Finding Voices in a Changing World: Standard Language Education as a Site for Developing Critical Literacies

What are the “key competencies” needed in our time? What literacy is needed to make students active participants in their societies and contributors to changing cultures? This article offers a contribution to the ongoing discussion about these questions. It takes as its point of departure the “key competencies” formulated in the OECD program Definition and Selection of Competencies (DeSeCo) in response to educational challenges in a changing world, and the five “basic skills” to be developed in all school subjects from year 1 to year 13 in the Norwegian curriculum of 2006 (LK06). It argues, first, for the need to understand “basic skills” in the perspective of DeSeCo “key competencies”, with a focus, as formulated in DeSeCo, on using tools interactively, acting autonomously, and interacting in heterogeneous groups. Secondly, the aims and purposes of the school subject “Norwegian” in Norway, as formulated in LK06, are discussed in relation to the aims of the DeSeCo key competencies and the concepts of critical literacy and Bildung. Thirdly, the article offers a discussion of how standard language education can become a site for the development of key competencies and critical literacies, drawing on Mikhail Bakhtin's ideas about utterances and voices and Roz Ivanic's about discoursal identities, and talking about the StLE subject as a potential public space, a stage, a resonance room, and a cultural workshop. Finally, some concluding remarks are made about the crucial role of the teacher in such a curriculum, and about the role of standard language education in relation to other school subjects.     

The Call for Servant Leadership in Intercollegiate Athletics

We advance that servant leadership should be viewed as a viable form of leadership to be studied and supported within the domain of intercollegiate athletics. Servant leadership is different than other approaches to leadership as the emphasis of leadership is explicitly on the needs of followers, and because this approach emphasizes the ideal of service in the relationship between leader and follower. In addition, servant leadership is a people-centered approach to leadership that includes an ethical component. We propose that athletic directors demonstrating servant leadership will provide the leadership necessary to support the development of student-athletes, cultivate an ethical environment that best supports this development, and inspire the call to service for employees within their athletic departments. Moreover, external pressures for ethical leadership and new actors in the field of intercollegiate athletics will lead to the development of servant leadership as a viable leadership paradigm in intercollegiate sport.     

Cycling

The resistance against a cyclist while riding on rollers is due mainly to rolling resistance produced by the deformation of the tyre as it rolls against small diameter drums. Resistance is then combined with wheel speed to set power output. The effect of tyre pressure and cross‐section on power was investigated by systematically altering the pressure (552 kPa, 690 kPa, and 827 kPa) in a 20c, 23c, 25c, and 28c tyre of the same design while riding at a wheel speed of 45 kph. Average power over 1 minute was measured with a Power Tap Hub (Tune Corporation, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA) on five occasions. Statistical significance was evaluated at p < 0.05. Power requirements increased significantly with each reduction in tyre pressure for all tyres and pressures except the 25c between 690 and 827 kPa. The 20c tyre required significantly more power from the cyclist at each tested tyre pressure when compared to the other tyres (which were not different from each other). The differences in resistance from tyre size were not observed when ridden on the road. Additionally, a slightly different tyre design from the same manufacturer responded similarly in the 20c, but was significantly different in the 23c size. It was also observed that power requirements increased significantly when both the wheels were ridden on the rollers as compared to just the rear wheel. These results indicate that the power requirements may be significantly altered by the cyclist by adjusting tyre pressure, tyre cross‐section size, tyre type, and with the number of wheels contacting the rollers. However, the magnitude of these power requirements may not be suitable for intense workouts of trained cyclists.     

The reliability of isoinertial force–velocity–power profiling and maximal strength assessment in youth

The purpose of this study was to quantify the inter-session reliability of force–velocity–power profiling and estimated maximal strength in youth. Thirty-six males (11–15 years old) performed a ballistic supine leg press test at five randomized loads (80%, 100%, 120%, 140%, and 160% body mass) on three separate occasions. Peak and mean force, power, velocity, and peak displacement were collected with a linear position transducer attached to the weight stack. Mean values at each load were used to calculate different regression lines and estimate maximal strength, force, velocity, and power. All variables were found reliable (change in the mean [CIM] = ? 1 to 14%; coefficient of variation [CV] = 3–18%; intraclass correlation coefficient [ICC] = 0.74–0.99), but were likely to benefit from a familiarization, apart from the unreliable maximal force/velocity ratio (CIM = 0–3%; CV = 23–25%; ICC = 0.35–0.54) and load at maximal power (CIM = ? 1 to 2%; CV = 10–13%; ICC = 0.26–0.61). Isoinertial force–velocity–power profiling and maximal strength in youth can be assessed after a familiarization session. Such profiling may provide valuable insight into neuromuscular capabilities during growth and maturation and may be used to monitor specific training adaptations.     

An exploratory study contrasting high- and low-achieving students' percent word problem solving

This study evaluated whether schema-based instruction (SBI), a promising method for teaching students to represent and solve mathematical word problems, impacted the learning of percent word problems. Of particular interest was the extent that SBI improved high- and low-achieving students' learning and to a lesser degree on the indirect effect of SBI on transfer to novel problems, as compared to a business as usual control condition. Seventy 7th grade students in four classrooms (one high- and one low-achieving class in both the SBI and control conditions) participated in the study. Results indicate a significant treatment by achievement level interaction, such that SBI had a greater impact on high-achieving students' problem solving scores. However, findings did not support transfer effects of SBI for high-achieving students. Implications for improving the problem-solving performance of low achievers are discussed.     

Network analysis of temporal trends in scholarly research productivity

We propose a method to identify the journals or proceedings that are most highly esteemed by a research group over some time frame. Using open publication databases, we identify the experts in the community, and analyse their publication pattern, and then use this as a guideline for evaluating scientific outputs of other groups of researchers publishing in the same domain. To illustrate the practicality of our method, we analyse the scientific output of Korean researchers in the security subject domain from 2004 to 2009, and comparing this groups’ output with that of well-known researchers. Our empirical analysis demonstrates that there is a persistent gap between these two research groups’ publications impact over this period, although the absolute number of journal publications greatly increased over recent years.     

Public Procurement for Innovation as mission-oriented innovation policy

This article focuses on Public Procurement for Innovation as a relevant demand-side instrument to be exploited in the mitigation of grand challenges. It intends to provide some clarification on what should (and what should not) be regarded as innovation procurement. It defines what is meant by Public Procurement for Innovation and categorizes it according to three dimensions: (i) the user of the purchased good; (ii) the character of the procurement process; and (iii) the cooperative or non-cooperative nature of the process. In addition, it illustrates the main stages in innovation procurement processes and exemplifies them with six cases to provide evidence that Public Procurement for Innovation can contribute to satisfying unsatisfied human needs and solving societal problems.     

Adult Science Learning in the Internet Era

Abstract This article outlines a different view of the changing nature of adult learning in the Internet era. The old model of learning—the warehouse—is being replaced by a “just‐in‐time” system of information acquisition. The NRC report focuses too heavily on finding missions for existing institutions and pays too little attention to the pervasive changes in information acquisition and adult learning in all areas. An analysis of existing data demonstrates the relative impact of formal and informal learning and points to opportunities for enhanced adult science learning in the future. In a just‐in‐time world, museums and similar informal learning institutions will need to be less dependent on their physical setting and more focused on learning as the end product. It will also be necessary to find a viable revenue model to support this emerging mission.