Developing understanding of mathematical modeling in secondary teacher preparation

This study examines the evolution of 11 prospective teachers’ understanding of mathematical modeling through the implementation of a modeling module within a curriculum course in a secondary teacher preparation program. While the prospective teachers had not previously taken a course on mathematical modeling, they will be expected to include modeling as part of the school curriculum under current state standards. The module consisted of readings, analysis of the Common Core State Standards, carefully designed modeling activities, individual and group work, discussion, presentations, and reflections. The results show that while most prospective teachers had misconceived definitions of mathematical modeling prior to the module, they developed the correct understanding of modeling as an iterative process involving making assumptions and validating conclusions connected to everyday situations. The study reveals how the prospective teachers translated the modeling cycle into practice in the context of a carefully designed open-ended problem and the strong connections between modeling activities and promoting mathematical practices.     

A Participatory Social A/r/tography: Bodies and Houses Metamorphosing from Schools in Tegucigalpa to a Liverpool Tate Exchange Event

Social a/r/tography combines three dimensions of a/r/tography (artistic creation, education and research) incorporating a fourth collaborative, participatory community‐based approach. This ongoing project began in two primary and secondary schools located in the slums of Tegucigalpa, Honduras, as cooperative action for curricular development in art education. As participatory action, students created a mural drawing inspired by Sol Lewitt's wall drawings, as well as photo pairs on the theme of body and nature inspired by a lithograph by Uta Barth. The drawings and photographs created by the students in Honduras were presented at an event in the Exchange space of the Tate gallery in Liverpool as visual provocation for the creation of drawings and visual metaphors. The concept of visual dialogue, which we define as ‘to teach human beings to have visual conversations with other humans through the visual content of images’, helps us to consider images as questions which are answered with new images whose meaning is subsequently transformed in function of artistic, school and social contexts.     

Genome: twisting stories with DNA

In 1920, the German botanist Hans Winkler coined the concept of the ‘genome’. This paper explores the history of a concept that has developed in parallel with advances in biology and supports novel and powerful heuristic biological research in the 21st century. From a structural interpretation (the genome as the haploid number of chromosomes), it has changed to keep pace with technological progress and new interpretations of the material of heredity. In the first place, the ‘genome’ was extended to include all the material in the nucleus, then the sum of all genes, and (with the discovery of the structure of DNA) the sum of the nucleotide base sequences. In the early 21st century, it has become a much more complex and central concept that has spawned the growing field of studies referred to as the ‘omics’.     

Understanding the prospect of success in professional training: an ethnography into the assessment of problem-based learning

One of the most fundamental innovations in higher education is the introduction of the method known as problem-based learning (PBL). While literature has largely focused on its learning goals and the transition from lectures to tutorials, little research has problematised why this is a successful methodology and what we consider as students’ success. Drawing upon various ethnographic techniques, the authors analyse PBL as a field of expectations in light of Expectation-Value Theory. Beyond merely showing that PBL is a culturally constructed practice, the article elaborates on how students’ expectations inform practices, performance and evaluation, which is important for assessing the successfulness of the method. By discussing students’ expectations, dynamics and power relations, the present article is a contribution to the research addressing what has come to be known as the ‘black box’ of PBL.     

战术训练动作特征对国家女子水球队能量摄入的影响

目的：观察备战2014亚运会期间,国家女子水球队身体成分、专项身体素质和战术训练动作强度分布特征与能量摄入的关系。方法：除守门 员外,备战2014亚运会中国国家女子水球队24名队员,（22±4）岁,（23.0±2.3）kg/m2,按水球战术训练角色分为中锋（n=6）、防中锋（n=10）和外线（n= 8）3组,进行连续6天的膳食调查,同时采集该周全部战术训练动作强度分布数据,专项游泳成绩和身体成分于膳食调查前一周测量。结果：（1）外 线运动员身高、体重和去脂体重显著低于中锋和防中锋,体脂%无组间差异;（2）防中锋运动员10×200 m泳速显著慢于外线,中锋运动员10×50 m泳 速显著快于防中锋;（3）战术训练中,外线运动员低强度动作持续时间和训练时间比重显著高于中锋和防中锋,中、高强度对抗时间显著低于中锋和 防中锋;（4）外线运动员的日能量摄入总量显著高于中锋;（5）受试队员体重、体脂重量、去脂重量、BMI 和体脂%与日能量摄入总量呈显著负相关,宏 量营养素摄入量与日能量摄入总量呈显著正相关,专项游泳成绩、低强度战术动作训练持续时间和训练时间比重与能量摄入总量呈显著正相关。 结论：战术训练不同强度动作分布特征而非身体成分和专项身体素质,是决定重大比赛备战期间国家女子水球队不同位置运动员能量摄入的重要 因素。     

Velocity- and power-load relationships in the half,parallel and full back squat

This study aimed to compare the load-velocity and load-power relationships of three common variations of the squat exercise. 52 strength-trained males performed a progressive loading test up to the one-repetition maximum (1RM) in the full (F-SQ), parallel (P-SQ) and half (H-SQ) squat, conducted in random order on separate days. Bar velocity and vertical force were measured by means of a linear velocity transducer time-synchronized with a force platform. The relative load that maximized power output (Pmax) was analyzed using three outcome measures: mean concentric (MP), mean propulsive (MPP) and peak power (PP), while also including or excluding body mass in force calculations. 1RM was significantly different between exercises. Load-velocity and load-power relationships were significantly different between the F-SQ, P-SQ and H-SQ variations. Close relationships (R² = 0.92–0.96) between load (%1RM) and bar velocity were found and they were specific for each squat variation, with faster velocities the greater the squat depth. Unlike the F-SQ and P-SQ, no sticking region was observed for the H-SQ when lifting high loads. The Pmax corresponded to a broad load range and was greatly influenced by how force output is calculated (including or excluding body mass) as well as the exact outcome variable used (MP, MPP, PP).     

An economic model of workplace mobbing in academe

Workplace bullying or mobbing can be defined as the infliction of various forms of abuse (e.g., verbal, emotional, psychological) against a colleague or subordinate by one or more other members of a workplace. Even in the presence of academic tenure, workplace mobbing remains a prevalent issue in academe. This study develops an economic model that employs a Stackelberg differential game in order to analyze the interaction between a university administrator (or administrators) and a professor who is being “mobbed” by university administration, perhaps for political reasons related to the professor's use of academic freedom and/or tenure to publicly criticize the actions of university officials. One of the model's implications is that it is optimal for the professor to increase his or her research in order to increase job mobility when subjected to downward mobbing, and that the university administration may succeed in pushing out the tenured professor if the administration's mobbing actions are greater than a combination of professor's optimal salary and threshold quitting rate. In the long run, however, the institution and the administrator may lose if the professor leaves and his replacements do not keep up the research productivity.     

Critical arts‐based research in education: Performing undocumented historias

The article seeks to elucidate and academically position the genre of critical arts‐based research in education. The article fuses Critical Race Theory (CRT), life history and performance, alongside work with undocumented American students of Mexican origin, to show how a politicised qualitative paradigmatic re envisioning can occur in which counter‐histories and counter‐stories can be co‐created into a powerful, evocative, and transformative arts‐based performance text: Undocumented Historias. The article reflects on how critical arts‐based research in education can function as a means to legitimise, empower and promote the voices of the educationally and socially marginalised; evoking an experiential and sensual means of feeling and knowing by which researcher and researched may co‐recover, interrogate and enrich an anti‐colonialist critique of the dominant social order.     

Reasons for the collaborative difficulties between psychoeducational consultants and teachers: an exploratory analysis / Análisis exploratorio de las variables relacionadas con las dificultades de los asesores psicopedagógicos para colaborar con los profesores

Abstract

This paper examines whether the difficulties in collaboration identified in the sessions of five consultants working with teachers and whether the consultants’ high participation (a type of hyper-responsibility) are related to the ongoing episode of the problem solving process, the origin of the request, and the topic of the session. Results show that collaboration difficulties tend to be more frequent when consultants and teachers discuss teaching-learning processes and that the consultants’ hyper-responsibility is more common: (a) when they are looking for solutions, (b) when they start some action with the support of the tradition of the educational setting or the support of the regulation, and (c) when they are discussing career guidance and mentoring.