The layering of mathematical interpretations through digital media

How might understanding emerge when learners engage mathematical phenomena through digital technologies? This paper considers the ways children’s mathematical thinking was influenced by their interpretations through various pedagogical discourses and how understanding emerged through those various filters. Current research into using digital technologies in mathematics education is predominantly positioned within two theoretical perspectives, semiotic mediation and the instrumental approach. Meanwhile, within a contemporary hermeneutic position, mathematical learning comprises a process of interpretation, where understanding is seen as a formative process as the learner views events from fresh, ever-evolving perspectives. Concepts are then seen in ongoing formation. This paper examines learning through a contemporary hermeneutic frame and the contention is that this opens opportunity for learning to be perceived in alternative ways.     

Medicalised pupils: the case of ADD/ADHD

Changing financial arrangements for undergraduates have led to a growth in widening participation research. However, hardly any studies explore gender differences in the impact of differential funding on students' sense of well‐being, their financial coping strategies and their educational attainment. Our research shows that there are few gender differences in students' actual financial situation, reflecting the similarity of their social class backgrounds, but women perceive themselves to be under greater pressure. Women worry more about their finances and express lower levels of well‐being, but this has no overall effect on their attainment, since the strategies they use to ameliorate worry align with sound educational practice. Men express a more complacent financial attitude, which does not usually affect their attainment. There is, however, evidence of a gender‐related ‘threshold effect’ among students who express low levels of well‐being. Extreme worriers perceive themselves to be, and genuinely are, worse off than other students, despite the apparent homology of their social class backgrounds. In this extreme group, the strategies women devise to cope with worry, such as curtailing their student life and building supportive friendship groups, appear to consolidate their attainment, but men's complacency sometimes pushes them down into the lowest class of degree.     

A case example of assessment and evaluation: Building capability in a corporate university

One corporate university makes measurement a priority by dedicating resources and assigning responsibilities to a centralized analytics function: the assessment, measurement, and evaluation team. As more measurement became a focus for learning and business leaders alike, the more the team became motivated to take a critical look at how it was approaching assessment, measurement, and evaluation activities and how it could leverage its capabilities, technology, and processes to have a greater reach across the organization.     

Ebbs and Flows: A Longitudinal Study of an English Language Instructor’s Motivation to Learn Korean

Native English speaking language teachers who live and work in various parts of the world often express a desire to learn the language of their host country. Without sustained levels of motivation, however, their desires are unlikely to be realized. This article reports the findings of a longitudinal case study of an American English language instructor working at a South Korean university. It examines the factors that impacted her motivation to learn Korean, and explores the ebbs and flows that characterized her motivation over a one-year period. Findings revealed that while the participant did express a desire to learn Korean and formulated learning goals, the action necessary to achieve these goals did not occur. This article draws on the L2 Motivational Self System and the Process Model of L2 Motivation to provide a dual theoretical perspective on the findings.     

Soil aldehydes: A scientific study of a new class of soil constituents unfavorable to crops,their occurrence,properties and elimination in practical agriculture

The experimental results show that aldehydes are harmful to plant growth in aqueous culture solutions, in nutrient solutions, in soil in pots, and in soil in the field.The effects of six aldehydes—namely, salicylic aldehyde, vanillin, benzaldehyde, heliotropine, formaldehyde, and paraformaldehyde—were studied in nutrient-culture solutions and each proved to be detrimental to plant growth.The effect of the compounds varied according to the composition of the nutrient solutions. Salicylic aldehyde was least harmful in solutions composed of a high percentage of phosphates. Vanillin was least harmful in solutions with a high percentage of nitrates. Benzaldehyde was about equally harmful in all the nutrient solutions. It was slightly more harmful, however, in the high nitrate solutions than in the mainly phosphatic or potassic cultures. Paraformaldehyde was also least harmful in the phosphate culture, but formaldehyde and heliotropine showed harmful effects to an equal degree in almost all cultures, regardless of their composition.Salicylic aldehyde and vanillin were found to occur in soils quite frequently, especially in soils of low productivity. The isolated substance from the soils was harmful to plants when dissolved in aqueous solution.The two aldehydes were harmful in some soils and not in others. The field studies show that the added aldehydes disappeared in some soils and not in others. There was no harmful action where the aldehydes were destroyed. The soils in which the aldehydes were destroyed have strong biological activities, good oxidation powers, and are fertile.The results of the experimental work presented in this paper further show that unfertile soils, where due to the presence of harmful aldehydes, can be made productive by good drainage and by the use of lime and certain fertilizers. This is demonstrated, first, by the growth of plants in nutrient solutions, where it is shown that phosphates partially overcome the bad effects of salicylic aldehyde, and that nitrates ameliorate the harmfulness of another aldehyde, vanillin. Second, by the more normal absorption of phosphates by plants growing in solutions containing salicylic aldehyde. Third, by the growth of plants in soil in pots, which shows that the harmful action of salicylic aldehyde is partially overcome by lime and phosphates and the effects of vanillin by lime and nitrate fertilizers. Fourth, by the growth of plants in field soils to which aldehydes were added, which again shows that lime and phosphates lessen the harmfulness of salicylic aldehyde and lime and nitrates alter the effects of vanillin. Fifth, by chemical tests in which it was shown that salicylic aldehyde, when added to a soil, was destroyed where lime and phosphates were added, and vanillin was destroyed where lime and nitrates were added. Sixth, by the improved productivity from the addition of lime and phosphates to a soil in which salicylic aldehyde was naturally formed and persisted for a period of years.