Implementing History and Philosophy in Science Teaching: Strategies, Methods, Results and Experiences from the European HIPST Project

This paper presents a rationale for utilizing HPS to teach physics and the NoS developed in the course of a project funded by the European Union. A core feature of this approach is formed by the development of historical case studies for the use in lessons. Furthermore, the learners?? perspectives are explicitly taken into account. Teaching methods comprise student-centered activities as creative writing for understanding science and scientists and role-play activities. Emphasis is laid on experimental work which is performed with the help of true-to-the-original replications of historical apparatus, especially built for this purpose. A new characteristic for NoS learning is introduced, namely the reflection corner giving the opportunity to explicitly discussing the relationship between history, knowledge acquisition, and the application of scientific findings. In order to make use of the special skills, creative potentials and experiences of teachers a symbiotic strategy for the development and evaluation process of the teaching material was adopted where a close and long-standing cooperation between science teachers and science educators could be established. On this basis the German partners were able to complete numerous case studies from the fields of mechanics, electricity, magnetism and heat.     

Evolution 2.0. The Unexpected Learning Experience of Making a Digital Archive

Studies in the history of science and education have documented that the reception and understanding of evolutionary theory is highly contingent on local factors such as school systems, cultural traditions, religious beliefs, and language. This has important implications for teaching evolution in primary and secondary schools. No universal strategy can be applied in overcoming the barriers of learning that exist and that are part of the practical and daily life in classrooms all over the world. In light of this, a huge challenge is to make high standard teaching materials fit to specific target audiences readily available. As more and more schools require teachers to use low cost or free web-based materials, in the research community we need to take seriously how to facilitate that demand in communication strategies on evolution. This article addresses this challenge by presenting the learning experience of making a digital archive of Danish Darwin editions that marked the beginnings of a series of public engagement and teaching initiatives including, among other things, comprehensive new websites, exhibits, lecture series, television documentaries, and a computer game.     

Discourse comprehension intervention for high‐functioning students with autism spectrum disorders: preliminary findings from a school‐based study

Many students with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) demonstrate comprehension difficulties. In the present study, 12 high‐functioning Swedish students with ASD (aged 10–15 years) took part in a naturalistic classroom‐based intervention to support comprehension of connected narrative discourse. An effective approach for supporting discourse comprehension in children with ASD was assumed to include: (i) providing teachers and students with a shared and explicit set of concepts for talking and thinking about the activity of comprehension, that (ii) can structure the child's discourse comprehension under scaffolding and modelling from the teacher. In the pre‐testing session, the students with ASD presented with poor discourse comprehension but receptive vocabulary and reading decoding skills close to normative performance. Post‐intervention test results, following 4 weeks of training, indicated specific and significant improvements in discourse comprehension. Support for the potential of this type of teaching was also obtained from teachers and students. The teachers reported that they would continue to use the same or similar comprehension instruction for 11 out of 12 students, and for multiple reasons, and students were also mostly positive to the training. Implications for practice and further research are discussed, as are limitations of the study.     

Value,Rent, and the Political Economy of Social Media

Fuchs (2010 Fuchs, C. 2010. Labor in information capitalism and on the Internet. The Information Society 26:179–196.[Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], 2012 Fuchs, C. 2012. With or without Marx? With or without capitalism?: A re-joinder to Adam Arvidsson and Eleanor Colleoni. tripleC 10 (2):633–45. [Google Scholar]) argues that users of social media produce value and surplus value in the Marxian sense. Arvidsson and Colleoni (2012 Arvidsson, A., and E. Colleoni. 2012. Value in information capitalism and on the Internet. The Information Society 28:135–50.[Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) critique this hypothesis, claiming that Marx's theory of value is irrelevant to the regime of value production on social media platforms in particular and in informational capitalism in general. They claim that the affective relations and financial speculations that generate value on social media are not dependent on labor time. This article critically engages Fuchs, and Arvidsson and Colleoni, by revisiting Marx's theory of value. Contra Fuchs, we argue that audiences do not produce value and surplus value—neither for social nor for mass media. Contra Arvidsson and Colleoni, we argue that so-called affective relations (philia) do not produce value either. Instead we demonstrate that social media generate revenue from four primary sources—by leasing advertisement space to generate advertisement rent, by selling information, by selling services to advertisers, and by generating profits from fictitious capital and speculative windfalls. All four, we argue, can be adequately explained by Marx's theory of value.     

Linking complex problem solving to opportunity identification competence within the context of entrepreneurship

Today’s working life is increasingly characterized by entrepreneurial challenges. Entrepreneurial challenges start at an individual level with the identification of entrepreneurial opportunities, which is acknowledged as one of the key competencies for lifelong learning. Since the identification of entrepreneurial opportunities relies heavily on the opportunity identification competence (OIC) of individuals, understanding the meaning of OIC is relevant. Until now, OIC has been explored in the young entrepreneurship research field. However, entrepreneurship researchers until now have not fully explored OIC. According to several authors, the research on complex problem solving (CPS) in the cognitive research field might contribute to understanding OIC. In this paper, we review the link between OIC and CPS by comparing the cognitive and entrepreneurship research fields. We argue that those who excel in identifying opportunities share core characteristics with high-level complex problem-solvers. We propose to conduct empirical research in the future to investigate the relation between OIC and CPS within a work context in order to gain more insight into OIC. We believe that the cognitive research field contributes to the entrepreneurship research field and provides a deeper understanding of the initial steps of the entrepreneurial process.     

The acute effects of bodyweight suspension exercise on muscle activation and muscular fatigue

This investigation examined effects of two exercise modes (barbell, BB; bodyweight suspension, BWS) on muscle activation, resistance load, and fatigue. During session one, nine resistance-trained males completed an elbow flexion one-repetition maximum (1RM). During sessions two and three, subjects completed standing biceps curls to fatigue at 70% 1RM utilizing a randomized exercise mode. Surface electromyography (sEMG) recorded muscle activation of the biceps brachii, triceps brachii, anterior deltoid, posterior deltoid, rectus abdominis, and erector spinae. BWS resistance load was measured using a force transducer. Standing maximal voluntary isometric contractions of the elbow flexors recorded at 90° were used to determine the isometric force decrement and rate of fatigue (ROF) during exercise. sEMG and resistance load data were divided into 25% contraction duration bins throughout the concentric phase. BWS resulted in a 67.7?±?7.4% decline in resistance load throughout the concentric phase (p?≤?0.05). As a result, BB elicited higher mean resistance loads (31.4?±?4.0?kg) and biceps brachii sEMG (84.7?±?27.8% maximal voluntary isometric contractions, MVIC) compared with BWS (20.4?±?3.4?kg, 63.4?±?21.6% MVIC). No difference in rectus abdominis or erector spinae sEMG was detected between exercise modes. Isometric force decrement was greater during BWS (?21.7?±?7.0?kg) compared with BB (?14.9?±?4.7?kg); however, BB (?3.0?±?0.8?kg/set) resulted in a steeper decline in ROF compared with BWS (?1.7?±?0.6?kg/set). The variable resistance loading and greater isometric force decrement observed suggest that select BWS exercises may resemble variable resistance exercise more than previously considered.     

Classroom wall charts and Biblical history: a study of educational technology in elementary schools in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Sweden

This article considers the emergence of classroom wall charts as a teaching technology in Swedish elementary schools in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, using Biblical history teaching as an example. There has been some work done internationally on wall charts as an instructional technology, but few studies have looked at their use in Sweden. With a theoretical approach informed by Martin Lawn’s understanding of teaching technologies, this article shows that wall charts became both an important teaching object and a means of introducing new pedagogical ideas. A study of the official school inspectors’ reports shows that wall charts had spread to most local schools by the end of the nineteenth century, while an analysis of Biblical history textbooks and teaching guidelines shows that visual aids were increasingly integrated into the school curriculum. The wall charts themselves were initially imported, mainly from Germany, but by the end of the nineteenth century they were being produced in Sweden for the domestic market, in keeping with the National Romantic ideals of the day as well as with the new awareness of the importance of adapting images to use in classroom teaching.     

Effective body water and body mass changes during summer ultra-endurance road cycling

Because body mass change (ΔM_b) does not represent all water losses and gains, the present field investigation determined if (a) ΔM_b equalled the net effective body water change during ultra-endurance exercise and (b) ground speed and exercise duration influenced these variables. Thirty-two male cyclists (age range, 35–52 years) completed a 164-km event in a hot environment, were retrospectively triplet matched and placed into one of three groups based on exercise duration (4.8, 6.3, 9.6 h). Net effective body water loss was computed from measurements (body mass, total fluid intake and urine excreted) and calculations (water evolved and mass loss due to substrate oxidation, solid food mass and sweat loss), including (ΔEBW_gly) and excluding (ΔEBW) water bound to glycogen. With all cyclists combined, the mean ΔM_b (i.e. loss) was greater than that of ΔEBW_gly by 1200 ± 200 g (P = 1.4 × 10^–18), was similar to ΔEBW (difference, 0 ± 200 g; P = .21) and was strongly correlated with both (R² = .98). Analysis of equivalence indicated that ΔM_b was not equivalent to ΔEBW_gly, but was equivalent to ΔEBW. Due to measurement complexity, we concluded that (a) athletes will not calculate the effective body water calculations routinely and (b) body mass change remains a useful field-expedient estimate of net effective body water change.     

Is university internationalization bad for performance? Examining two different types of diversity

While most studies on diverse organizations have been directed at business organizations, the academic sector has also become increasingly international and heterogeneous. Few large-scale studies have investigated multicultural academic departments and none of those have dealt with diversity and group processes. Therefore, a survey was directed towards academics in 16 science departments in three large universities in Denmark. Results based on the response from 489 academics showed that cultural diversity, as a deep level heterogeneity, was positively related to performance and satisfaction, whereas gender diversity, as a surface level heterogeneity, was negatively associated with satisfaction. Implications of these findings are discussed in detail.