Pre-service primary teachers’ shame experiences during their schooling time: characteristics and effects on their subject-choices at university

Educational Studies in Mathematics - Emotions play an essential role in pre-service teachers’ competence development, particularly in mathematics. However, the emotion of shame in mathematics...     

CONSER: The Very Model of a Modern Cooperative Program

Abstract

The CONSER Program is the oldest component of the Program for Cooperative Cataloging (PCC) and many elements that made CONSER a success were adopted by the PCC over the past twenty-five years. This article describes how CONSER’s evolution over the years in the areas of membership, leadership, standards, training and documentation influenced the development of the PCC.     

Questioning Our Questions: Assessing Question Asking Practices to Evaluate a yPAR Program

The purpose of this research was to examine question asking practices in a youth participatory action research (yPAR) after school program housed at an elementary school. The research question was: In which ways did the adult question asking practices in a yPAR setting challenge and/or reproduce conventional models of power in educational settings? We aligned Fink’s taxonomy (Creating significant learning experiences: an integrated approach to designing college courses. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, 2003) to Freire’s (The pedagogy of the oppressed. Continuum, New York, 1970/2000) banking concept and problem-posing educational models. All adult questions were categorized from twelve randomly selected yPAR sessions over 2 years. The program served 4th and 5th grade students. Of the 500+ questions adults asked, 17 % were foundational (aligned with Freire’s banking concept). All other questions were aligned with Freire’s problem-posing model. Specifically, 34 % were application, 3 % were integration, 15 % were caring, 11 % were human dimension, and 8 % were learning how to learn questions. By studying question asking patterns and practices, we gained a better understanding of how students and adults navigated this particular after school space, which, at its core, sought to disrupt conventional notions of power and status.     

Virtual Microscopy: A Useful Tool for Meeting Evolving Challenges in the Veterinary Medical Curriculum

Veterinary schools, similar to many professional health programs, face a myriad of evolving challenges in delivering their professional curricula including expansion of class size, costs to maintain expensive laboratories, and increased demands on veterinary educators to use curricular time efficiently and creatively. Additionally, exponential expansion of the knowledge base through ongoing biomedical research, educational goals to increase student engagement and clinical reasoning earlier in the curriculum, and students’ desire to access course materials and enhance their educational experience through the use of technology all support the need to reassess traditional microscope laboratories within Professional Veterinary Medical (PVM) educational programs. While there is clear justification for teaching veterinary students how to use a microscope for clinical evaluation of cytological preparations (i.e., complete blood count, urinalysis, fecal analysis, fine needle aspirates, etc.), virtual microscopy may be a viable alternative to using light microscopy for teaching and learning fundamental histological concepts. This article discusses results of a survey given to assess Professional Veterinary Medical students’ perceptions of using virtual microscope for learning basic histology/microscopic anatomy and implications of these results for using virtual microscopy as a pedagogical tool in teaching first-year Professional Veterinary Medical students’ basic histology.     

Between the remnants of colonialism and the insurgence of self-narrative in constructing participatory social maps: towards a land education methodology

This article summarizes a social mapping project conducted by the Environmental Education, Communication and Arts Research Group from the Federal University of Mato Grosso. The primary goals of the project were to map the vulnerable social groups of Mato Grosso, and identify the social and environmental conflicts that put them in situations of risk. The conflicts and dilemmas these groups experience are typically caused by land and water disputes. In turn, the disputes can be traced to the continuance of colonialist forms of political, economic and ecological relations implicit in the prevailing model of development in the region. Supported by the reinvention and application of a new methodology for environmental education, namely the social map, the work illustrates the significance of group identities, self-narratives and interpretive frames, and discusses how social mapping might be used in land education to enable the construction of participatory forms of public policy.     

Effects of concurrent training on interleukin-6, tumour necrosis factor-alpha and C-reactive protein in middle-aged men

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of moderate- to high-intensity resistance and concurrent training on inflammatory biomarkers and functional capacity in sedentary middle-aged healthy men. Participants were selected on a random basis for resistance training (n = 12), concurrent training (n = 11) and a control group (n = 13). They performed three weekly sessions for 16 weeks (resistance training: 10 exercises with 3 × 8-10 repetition maximum; concurrent training: 6 exercises with 3 × 8-10 repetition maximum, followed by 30 minutes of walking or running at 55-85% [Vdot]O(2peak)). Maximal strength was tested in bench press and leg press. The peak oxygen uptake ([Vdot]O(2peak)) was measured by an incremental exercise test. Tumour necrosis factor-α, interleukin-6 and C-reactive protein were determined. The upper- and lower-body maximal strength increase for both resistance (+42.52%; +20.9%, respectively) and concurrent training (+28.35%; +21.5%, respectively) groups (P = 0.0001).[Vdot]O(2peak) increased in concurrent training when comparing pre- and post-training (P = 0.0001; +15.6%). No differences were found in tumour necrosis factor-α and interleukin-6 for both groups after the exercise. C-reactive protein increased in resistance training (P = 0.004). These findings demonstrated that 16 weeks of moderate- to high-intensity training could improve functional capacity, but did not decrease inflammatory biomarkers in middle-aged men.     

A MANAGEMENT TOOL FOR REALLOCATING COLLEGE RESOURCES

Community college administrators frequently need to deal with program enrollment shifts resulting from economic and demographic shifts. Reallocating resources between areas of the college to adjust to those enrollment shifts can become a difficult process if there isn't a careful monitoring of enrollment patterns and program costs. The authors describe their use of an enrollment and cost trends report that is published and distributed to the campus yearly. The report, with ten years of trend data on enrollments and credit hour costs, is utilized to provide a basis for planning, budgeting, and prioritizing personnel decisions. The authors contend that the public nature of the report is necessary to educate the campus to the importance of controlling program costs. The resulting campus awareness assists administrative efforts to reallocate funds within and between program areas and provide benchmarking comparisons. The usefulness of the data in legislative lobbying and fund raising also is described.     

Flow experience and positive affect during hypermedia learning

In this study positive affective states, experienced by users of a one-hour learning program, in a hypermedia learning environment were assessed. It was expected that a positive mood would occur during learning that would be correlated with high training/learning success. Furthermore, the experience of flow was used to indicate whether the challenges and skills were balanced. The results showed that the users of the training program were put into a positive mood. About a quarter of the users experienced flow. Positive moods were associated with higher training success and positive affect was correlated with total knowledge and content knowledge. An association between flow and training success was not observed. The perceived probability of success did not influence learning but a high perceived probability of success was considered as comparably more pleasant than a low perceived probability of success. The results are discussed in the context of self-directed learning.