Towards an expanded cognitive developmental science understanding of human teaching / Hacia un conocimiento ampliado de la enseñanza humana basada en la ciencia del desarrollo cognitivo

Teaching is one of nature’s remarkable inventions. Despite over two millennia of academic discussion about teaching, it remains in need of a broad scientific footing. The cognitive and developmental sciences, writ large, are candidates for such a footing. The purpose of this article is to go beyond teaching as knowledge transmission and present an expanded cognitive developmental account of teaching’s remarkable complexity. A minimalist and maximalist approach for describing teaching are presented, with a preference offered for the latter. It can serve as a map for backward engineering so as to get to the origins and developmental trajectories of the map of teaching’s components. An expanded mind-to-mind coupling version of the complexity of normative adult teaching is presented which includes stage-setting with emotion-, motivation- and mind-reading, organizing teaching sessions, scaffolding, detecting knowledge gaps and intervening by knowledge transmission strategies intended to reduce the gaps. In a backward engineering move, research is presented on infants’ abilities for some of what is presented for adults. Teaching is also prosocial, with heart-to-heart coupling. It is inextricably intertwined with teaching, and is another part of teaching’s complexity. Teaching’s prosociality is analysed via the economic concept of non-rivalry. It is shown that teaching is a form of helping behaviour but is not altruistic. Directions for further work in this maximalist approach to the scientific study of teaching are presented.     

Cleaning Dirty Data in Excel

This article gives a flavour of the CHIME materials on data handling in Microsoft Excel. It demonstrates the facilities for data validation within Excel.     

Uncertain pathways: foundation skills tutors and marginalised students in neoliberal times

This article deals with the work of polytechnic tutors on adult foundation programmes and describes how their work has been affected by the current neoliberal climate in the education sector. Inclusive neoliberalism is characterised by heightened regulation, reduced support for the public sector and a greater requirement for individual responsibility. The push to improve skills to meet labour demand is promoted as addressing social needs. Policies devised to promote these neoliberal values have led to numerous and far-reaching changes in adult education. In this study 73 foundation skills educators drawn from 8 institutions were interviewed to gain their insights into the effects of these policies. The article discusses three types of detrimental effects: the growing distrust between teaching staff and management; unsettling changes to institutional policy and its effects on staffing issues; and threats to the professionalism of teaching staff, the delivery of foundation studies, and the students themselves. Finally, the article suggests alternative possibilities for addressing these issues.     

Developing medical students as teachers: An anatomy‐based student‐as‐teacher program with emphasis on core teaching competencies

Teaching is an increasingly recognized responsibility of the resident physician. Residents, however, often assume teaching responsibilities without adequate preparation. Consequently, many medical schools have implemented student‐as‐teacher (SAT) programs that provide near‐peer teaching opportunities to senior medical students. Near‐peer teaching is widely regarded as an effective teaching modality; however, whether near‐peer teaching experiences in medical school prepare students for the teaching demands of residency is less understood. We explored whether the anatomy‐based SAT program through the Human Structure didactic block at Mayo Medical School addressed the core teaching competencies of a medical educator and prepared its participants for further teaching roles in their medical careers. A web‐based survey was sent to all teaching assistants in the anatomy‐based SAT program over the past five years (2007–2011). Survey questions were constructed based on previously published competencies in seven teaching domains – course development, course organization, teaching execution, student coaching, student assessment, teacher evaluation, and scholarship. Results of the survey indicate that participants in the anatomy‐based SAT program achieved core competencies of a medical educator and felt prepared for the teaching demands of residency. Anat Sci Educ 6: 385–392. © 2013 American Association of Anatomists.     

Books of the Month

Robert Sobel's The Manipulators: America in the Media Age (New York: Doubleday, 1976---$9.95)

Sidney Kraus and Dennis Davis's The Effects of Mass Communication on Political Behavior (University Park, Pa.: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1976---$16.50/7.95)     

The New British copyright act

REALITY IN ADVERTISING. By Rosser Reeves. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1961. x + 154 pp. $3.95.

TEACH WITH TELEVISION: A GUIDE TO INSTRUCTIONAL TV. By Lawrence F. Costello and George N. Gordon. New York: Hastings House (Communication Arts Books), 1961. 175 pp. + bibliog. and glossary. $5.50.

THE GREAT TIME KILLER. By Harold Mehling. Cleveland: World Publishing Co., 1962. 352 pp. $4.95.

WORLD RADIO TV HANDBOOK. Edited by O. Lund Johansen. 16th ed. Copenhagen: O. Lund‐Johansen, 1962. 218 pp. $3.00 (paper; postpaid).     

Analysis of Verb Forms in the Speech of Young Children,and their Relation to the Language Learning Process

Children come to school with an idea of narrative structure, but their knowledge of persuasive writing is less developed. Results of the National Assessment of Educational Progress indicate that students perform poorly on persuasive writing tasks. To what extent this is a result of a lack of logical thinking skills and to what extent it is a result of problems with instruction are not known. The present experiment was designed to identify the effects of instruction, grade level, and sex on students’ persuasive writing. Children in grades 4, 6, and 8 were instructed in writing with one of four instructional strategies. Their performance was then evaluated through analytic scoring of their efforts with standard writing prompts administered immediately after treatment and again 2 weeks later. The results showed that older children wrote better than younger ones; that girls wrote better than boys immediately after the study but not 2 weeks later; and that treatment effects approached statistical significance.     

Behavior of narcotics-addicted newborns.

The behavior of narcotics-addicted and nonaddicted newborns on the first 2 days of life was assessed with the Brazelton Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale. In addition to classic signs of narcotics abstinence, addicted infants were less able to be maintained in an alert state and less able to orient to auditory and visual stimuli. These deficits were especially pronounced at 48 hours of age. Addicted infants were as capable of self-quieting and responding to soothing intervention as normal neonates, although they were substantially more irritable. These characteristics and addicted infants' greater resistance to cuddling are discussed in terms of their potential impact on early infant-care-giver interaction.