The Magical Number 7

This article describes an interactive activity that involves students participating in a memory recall test. Data collected from the activity may be used to illustrate the one‐sample t test or one‐sample sign test.     

Interest,enjoyment and pride after failure experiences? Predictors of students’ state-emotions after success and failure during learning in mathematics

The current investigation was designed to identify emotion states students experience during mathematics activities, and in particular to distinguish emotions contingent on experiences of success and experiences of failure. Students’ task-related emotional responses were recorded following experiences of success and failure while working with an individualised computer-based mathematics learning environment. In addition, relations between these patterns of emotional responses after success and failure experiences and trait-like motivational variables, self-concept of ability, subject value, orientation to learning from errors, goal orientation and causal attributions, were examined. Two separate studies are reported. In Study 1 emotions associated with success and failure experiences in mathematics were investigated in relation to self-concept of ability, subject value and orientation to learning from errors. In Study 2, patterns of emotion following success and failure were examined in relation to students’ goal orientation and their causal attributions for success in school.     

Face-to-face versus computer-mediated discussion of teaching cases: Impacts on preservice teachers’ engagement, critical analyses, and self-efficacy

Two frequently-used discussion protocols were investigated as part of a program to implement teaching cases in undergraduate educational psychology classes designed for preservice teachers. One protocol involved synchronous face-to-face (FTF) discussion of teaching cases, which occurred in class after students had individually completed written case analyses as homework outside of class. The other was asynchronous computer-mediated (CM) discussion taking place outside of class, simultaneous to students’ completion of their written case analyses. Six class offerings of an undergraduate child development course taught by two instructors (three classes by each instructor) were randomly assigned within instructor in a quasi-experimental design to one of the three discussion conditions: FTF, CM, or no discussion of the cases across the semester. Findings indicated that both CM and FTF discussion conditions were associated with positive outcomes relative to the control condition. Both CM and FTF discussion related to higher cognitive–affective engagement with the cases than the control condition; and the CM discussion condition was associated with higher cognitive–affective engagement than FTF discussion. In contrast, FTF discussion, but not CM discussion, was associated with higher-than-control-condition case analysis ability at the end of the semester. Potential explanations for these findings and directions for future research are discussed.     

Freirean critical pedagogy’s challenge to interfaith education: what is interfaith? What is education?

Interfaith education has been boosted recently by the imprimatur of current and previous political world leaders. However, a critical analysis of what makes good interfaith education is yet to emerge. Indeed the attention may distract from the effort needed to ensure positive outcomes. This paper questions whether the uncritical nature of some interfaith education initiatives encourages the continuation of cultural and theological bias. Critical social theorist Paulo Freire viewed education as an opportunity for social evolution. His pedagogy of freedom relied on the idea that no knowledge is out of bounds and that such freedom nurtured the security to greet difference with humility. This paper examines some Australian approaches to interfaith education in light of Freire’s challenge. It questions the persistence of an Abrahamic skew and calls for a more critical approach to differences of belief.     

Association of Oxidative Stress with Disease Activity and Damage in Systemic Lupus Erythematosus: A Cross Sectional Study from a Tertiary Care Centre in Southern India

To study oxidative stress in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) by estimating serum oxidised LDL (OxLDL), 8-hydroxy-2′-deoxyguanosine (8-OHdG), malondialdehyde (MDA), and total anti-oxidant status and to correlate with SLE disease activity and disease damage. Eighty SLE patients satisfying the Systemic Lupus International Collaborating Clinics/American College of Rheumatology (SLICC/ACR) 2012 criteria and 80 healthy controls were studied. Exclusion criteria were infections, renal insufficiency, other connective tissue diseases, drug-induced lupus, smoking, alcohol consumption. Disease activity was measured by SLE disease activity index-2 K (SLEDAI), disease damage was quantified by SLICC-Damage Index (SDI). Sera was tested for OxLDL, 8-OHdG, and total antioxidant status (TAS) by double-antibody sandwich ELISA; MDA measured by Colorimetric assay. Oxidative stress markers were compared between group1- controls, group 2-mildly active SLE (SLEDAI ≤ 5), group 3- moderate to highly active SLE (SLEDAI ≥ 6). SLE patients had significantly higher MDA, 8-OHdG and lower TAS when compared to healthy controls, while OxLDL was similar in the three groups. MDA, 8-OHdG were significantly higher, TAS lower in group 3 compared to group 2. MDA had positive correlation with SLEDAI, TAS negatively correlated with SLEDAI. SLE with neuropsychiatric manifestations, vasculitis, anti-sdDNA antibodies had higher MDA, MDA/TAS ratio. SLE patients with thrombocytopenia, and vasculitis had higher OxLDL. Only OxLDL was significantly higher in those patients who have SDI > 1. SLE patients have increased oxidative stress measured by increases in MDA, 8-OHdG, and lower total antioxidant status that was associated with disease activity and some disease manifestations. However only OxLDL was associated with damage.     

Applying a principle of explicability to AI research in Africa: should we do it?

Ethics and Information Technology - Developing and implementing artificial intelligence (AI) systems in an ethical manner faces several challenges specific to the kind of technology at hand,...     

大学教学发展中心的效益评估——以密歇根大学学习与教学研究中心为例

评估大学教学发展中心的工作效果有助于高等教育质量的改善。本文首先对教师发展工作的相关研究做了文献述评,随后介绍了密歇根大学学习与教学研究中心开发的项目综合评估模型,并结合具体的项目与服务案例展示了该中心如何记录并评估教师的教学发展工作以及如何借助这些评估结果来改善自身实践。文章最后为中国大学教学中心的建设提供了一些建议。