Holographic perspective

Although the principle of holography was conceived as long ago as 1947, interest was limited until the advent of the laser in 1960 made possible the off-axis holography widely used today. Since then holography has found many applications and become so well known outside the laboratory as to be a recognized art form. Within the last few years considerable progress has also been made in acoustic holography.     

Culture without “world”: Australian cultural policy in the age of stupid

In March 2013, after six years of consultation, an Australian Labor government launched the national cultural policy document, Creative Australia. In July 2013, a Coalition government was elected, Senator George Brandis became Minister for the Arts, and the policy was dumped. With it went cross-party consensus about funding rationales and measurement strategies, with disastrous consequences for the cultural sector. This cautionary tale of gaffes, pay-back and abrupt changes of direction, highlights the fragility of policy memory that condemns artists and arts managers to a never-ending reinvention of the evidentiary wheel. Our paper examines the problem of collective understanding (“world”) in cultural policy-making in Australia, exacerbated not only by the short-term electoral cycles which undermine long-term cultural outcome timescales, but by a fixation on what Hannah Arendt calls “the peculiar and ingenious replacement of common sense with strict logicality”. Evidence of value is only meaningful when it occurs in a policy memory that can fully avow it and respond in appropriate ways. Measurement methods are over-determined by epistemology and by experience. We argue that the balance between these determinants of effective cultural policy-making has been lost. An emphasis on numerical data – especially economic data – has forced arguments for culture into a decontextualised register of quantitative proof. Recent events in Australia suggest that different, more direct ways of engaging with cultural policy-making are required for the problem of collective understanding to be successfully assayed.     

Could Slackline Training Complement the FIFA 11+ Programme Regarding Training of Neuromuscular Control?

The current study compared changes in neuromuscular control between slackline training and the stabilization training elements of the FIFA 11+ programme. Twenty-five students in 2 groups performed a 12-unit training programme. The slackline training group (n?=?13) exclusively trained with a slackline. The stabilization training group (n?=?12) practised exercises as described in the second part of the FIFA 11+ programme. Improvements in balance were assessed using three tests for dynamic, quasi-static, and perturbed postural control: the star excursion balance test (SEBT), the closed-eye single-leg stance, and the MFT S3-Check. Both groups significantly improved the stability and sensorimotor index of the MFT S3-Check (p?<?.001), their range on the SEBT (p?<?.001), and the duration of closed-eye single-leg stance (p?<?.001). The group?×?training interaction was significant for the MFT S3-Check (stability index: p?=?.042; sensorimotor index: p?=?.004) and the SEBT (dominant leg: p?=?.003; averaged both legs: p?=?.016), with the slackline training group showing a larger training effect than the stabilization training group. The results of the present study suggest that slackline training offers similar – or better – improvements in neuromuscular control as the FIFA 11+ warm-up programme. If compliance with the FIFA 11+ programme is declining, then slacklining might offer an alternative approach to reach the training goals of improved sensorimotor control.     

Measuring students’ transition into university and its association with learning outcomes

Previously we showed how we measured pedagogy and revealed its association with learning outcomes of sixth‐form college mathematics students. In this project we followed a similar approach to the study of university transition. We particularly sought to identify the students’ perceptions of the transitional experience, and measure the association with learning outcomes. We drew on longitudinal surveys of students entering different programmes in five universities. Following them into their first year or so, allowed us to track their ‘disposition to complete the course’ and their ‘disposition to study more mathematics’, inter alia. We developed and validated two ‘fit‐for‐purpose’ measures of students’ perception of their transition, one we call ‘perception of the transitional gap/jump’ and one we call ‘degree of positive feeling about the transition’. We report some statistically and educationally significant associations between these and the students’ developing dispositions, and discuss the prospects for this approach to studying transition.     

Scaffolding in immersive virtual reality environments for learning English: an eye tracking study

Educational technology research and development - Scaffolding is a mechanism for helping novice learners to solve a problem or complete a task that is beyond their current skill set. Prior research...     

If You Build It and They Still Don't Come: Effective versus Successful Alternative Teacher Preparation

The continuing shortage of special education teachers, combined with increased ideological critiques of teacher education programs, has spurred the growth of alternative models of teacher preparation. Only recently have professional standards for alternative models been proposed. This paper summarizes two years of a program based on professional standards. External influences, internal design, and implementation elements are presented. Results suggest that there is value in distinguishing between the effectiveness of alternative programs and their success.     

Community Level Factors and Child Maltreatment Rates

Using census and administrative agency data for 177 urban census tracts, variation in rates of officially reported child maltreatment is found to be related to structural determinants of community social organization: economic and family resources, residential instability, household and age structure, and geographic proximity of neighborhoods to concentrated poverty. Furthermore, child maltreatment rates are found to be intercorrelated with other indicators of the breakdown of community social control and organization. These other indicators are similarly affected by the structural dimensions of neighborhood context. Children who live in neighborhoods that are characterized by poverty, excessive numbers of children per adult resident, population turnover, and the concentration of female-headed families are at highest risk of maltreatment. This analysis suggests that child maltreatment is but one manifestation of community social organization and that its occurrence is related to some of the same underlying macro-social conditions that foster other urban problems.     

Using Simulations to Teach Leadership Roles

This paper investigates the nature of informal learning through a study of children's (age 9-13) use of chatrooms and in a computer games class in an out-of-school-centre. The paper discusses contemporary policy interest in the concept but argues that it loses value for educationalists except as "critical lens" to explore formal learning. Key elements of informal learning are dissected and close analysis of children's talk in informal learning situations is analysed in terms of its pedagogic structure.