Benefits and Challenges of the Passport Broadcast Intervention in Long-Term Care

Creative activities are a challenge for long-term care facilities. The Passport intervention uses web-based video technology to provide long-term care residents with a virtual travel experience. Passport broadcasts were conducted and staff and residents were interviewed about the experience. A thematic analysis of interviews was used to discern benefits and challenges. Reported benefits included experience with technology, interaction with student visitors, reminiscing, and active learning. Challenges involved technical quality concerns related to the audio and visual needs of seniors. The pilot found the Passport intervention as a promising tool for creative activities in a long-term care setting.     

网络虚拟实验中二进制数据的XML传输方法

网络虚拟实验中二进制数据的XML直接传输方法存在节点数目多,解析困难,不利于网络传输等问题.针对上述情况,采用XML的CDATA域封装的方法对二进制数据进行传输.为了解决由ASCII字符引起的语法错误以及CDATA域的异常结束问题,通过Base 64编码技术对二进制数据进行处理.通过一个虚实结合的球杆系统网络虚拟实验对上述方法进行了验证.     

Signature pedagogies in support of teachers’ professional learning

Signature pedagogies [Shulman, L. 2005 Shulman, L. 2005. “Signature Pedagogies in the Professions.” Daedalus 134 (3): 52–59. doi: 10.1162/0011526054622015[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]. “Signature pedagogies in the professions.” Daedalus 134 (3): 52–59.] are a focus of teacher educators seeking to improve teaching and teacher education. The purpose of this paper is to present a preliminary common language of signature pedagogies for teacher professional development (PD). In all, 24 papers from the study of physical education PD projects with clearly articulated pedagogical objectives and documentation on achieving those objectives were included in the analysis. In total 479 teachers and 48 facilitators across the US and Europe were interviewed and/or surveyed. Three discrete PD signature pedagogies holding potential to enhance teacher growth and learning within the context of PD were identified: critical dialogue (process of acquiring knowledge through communicative interactions), public sharing of work (testing out practices in classrooms and share ideas with larger audiences), and communities of learners (collective learning around a shared concern or a passion). It is our hope in providing the beginnings of a common vocabulary for pedagogies of teacher professional learning we have encouraged additional steps toward developing signature pedagogies for learning across different PD settings and content areas.     

Critical intercultural conversations: using activity systems analysis as a tool for educational ethnography

ABSTRACT

This paper explores the tensions that exist between the recognition of the importance of ethnicity and culture for individual and group identities without essentilisation, by reframing conceptualisations of multi- and interculturalism. Drawing from our ongoing ethnography conducted with a research community of Alaska Native PhD candidates involved in participatory action research, we examine how situated and multiple positionalities enacted through participation in Engeström’s concept of an ‘activity system’ can: (a) contribute to the ‘doing’ of ethnography and provide an analytic framework for ethnographic research; and, (b) contribute to understandings of multi- and intercultural education that promote the questioning of hierarchical power structures through dialogue aimed toward equity and social justice.     

Young deafblind adults in action: becoming self-determined change agents through advocacy

Six young deafblind adults took a 1-week course on civic engagement and advocacy, which provided the focus for a participatory action research study with a collective case study design. They selected advocacy topics, were briefed on these policy issues, and were paired with experienced mentors for meetings with legislators in Washington, DC. Eight themes were identified from constant comparative and in vivo analysis of classroom discussion notes, interviews, and journals: (a) defining advocacy and advocate, (b) rights and equality, (c) expectations, (d) role of education in change, (e) deafblind expertise, (f) characteristics of effective change agents, (g) advocacy is teamwork, (h) future advocacy. In the classroom, the participants learned about policy issues, communication considerations, and leadership, then applied this knowledge in the legislative arena. Through the advocacy process, they learned to apply their personal strengths as advocates and experienced the importance of teamwork in advocacy.     

Agreement on mission and institutional responses to decline

This study of 56 small- to medium-sized institutions of higher education examines the causal paths between agreement on mission and severity of decline as they predict two types of responses to decline. The mediating effects of causal attributions are also examined. The results suggest that agreement on mission is the better predictor of responses; organizations with a high agreement on mission select fewer operating and strategic responses. An interpretation for these findings is that organizations with a high internal agreement on mission more selectively pursue responses to decline. Decline severity is shown to be of limited value in directly predicting responses to decline for this sample.     

Forming, Losing, Renewing, and Replacing Friendships: Applying Temporal Parameters to the Assessment of Children's Friendship Experiences

Friendship formation and dissolution were tracked over time in a summer camp to examine whether such events are valid indicators of individual differences in children's friendship adjustment. Subjects were 216 children ages 8–15 years. Sociometric nominations were used to determine the identities of reciprocal friends. Loneliness at camp was also tracked over time. In addition, data on group acceptance, behavioral reputations, social competence, and behavioral problems were gathered from peers and counselors. Analyses suggested that friendship formation and duration were coherent, independent dimensions of individual differences and distinct from the overall extensivity of involvement in friendships. Regression analyses indicated that the temporal parameters of participation in friendship enhanced the prediction of changes in loneliness at camp. Age and sex differences in temporal parameters were explored, and 4 discrete trajectories for friendship involvement were identified. Children with different trajectories differed in their behavioral profiles from one another and from children who were chronically friendless.