling for second grade children with typical development (N = 6) or with dyslexia (N = 5) than structured language instruction alone. The use of non-English graphemes (letters) to represent two pretend languages was used to control for children’s lexical knowledge. A multiple baseline, multiple probe across subjects single-case design, with an embedded alternating treatments design, was used to compare the efficacy of multisensory and structured language interventions. Both interventions provided explicit systematic phonics instruction; however, the multisensory intervention also utilized simultaneous engagement of at least two sensory modalities (visual, auditory, and kinesthetic/tactile). Participant’s graphed data was visually analyzed, and individual Tau-U and weighted Tau-U effect sizes were calculated for the outcome variables of letter name production, letter sound production, word reading, and word spelling. The multisensory intervention did not provide an advantage over the structured intervention for participants with typical development or dyslexia. However, both interventions had an overall treatment effect for participants with typical development and dyslexia, although intervention effects varied by outcome variable.     

Hope for the Future? Early Exposure to the Arts and Adult Visits to Art Museums

This paper employs logistic regression to explore the relationship between art lessons and art history and appreciation classes as a child with adult visits to art museums. The regression-based technique allows for control of other influences such as demographic indicators of tastes and preferences. The results are generally consistent with the hypothesis that early exposure results in later participation, although exposure seems to have strongest influence in the pre- and post-teen years.     

‘You’re actually the problem’: manifestations of populist masculinist anxieties in Australian higher education

In 2016 the world witnessed a consolidation of a western brand of political ‘populist authoritarianism’ that is anti-globalisationalist and creates ‘shared objects of loathing’ in the popular imagination. This article engages with the implications of this affective and masculinist ‘post-truth’ era for higher education and analyses the narratives of teacher educators who teach compulsory classes based on inclusion and diversity. The article uses the work of feminist, Indigenous and queer theorists to explore gendered responses to pedagogical encounters recounted in the data. We offer a reading of these experiences that links white male objections, particularly around the teaching of gender and race, to the growth of neoconservatism that precipitated the contemporary rise of populist authoritarianism. The pedagogical encounters we explore reflect the notion that the Australian white male is a figure who is brought undone by allowing the subaltern to speak.     

A Novel Method for Teaching the Difference and Relationship Between Theories and Laws to High School Students

Science & Education - This study examines the use of an explicit, reflective method for teaching the difference and relationship between scientific theories and laws to ninth-grade students....     

The social construction of time in contemporary education: implications for technology,equality and Bernstein’s ‘conditions for democracy’

Abstract

This article discusses how the introduction of technology has led to a fundamental shift in the relationship between education and time. As a means of analysing the extent of such changes on pupils from different backgrounds, I use Bernstein’s ‘conditions for democracy’ as a framework for evaluating the impact new understandings of time in education are having on disadvantaged social groups in England. I conclude that Bernstein’s framework presents a useful way of illuminating the complex interplay of personal agency and the external environment. Consequently, here we see that new definitions of time in education, specifically with regard to synchronous versus asynchronous learning, have resulted in new inequalities for those in deprived areas.     

Non-organic failure to thrive: Decision for and videotaped evaluations

Infants hospitalized for non-organic failure to thrive in the first six months of life are in a life-threatening situation and are already at risk for poor bonding with mother. In light of this, the meaning and use of foster care and how this separation affects the developing mother-child relationship are the issues addressed through examination of 16 cases in which 8 of the infants were placed in foster care and 8 discharged home after the failure to thrive hospitalization. This paper examines (1) maternal histories of pregnancy, labor and delivery and the neonatal status of placed and non-placed infants; (2) the developmental and weight status of placed children; (3) the nature of the decision criteria for after-hospital care; and (4) the mother-infant relationship at initial intake in terms of mother's report of events and observations of feeding and play interactions during a videotaped assessment process. The study found that the interactions between mother and infant in those situations which required foster care were clearly more dysfunctional when compared to those in which the baby was discharged home to mother. Babies in the two groups were comparable in weight status at the time of hospitalization although babies in foster placement had slightly lower scores on the Bayley Scales. Maternal histories of pregnancy, labor, and delivery were similar for the two groups as were the birth and neonatal histories of the infants.     

芸香科九里香属及美栌木属的化学分类

通过化学分析证明，美栌木与九里香属内的九里香组植物较为接近，两者均含月橘烯碱     及8-戊烯化香豆精，而棕茎组植物则与黄皮属植物亲缘关系较近。  据此肯定了Tanaka的观     点，认为棕茎组比九里香组原始。黄皮族内的亲缘关系亦可作如下推断：  小芸木属→山小桔属→黄皮属→九里香属棕茎组→九里香属九里香组→美栌木属。