Children’s Participation in a Virtual Epidemic in the Science Classroom: Making Connections to Natural Infectious Diseases

This study investigated students’ understanding of a virtual infectious disease in relation to their understanding of natural infectious diseases. Two sixth-grade classrooms of students between the ages of 10 and 12 (46 students) took part in a participatory simulation of a virtual infectious disease, which was integrated into their science curriculum. The results from our analyses reveal that students perceived the simulation as similar to a natural infectious disease and that the immersive components of the simulation afforded students the opportunity to discuss their understandings of natural disease and to compare them to their experiences with the virtual disease. We found that while the virtual disease capitalized on students’ knowledge of natural infectious disease through virtual symptoms, these symptoms may have led students to think of its transfer more as an observable or mechanical event rather than as a biological process. These findings provide helpful indicators to science educators and educational designers interested in creating and integrating online simulations within classroom environments to further students’ conceptual understanding.     

我国义务教育信息化均衡性评价指标体系的构建及应用

义务教育信息化均衡既是实现我国义务教育均衡发展的有效途径,也是义务教育均衡发展的重要构成因素,因此有必要研究测量工具对义务教育信息化均衡状态进行监测和评估。在借鉴教育均衡评估、教育信息化评估等研究基础上构建的义务教育信息化均衡性评价指标体系,包含“教育信息化投入均衡”、“教育信息化基础设施建设均衡”、“教育信息化应用水平均衡”和“教育信息化人才培养均衡”4项一级指标和24项二级指标。这些指标在北京市义务教育信息化评估中的应用显示：该指标体系具有可行性,评估结论对于现实情况具备一定的诊断性,可为后续建设提供较明确的指导。     

Incorporating technologies into a flexible teaching space

Higher education institutions are increasingly exploring how they can use emerging technologies to develop and enhance the learning experiences offered to students. These activities have mainly focused on developing student‐centred facilities. The University of Warwick has taken the next step by developing a space (the Teaching Grid) specifically designed to meet the needs of teaching staff across the institution. This paper describes how the Teaching Grid supports teachers by providing a flexible experimental space together with a rich collection of established and new technologies, and with comprehensive staff support. We analysed the use of the facility during the first 30 months of operation, using data collected from 119 case studies, in order to present a perspective on how they have used the technologies and how this has impacted on their teaching practice. We present a taxonomy that provides a concrete framework to support future analysis of and comparisons between such spaces.     

The status of research on women and communication

The purpose of this essay is to survey and summarize the research on women, gender, and sex differences that has been published in speech communication journals. Five categories of research emerged from this survey: historical treatments of women, sex differences, images of women in the media, education and pedagogy, and surveys and integrative works. While future research is needed to fill in the gaps made evident by this survey of literature, perhaps more important is to begin to question and investigate the assumptions underlying current research about women.     

Uncovering influence through Social Network Analysis: the role of schools in Education for Sustainable Development

Abstract

This paper examines the implementation of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in Germany and explores the possibilities of Social Network Analysis (SNA) for uncovering influential actors in educational policy innovation processes. From the theoretical perspective, an actor’s influence is inferred from its relative position within issue-specific information flows and the trust placed in its capacities and expertise, instead of relying on an actor’s openly expressed role and policy preferences. Drawing on techniques from quantitative SNA enables to analyse the social interactions as well as the frequency and type of information exchange amongst actors in a particular issue area. Empirically, I focus my attention on the educational innovation of ESD, which has been initiated at the global level, but is mainly put into practice at the national or regional level. Data for the study come from mixed mode interviews with a standardised questionnaire. The interviews were conducted and analysed using egocentric and complete SNA. I find, amongst others results, that NGOs and governmental actors occupy significantly more central, prestigious and influential network positions than schools in the course of implementing ESD in Germany. Furthermore, school representatives exhibit few and weak relations, and mostly share links with other formal education actors.     

Assessing term effectiveness in the interactive information access process

This study addresses the question of whether the way in which sets of query terms are identified has an impact on the effectiveness of users’ information seeking efforts. Query terms are text strings used as input to an information access system; they are products of a method or grammar that identifies a set of query terms. We conducted an experiment that compared the effectiveness of sets of query terms identified for a single book by three different methods. One had been previously prepared by a human indexer for a back-of-the-book index. The other two were identified by computer programs that used a combination of linguistic and statistical criteria to extract terms from full text. Effectiveness was measured by (1) whether selected query terms led participants to correct answers and (2) how long it took participants to obtain correct answers. Our results show that two sets of terms – the human terms and the set selected according to the linguistically more sophisticated criteria – were significantly more effective than the third set of terms. This single case demonstrates that query languages do have a measurable impact on the effectiveness of query term languages in the interactive information access process. The procedure described in this paper can be used to assess the effectiveness for information seekers of query terms identified by any query language.     

The (Un)Common Instructor: A New Role for Medical Librarians Beyond Information Literacy

University common reading programs provide a shared experience as students transition into college life and develop critical thinking skills. Typically in such programs, all students in an incoming class read and discuss the same book. Conversely, the University of Florida Honors Program’s (un)common reads facilitates the same skills development through multiple small sections, each focusing on a different book and each with flexible and innovative assignments and activities. Health Science Center librarians have taught in these (un)common reads since the spring semester 2010–2011. This article describes librarian involvement in this program as well as the ensuing benefits for students, librarians, and the university at large.     

Organizational response to decline in the academic marketplace

In the last twenty-five years institutions of higher education and the academic market-place have undergone considerable change. A period of rapid growth and expansion was followed by a period of shrinking resources and decreasing growth. The effects of organizational decline on personnel management and on the formal structure of the academic hierarchy are examined in Israeli universities. The data show that in the non-growth period standards for faculty selection and advancement have not been formally altered, although actual practices have resulted in prolonged time periods between promotions and until tenure is obtained. The most salient change that has taken place is a continuous process of proliferation of the academic hierarchy by addition of new tracks and ranks to the main regular faculty track, and the increasing use of these positions particularly for new hires. This is consistent with other studies which found that organizational complexity may increase under conditions of decline. The effectiveness and functions of this process as an adaptive response to environmental scarcity are discussed.