Integrating mind and brain: Warren S. McCulloch,cerebral localization,and experimental epistemology

Recently, historians have focused on Warren S. McCulloch's role in the cybernetics movement during the 1940s and 1950s, and his contributions to the development of computer science and communication theory. What has received less attention is McCulloch's early work in neurophysiology, and its relationship to his philosophical quest for an 'experimental epistemology' - a physiological theory of knowledge. McCulloch's early laboratory work during the 1930s addressed the problem of cerebral localization: localizing aspects of behaviour in the cerebral cortex of the brain. Most of this research was done with the Dutch neurophysiologist J.G. Dusser de Barenne at Yale University. The connection between McCulloch's philosophical interests and his experimental work can be expressed as a search for a physiological a priori, an integrated mechanism of sensation.     

Using an Assistive Technology Toolkit to Promote Inclusion

Although the use of assistive technology for young children is increasing, the lack of awareness and the lack of training continue to act as major barriers to providers using assistive technology. This article describes an assistive technology toolkit designed for use with young children with disabilities that can be easily assembled and implemented by early childhood professionals. Specifically, we will describe assistive technology tools that support young children’s participation in their daily activities that involve movement and sensory needs, communication, and interaction with materials and offer strategies on how to implement these devices. An assembled toolkit that allows young children with disabilities immediate access to experiences that lead to acquisition of skills they need to learn and grow is discussed.     

A Shared Place of Discovery and Creativity: Practices of Contemporary Art and Design Pedagogy

This article is based on a project that explored the practices of art and design beginning teachers (BTs) working with learners in a post‐age‐16 context. The aim of the project was to: explore contemporary art and design practices; explore the concept of artist teacher learner researcher; enable beginning teachers to collaborate with post‐age‐16 pupils and develop new approaches and strategies to art and design pedagogy. Through practices that blurred learner‐teacher identities a dialectical pedagogy emerged and a collaborative community of practice developed, all enabled through a renegotiation and reconceptualising of places of learning. The beginning teachers also started to construct their artist teacher identities, understand what it means to practise as an artist teacher in the classroom, understand the impact of these practices on teaching and learning and develop new learning and teaching methods. This project demonstrates the possibilities of these practices for contemporary art and design pedagogy and also how these practices can endure and be sustainable for this community of beginning teachers in the current cultural, social and political contexts of education.     

Providing support to friends experiencing a sexual health uncertainty

ABSTRACT

Emerging adults provide support to friends experiencing sexual health uncertainties; however, the support provided varies. Because of the centrality of friendships during emerging adulthood, identifying what shapes the support friends provide one another is necessary. A survey of 424 emerging adults indicated that, at least from the support provider’s perspective, expected outcomes, efficacy assessments, and sexual health expertise shape the support they provide friends, supporting the theory of motivated information management’s propositions. However, expertise moderated the effects of coping and target efficacy in unexpected ways, suggesting a conditional process when providing blame, fault, and distraction support. Results, as a whole, support yet complicate the theory of motivated information management’s explanation for the support or information provider due to expertise and emphasize the need for complete sexual health education for young people.     

Minor Illnesses,Temperament, and Toddler Social Functioning

Research Findings: Minor illnesses, such as upper respiratory infections, stomachaches, and fevers, have been associated with children's decreased activity and increased irritability. This multi-method investigation of 110 day care–attending children examined whether experience with recurrent, minor illnesses and negative emotionality worked together to predict young children's social functioning. Minor illness experience was assessed via weekly health screenings conducted by nurses. Toddlers' negative emotionality and social behavior were assessed using mothers' and fathers' reports. The two dimensions of negative emotionality and minor illness experience operated in different ways to predict children's functioning. Toddlers rated as more temperamentally angry displayed less social competence, especially when they also experienced high proportions of minor illness. Temperamentally fearful children exhibited more externalizing problems when they experienced a higher frequency of illness, whereas fearfulness was not associated with externalizing problems for children who were not frequently ill. Practice or Policy: Children's frequent experience with minor illnesses combined with negative emotionality appears to place toddlers at a heightened risk for exhibiting behavior problems. These findings have implications for child and family well-being as well as interactions with child care providers and peers within child care settings. Interventions could be developed to target “at risk” children.     

Unexpected Pathways: Criminal Justice Career Options in the Private Sector

Career guide books and scholarly articles alike focus on courts, corrections, and law enforcement careers for criminal justice students. While those careers are noteworthy and popular among students, there are numerous professions available to criminal justice students in the private sector. This study outlines possible career choices outside of the criminal justice system as well as potential organizations for employment. Employment options are located in the fields of investigation, security, legal assistance, intelligence analysis, research and academia, and others with defense contractors, consulting firms, intelligence agencies, and Fortune 500 companies among additional private corporations.     

Work Knowing "On the Fly": Enterprise cultures and co-emergent epistemology

Drawing on findings of a qualitative study exploring the learning processes of individuals working in environments characterised as enterprise cultures, this paper proposes a conceptualisation of work knowing as co-emergence, at the intersection of invention, identity and environment. This conceptualisation is based upon an ecological theory of learning called "enactivism", which holds that human beings, natural objects and cognition emerge together as intertwined systems. This theory appears useful in the examination of work knowledge produced by a growing number of individuals who are entering the ranks of the self-employed, becoming entrepreneurs in the new economy. Three dimensions of enactivist theory in particular are argued to hold heuristic value for understanding knowledge production and subjectivity in the new world of enterprise. First, that knowledge unfolds in systems, whereby cognition co-emerges with environment, individuals and activity. Second, that understanding is embedded in the conduct and relationships among systems and sub-systems, rather than the minds of individual actors. Third, that learning is continuous invention and exploration, linked to disequilibrium experienced in systems. These three dimensions are illustrated with examples from the learning experiences reported by those negotiating the world of enterprise.     

Making to measure? Reconsidering assessment in professional continuing education

Drawing on studies of teachers, accountants and pharmacists conducted in Canada, this essay examines models for assessing professional learning that currently enjoy widespread use in continuing education. These models include professional growth plans, self-administered tests and learning logs, and they are often used for regulatory as well as developmental purposes by professional associations. The essay argues what others have critiqued about such self-assessment models: that their assumptions about learning are problematic and limiting in a number of respects, privileging human consciousness and intention, and literally ‘making’ a particular professional subject that is atomised and conservative. The essay goes on to suggest alternative perspectives that are receiving increasing attention in theorising work-related learning and that may offer fruitful questions for re-considering the nature of professional learning and its assessment. Three perspectives in particular are outlined, all of which shift the focus from the learning subject to practice as material, emergent and systemic: complexity theory, actor–network theory and cultural–historical activity theory. The discussion concludes with possible approaches to assessment of professional practice suggested by these perspectives.