Conceptual change through vicarious learning in an authentic physics setting

Recent research on principles of best practice for designing effective multimedia instruction has rarely taken into account students’ alternative conceptions, which are known to strongly influence learning. The goal of this study was to determine how well students of quantum mechanics could learn ‘vicariously’ by watching a student-tutor dialogue based on alternative conceptions. Two video treatments were created to summarize key aspects of quantum tunneling, a fundamental quantum mechanical phenomenon. One video depicted a student-tutor dialogue, incorporating many of the common alternative conceptions on the topic, and resolving inconsistencies in reasoning through discussion. The other presented the same correct physics material in an expository style without alternative conceptions. Second year physics students were randomly assigned to one of the two treatments and were tested before and after watching the video during a lecture. Results show a statistically significant (p < .01) advantage for the learners in the dialogue treatment (d = 0.71). Follow-up interviews of students yielded insight into the affective and cognitive benefits of the dialogue video.     

Bioconversion of low quality lignocellulosic agricultural waste into edible protein by <Emphasis Type="Italic">Pleurotus sajor-caju</Emphasis> (Fr.) singer

Pleurotus sajor-caju (Fr.) Singer was cultivated on selected agro wastes viz. cotton stalks, groundnut haulms, soybean straw, pigeon pea stalks and leaves and wheat straw, alone or in combinations. Cotton stalks, pigeon pea stalks and wheat straw alone or in combination were found to be more suitable than groundnut haulms and soybean straw for the cultivation. Organic supplements such as groundnut oilseed cake, gram powder and rice bran not only affected growth parameters but also increased yields. Thus bioconversion of lignocellulosic biomass by P. sajor-caju offers a promising way to convert low quality biomass into an improved human food.     

Networked feedback control for nonlinear systems with random varying delays

This paper discusses the controller synthesis problem of a nonlinear networked controlled system subject to delays in the measurement and actuation channels. The communication through the network also suffers non-stationary packet dropouts. The bounded nonlinearities in the plant state satisfy Lipschitz conditions. A Lyapunov function is developed for the closed-loop system considering dynamic output feedback and the resulting stabilization conditions are drawn in the form of linear matrix inequalities to ensure that the system is exponentially stable in the mean-square sense. The developed conditions are represented in the form of a convex optimization problem and the results are tested by simulation on a quadruple-tank process.     

“Nobody Really Wants to be Called Bossy or Domineering”

This article examines talks given by 12 female media professionals at a Southern US university’s center on women in communication between 2013 and 2015 to identify the influence of hegemonic masculinity in industry speak about women and professionalism in the fields of journalism, advertising, and public relations. This paper applies a feminist critique of discussions about “work–life balance,” “leaning in,” “emotion,” and language about the role of technology and innovation in women’s careers, to argue that inherent in these discussions about media professionalism are traits that perpetuate binary notions of feminine–masculine traits of the workplace. As a whole, these messages fail to account for notions of intersectionality and perpetuate inequality and masculine power for future professionals.     

A Grounded Practical Theory Reconstruction of the Communication Practice of Instructor-facilitated Collegiate Classroom Discussion

Instructor-facilitated collegiate classroom discussion (IFCCD) is a highly valued yet undertheorized instructional practice. Research examining the structure of classroom interaction, scholarship advocating rationales for discussion-based pedagogy, and an investigation of a related interactive classroom communication practice provide an informative backdrop for this study. The data in the study were collected using action-implicative discourse analytic techniques throughout a semester in three classrooms at the same university. Reconstructing the three levels of the practice through grounded practical theory—the problem/dilemma level, the normative situated ideals level, and the talk/discourse techniques level—provides some insight into why in two of these cases of IFCCD, engaged and participatory discussion was accomplished. The shared dilemma of the practice is reconstructed as the problem of engagement in which both individual engagement with curricular content and shared engagement in co-creation of the discussion are valued. The dilemmatic nature of the practice is explored specifically in terms of traditional and nontraditional teacher talk and associated participation structures. Significant similarities and differences across the three cases are found and examined in the reconstructions of instructor situated ideals and third-turn facilitation techniques. Initial conclusions are incorporated in the discussion of discourse-based applications for practitioners interested in facilitating discussion in college classrooms.     

The work of the audience: visual matrix methodology in museums

ABSTRACT

Visual matrix methodology has been designed for researching cultural imaginaries. It is an image-led, group-based method that creates a “third space” research setting to observe audience groups re-enacting lived experience of an event or process that takes place in the third space of a cultural setting. In this article, the method is described through its use in relation to an art-science exhibition, Human+ Future of the species, where three audience groups with investments in technology worked with exhibition material to achieve a complex ambivalent state of mind regarding technological futures. The visual matrix has been designed to capture the affective and aesthetic quality of audience engagement in third space by showing what audiences do with what is presented to them. We argue that such methodologies are useful for museums as they grapple with their role as sites where citizens not only engage in dialogue with one another but actively re-work their imaginaries of the future.     

Visibility and differentiation: systemic testing in a developing country context

Why has large-scale standardised testing attracted such a bad press? Why has pedagogic benefit to be derived from test results been downplayed? The paper investigates this question by first surveying the pros and cons of testing in the literature, and goes on to examine educators' responses to standardised, large-scale tests in a sample of low socio-economic status (SES) schools in the Western Cape, South Africa. The paper shows that teachers and school managers have an ambivalent attitude to tests, wary of the reputational costs they can incur, but also curious about the differentiated picture test results can give them as they learn to ‘read’ the underlying codes embedded in the results. The paper concludes that a focus on what tests make visible and a recognition of the pedagogic agency of teachers points to potential pedagogic benefits of systemic tests.     

Towards new forms of regulation in higher education: the case of South Africa

The paper reflects on the prospects for higher education reform in a country - South Africa - lodged within a sub-continent not noted for successful reform. The argument is that much of the policy debate is conducted in a way that dichotomises the issues: control versus autonomy; freedom versus regulation; state versus civil society. This dichotomous construal is unable to deal adequately with recent work on the changing forms of the state and changing state-higher education relations. The paper develops a distinction between administrative and political forms of control; and broadens the state control-state supervision distinction from one based solely on models to one based on the specific quality of inter-organisational coordination, connectivity and regulation. The paper concludes by spelling out what such a connective conception of organisation and regulation could mean for South African higher education.