Walking My Talk as an Intentional, Embodied, (Co)constructed Environmental Educator

Exploring the question (how) can I use personal change to inspire educational and social/cultural change, this work was embodied and action orientated with a thesis that the doing (action) is as important as the thinking and talking about it. A three-dimensional model of exploring personal change through transformative education leading to social/cultural change was employed throughout this research. A critical poststructural ecofeminist frame undergirded an autoethnographic self-study where I changed my living practices to become more sustainable while living within society, and used this as a platform for how I could become a better environmental educator and activist. I reduced my ecological footprint from 16.4HA to 1.8HA and taught a pre-service teacher course in environmental education, where I explored student resistances, power and relationships, a critique of curriculum, and personal change as a result of transformative education. One particular pedagogical strategy, the Action Learning Group Project, was developed and used to support others to undergo personal change through transformative education leading to social/cultural change. And finally, I use this work as an opportunity to undertake environmental education activism working to generate social/cultural change.

Applications of a TransFLash in an embedded system debugging

In this paper, the hardware and software design for using a TF card in debugging an embedded system are described. The used hardware platform is designed based on a PXA310 application processor. The Android open source operating system is used as the software platform. The design of the connection circuit between the application processor and the TF card is introduced first. Secondly, the design of the TF card driver program and the method for Android system to mount the TF card are described. In designing the TF driver program, an SPI operation mode and FAT32 file system are used. The transplant of the FAT32 file system is presented more detail. Finally, the paper introduced the system debugging and the test results are given for the TF card used in a video data acquisition unit of a video monitoring. It is shown that high speed data exchange and good universal property can be obtained by using a TF card to download a system image during developing and debugging. The TF card used in debugging can be used as a mass storage in the embedded product without the need of changing the design for debugging the system and it is also convenient for a user to upgrade operating system.

What does distributed cognition tell us about student learning of science?

This paper reports multi-layered analyses of student learning in a science classroom using the theoretical lens of Distributed Cognition (Hollan et al. 1999; Hutchins 1995). Building on the insights generated from previous research employing Distributed Cognition, the particular focus of this study has been placed on the “public space of interaction” (Alac and Hutchins 2004, p. 639) that includes both participants’ interaction with each other and their interaction with artefacts in their environment. In this paper, a lesson from an Australian science classroom was examined in detail, in which a class of grade-seven students were investigating the scientific theme of gravity by designing pendulums. The video-stimulated post-lesson interviews with both the teacher and the student groups offered complementary accounts (Clarke 2001a) that assisted the interpretation of the classroom data. The findings of this study provide supporting evidence to demonstrate the capacity of Distributed Cognition for advancing our understanding of the nature of learning in science classrooms.

Student difficulties in learning density: a distributed cognition perspective

Density has been reported as one of the most difficult concepts for secondary school students (e.g. Smith et al. 1997). Discussion about the difficulties of learning this concept has been largely focused on the complexity of the concept itself or student misconceptions. Few, if any, have investigated how the concept of density was constituted in classroom interactions, and what consequences these interactions have for individual students’ conceptual understanding. This paper reports a detailed analysis of two lessons on density in a 7th Grade Australian science classroom, employing the theory of Distributed Cognition (Hollan et al. 1999; Hutchins 1995). The analysis demonstrated that student understanding of density was shaped strongly by the public classroom discussion on the density of two metal blocks. It also revealed the ambiguities associated with the teacher demonstration and the student practical work. These ambiguities contributed to student difficulties with the concept of density identified in this classroom. The results of this study suggest that deliberate effort is needed to establish shared understanding not only about the purpose of the activities, but also about the meaning of scientific language and the utility of tools. It also suggests the importance of appropriate employment of instructional resources in order to facilitate student scientific understanding.

Viewpoints, creativity and embodied learning : developing perceptual and kinaesthetic skills in non-dancers studying undergraduate university drama

Viewpoints are a structural approach to training and directing for theatre. Originating from the innovative, inventive and exploratory approach of Mary Overlie and the self- confessed scavenger approach of Anne Bogart, Viewpoints offers a practical philosophy of working. As a training approach it begins with a disciplined engagement  of the body in space and time. The tangible elements of the Viewpoints provide a set of tasks on which the student can focus, thus freeing the imagination and spirit to  create. Yet at the same time the systematic logic of Viewpoints supports novice practitioners to begin to question their perception, invest in creative practice that demands action and exploration, and to deconstruct, re-organise and rebuild scores and sequences in the pursuit of theatre that is visceral and visual. This essay reports on undergraduate student experiences of learning Viewpoints. It interrogates the demands of embodied learning of the movement/structural system on non- ancers and examines student-actor experiences of embodied learning from multiple of subject positions – observer/participant/creator/reflector/actor.