The Treatment of Cycloidal Pendulum Motion in Newton’s Principia

The discovery of the near isochrony of the simple pendulum offered the possibilityof measuring time intervals more accurately than had been possible before. However,the fact that it was not strictly isochronous for all amplitudes remained a problem. Thecycloidal pendulum provided this strict isochrony and, over a thirty year period from1659 the analysis of the motion of this pendulum was developed. Newton’s analysis inhis Principia was both elegant and comprehensive and his argument is illustratedin this paper. It provides insights into the revolutionary nature of Newton’s thinkingespecially compared to the Galilean approach to understanding the motion of the simplependulum found in early 18th century textbooks.     

The Relationship Between Family Communication Patterns and Child Vaccination Intentions

This study examined the role of family communication patterns in assessing the intentions of individuals to vaccinate their children. Using the theory of planned behavior, we constructed a path model whereby family communication patterns led to perceptions regarding vaccinations and finally to the intentions. The model showed excellent fit, with both communication and conformity orientations inversely related to vaccination beliefs. There were also significant inverse indirect effects between the two orientations and vaccination intentions. The family communication patterns interacted to predict both vaccination control and perceived norms outside the family. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.     

Working Knowledge: Australian Universities and "Real World" Education

Universities are at a pivotal point in their history and are undergoing dramatic changes. One of the more significant of these changes is the move towards instrumental programmes of learning, as manifest for instance in workplace and work-based learning. This paper argues that this trend threatens the existence of the liberal university, where knowledge is pursued predominantly for its own sake. The paper identifies four dominant discourses in higher education and suggests that these discourses co-exist with one another, and are sometimes dominant, at other times recessive. It argues that the trend to a post-industrialised labour market has seen the emergence of a vocationalised discourse in higher education, which stresses the instrumental at the expense of the liberal.     

The republic of science education research

Conclusion In this paper I have tried to examine the possibility of a free and independent republic of science education in which all are committed to the pursuit of truth, freedom, quality and equality. The task will undoubtedly be a difficult one, given the constraints and the external forces which are likely to keep us in the wilderness. But the way to the promised land is, I believe, to develop individually and collectively, a commitment to questioning the justice as well as the effectiveness of what we are doing. To count as science education research, the work we do must contribute to the education of teachers. It must help sensitize teachers to the nature of the problems which confront them. It must help them to make professional judgments about what is justifiable, feasible and worth trying, given what we know of the effects of different strategies. And it must contribute to the development and refinement of the common-sense knowledge and pedagogical theories by means of which science educators make sense of the phenomena of science education and which guide their actions.     

Latent semantic analysis as a tool for learner positioning in learning networks for lifelong learning

As we move towards distributed, self‐organised learning networks for lifelong learning to which multiple providers contribute content, there is a need to develop new techniques to determine where learners can be positioned in these networks. Positioning requires us to map characteristics of the learner onto characteristics of learning materials and curricula. Considering the nature of the network envisaged, maintaining data on these characteristics and ensuring their integrity are difficult tasks. In this article we review the usability of Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA) to generate a common semantic framework for characteristics of the learner, learning materials and curricula. Although LSA is a promising technique we identify several research topics that must be addressed before it can be used for learner positioning.     

East–West partnerships: lessons from UNESCO and Eidos

This article draws lessons from experience at UNESCO and Eidos pertinent to the issues of developing East-West Partnership in education. For the past 60 years, UNESCO’s mission has been to promote international co-operation. It has been very much involved in promoting intellectual co-operation among the professional leaders in education. Eidos is a consortium linking three Queensland Government Departments and seven of its universities that are committed to building collaborative research and policy capacity and to ensuring that research informs educational policy and practice. The experience of UNESCO indicates that to be successful, partnerships must focus on shared goals and mutual advantages. Partners must be prepared to meet their commitments and abide by agreed standards, and there needs to be effective monitoring of performance. The Eidos experience confirms that maintaining partnerships is not easy in a highly competitive environment, but that we must harness the collective expertise of researchers and policy makers if we are to develop innovative solutions to the complex problems facing our education systems.     

Professional learning through the collaborative design of problem-solving lessons

This article analyses lesson study as a mode of professional learning, focused on the development of mathematical problem solving processes, using the lens of cultural-historical activity theory. In particular, we draw attention to two activity systems, the classroom system and the lesson-study system, and the importance of making artefacts instrumental in both. We conceptualise the lesson plan as a boundary object and use this to illustrate how professional learning takes place through the introduction of carefully designed artefacts that draw on teachers’ professional knowledge of potential student approaches, and to the nature of progression in problem-solving processes. We identify the roles of instrumentalisation and instrumentation in supporting professional learning as these artefacts are prepared for use before a lesson and as they are again used as catalysts for reflection in post-lesson discussions. These artefacts are seen to effectively facilitate the socially situated learning of all participants. We conclude that the design of artefacts as boundary objects that support teaching and professional learning in their respective activity systems may be fundamental to the success of lesson study as a collaborative venture.