Recognising localised pedagogical capital: a reflexive revisit of an alternative teacher preparation programme in China

Abstract

In recent years, alternative teacher preparation programmes are globally emerging to address teacher quality in ‘hard-to-staff’ schools. These programmes commonly attract graduates from prestigious universities to teach in disadvantaged schools for two years. One programme of this kind in China is the ‘Exceptional Graduates as Rural Teachers’ (EGRT). In this paper, we repurpose Bourdieu’s sociology to understand the power shift and social change through EGRT fellows’ position-(re)takings in subjective and objective crisis during their EGRT service term. Interviews with 16 EGRT participants reveal two themes: (1) In the initial stage of EGRT service, contemptuous habitus navigated EGRT fellows to a position of assumed privilege and misrecognised the arbitrary value of educational capital; (2) Over the EGRT service term, position-retaking gradually came to the fore. EGRT fellows learned to recognise a range of rural teachers’ attributes termed as ‘localised pedagogical capital’. We conclude the paper with some recommendations for EGRT to transform both EGRT fellows and local teachers into reflexive sociological workers. These recommendations have important implications for a long overdue response to the urban-oriented rural education.     

Accelerometry to Assess Preschooler's Free-Play: Issues with Count Thresholds and Epoch Durations

This study examines the utility of current accelerometer threshold definitions and epoch durations for physical activity intensity classification in preschool-aged children. Using video footage of children engaged in active play, directly observed 1-sec epoch physical activity intensity scores were derived from a modified version of the Children's Activity Rating Scale, averaged into 15-sec epochs (corresponding to the accelerometer scale), and compared to accelerometer-measured classifications. Overall, 6,540 individual 1-sec epochs were captured and classified from six children, yielding 429 time-matched 15-sec epoch physical activity intensity classifications from both methods. Children participated in 25 distinct physical activity behaviors and spent 75% of free-play in one intensity level for ≤5 sec. The maximum amount of time spent participating in an activity prior to changing activity intensity was 98 sec. Agreement between methods was generally poor (overall: κ = .22; child range: κ = .00 to .66), and the difference between methods was significantly asymmetrical (McNemar's test overall: p = .01). Accelerometer thresholds and epoch durations used to classify preschoolers' physical activity intensity yielded biased estimates in the current study. Further investigation is necessary to establish optimal physical activity measurement methods with this population.     

Identification of Accelerometer Nonwear Time and Sedentary Behavior

Abstract

This study was designed to investigate the swimming endurance trainability of smokers as compared to nonsmokers. Nonsmokers (N = 47) and smokers (N = 34) of college age were selected from intermediate swimming classes and timed while swimming distances of 100 yd. and 200 yd. prior to participation in an 8-week training program. After 4 weeks of training, swimming times were again recorded for these same distances. At the end of eight weeks, swimming times were taken for distances of 100, 200, and 400 yards. The mean changes of both smokers and nonsmokers during the pretraining to 4-week period, the 4-week to 8-week period, and the pretraining to 8-week period were all significant at the .05 level. However, no significant differences were found between the mean swimming times of smokers and nonsmokers for any of the pretraining, 4-week, or 8-week distances.     

Investing in junior faculty: The teaching improvement program (TIPs)

One way in which institutions can assist junior faculty members is to facilitate appropriate nurturing through senior faculty. The Teaching Improvement Program (TIPs) at The University of Georgia was designed and implemented with this aspect in mind. This paper describes the philosophical base as well as the design, administration, and evaluation of this unique program that matches new junior faculty with senior faculty mentors. Despite some problems in scheduling, participants in the program received valuable suggestions on how to improve their classroom performance.He is a former Lilly Teaching Fellow.His office provides a wide range of instructional and professional services for faculty and academic administrators in the university's thirteen schools and colleges.The authors would like to thank Gina Dress for all her assistance in the TIPs program and three anonymous reviewers for their useful comments and suggestions.     

Integrating games as a means to develop e-learning: Insights from a psychological perspective

Although the Education sector has pioneered the use of technology, the pace of technological change has outstripped the slower processes of theoretical development and critical reflection, so the field is highly fragmented and lacks a comprehensive evidence base to support future development. In this paper, we consider how the insights offered by games and a psychological perspective can address the current challenges. Both games and e-learning specialists are facing similar challenges and would therefore benefit from adopting a more integrated approach in the future. We demonstrate how this integration can best be achieved by viewing the challenges through a psychological lens which informs theory, research and practice in user-centred design, supports the development of more widely applicable theories of learning and pedagogy, recognises of the complexity of the contexts in which learning occurs and offers an established evidence-based framework to aid integration at the theoretical level. This emphasises the continued importance of classic concepts such as transfer, cognitive load and the increasing blurred boundaries between formal and informal learning, but also in terms of methodology and as a catalyst for future debate and discussion.