Thoughts on education for an age of synthesis

The predicaments which the industrial age of the twentieth century has left with us are briefly discussed, namely nature in peril, man in crisis and nation at risk. It is argued that these predicaments are brought upon us by the predominantly analytic thinking of the past century represented in the various forms of dichotomize such as mind and matter, man and nature, East and West, etc. It is, then, asserted that the twenty-first century should an age of synthesis, which the education for synthesis are specifically highlighted and discussed: the philosophy of the whole person, the building of sequentially broader self-identities, and strategies of conflict solution. Editor’s note Address presented at the First International Conference Editor’s note Address presented at the First International Conference Editor’s note Address presented at the First International Conference Editor’s note Address presented at the First International Conference Editor’s note Address presented at the First International Conference     

Syntactic and discourse skills in Chinese adolescent readers with dyslexia: a profiling study

This study aims to investigate the relation of syntactic and discourse skills to morphological skills, rapid naming, and working memory in Chinese adolescent readers with dyslexia and to examine their cognitive–linguistic profiles. Fifty-two dyslexic readers (mean age, 13;42) from grade 7 to 9 in Hong Kong high schools were compared with 52 typically developing readers of the same chronological age (mean age, 13;30) in the measures of word reading, 1-min word reading, reading comprehension, morpheme discrimination, morpheme production, morphosyntactic knowledge, sentence order knowledge, digit rapid naming, letter rapid naming, backward digit span, and non-word repetition. Results showed that dyslexic readers performed significantly worse than their peers on all the cognitive-linguistic tasks. Analyses of individual performance also revealed that over half of the dyslexic readers exhibited deficits in syntactic and discourse skills. Moreover, syntactic skills, morphological skills, and rapid naming best distinguished dyslexic from non-dyslexic readers. Findings underscore the significance of syntactic and discourse skills for understanding reading impairment in Chinese adolescent readers.     

Pre-service teachers’ use of tools to systematically analyze teaching and learning

Learning to systematically analyze the relationship between teaching and student learning is an important but difficult skill to engender in teachers. In this study, we examine how pre-service teachers who were introduced to a framework for analyzing teaching in a video-based teacher education course drew on this tool to analyze their own practice after the conclusion of the course. We conceptualize the framework as a conceptual tool that scaffolds pre-service teachers to learn to attend to particular dimensions of teaching and learning and to analyze how their teaching influences student learning. Using the Portfolio Assessment for California Teachers-Teaching Event of 14 English language arts pre-service teachers, we conducted a qualitative analysis to examine the extent to which they applied this framework to analyze their own practice after the conclusion of the course, as well as different strategies they adopted as they analyzed their teaching practice. Findings suggest that pre-service teachers made progress in using the framework to study their teaching, but development of sub-skills for all four facets are needed to develop more productive analyses of teaching and student learning. This study has important implications for the design of teacher education that intends to support pre-service teachers in developing tools for learning to learn from their teaching practice.     

Sensitivity to the positional information of morphemes inside Chinese compound words and its relationship with word reading

The purpose of the present study was to investigate developmental differences in lexical processing and sensitivity to the positional information of constituent morphemes with reference to Chinese word-reading ability. One hundred mainland Chinese children (50 s graders and 50 third graders) and 22 high school students were tested with a lexical decision task. The primary school children were also tested for Chinese character reading, morphological awareness, phonological awareness, and non-verbal intelligence. We found that although both primary school children and high school students performed worse in the reversed condition (i.e., the pseudo-words were created by reversing the order of the two characters in real Chinese words) than in the real (i.e., real Chinese compound words) and random conditions (i.e., the pseudo-words were constructed by randomly combining the characters in the reversed condition), the performances of high school students in the reversed condition were closer to their performances in the other two conditions. Correlational analyses conducted on the primary school children revealed that the responses of second- and third-grade children on the lexical decision task were moderately correlated with their Chinese character reading. We also found that, after controlling for age and non-verbal IQ, the reaction time difference between the real and reversed conditions significantly predicted Chinese character reading. The results were discussed by exploring the nature of the lexical decision task, the sensitivity of Chinese children to the positional information of morphemes inside compound words, and the association of such sensitivity with their word-reading performance.     

Microfluidic devices for studying heterotypic cell-cell interactions and tissue specimen cultures under controlled microenvironments

Microfluidic devices allow for precise control of the cellular and noncellular microenvironment at physiologically relevant length- and time-scales. These devices have been shown to mimic the complex in vivo microenvironment better than conventional in vitro assays, and allow real-time monitoring of homotypic or heterotypic cellular interactions. Microfluidic culture platforms enable new assay designs for culturing multiple different cell populations and∕or tissue specimens under controlled user-defined conditions. Applications include fundamental studies of cell population behaviors, high-throughput drug screening, and tissue engineering. In this review, we summarize recent developments in this field along with studies of heterotypic cell-cell interactions and tissue specimen culture in microfluidic devices from our own laboratory.     

Writing motivation and performance in Chinese children

Reading and Writing - This study examined the relationships between writing motivation and written composition performance in Chinese among 388 Chinese children in Grades 3 to 5 in accordance with...     

Visuomotor integration and executive functioning are uniquely linked to Chinese word reading and writing in kindergarten children

This cross-sectional study examined the associations of visuomotor integration and executive functioning with Chinese word reading and writing in kindergarten children. A total of 369 Chinese children (mean age = 57.99 months; 55% of them were girls) from Hong Kong, China, completed tasks on visuomotor integration, executive functioning, and Chinese word reading and writing. Children also completed tasks on rapid automatized naming, and their mothers provided child and family background information. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that, controlling for child age, gender, and rapid automatized naming and maternal education, both visuomotor integration and executive functioning were uniquely linked to Chinese word reading and writing. Findings highlighted the importance of visuomotor integration and executive functioning in understanding the development of Chinese word reading and writing in early years, and the utility of targeting visuomotor integration and executive functioning to help kindergarten children to learn to read and write in Chinese.