Development of social category representations: early appreciation of roles and deontic relations

Three experiments explored the significance of deontic properties (involving rights and obligations) in representations of social categories. Preschool-aged children ( M = 4.8), young school-aged children ( M = 8.2), and adults judged the centrality of behavioral, psychological, and deontic properties for both familiar (Experiments 1 and 2, N s = 50 and 52, respectively) and novel (Experiment 3, N = 64) social categories. Preschool-aged children were the most consistent in treating deontic properties as central: Knowing a person's social category membership was more informative about obligations than about behavioral frequencies or psychological preferences. Adults treated deontic properties as central to some categories but also recognized a set that was primarily predictive of psychological dispositions. The results argue for the significance of deontic properties in the development of social cognition.     

Adult development and disciplinary content: A guide to effective teaching of adults

Most of the literature dealing with effective teaching of adult students deals with particular teaching methods. As important as suchprocess suggestions are, it may be even more important to help adults find connections between thecontent of the disciplines and the issues they experience personally as they move through the life cycle. A discussion of ways to do this is provided by an interdisciplinary team. These ideas are then integrated into a view of the disciplines as a tool for helping students mediate course content as well as their life experiences in the service of learning and individual development.Dr. Charles S. Claxton is Associate Professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction and the Center for the Study of Higher Education. His major research interests include effective teaching of adults, student learning styles, and use of adult development theory to enhance the college curriculum. Dr. Susanne B. Darnell is Associate Dean of University College, a unit in which students design individualized baccalaureate degrees in professional or liberal studies. She was formerly a member of the Department of Sociology. Dr. Geneva B. Reid is an Instructor in the Department of English and has extensive teaching experience with traditional age and adult students. Dr. Cecil G. Shugart is Professor in the Department of Physics and has long been active in the American Association of Physics Teachers and the American Physical Society.     

From “Innovation for Education” to “Education for Innovation”: The 22<Superscript>nd</Superscript> Global Chinese Conference on Computers in Education

The 22nd Global Chinese Conference on Computers in Education (GCCCE) was held May 25–29, 2018, at South China Normal University, Guangzhou, China. Broadcasting live on the Internet, the Conference had 424 onsite participants with 299,816 online viewers from different countries and regions. The Conference hosted five keynote speeches, two expert symposiums, over 200 concurrent presentations, eight workshops, three teacher forums, one doctoral consortium, and two poster sessions. This report synthesizes the keynote speeches and award-winning presentations to share some of the Conference highlights with readers.     

Random and blocked practice of movement sequences: differential effects on response structure and movement speed

Three similar six-element key press sequences were practiced under blocked or random practice schedules with acquisition conducted on one day and retention and transfer on the next day. The task required participants to type, as quickly as possible, one of three 6-element sequences as observed on a computer monitor. In blocked practice, participants completed all practice in one repeated sequence before the next repeated sequence was introduced. In random acquisition practice, the three repeated sequences were randomly presented to the participants. The data suggest that random practice results in participants adopting a uniform response structure, while blocked practice allows participants to exploit unique sequential aspects of the individual tasks. This finding suggests that random practice may not be as effective as blocked practice when one of the tasks being practiced together can be optimized through the development of a unique response structure.