Motion event cognition and grammatical aspect: evidence from Afrikaans

Research on the relationship between grammatical aspect and motion event construal has posited that speakers of non-aspect languages are more prone to encoding event endpoints than are speakers of aspect languages (e.g., von Stutterheim and Carroll 2011). In the present study, we test this hypothesis by extending this line of inquiry to Afrikaans, a non-aspect language which is previously unexplored in this regard. Motion endpoint behavior among Afrikaans speakers was measured by means of a linguistic retelling task and a non-linguistic similarity judgment task, and then compared with the behavior of speakers of a non-aspect language (Swedish) and speakers of an aspect language (English). Results showed the Afrikaans speakers' endpoint patterns aligned with Swedish patterns, but were significantly different from English patterns. It was also found that the variation among the Afrikaans speakers could be partially explained by taking into account their frequency of use of English, such that those who used English more frequently exhibited an endpoint behavior that was more similar to English speakers. The current study thus lends further support to the hypothesis that speakers of different languages attend differently to event endpoints as a function of the grammatical category of aspect.

Inclusive approaches to teaching and learning mathematics

This chapter explores the role of mentors in supporting pre-service teachers to include all children in mathematics teaching, no matter what their individual needs.

A genome wide association study of mathematical ability reveals an association at chromosome 3q29, a locus associated with autism and learning difficulties: a preliminary study

Mathematical ability is heritable, but few studies have directly investigated its molecular genetic basis. Here we aimed to identify specific genetic contributions to variation in mathematical ability. We carried out a genome wide association scan using pooled DNA in two groups of U.K. samples, based on end of secondary/high school national academic exam achievement: high (n = 419) versus low (n = 183) mathematical ability while controlling for their verbal ability. Significant differences in allele frequencies between these groups were searched for in 906,600 SNPs using the Affymetrix GeneChip Human Mapping version 6.0 array. After meeting a threshold of p<1.5×10-5, 12 SNPs from the pooled association analysis were individually genotyped in 542 of the participants and analyzed to validate the initial associations (lowest p-value 1.14 ×10-6). In this analysis, one of the SNPs (rs789859) showed significant association after Bonferroni correction, and four (rs10873824, rs4144887, rs12130910 rs2809115) were nominally significant (lowest p-value 3.278 × 10-4). Three of the SNPs of interest are located within, or near to, known genes (FAM43A, SFT2D1, C14orf64). The SNP that showed the strongest association, rs789859, is located in a region on chromosome 3q29 that has been previously linked to learning difficulties and autism. rs789859 lies 1.3 kbp downstream of LSG1, and 700 bp upstream of FAM43A, mapping within the potential promoter/regulatory region of the latter. To our knowledge, this is only the second study to investigate the association of genetic variants with mathematical ability, and it highlights a number of interesting markers for future study.

The projected hand illusion: component structure in a community sample, and association with demographics, cognition and psychotic-like experiences

The projected hand illusion (PHI) is a variant of the rubber hand illusion (RHI), and both are commonly used to study mechanisms of self-perception. A questionnaire was developed by Longo et al. (2008) to measure qualitative changes in the RHI. Such psychometric analyses have not yet been conducted on the questionnaire for the PHI. The present study is an attempt to validate minor modifications of the questionnaire of Longo et al. to assess the PHI in a community sample (n = 48) and to determine the association with selected demographic (age, sex, years of education), cognitive (Digit Span), and clinical (psychotic-like experiences) variables. Principal components analysis on the questionnaire data extracted four components: Embodiment of “Other” Hand, Disembodiment of Own Hand, Deafference, and Agency—in both synchronous and asynchronous PHI conditions. Questions assessing “Embodiment” and “Agency” loaded onto orthogonal components. Greater illusion ratings were positively associated with being female, being younger, and having higher scores on psychotic-like experiences. There was no association with cognitive performance. Overall, this study confirmed that self-perception as measured with PHI is a multicomponent construct, similar in many respects to the RHI. The main difference lies in the separation of Embodiment and Agency into separate constructs, and this likely reflects the fact that the “live” image of the PHI presents a more realistic picture of the hand and of the stroking movements of the experimenter compared with the RHI.

Meta-morphs: – being a mediator of the ‘thin’ place and ‘thin’ experience in the HE classroom. A paper on the experience of creating transformations in HE teaching and learning

The research which underpins this paper began as a doctoral project exploring archaic beliefs concerning Otherworlds and Thin Places in two particular landscapes - the West Coast of Wales and the West Coast of Ireland. A Thin Place is an ancient Celtic Christian term used to describe a marginal, liminal realm, beyond everyday human experience and perception, where mortals could pass into the Otherworld more readily, or make contact with those in the Otherworld more willingly. To encounter a Thin Place in ancient folklore was significant because it engendered a state of alertness, an awakening to what the theologian John O’ Donohue (2004: 49) called “the primal affection.” These complex notions and terms will be further explored in this paper in relation to Education. Thin Teaching is a pedagogical approach which offers students the space to ruminate on the possibility that their existence can be more and can mean more than the categories they believed they belonged to or felt they should inhabit. Central to the argument then, is that certain places and their inhabitants can become revitalised by sensitively considered teaching methodologies. This raises interesting questions about the role spirituality plays in teaching practice as a tool for healing in the twenty first century.

Teaching and learning Chinese: heritage language classroom discourse in Montreal

This paper explores issues of teaching and learning Chinese as a heritage language in a Chinese heritage language school, the Zhonguo Saturday School, in Montreal, Quebec. With a student population of more than 1000, this school is the largest of the eight Chinese Heritage Language schools in Montreal. Students participating in this study were from seven different classes (grade K, two, three, four, five, six, and special class), their ages ranging from 4 to 13 years. The study took place over a period of two years between 2000 and 2002. Focusing on primary level classroom discourse and drawing on the works of Vygotsky and Bakhtin, I examine how teachers and students use language to communicate, and how their communication mediates teaching, learning and heritage language acquisition. Data sources include classroom observations, interviews with students and their teachers, students’ writings, and video and audio taping of classroom activities. Implications for heritage language development and maintenance are discussed with reference to the findings of this study.

Using social networking tools for teaching and learning: a perspective of University lecturers and students

The use of online social networking tools (SNTs) has become commonplace within higher education. In this paper a definition and a typology of educational affordance of social networking service (SNS) are presented. The paper also explores the educational affordances whilst examining how university lecturers and students use SNTs to support their educational activities. The data presented here were obtained through a survey in which 38 participants from three universities took part; two universities in Uganda and one in the United Kingdom. The results show that Facebook is the most popular tool with 75 % of participants having profiles. Whilst most participants perceived the educational significance of these tools, social affordances remain more pronounced compared to pedagogical and technological affordances. The limitations of this study have also been discussed.

Cognition and anxiety are regulated by thyroid hormone signaling

Anxiety and cognition are both linked to deficits in thyroid hormone concentrations in humans and in rodent models. Both processes have also been shown to be affected by the loss of the thyroid hormone receptors (TR) or by mutant transgenic TRs. Specifically, the unbalanced action of the unliganded TRα1 is thought to be important in the memory deficit and extreme anxiety seen in transgenic mice. The contribution of TRβ is less well defined and the molecular mechanisms that underlie these deficits are also unknown. We review the literature that demonstrates the importance of the thyroid hormone (TH) and the TR in these processes and focus on the mechanisms, in particular adult hippocampal neurogenesis in the dentate gyrus, that might be important in mediating both state anxiety and cognition by thyroid hormone.

The Masters in Teaching and Learning (MTL): a retrospective, intrinsic case study of the process of policy into practice and its impact on teacher participants

The research reported here is a retrospective case study of the recent (2010) introduction of the Masters in Teaching and Learning (MTL) as a post-graduate level programme of professional development for teachers. It contributes to the debate and research over the past two decades about the impact of post-graduate professional development and appropriate ways of delivering it. The study is located within an extensive body of literature dealing with the importance of the teaching profession with regard to the success of schools and pupils and the impact of professional development on teaching quality and of teaching quality on attainment. A further relevant context is the ongoing tension between the teaching profession and academics on the one hand and government and political actors on the other, in respect of the approaches to professional development and to the control of educational processes. The research questions which inform the study deal with the perspectives of various participants – policy makers, programme directors, coaches and teachers studying for the MTL – on the extent to which the MTL is likely to have an ameliorative effect on teaching and pupil attainment, their experiences of the process of policy development and their experiences as course participants. The study adopts a case study approach which involves elite interviews with those responsible for the development and implementation of the MTL, questionnaires completed by MTL course participants and a comparison group taking a conventional MA and in depth interviews with participants and coaches. The results revealed tensions and difficulties associated with the development of the MTL including uneasy relationships between HE institutions and government agencies, ideas about ‘producer capture’, the relevance of the MBA model and concern over the role of coaches. However, while acknowledging various difficulties and some misconceived expectations they viewed its potential to meet its expressed aims positively, given time. Course participants were positive about their experience of the MTL and felt that it had contributed to many aspects of their professional development. Most saw it as a positive experience despite the variable quality of support from their schools, particularly in the form of the school-based coach the concept of which had been heralded as the bellwether of the MTL. It was striking that the responses of the MTL participants were very similar to those of teachers taking a conventional MA. A finding which would repay further investigation is that while the great majority of course participants felt that the MTL (and the MA) had contributed to their becoming more effective teachers they were much less confident that it had contributed to increased pupil attainment.

The impact of fruit flavonoids on memory and cognition

There is intense interest in the studies related to the potential of phytochemical-rich foods to prevent age-related neurodegeneration and cognitive decline. Recent evidence has indicated that a group of plant-derived compounds known as flavonoids may exert particularly powerful actions on mammalian cognition and may reverse age-related declines in memory and learning. In particular, evidence suggests that foods rich in three specific flavonoid sub-groups, the flavanols, anthocyanins and/or flavanones, possess the greatest potential to act on the cognitive processes. This review will highlight the evidence for the actions of such flavonoids, found most commonly in fruits, such as apples, berries and citrus, on cognitive behaviour and the underlying cellular architecture. Although the precise mechanisms by which these flavonoids act within the brain remain unresolved, the present review focuses on their ability to protect vulnerable neurons and enhance the function of existing neuronal structures, two processes known to be influenced by flavonoids and also known to underpin neuro-cognitive function. Most notably, we discuss their selective interactions with protein kinase and lipid kinase signalling cascades (i.e. phosphoinositide-3 kinase/Akt and mitogen-activated protein kinase pathways), which regulate transcription factors and gene expression involved in both synaptic plasticity and cerebrovascular blood flow. Overall, the review attempts to provide an initial insight into the potential impact of regular flavonoid-rich fruit consumption on normal or abnormal deteriorations in cognitive performance.

Implicit and explicit processes in a second-language learning task

Two experiments examined the learning of a set of Greek pronunciation rules through explicit and implicit modes of rule presentation. Experiment 1 compared the effectiveness of implicit and explicit modes of presentation in two modalities, visual and auditory. Subjects in the explicit or rule group were presented with the rule set, and those in the implicit or natural group were shown a set of Greek words, composed of letters from the rule set, linked to their pronunciations. Subjects learned the Greek words to criterion and were then given a series of tests which aimed to tap different types of knowledge. The results showed an advantage of explicit study of the rules. In addition, an interaction was found between mode of presentation and modality. Explicit instruction was more effective in the visual than in the auditory modality, whereas there was no modality effect for implicit instruction. Experiment 2 examined a possible reason for the advantage of the rule groups by comparing different combinations of explicit and implicit presentation in the study and learning phases. The results suggested that explicit presentation of the rules is only beneficial when it is followed by practice at applying them.