'She just got me’: supporting care experienced young people negotiating relationships and identities at school

In this article we examine the complex relationship between care experience, mental health and exclusion from school and how young people (YP) negotiate these different experiences and identities. The study is a secondary analysis, informed by symbolic interactionist theory, of interviews conducted with 19 care experienced YP in Scotland. Not all of the YP were excluded and not all had a formal mental health diagnosis, as such our study design allows interrogation of the contexts and relationships which not only facilitate but also disrupt pathways to exclusion. It also allows reconsideration of assumptions of vulnerability which are often applied to care experienced YP. Our findings suggest that these YP are moving beyond ‘role playing’ the identities ascribed to them and actively seek out relationships which enable them to construct alternative identities.     

"武科应试器械"考论

从体育文化角度对古代“武科”考试内容、应试器械等进行系统研究。结果显示:“武科”,又称“武举”,创立于唐武则天长安二年(702年),废于清末光绪二十七年(1901年8月29日),历经一千二百年。考试分外场(以长垛、马射、步射、刀术、枪术、翘关等体育项目为主)和内场(策论)。唐“武科”主要外场器械为弓箭,辅从刀、枪等。宋以弓箭刀枪为主同时将弩踏等作为考试项目。明代“武科”项目沿袭唐宋,外场器械未有变化。清代开始增加了“技勇”项目,分别为开硬弓、舞大刀、掇石。课题研究旨在为我国民族传统体育学的长足发展提供实质性的理论文献资料。     

Can constrained relevance feedback and display strategies help users retrieve items on mobile devices?

Searching online information resources using mobile devices is affected by small screens which can display only a fraction of ranked search results. In this paper we investigate whether the search effort can be reduced by means of a simple user feedback: for a screenful of search results the user is encouraged to indicate a single most relevant document. In our approach we exploit the fact that, for small display sizes and limited user actions, we can construct a user decision tree representing all possible outcomes of the user interaction with the system. Examining the trees we can compute an upper limit on relevance feedback performance. In this study we consider three standard feedback algorithms: Rocchio, Robertson/Sparck-Jones (RSJ) and a Bayesian algorithm. We evaluate them in conjunction with two strategies for presenting search results: a document ranking that attempts to maximize information gain from the user’s choices and the top-D ranked documents. Experimental results indicate that for RSJ feedback which involves an explicit feature selection policy, the greedy top-D display is more appropriate. For the other two algorithms, the exploratory display that maximizes information gain produces better results. We conducted a user study to compare the performance of the relevance feedback methods with real users and compare the results with the findings from the tree analysis. This comparison between the simulations and real user behaviour indicates that the Bayesian algorithm, coupled with the sampled display, is the most effective. Extended version of “Evaluating Relevance Feedback Algorithms for Searching on Small Displays, ” Vishwa Vinay, Ingemar J. Cox, Natasa Milic-Frayling, Ken Wood published in the proceedings of ECIR 2005, David E. Losada, Juan M. Fernández-Luna (Eds.), Springer 2005, ISBN 3-540-25295-9     

A Peer‐tutoring Scheme to Support Independent Learning and Group Project Work in Mathematics

A peer‐tutoring scheme was introduced to an undergraduate mathematics module. This was to provide a learning support for an independent learning programme. These student support groups also functioned as task groups for group project work. In the independent learning programme, students were directed to read selected passages of text, to attempt certain exercises and to devise peer assessment tasks. For some of the sessions senior students were present and functioned as additional peer tutors. To assess the students’ attitudes to the peer‐supported independent learning programme, an Attitudes to Peer‐tutoring Questionnaire was constructed. The results show that the students readily accepted the need to work in groups and to support one another. Overall, 78% felt that they could work easily without pressure and that the sessions were not a complete waste of time. However, 65% of the students did not appear to enjoy the independent learning sessions and felt that they preferred to be responsible only for their own learning.     

Reversing the “standard” direction: Science emerging from the lives of African American students

Recognizing the persistent science achievement gap between inner‐city African American students and students from mainstream, White society, this article suggests that the imposition of external standards on inner‐city schools will do little to ameliorate this gap because such an approach fails to address the significance of the social and cultural lives of the students. Instead, it is suggested that the use of critical ethnographic research would enable educators to learn from the students how science education can change to meet their aims and interests. The article includes a report on how a science lunch group in an inner‐city high school forged a community based on respect and caring and how this community afforded African American male teens the opportunity to participate in science in new ways. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 38: 1000–1014, 2001