New insights into brazilwood lake pigments manufacture through the use of historically accurate reconstructions

A multi-analytical approach for the study of brazilwood and its lake pigments was carried out based on historically accurate reconstructions. Recipes for brazilwood lakes from the fifteenth century technical text Livro de como se fazem as cores and the Winsor & Newton nineteenth century colourman's archive were reproduced and compared. Both primary sources allowed for the successful preparation of brazilwood lake pigments with colours that vary from light pink to dark red. The main steps and ingredients for the manufacture of these pigments were common in both sources, particularly the addition of Al³⁺ in the form of alum, and calcium carbonate (chalk). Reconstructions revealed that the latter acts as a pH buffer and filler, controlling the pH at which the lake pigment precipitates. The main difference between the two sources is that the nineteenth century recipes give the quantities for all ingredients, the precise temperatures and time, and achieved higher relative pigment yields (75% versus 45%). Full chemical characterisation of the reconstructions provided detailed information on the individual steps in the pigment manufacture and revealed that the presence of calcium sulphate dihydrate (gypsum) in the final pigment was a result of its formation in situ. Infrared, reflectance, and fluorescence spectroscopy proved to be essential and complementary techniques: while infrared was used to characterise additives and binders, reflectance and fluorescence data were fundamental for identifying the chromophore. The pigments and paints produced can now be used as standards for the identification and investigation of brazilwood lake pigments found in artworks.     

Integrating expanded school mental health programs and school‐based health centers

This article provides background on national movements toward expanded school mental health (ESMH) programs and school‐based health centers (SBHCs), and presents advantages and challenges of joining these two systems of child and adolescent health care. Delivering ESMH through SBHCs promotes an interdisciplinary approach, health–mental health care integration, and benefits including enhancing referral bases, improving screening of problems, and enhanced confidentiality and privacy. But this integrated approach also presents challenges including managing referrals and significant needs, handling crises, building a focus on prevention and mental health promotion, handling administrative demands, and coping with limited resources. These challenges, ideas for overcoming them, and future directions for this promising service delivery approach are discussed. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Psychol Schs 40: 297–308, 2003.     

教师专业化与教师应对教育改革的能力

本文论述的是中国教育改革发展变化过程中的教师专业化问题,所以提出这一问题的背景,是联合国教科文组织讨论了“全民教育”的各项活动和中国教育改革.当前教育改革的目的,在于提高个体和全民发展的能力.因此,教育质量成为人们日益关注的重要问题.教师的工作职能是要推动教育改革的各项措施得到实施.本文认为,“信息时代”的要求和“知识经济”的兴起,使人们对人才的特点有了新的理解,也证实了在教育儿童和青少年成为未来工作者和公民方面存在的不足.综观中国教育改革,它是一个被迫出现的过程,导致学校对教育改革的反应不灵敏.教师作为专业人员,应该支持改革,但是他们的效能还是存在一定的问题.本文进一步认为,中国教师当前面临的主要问题是不具备应对改革的能力.有关研究表明,教师工作的本质及其关注的问题与教育改革的预期大相径庭.这一问题即使通过行政命令、在职培训、或者投入更多的教育资源也难以解决.本文认为,进行全面改革的同时,要改革学生评价和选拔制度,从文化和社会层面上来思考教师职业,树立新的教师专业发展理念.     

The engagement agenda,multimedia learning and the use of images in higher education lecturing: or,how to end death by PowerPoint

This article is concerned with student engagement and understanding in large group teaching in Higher Education (HE). Specifically, it is concerned with the application of Multimedia Learning (MML) methods in Politics, History, International Relations, Sociology, Social Work, and Business and Economics teaching that privilege the use of images to complement text in lecture presentations. This ‘visual’ method, it is claimed in the literature, generates engagement and understanding better than text alone. This article develops, applies and empirically tests with students, MML methods across a range of Higher Education disciplines over three years. The research deploys Participatory Action Research (PAR) methods engaging students as active agents of investigation and change. It finds evidence to support the hypothesis that apposite images combined with reduced text increases students’ engagement and understanding with academic content, but that much formal research needs to expand on the range of demographics tested.     

Video diaries: a tool to investigate sustainability-related learning in threshold spaces

This paper takes as a case study an undergraduate field class from a UK university to rural Uganda. It describes and evaluates the use of video diaries as a tool for investigating the process of transformative learning in the context of education for sustainability. The applicability of threshold concept theory to this learning is investigated. Results show the video diary technique to be much more successful in capturing the development of student learning than written diaries. Despite some practical difficulties, rich data were generated. Analysis demonstrated that learning met three of the five criteria for threshold concepts: the learning was transformative, integrative and troublesome. Further research could test whether the learning in this case study met the threshold concept criterion of irreversibility. Further elaboration of the theoretical relationship between threshold concepts, transformative learning and education for sustainability is also needed. It is concluded that the video diary method is potentially transferable to other educational research contexts and may be particularly suitable for researching learning in threshold spaces.