Extralocating Faculty in Technical Communication

Tenure-line faculty—teaching onsite or online—are typically perceived as resident scholars and instructors who live local to their institutions. A geographically diversified tenure-line faculty, however, could also serve the education of students by bringing a wider array of influences and opportunities to the online classroom. Programs in technical communication must examine how to incorporate extralocated faculty and how to prepare willing and eligible faculty for extralocated teaching, research, and service.     

A model for using a concept inventory as a tool for students' assessment and faculty professional development

This essay describes how the use of a concept inventory has enhanced professional development and curriculum reform efforts of a faculty teaching community. The Host Pathogen Interactions (HPI) teaching team is composed of research and teaching faculty with expertise in HPI who share the goal of improving the learning experience of students in nine linked undergraduate microbiology courses. To support evidence-based curriculum reform, we administered our HPI Concept Inventory as a pre- and postsurvey to approximately 400 students each year since 2006. The resulting data include student scores as well as their open-ended explanations for distractor choices. The data have enabled us to address curriculum reform goals of 1) reconciling student learning with our expectations, 2) correlating student learning with background variables, 3) understanding student learning across institutions, 4) measuring the effect of teaching techniques on student learning, and 5) demonstrating how our courses collectively form a learning progression. The analysis of the concept inventory data has anchored and deepened the team's discussions of student learning. Reading and discussing students' responses revealed the gap between our understanding and the students' understanding. We provide evidence to support the concept inventory as a tool for assessing student understanding of HPI concepts and faculty development.     

Machine and deep learning for sport-specific movement recognition: a systematic review of model development and performance

Objective assessment of an athlete’s performance is of importance in elite sports to facilitate detailed analysis. The implementation of automated detection and recognition of sport-specific movements overcomes the limitations associated with manual performance analysis methods. The object of this study was to systematically review the literature on machine and deep learning for sport-specific movement recognition using inertial measurement unit (IMU) and, or computer vision data inputs. A search of multiple databases was undertaken. Included studies must have investigated a sport-specific movement and analysed via machine or deep learning methods for model development. A total of 52 studies met the inclusion and exclusion criteria. Data pre-processing, processing, model development and evaluation methods varied across the studies. Model development for movement recognition were predominantly undertaken using supervised classification approaches. A kernel form of the Support Vector Machine algorithm was used in 53% of IMU and 50% of vision-based studies. Twelve studies used a deep learning method as a form of Convolutional Neural Network algorithm and one study also adopted a Long Short Term Memory architecture in their model. The adaptation of experimental set-up, data pre-processing, and model development methods are best considered in relation to the characteristics of the targeted sports movement(s).     

Football friends: adolescent boys’ friendships inside an English professional football (soccer) academy

This qualitative research draws on data from semi-structured, in-depth interviews to examine the friendships of 12 adolescent (14- and 15-year-old) boys within a professional football club Academy: a setting marked by competition for places. Findings highlight how boys fail to develop ‘deep’ friendships with other boys inside the club; their peer-relationships, even when described as ‘friendships’, are devoid of trust and emotional intimacy. Instead, ‘being mates’ is experienced within parameters of instrumentalism and individualism leading to superficial and inauthentic friendships. There is some indication that boys developed closer friendships with boys outside of the Academy, suggesting that competition is implicated negatively in friendship-building and hinders the capabilities of these boys to develop close friendships with teammates. Concluding this paper, we acknowledge limitations of our data, discuss implications and challenges for football academies, and highlight directions for future research.     

Match running performance and skill execution improves with age but not the number of disposals in young Australian footballers

This study investigated age-related differences in maturity, physical and functional characteristics and playing performance in youth Australian Football (AF). Young male players (n = 156) were recruited from 12 teams across 6 age groups (U10–U15) of a recreational AF club. All players were tested for body size, maturity and fitness. Player performance was assessed during a match in which disposals (kicks and handballs) and their effectiveness were coded from a video recording and match running performance measured using Global Positioning System. Significant main effects (P < 0.01) for age group were observed for age, years to peak height velocity, body mass, height, 20 m sprint, maximal speed over 20 m, vertical jump, 20 m multistage shuttle run, match distance, high-speed running distance, peak speed, number of effective disposals and percentage of effective disposals. Age-related differences in fitness characteristics (speed, lower body power and endurance) appeared to transfer to match running performance. The frequency in which players disposed of the football did not differ between age groups, however the effectiveness of each disposal (i.e., % effective disposals) improved with age. Match statistics, particularly those that evaluate skill execution outcome (i.e., effectiveness), are useful to assess performance and to track player development over time. Differences between age groups, and probably variability within age groups, are strongly associated with chronological age and maturity.     

Critical Theory and Visual Practice in the Art School

This paper reflects upon the recent debates concerning the relationship between theory and practice in British art schools. Much has been done during the last two decades by artists, academics, writers and exhibition curators to bridge the traditional polarization between thinking and making. Underlying this venture is the keenly felt conviction that our task as teachers is to work with our students to develop creative practices which make a difference – particularly in relation to how we might use the arts to reformulate the ways in which we articulate our sense of self in a wider social and political context. In the last thirty years we have witnessed a sea change in art schools. The formerly inward looking reclusive art school culture is now inhabited by groups and individuals who are engaged in the everyday concerns of consumer culture and are committed to, first of all, harness creative production as an agent of change and, second, reject the notion that art practice is divorced from theoretical concerns.     

高等教育的多样化与跨国模式——马来西亚私立高等教育的发展和变革

马来西亚的私立高等教育在1990年代开始迅速扩展,并且所办的课程也趋向多样化、国际化。本文主要是着重在阐述马来西亚私立高等教育从1980年代到21世纪初的发展,以及在这段时期所做出的变革和创新。