Dynamic Human-Centered Communication Systems Theory

This article introduces Dynamic Human-Centered Communication Systems Theory (DHCCST), defining communication as a complex dynamic system consisting of a human, a message, a medium, and a location. An argument is made that all elements of the system should be defined from a human centric viewpoint. The article reconceptualizes humans as evolved, embedded, embodied brains (EEEBs). Media are reconceptualized as brain-like creatures (BLCs). Communication is defined as the interaction of one or more EEEBs with other EEEBs or with BLCs. Medium of carriage and encoding system are reconceptualized along continua ranging from evolved to man-made. Examples of hypotheses arising from DHCCST are presented and some theories and effects are reinterpreted using this new perspective.     

光影麦当娜

四分之一个世纪以来,全世界人眼中的麦当娜是红成超越了时代、流行乐坛历史上不容忽视的"音乐女皇",而当她的光芒落入摄影师眼中,会得到怎样的诠释?拍摄过麦当娜的摄影师多如过江之鲫,这次2013年4月18日到21日上海外滩3号举行的"麦当娜影像全球巡展"上展出的则是颇具代表性的经典之作。不迎合观众的接受度,用最直接的方式表现狂放与性感,她很明确自己想要什么,并毫不犹豫地将反对的人从生命中"淘汰出局",这样的真性情让她成为整个世界的宠儿。透过摄影师的镜头,让麦当娜台上台下的风采以一种更加艺术化的视角呈现。每一个观展者都可以通过摄影师的光影捕捉领略到麦当娜的摄人气场。2012年11月以来,"麦当娜影像全球巡展"先后登陆曼谷、新加坡、巴黎和纽约等时尚之都,虏获了众多观展者的心。此次在上海,也被观展的名流们誉为"让人惊艳的艺术与流行文化盛宴"。来自纽约的著名街头艺术家Alec Monopoly的现场涂鸦创作让摄影、街头涂鸦艺术与流行音乐三种形式完美融合。     

Exclusion from school and recognition of difference

ABSTRACT

There has been an overall decrease in exclusion rates and numbers in recent years across the UK. This change has often been heralded as evidence that national inclusion policies are ‘working’ and that schools themselves are becoming increasingly inclusive. This article examines findings from a recent study on school exclusion in Wales, noting that exclusion is falling here in line with UK wide trends. However, exclusion rates of children with special needs and others who face multiple disadvantages remain stubbornly high. Given these findings, and the evidence that this is the case across the UK, an important question arises about the broader relationship between school exclusion and inequality. This article seeks to address this question, and asks whether and to what extent the politics of recognition of difference, in Nancy Fraser's terms, can help explain the continuing over-representation of some groups of marginalised and vulnerable children in exclusion figures, despite this overall downward trend.     

The Unique Contributions of Verbal Analogical Reasoning and Nonverbal Matrix Reasoning to Science and Maths Problem‐Solving in Adolescence

Relational reasoning, the ability to detect meaningful patterns, matures through adolescence. The unique contributions of verbal analogical and nonverbal matrix relational reasoning to science and maths are not well understood. Functional magnetic resonance imaging data were collected during science and maths problem‐solving, and participants (N = 36, 11–15 years) also completed relational reasoning and executive function tasks. Higher verbal analogical reasoning associated with higher accuracy and faster reaction times in science and maths, and higher activation in the left anterior temporal cortex during maths problem‐solving. Higher nonverbal matrix reasoning associated with higher science accuracy, higher science activation in regions across the brain, and lower maths activation in the right middle temporal gyrus. Science associations mostly remained significant when individual differences in executive functions and verbal IQ were taken into account, while maths associations typically did not. The findings indicate the potential importance of supporting relational reasoning in adolescent science and maths learning.     

Changing conceptions of teaching: a four-year learning journey for student teachers

Understanding student teachers’ development of conceptions of teaching and learning is critical for teacher educators. Drawing from the findings of a four-year longitudinal study in Hong Kong, this paper examines the trajectories of the student teachers’ changing conceptions of teaching and learning approaches throughout their undergraduate programme. Three types of trajectories: guided touring, experiential detouring and self-guided touring, as the changes in both conceptions of teaching and learning approaches, are presented. The results suggest that three factors: faculty, learners’ attitudes towards learning and ability to integrate different learning resources, influenced the development of the student teachers’ trajectories. This study adds to the international body of knowledge on the interconnected development of conceptions of teaching and learning approaches. The paper concludes with the implications for teacher education.     

Unpacking the logic of mathematical statements

This study focuses on undergraduate students' ability to unpack informally written mathematical statements into the language of predicate calculus. Data were collected between 1989 and 1993 from 61 students in six small sections of a bridge course designed to introduce proofs and mathematical reasoning. We discuss this data from a perspective that extends the notion of concept image to that of statement image and introduces the notion ofproof framework to indicate that part of a theorem's image which corresponds to the top-level logical structure of a proof. For simplified informal calculus statements, just 8.5% of unpacking attempts were successful; for actual statements from calculus texts, this dropped to 5%. We infer that these students would be unable to reliably relate informally stated theorems with the top-level logical structure of their proofs and hence could not be expected to construct proofs or validate them, i.e., determine their correctness.     

Early Childhood Educators’ Perceptions of Their Emotional State,Relationships with Parents,Challenges, and Opportunities During the Early Stage of the Pandemic

Early Childhood Education Journal - This article presents a study about the impact of COVID-19 on childcare center educators in Quebec (Canada). Regulated childcare services were closed...     

Baseline Hypothalamic–Pituitary–Adrenal Axis and Parasympathetic Nervous System Activity Interact to Predict Executive Functions in Low‐Income Children

We examined interactions between baseline hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis and parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) activity in relation to executive functions (EF) in a sample (n = 1,005) of children in low wealth, nonurban communities at age 48 months. Salivary cortisol and respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) represented baseline HPA axis and PNS activity, respectively. The interaction between RSA and cortisol predicted EF such that children with either lower RSA and lower cortisol, or higher RSA and higher cortisol had higher EF scores. These findings suggest a potential compensatory relation in which the PNS and HPA axis counterbalance each other to support cognition.     

Teaching comprehension and critical literacy: investigating guided reading in three primary classrooms

With the introduction of the National Literacy Strategy, England's primary school teachers were asked to replace “listening to children read”–a practice deeply embedded in UK pedagogy–with guided reading, a practice focused on interpretive and critical comprehension rather than accuracy and fluency. This small‐scale research project addresses the perceptions of the author's Primary B.Ed. student teachers that what goes on under the name of guided reading in the classrooms in which they undertake teaching practice does not do justice to the term. In particular, it examines the claim that fluent readers are still engaged in reading aloud, rather than being taught how to develop analytical strategies for comprehension and engage in collaborative dialogue to develop cognition and promote interpretive critical literacy. Using interpretive methodology, this small‐scale study examines episodes of guided reading in three case study classrooms. In each episode examined, although some form of group reading was conducted, there was no opportunity for children to read silently or engage in collaborative discussion, little teaching of inferential comprehension and none of evaluative strategies. The study reaches tentative rather than conclusive answers. These suggest that the effective teaching of guided reading depends both upon the understanding of its psychological underpinning, and also on the teacher's ability, through sharing responsibility for problem solving with the children, to build bridges between what is known and what is new.     

A Developmental Eye Tracking Investigation of Cued Task Switching Performance

Children perform worse than adults on tests of cognitive flexibility, which is a component of executive function. To assess what aspects of a cognitive flexibility task (cued switching) children have difficulty with, investigators tested where eye gaze diverged over age. Eye-tracking was used as a proxy for attention during the preparatory period of each trial in 48 children ages 8–16 years and 51 adults ages 18–27 years. Children fixated more often and longer on the cued rule, and made more saccades between rule and response options. Behavioral performance correlated with gaze location and saccades. Mid-adolescents were similar to adults, supporting the slow maturation of cognitive flexibility. Lower preparatory control and associated lower cognitive flexibility task performance in development may particularly relate to rule processing.