The Organization of a Laboratory Electronics Course

This paper describes the organization of a Laboratory Electronics Course in the Department of Aircraft Electrical Engineering at the College of Aeronautics, Cranfield, England. The course caters to two standards of specialization and to students with a wide range of previous training. The minor specialization course concentrates solely on fundamentals and the basic concepts, while the major course is carried to the threshold of design procedures. The contents of both courses are limited by the student's previous training and the time available for practical work. The over-all standard of the major course is that of the M.Sc. degree of a British University. Four different ways of construction and presentation of experiments are described and the limitations of each are discussed. Finally, the laboratory layout, equipment, and scheme of work for both courses is described.     

“We do investigate ourselves”: figurative assessment practices as meaning-making in English education

ABSTRACT

In this study of microteaching in a secondary English methods course, we intentionally stray from normative assessment practice, instead asking pre-service teachers to provide feedback on their peers’ microteaching using assessment practices designed to orient them figuratively. The term ‘figurative’ refers to ‘figurative language’: the bringing together of multiple, seemingly unrelated things, through associative configurations, and placing them side-by-side in order to reorient thought towards new or unexpected meanings. This study reframes assessment, not as a means of collecting data on what students have learned from a given lesson in order to evaluate and augment learning, but instead figuratively, as providing opportunities to expand and imagine ways of meaning-making through and with assessment. We examine in detail four modes of figurative assessment practices through which we sought to surprise and disorient students, producing new and different kinds of responses to microteaching that went beyond normative feedback practices.     

A Little Birdie Told Me: Factors that Influence the Diffusion of Twitter in Newsrooms

Twitter has become a global, social media platform that is reshaping the way journalists communicate, gather information, and disseminate news. This study builds on the relatively young field of research by using diffusion of innovation theory to gauge what factors influence the spread and adoption of Twitter. Case-study and in-depth interview methods were used in collecting data from 50 journalists at 4 metropolitan newspapers. Results show that the adoption and implementation of Twitter relies on peer pressure and coaching to get reluctant journalists to try Twitter. Adoption is then immediate because journalists see how Twitter is a gateway to new sources of information and story tips. Ultimately, journalists embrace Twitter because it provides instant gratification from followers, allowing them to share stories with a broader, global audience.     

‘He knows he is safe; you are the safety net’. Key adult intervention with children with attachment difficulties: the TAs perspective

Children and young adults who are ‘looked after’ can present teachers and teaching assistants with a variety of day-to-day classroom challenges and a range of complex behaviours due to adverse childhood environments. This group of vulnerable young people have very complex social and emotional behaviours that require a considered approach of support and interventions. The types of interventions deployed in schools, however, may depend on staff knowledge, staff self-confidence, and interpersonal skills to support the child's learning and complex behaviours. An example of an intervention is the key adult intervention programme, which is purported to develop staff knowledge and self-confidence when working with looked after children. training in key adult intervention occurred at a special school, which had a high percentage of looked after children, situated in an East Midlands town. The purpose of the study was firstly to support the children through in-depth knowledge development for supporting staff, and secondly to investigate staff confidence and understanding of the needs of looked after children. In addition, supporting factors of the key adult intervention and a discovery of any barriers to its implementation were sought. Using a mixed methods approach, data were collected from participating staff using questionnaires and focused conversations. Qualitative data were analysed using Cresswells six-step process. Findings suggest that the key adult intervention is an effective means to support staff confidence and understanding and offer support for looked after children. Recommendations for future practice include increased training and support for teaching assistants, teachers and the school community as a whole. In addition, targeted professional and emotional support for the teaching assistants deployed, and increased communication between senior leaders and teaching assistants is crucial. The current research, therefore, adds to existing literature by providing an evaluation of the key adult intervention within a special school setting with evidence gathered from teaching assistants.     

Voice in the agentic assemblage

Abstract

In this article, we explore how a posthumanist stance has enabled us to work a different consideration of the way in which voice is constituted and constituting in educational inquiry; that is, we position voice in a posthuman ontology that is understood as attributable to a complex network of human and nonhuman agents that exceed the traditional understanding of an individual. Drawing on the work of Deleuze and Guattari, Barad, and Bennett, we present a research artifact that illustrates how this posthuman voice is productively bound to an agentic assemblage. The reconfiguration of a posthuman voice with/in an educational research artifact further enables us to explore various analytic questions: What happens when voice exceeds language and is more than (un)vocalized words emanating from a speaking subject? If the materiality of voice is not limited to sound (i.e. self-present language emitted from a human mouth), how do we account for it? That is, how might the materiality of voice be located in the space of intra-action among human and non-human objects? We conclude with implications for thinking qualitative methodology in education differently.     

The Ghost in the Touchscreen: Social Scaffolds Promote Learning by Toddlers

This study examined the effect of a “ghost” demonstration on toddlers’ imitation. In the ghost condition, virtual pieces moved to make a fish or boat puzzle. Fifty‐two 2.5‐ and 3‐year‐olds were tested on a touchscreen (no transfer) or with 3D pieces (transfer); children tested with 3D pieces scored above a no demonstration baseline, but children tested on the touchscreen did not. Practice on the touchscreen (n = 23) by 2.5‐ and 3‐year‐olds prior to the ghost demonstration did not improve performance. Finally, children who learned the puzzle task via a social demonstration and were tested on the touchscreen (n = 26) performed better than the ghost conditions. Taken together, these studies demonstrate that social demonstrations enhance learning from novel touchscreen tools during early childhood.     

Playing baseball/playing ‘house’: the reproduction and naturalization of ‘separate spheres’ in Japanese high school baseball

Although Japanese schools are generally considered to be one of the most gender-equitable social institutions in Japan, they play an important role in helping to reproduce and naturalize the notion of sex-based separate spheres, through endorsing the maintenance of such separate spheres in extracurricular sports clubs, such as baseball, where female student ‘managers’ act as surrogate mothers to the male team members: cooking, cleaning and engaging in other support work. Furthermore, the Japan High School Baseball Federation (JHBF)'s rule prohibiting female teammates from participating in official games (due to the ‘danger’ of injury to smaller, weaker females) discourages more athletically capable females from joining baseball teams in the first place, so that female students who do join high school baseball teams as players tend to be less likely to be athletically competitive. This both reinforces the image of smaller, weaker females and justifies the JHBF's policy, further strengthening the notion of the appropriateness of separate spheres. Moreover, the mass media encourage this, both by applauding the efforts of the female managers, and by giving details on the physiques of female teammates, thus subtly supporting the argument that females cannot and should not compete with males in baseball (or, by implication, in other male-dominated fields). Thus, these practices help to normalize the idea of sex-based separate spheres at a very real experiential level for high school students, as well as at a symbolic/ideological level for society as a whole.     

Transitions: The Birth of Flora Arden

In this column, a young mother shares the story of her second home birth. Like the birth of her first baby, her daughter Flora’s birth was supported by the presence of a midwife and doula, the peace and quiet of her own home, and the love of her husband and family. Birth is described as transforming and a powerful transition for women. She describes the births of both her children as being “forever emblazoned on my heart as the sweetest and strongest days of my small life.” Paralleling this story of birth is the story of her mother-in-law as she faces brain cancer and seizes the power of that life transition.