The neural development and organization of letter recognition: Evidence from functional neuroimaging, computational modeling, and behavioral studies

Although much of the brain’s functional organization is genetically predetermined, it appears that some noninnate functions can come to depend on dedicated and segregated neural tissue. In this paper, we describe a series of experiments that have investigated the neural development and organization of one such noninnate function: letter recognition. Functional neuroimaging demonstrates that letter and digit recognition depend on different neural substrates in some literate adults. How could the processing of two stimulus categories that are distinguished solely by cultural conventions become segregated in the brain? One possibility is that correlation-based learning in the brain leads to a spatial organization in cortex that reflects the temporal and spatial clustering of letters with letters in the environment. Simulations confirm that environmental co-occurrence does indeed lead to spatial localization in a neural network that uses correlation-based learning. Furthermore, behavioral studies confirm one critical prediction of this co-occurrence hypothesis, namely, that subjects exposed to a visual environment in which letters and digits occur together rather than separately (postal workers who process letters and digits together in Canadian postal codes) do indeed show less behavioral evidence for segregated letter and digit processing.

Parent-Child Interaction and Children's Self-Concept

This study is designed to investigate the relationships between marital communication, the quality of parents' ability to assist their children in joint problem-solving, and children's independent mastery attempts and perceived competence at problem-solving, and behavioral indicators of self-esteem. Couples' skill at regulating their own and their children's negative affect within the marital and parent-child family subsystems is hypothesized to predict the quality of their assistance, or scaffolding behavior, to their children during joint problem-solving. Further, the quality of parental scaffolding behavior is expected to predict children's independent mastery attempts, levels of perceived competence at problemsolving, and behavioral indicators of self-esteem. Families for the study will be those with children between 3 1/2 to six years of age recruited from subjects participating in a longitudinal study of communication in marriage being conducted at the Denver Center for Marital and Family Studies. Families will participate in three interaction tasks designed to tap parental scaffolding behavior during problemsolving with their children. Children will be administered self-report measures to tap their perceived competence at such problem-solving as those in the interaction tasks and parents will complete a questionnaire tapping the behavioral indicators of their child's self-esteem. Family interaction data will be coded with the use of a microanalytic coding system developed by this study, the Parent-Child Interaction Coding System. Marital communication data at three time points, premaritally, during the transition to parenthood , and concurrently, will be obtained from couples' interactions from the longitudinal study. The clinical significance of this study includes implications for training couples how to effectively regulate negative affect and offer their children sensitive assistance during joint problem-solving.

Emoções desencadeadas no contexto de um projeto interdisciplinar no ensino de ciências

O desenvolvimento do pensamento e do conhecimento humano esteve vinculado, por muitos séculos a uma visão dual do Homem enquanto corpo/mente, matéria/espírito, razão/emoção, cognição/afeto. Com o surgimento de novas concepções teóricas especialmente a abordagem histórico-social de Vigotski, fundamentada em determinantes culturais, históricos e sociais da condição humana, foi possível uma nova releitura das dimensões cognitiva e emocional, na direção de uma interpretação monista do ser Humano. No entanto, mesmo diante desta interpretação integral do indivíduo, ainda persiste em larga escala no ensino, particularmente no ensino de Ciências, a tradicional busca do desenvolvimento da racionalidade e da lógica em detrimento à dimensão afetivoemocional. Este trabalho de pesquisa pretende focar especial atenção na dimensão afetivo-emocional nas relações estabelecidas em sala de aula quando um projeto de abordagem interdisciplinar é implementado. A pesquisa foi desenvolvida com uma turma do terceiro ano do Ensino Médio constituída de 22 alunos, de uma escola privada localizada em uma cidade do interior do Estado de São Paulo. Os resultados refletem a existência de conflitos emocionais significativos entre os alunos, merecendo, portanto, um planejamento docente que permita ações de gestão dessas emoções no contexto do processo de ensino e de aprendizagem.

ConfChem Conference on A Virtual Colloquium to Sustain and Celebrate IYC 2011 Initiatives in Global Chemical Education—The Global Experiment of the IYC2011: Creating Online Communities for Education and Science

The Global Experiment, Water: A Chemical Solution, was one of the flagship activities of the International Year of Chemistry (IYC). During the virtual colloquium of the spring 2012 online ConfChem conference, the main results of this year-long experiment were presented and discussed online for a week. Some of the main conclusions of the virtual conversations relate to the benefits of creating online communities of people sharing similar interests, the use of online educational platforms to gather massive amounts of data, and specific questions about the development of this IYC initiative. The activities of the global water experiment (GWE) were designed by a team of experts and the protocols are available online on the GWE Web site. The results were shown in one interactive world map that allowed students to learn about data visualization, validation, and interpretation. The feedback obtained from the participants of the GWE and later by the contributors of the virtual colloquium was very positive. Many participants asked specific and technical questions about the development of this experiment, while others excitedly endorsed the convenience of these large open-access activities to promote chemistry worldwide. The estimate is that over 2 million people took part in the GWE during the IYC. This communication summarizes one of the invited papers to the ConfChem online conference: A Virtual Colloquium to Sustain and Celebrate IYC 2011 Initiatives in Global Chemical Education, held from May 18 to June 29, 2012 and hosted by the ACS DivCHED Committee on Computers in Chemical Education and the IUPAC Committee on Chemistry Education.

Teaching as a fractal: from experience to model

The aim of this work is to improve students’ learning by designing a teaching model that seeks to increase student motivation to acquire new knowledge. To design the model, the methodology is based on the study of the students’ opinion on several aspects we think importantly affect the quality of teaching (such as the overcrowded classrooms, time intended for the subject or type of classroom where classes are taught), and on our experience when performing several experimental activities in the classroom (for instance, peer reviews and oral presentations). Besides the feedback from the students, it is essential to rely on the experience and reflections of lecturers who have been teaching the subject several years. This way we could detect several key aspects that, in our opinion, must be considered when designing a teaching proposal: motivation, assessment, progressiveness and autonomy. As a result we have obtained a teaching model based on instructional design as well as on the principles of fractal geometry, in the sense that different levels of abstraction for the various training activities are presented and the activities are self-similar, that is, they are decomposed again and again. At each level, an activity decomposes into a lower level tasks and their corresponding evaluation. With this model the immediate feedback and the student motivation are encouraged. We are convinced that a greater motivation will suppose an increase in the student’s working time and in their performance. Although the study has been done on a subject, the results are fully generalizable to other subjects.

How to measure healthiness in buildings: Experiences in teaching with BIM tools

Introducing teaching about healthy solutions in buildings and BIM has been a challenge for the University of Alicante. Teaching attached to very tighten study plans conditioned the types of methods that could be used in the past. The worldwide situation of crisis that especially reached Spain and the bursting of the housing bubble generated a lack of employment that reached universities where careers related to construction, Architecture and Architectural Technologist, suffered a huge reduction in the number of students enrolled. In the case of the University of Alicante, students’ enrolment for Architectural Technology reached an 80% reduction. The necessity of a reaction against this situation made the teachers be innovative and use the new Bologna adapted study plans to develop new teaching experiences introducing new concepts: people wellbeing in buildings and BIM. Working with healthy solutions in buildings provided new approaches for building design and construction as an alternative to sustainability. For many years sustainability was the concept that applied to housing gave buildings an added value and the possibility of having viability in a very complex scenario. But after lots of experiences, the approved methodologies for obtaining sustainable housing were ambiguous and at the end, investors, designers, constructors and purchasers cannot find real and validated criteria for obtaining an effective sustainable house. It was the moment to work with new ideas and concepts and start facing buildings from the users’ point of view. At the same time the development of new tools, BIM, has opened a wide range of opportunities, innovative and suggestive, that allows simulation and evaluation of many building factors. This paper describes the research in teaching developed by the University of Alicante to adapt the current study plans, introducing work with healthy solutions in buildings and the use of BIM, with the aim of attracting students by improving their future employability. Pilot experiences have been carried out in different subjects based on the work with projects and case studies under an international frame with the cooperation of different European partner universities. The use of BIM tools, introduced in 2014, solved the problems that appeared in some subjects, mainly building construction, and helped with the evaluation of some healthy concepts that presented difficulties until this moment as knowledge acquired by the students was hard to be evaluated. The introduction of BIM tools: Vasari, FormIt, Revit and Light Control among others, allowed the study of precise healthy concepts and provided the students a real understand of how these different parameters can condition a healthy architectural space. The analysis of the results showed a clear acceptance by the students and gave teachers the possibility of opening new research lines. At the same time, working with BIM tools to obtain healthy solutions in building has been a good option to improve students’ employability as building market in Spain is increasing the number of specialists in BIM with a wider knowledge.

La literatura: una aproximació a Jaume I a través dels projectes

En aquest article analitzem les possibilitats de la metodologia del treball per projectes, vinculats a aspectes culturals per a l’ensenyament de la literatura. El nostre estudi parteix d’un projecte dut a terme en un centre de l’Horta Sud. El nostre objectiu és donar a conèixer la importància del rei Jaume I i aproximar la literatura als joves valencians a través de la festa del 9 d’Octubre. El nostre és un integral en què totes les àrees treballaran conjuntament durant dues setmanes i mitja en una franja horària determinada. Aquest treball és destinat al curs de segon d’ESO d’un centre amb un nivell socioeconòmic mitjà-alt i on la llengua vehicular és el valencià.

The importance of promoting multimodal teaching in the foreign language classroom for the acquisition of social competences: practical examples

This article analyses the way in which the subject English Language V of the degree English Studies (English Language and Literature) combines the development of the five skills (listening, speaking, reading, writing and interacting) with the use of multimodal activities and resources in the teaching-learning process so that students increase their motivation and acquire different social competences that will be useful for the labour market such as communication, cooperation, leadership or conflict management. This study highlights the use of multimodal materials (texts, videos, etc.) on social topics to introduce cultural aspects in a language subject and to deepen into the different social competences university students can acquire when they work with them. The study was guided by the following research questions: how can multimodal texts and resources contribute to the development of the five skills in a foreign language classroom? What are the main social competences that students acquire when the teaching-learning process is multimodal? The results of a survey prepared at the end of the academic year 2015-2016 point out the main competences that university students develop thanks to multimodal teaching. For its framework of analysis, the study draws on the main principles of visual grammar (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006) where students learn how to analyse the main aspects in multimodal texts. The analysis of the different multimodal activities described in the article and the survey reveal that multimodality is useful for developing critical thinking, for bringing cultural aspects into the classroom and for working on social competences. This article will explain the successes and challenges of using multimodal texts with social content so that students can acquire social competences while learning content. Moreover, the implications of using multimodal resources in a language classroom to develop multiliteracies will be observed.

Long-Term Impacts of a Museum School Experience on Science Identity

Thesis (Master's)--University of Washington, 2016-06

Unfreezing the frame: Functional fram analysis for journalists and journalism students

This paper presents two case studies that suggest, in different but complementary ways, that the critical tool of frame analysis (Entman, 2002) has a place not only in the analytical environments of critical media research and media studies classes, where it is commonly found, but also in the media-production oriented environments of skills-based journalism training and even the newsroom. The expectations and constraints of both the latter environments, however, necessitate forms of frame analysis that are quick and simple. While commercial pressures mean newsrooms and skills-based journalism-training environments are likely to allow only an oversimplified approach to frame analysis, we argue that even a simple understanding and analysis at the production end could help to shift framing in ways that not only improve the quality and depth of Australasian newspapers' news coverage, but increase reader satisfaction with media output.

Approaches to training practitioners in the art and science of plant disease diagnosis

Allowing plant pathology students to tackle fictitious or real crop problems during the course of their formal training not only teaches them the diagnostic process, but also provides for a better understanding of disease etiology. Such a problem-solving approach can also engage, motivate, and enthuse students about plant pathologgy in general. This paper presents examples of three problem-based approaches to diagnostic training utilizing freely available software. The first provides an adventure-game simulation where Students are asked to provide a diagnosis and recommendation after exploring a hypothetical scenario or case. Guidance is given oil how to create these scenarios. The second approach involves students creating their own scenarios. The third uses a diagnostic template combined with reporting software to both guide and capture students' results and reflections during a real diagnostic assignment.

A community leadership web site project: Sustainability and other issues

This paper reports on an ongoing partnership between Queensland University of Technology and Volunteering Queensland regarding the development and revision of a website for community leaders. The website, designed in late 2003, was established to provide a range of learning activities for community leaders including a problem based learning activity, case studies of community leaders and a range of resources deemed significant for leaders in the community. To date, anecdotal evidence as well as some more hard evidence (i.e. number of visits to the site), indicates that the site appears to be a valuable resource for community leaders. The purpose of this paper was firstly to investigate the utility of the site and secondly to consider some bigger issues concerning its sustainability. To achieve this, the paper explores the perceptions of (i) a group of community leaders regarding the strengths and weaknesses of the site; and (ii) key stakeholders (from QUT and Volunteering Queensland) who participated in a focus group discussion to consider important issues relating to its management and sustainability. Themes emerging from the two groups are provided and implications for small scale partnership projects such as this one are discussed.

Developments in assessment and teaching methodologies in modern languages in England and France in response to educational reform (1975-1985)

This comparative study considers the main causative factors for change in recent years in the teaching of modern languages in England and France and seeks to contribute, in a general sense, to the understanding of change in comparable institutions. In England by 1975 the teaching of modern languages in the comprehensive schools was seen to be inappropriate to the needs of children of the whole ability-range. A combination of the external factor of the Council of Europe initiative in devising a needs-based learning approach for adult learners, and the internal factor of teacher-based initiatives in developing a graded-objectives learning approach for the less-able, has reversed this situation to some extent. The study examines and evaluates this reversal, and, in addition, assesses teachers' attitudes towards, and understanding of, the changes involved. In France the imposition of `la reforme Haby' in 1977 and the creation of `le college unique' were the main external factors for change. The subsequent failure of the reform and the socialist government's support of decentralisation policies returning the initiative for renewal to schools are examined and evaluated, as are the internal factors for changes in language-teaching - `groupes de niveau' and the creation of `equipes pedagogiques'. In both countries changes in the function of examinations at 15/16 plus are examined. The final chapter compared the changes in both education systems.