LGBTQ literature in middle school classrooms: possibilities for challenging heteronormative environments

This paper uses a case study approach to examine how the heteronormative nature of one middle school setting and classroom environment shapes the climate of safety, support and learning for LGBTQ students when they are engaged in studying a novel with a gay character. Heteronormative environments inform and shape positioning of and by students and teacher, impacting how knowledge is created, processed and applied. LGBTQ literature integrated into the classroom curriculum invites opportunities for possibilities through windows and mirrors for exploration of the world and self. Heteronormativity, positioning and LGBTQ literature thereby become interactive catalysts that create and foreclose possibilities and impossibilities for student learning. Three themes emerged from the study that reveal positioning and possibilities when studying a text with a gay character: (1) the school environment and classroom context positioned students as heterosexual; (2) students and teacher positioned gender performance and sexual identity as other; and (3) while the text acted as both a window and a mirror, the teacher and students consistently framed different, and sometimes contradictory, views for each other. Together, these themes reflect a nested understanding of gender performance and sexual identity that subscribed to heterosexual norms and limited possibilities for LGBTQ students.     

The Uses of Learning Outcomes

This paper argues that learning outcomes need to be reclaimed from their current use as devices for monitoring and audit, and returned to their proper use in aiding good teaching and learning. We require a broader, flexible and more realistic understanding of learning outcomes, better suited to the realities of the classroom and of practical use to those teachers who wish to respond to the enthusiasm of their students. To this end, a new model is produced that starts from the idea of an articulated curriculum, and embraces both intended and emergent learning outcomes. The model employs the distinction between predicted and unpredicted learning outcomes, together with the distinction between those that are desirable and those that are undesirable. The resulting account is intended to aid understanding of the nature and proper use of learning outcomes in teaching and learning.     

Accommodations: staff identity and university space

Space has been of growing significance in social theory in recent years, yet, explorations of it in the scholarship of higher education have been limited. This is surprising, given the critical role space has in shaping staff and students' engagement with the university. Taking a practice-based approach and focusing on academic identities, this article analyses the spatial experience of an institution by defamiliarising spaces encountered in everyday work. We identify formative pressures upon institutional space, and how space then shapes experience: university spaces are designed for one purpose but come to be used for many, so that working within them can be a diverse and contradictory experience. The identification of academics with spaces is complex, and there are no simple experiences of belonging; rather, there is a constant project of identity-formation and change within mutable spaces.     

Observer based leader-following consensus of second-order multi-agent systems with nonuniform sampled position data

This paper deals with the leader-following consensus problem of multi-agent systems with the consideration that each agent can only transmit its position state to the neighbors at irregular discrete sampling times. In the proposed algorithm, a continuous-discrete time observer is designed for the continuous estimation of both position and velocity from the discrete position information of the neighbors. These estimated states are then used for designing a continuous control law which solves the leader-following consensus problem. Moreover, the dynamics of the leader is not fixed and can be controlled through an external input. The stability analysis has been carried out by employing the Lyapunov approach which provides sufficient conditions to tune the parameters according to the maximum allowable sampling period. The developed algorithm has been simulated and then tested on an actual multi-robot system consisting of three differential drive wheeled robots. Both simulation and hardware results validate the effectiveness of the control algorithm.     

Attracting solutions in crowdsourcing contests: The role of knowledge distance,identity disclosure,and seeker status

We investigate in the context of crowdsourcing how seekers can increase open innovation performance, measured as received solver attention, by making two strategic decisions: selecting innovation tasks that are well suited for crowdsourcing and choosing between the potentials of status signalling through identity disclosure versus enjoying the benefits of anonymity. Drawing on uncertainty reduction theory, we suggest that a well-articulated problem statement reduces uncertainties of potential solvers and increases their willingness to participate. We argue that the ability of seekers to draft high-quality problem statements depends on the distance between the problem domain and their current knowledge stock. An analysis of 637 crowdsourcing projects finds that problem-seeker knowledge distance and received solver attention are curvilinear related such that moderate levels of knowledge distance maximize solver participation. However, high-status seekers who engage in identity-based status signalling are able to benefit from crowdsourcing across all levels of problem-seeker knowledge distance.     

Fateful aspects of aspiration among graduates in New York and Los Angeles

ABSTRACT

This article presents ethnographic research on the aspirations of graduates from a private university in New York City, some of whom move to Los Angeles. Findings depict financial and family pressures exerting a governing force upon the graduates’ futures, often beyond their control. Focusing on the narratives of four individuals, we introduce the language of fate as a means of conceptualising the potential repercussions of aspiration and Higher Education. The premise of both is an increased determinacy over one’s future, yet in the high-stakes U.S. context here examined, this financial investment and articulation of family hope may generate fated (seemingly inescapable) and/or fateful (ominous) outcomes. The dynamic of ‘cruel optimism’ illustrates some of the paradoxical consequences of Higher Education, whereby people may be punished by their aspirations. We discuss what factors affect differing outlooks on the future and imply alternative dimensions to adversity beyond the remit of ‘inequality’.     

Evaluating multigrade school reform in Latin America

This paper describes three multigrade school reforms in Latin America: (1) Colombia’s Escuela Nueva, (2) Guatemala’s Nueva Escuela Unitaria, and (3) Chile’s MECE‐Rural. Each reform endowed primary teachers and students with special training and instructional materials, and encouraged new kinds of instruction in rural classrooms, with the goal of improving student learning. The paper discusses the challenges to evaluating school reforms in a rural context. It then reviews the international literature on each reform, assessing whether reforms were effectively implemented and whether they caused improvement in student outcomes. Even in the best cases, multigrade schools were not fully implemented. There is consistent evidence of positive effects on student achievement. Yet, the causal interpretation of evaluation findings is severely limited, especially in Guatemala and Chile. It concludes with suggestions for improving multigrade evaluations.     

前西班牙时代那哇特尔文化的口头性与书面性

在西班牙占领本地之前,口头文学和图画文字是那哇特尔人表现、保留和传承其文化传统的有效工具.任何一篇文字的内容,都可以通过口述或者看图说话的方式来表达.这两种方式的表现力都远远地超过了言语本身,因为词语的"文本"在口头演出当中通过声音、手势、舞蹈、音乐、节奏、多彩的象形文字、特定的时空氛围而被"具体化"了.同样,书写的文本也因文字画、意符、音符以及颜色、形状、大小、位置、间隔关系、笔势以及图纹的双层影像等而被"具像化"了.尽管古抄本中的图画主要是被设计来"看"而不是(西方人观念中的)读的,很可能有与之相配的口述文本同时存在,它们从图像中生发而出,或者作为图本的补充存在.文章将涉及以下一些问题:第一,在前西班牙时代.人们是如何来"阅读"、也就是符号性地解释一个图画文本的?第二,图形比喻怎样触发口头表演?第三,口头演出如何"扎根"于图画?第四,言语的独白或对话在看图说话时如何得以运用或被参照?全部分析以那哇特尔(nahuatl)印地安人的手抄本和由西班牙人及其印地安助手们(根据当地土著的口述)所搜集和记录下的那哇特语文献为基础.