Calcium isotope compositions as a means to trace carbonate recyclingOA

<正>Marine carbonates, such as sedimentary carbonates and secondary carbonates formed during marine alteration processes, are returned to the mantle at subduction zones, and their fates regulate the global carbon cycle. Some carbonates are destroyed at the subduction zones,     

Characterizing Students’ Attempts to Explain Observations from Practical Work: Intermediate Phases of Understanding

This study aims to characterize a group of students’ preliminary oral explanations of a scientific phenomenon produced as part of their learning process. The students were encouraged to use their own wordings to test out their own interpretation of observations when conducting practical activities. They presented their explanations orally in the whole class after having discussed and written down an explanation in a small group. The data consists of transcribed video recordings of the presented explanations, observation notes, and interviews. A genre perspective was used to characterize the students’ explanations together with analysis of the students use of scientific terms, gestures, and the language markers “sort of” and “like.” Based on the analysis we argue to separate between event-focused explanations, where the students describe how objects move, and object-focused explanations, where the students describe object properties and interactions. The first type uses observable events and few scientific terms, while the latter contains object properties and tentative use of scientific terms. Both types are accompanied by an extensive use of language markers and gestures. A third category, term-focused explanations, is used when the students only provide superficial explanations by expressing scientific terms. Here, the students’ use of language markers and gestures are low. The analyses shows how students’ explanations can be understood as tentative attempts to build on their current understanding and observations while trying to reach out for a deeper and scientific way of identifying observations and building explanations and new ways of talking.     

Socialization of Doctoral Students to Academic Norms

Using the framework for graduate and professional student socialization developed by Weidman, Twale, and Stein (2001), this study addresses socialization of doctoral students to the academic norms of research and scholarship. Data are presented about the perceptions doctoral students in a social science discipline (sociology) and in educational foundations at a major research university have of the scholarly and collegial climates of their departments. Data on students' social relationships with faculty and peers as well as their reported participation in scholarly activities are also reported. A multivariate analysis provides support for the framework, affirming the importance of social interaction among both students and faculty as well as collegiality among faculty for creating a supportive climate for doctoral study that also has the potential to provide a strong foundation for subsequent academic and/or research careers by stimulating students' research and scholarly productivity.     

Tracking Professional Development of Novice Teachers when Integrating Technology in Teaching Mathematics

This research traced changes in choices of technological tools and attitudes toward technology use among novice mathematics teachers at three stages of their professional development: as pre-service teachers, a year later, and in their work as novice teachers. At each stage, the participants were required to evaluate the benefits of technology use in their learning/teaching.

We found that the novice mathematics teachers used a variety of technological tools, while as students they preferred to use digital presentations or dynamic software. Moreover, the novice teachers used two additional tools: the school platform and the WhatsApp instant messaging application. The novice teachers placed significantly higher value on the benefits of using technology in teaching in terms of improvement in learning, enhancement of pupils' motivation and increased effectiveness of the lesson. These results indicated that only as practical teachers were the participants able to see the benefits of technology.     

A colonial history of the higher education present: rethinking land-grant institutions through processes of accumulation and relations of conquest

ABSTRACT

This conceptual paper examines the colonial conditions of possibility for a formative moment of US public higher education, the Morrill Act of 1862, and considers how these conditions continue to shape the present. The federal government’s accumulation of Indigenous lands in the nineteenth century helped provide the material base for land-grant legislation, and although conquest of the frontier was eventually metaphorized in higher education discourse, public institutions remain both dependent on and vulnerable to the imperatives of accumulation that were established during colonization, as is evident in contemporary privatization efforts. I argue that if efforts to resist privatization fail to address how colonialism has historically shaped US public goods, then these efforts risk re-naturalizing the imperative of capital accumulation and relations of conquest.     

Nature of learning environment in concurrent enrollment mathematics classrooms: a cluster analysis

Learning Environments Research - Concurrent enrollment programs, which allow college credit-bearing classes to be offered in the high school taught by qualified high-school teachers, are a...