Knowledge producers or knowledge consumers? Argumentation and decision making about environmental management

A longitudinal study of 250 students following the Salters Advanced Chemistry (SAC) course probed a range of chemical ideas including the exothermicity of bond formation and the development of thinking about covalent, ionic and intermolecular bonds. Students responded to the same diagnostic questions on three occasions: at the start, after eight months and sixteen months of a twenty-month course. At the start, many students demonstrated misunderstandings about these chemical ideas, but in general their understanding improved as the course progressed. By the end of the study, about half knew that bond making is exothermic. Initially, few described covalent bonds accurately or understood hydrogen bonding. A majority gave responses at the final survey which were in line with ideas and language a chemist may use. Students attributed changes to the use of context-based materials including a drip-feed approach which allowed their understanding to develop over time. However, some aspects of chemical bonding, including ionic bonding and intermolecular bonds other than hydrogen bonds remained problematic for students despite explicit teaching. The findings have implications for post-16 chemistry teaching, suggesting that a review of teaching strategies is needed in some areas.     

Co-teaching in the college classroom

This paper serves as a phenomenological reflection about the meaning of a co-teaching experience at the college level for two graduate teaching assistants. When two teachers combine planning and teaching efforts it is called co-teaching. As a pedagogical method for both instructors and students, co-teaching was beneficial because it modeled a collaborative teaching style required of the students in their curricular work. Utilizing the interpretivist discourse of phenomenology, the authors dialog about the meaning each makes of the coursework, the pedagogy, the students, and the teacher effectiveness through a co-teaching model. The dialog and reflection on the phenomenon of co-teaching contributes to more productive co-teaching instruction for pre-service teacher instructors.     

NEET: A Phenomenom Yet to Be Explored

Who are the NEET? How much do we know about this? What do institutions and the media know about them? How different definitions could get to shared policies? This paper tries to provide an initial overview of the situation regarding the NEET, through an analysis of the emerging international literature on the subject. Different definitions across nations are analyzed in order to reflect on the cultural differences and economics-work policies, in order to then analyze more in deep the Italian situation. In Italy, the phenomenon is still little known in society and, often, not recognized by the acronym NEET, with the many variables that define it, despite statistics showing a rise in numbers (26 % of the total population for the age group considered).     

Networks of Encouragement: Who’s Encouraging Latina/o Students and White Students to Enroll in Honors and Advanced-Placement (AP) Courses?

Using affiliation network data collected at a large high school, this study examined differences between who encourages Latina/o and White students to enroll in advanced courses. Previous research has shown a positive association between emotional support and academic achievement, and thus, this study shifts the focus from who informs students to who encourages them. This study revealed that on average, Latina/o and White students have different networks of encouragement.     

The Educational Challenge of Unraveling the Fantasies of Ontological Security

In this article we address the current context of intensified racialized state securitization by tracing its roots to the naturalized colonial architectures of everyday modern life—which we present through the metaphor of “the house modernity built.” While contemporary crises are often perceived to derive from external threats to the house, we argue that in fact these crises are a product of the violent and unsustainable practices that are required in order to build and sustain the house itself. As the structural integrity of the house increasingly comes under strain, there are different possible responses, three of which we review here. We conclude by asking what kind of education might enable us to imagine and practice alternative formations of existence in a context where the house appears to be crumbling, and, indeed, has always been a fantasy.     

Effects of violent and non-violent computer game content on memory performance in adolescents

The present study focuses on the short-term effects of electronic entertainment media on memory and learning processes. It compares the effects of violent versus non-violent computer game content in a condition of playing and in another condition of watching the same game. The participants consisted of 83 female and 94 male adolescents with a mean age of 17.6 years. The dependent variables are memory for previously learnt verbal and visual material, memory for media-related content and physiological measures of stress (heart rate, cortisol, salivary alpha-amylase). Besides the group comparisons, potential mediation effects and gender differences were examined. The results show that violent content leads to a poorer memory performance for verbal material and to an increased heart rate. The heart rate, however, does not mediate the effect on memory performance. Genders differ regarding their abilities to memorise verbal and visual material, with females showing a better performance (independent of the experimental condition), and for memorising media-contents, where the males outperform females (also independent of experimental condition). The study supports the assumption that violent and arousing media content has a negative short-term effect on simultaneous information processing and learning and that there are gender-specific media effects.     

An ERP study of emotional face processing in the adult and infant brain

To examine the ontogeny of emotional face processing, event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded from adults and 7-month-old infants while viewing pictures of fearful, happy, and neutral faces. Face-sensitive ERPs at occipital-temporal scalp regions differentiated between fearful and neutral/happy faces in both adults (N170 was larger for fear) and infants (P400 was larger for fear). Behavioral measures showed no overt attentional bias toward fearful faces in adults, but in infants, the duration of the first fixation was longer for fearful than happy faces. Together, these results suggest that the neural systems underlying the differential processing of fearful and happy/neutral faces are functional early in life, and that affective factors may play an important role in modulating infants' face processing.     

Cytokine responses to resistance training in people with multiple sclerosis

Exercise for individuals with multiple sclerosis (MS) has been shown to improve cardiovascular function, increase strength and endurance, and reduce fatigue. The impact of exercise on immune function in the disease, however, remains mostly unexplored. Ten female MS patients participated in an 8 week programme of twice-weekly progressive resistance training, with pre- and post-training assessment of serum concentrations of cytokines IL-2, IL-4, IL-6, IL-10, CRP, TNF-alpha and IFN-gamma. After training, IL-4, IL-10, CRP and IFN-gamma showed statistically reduced resting concentrations in blood, while TNF-alpha showed non-significant reductions and IL-2 and IL-6 remained unchanged. These results suggest that progressive resistance training may have an impact on cytokine concentrations in individuals with MS and should be confirmed in studies with stronger statistical power. The impact of these changes on overall immune function in MS and on disease status and prognosis remains to be determined.