Situating preparedness education within public pedagogy

Both ‘disaster preparedness’ and ‘public pedagogy’ have been broadly defined and diversely utilised. Preparedness has been dealt within the disciplines such as civil engineering, sociology of disasters, public health and psychology, rather than education. Recently, inquiries into the learning and teaching of preparedness is increasing in the field of education, and some of them position preparedness education within the field of public pedagogy. However, conceptual discussion as to how and why the two fields are associated has been limited. The primary aim of this paper is to fill this gap by drawing on public pedagogy literature that conceptualises ‘publics’ and ‘pedagogies’. By doing so, the paper attempts to respond to Burdick et al’s call for Problematizing Public Pedagogy.

The Path between Pedagogy and Technology: Establishing a Theoretical Basis for the Development of Educational Game Environments

The power of computer game technology is currently being harnessed to produce “serious games”. These “games” are targeted at the education and training marketplace, and employ various key game-engine components such as the graphics and physics engines to produce realistic “digital-world” simulations of the real “physical world”. Many approaches are driven by the technology and often lack a consideration of a firm pedagogical underpinning. The authors believe that an analysis and deployment of both the technological and pedagogical dimensions should occur together, with the pedagogical dimension providing the lead. This chapter explores the relationship between these two dimensions, and explores how “pedagogy may inform the use of technology”, how various learning theories may be mapped onto the use of the affordances of computer game engines. Autonomous and collaborative learning approaches are discussed. The design of a serious game is broken down into spatial and temporal elements. The spatial dimension is related to the theories of knowledge structures, especially “concept maps”. The temporal dimension is related to “experiential learning”, especially the approach of Kolb. The multi-player aspect of serious games is related to theories of “collaborative learning” which is broken down into a discussion of “discourse” versus “dialogue”. Several general guiding principles are explored, such as the use of “metaphor” (including metaphors of space, embodiment, systems thinking, the internet and emergence). The topological design of a serious game is also highlighted. The discussion of pedagogy is related to various serious games we have recently produced and researched, and is presented in the hope of informing the “serious game community”.

Development of a Collaborative Platform for Art Education: From Pedagogy to Technology

We report on the development of a Java-based application devised to support collaborative learning of Art concepts and ideas over the Internet. Starting from an examination of the pedagogy of both Art education and collaborative learning we propose principles which are useful for the design and construction of a “lightweight” software application which supports interactive Art learning in groups. This application makes “dynamics” of an art work explicit, and supports group interaction with simple messaging and “chat” facilities. This application may be used to facilitate learning and teaching of Art, but also as a research tool to investigate the learning of Art and also the development and dynamics of collaborating groups. Evaluation of a pilot study of the use of our system with a group of 20 school children is presented.

Ancient clam gardens, traditional management portfolios, and the resilience of coupled human-ocean systems

Indigenous communities have actively managed their environments for millennia using a diversity of resource use and conservation strategies. Clam gardens, ancient rock-walled intertidal beach terraces, represent one example of an early mariculture technology that may have been used to improve food security and confer resilience to coupled human-ocean systems. We surveyed a coastal landscape for evidence of past resource use and management to gain insight into ancient resource stewardship practices on the central coast of British Columbia, Canada. We found that clam gardens are embedded within a diverse portfolio of resource use and management strategies and were likely one component of a larger, complex resource management system. We compared clam diversity, density, recruitment, and biomass in three clam gardens and three unmodified nonwalled beaches. Evidence suggests that butter clams (Saxidomus gigantea) had 1.96 times the biomass and 2.44 times the density in clam gardens relative to unmodified beaches. This was due to a reduction in beach slope and thus an increase in the optimal tidal range where clams grow and survive best. The most pronounced differences in butter clam density between nonwalled beaches and clam gardens were found at high tidal elevations at the top of the beach. Finally, clam recruits (0.5-2 mm in length) tended to be greater in clam gardens compared to nonwalled beaches and may be attributed to the addition of shell hash by ancient people, which remains on the landscape today. As part of a broader social-ecological system, clam garden sites were among several modifications made by humans that collectively may have conferred resilience to past communities by providing reliable and diverse access to food resources.

Our Landscape, Ourselves: Integrating Process and Traditional food Principles for Wellbeing + Resilience in the Swinomish Tribal Community

Thesis (Master's)--University of Washington, 2016-08

Seeing disadvantage in schools: exploring student teachers’ perceptions of poverty and disadvantage using visual pedagogy

This paper describes exploratory research into the development of innovative visual pedagogies for investigating how pre-service student teachers articulate their views about the effects of poverty on educational attainment. Social class emerges as the strongest factor in poverty and educational disadvantage in the UK. The resulting issues are often awkward for students to discuss and conventional pedagogies may not have effective ‘reach’ here. Findings from this study showed that the visual methods deployed gave students pedagogically well structured spaces for the expression and exchange of a diversity of views about poverty and social class, engaging them in both heated discussions and prolonged ‘silences’. However, the pedagogies did not challenge the stereotypical deficit models of ‘the poor’ which some students expressed. Nevertheless, we argue that reconfigured versions of these visual pedagogies have considerable potential for innovative social justice work in teacher education.

Monsters Take to the Streets! Monstrous Street-Art as Pedagogy of Resistance to Post-Olympic Regeneration in Hackney Wick?

This chapter explores geographies of gentrification and resistance in relation to the monstrous through the lens of street-art in post-Olympic London. It takes as a geographic case study Hackney Wick, which has for a long time been a bastion of alternative and creative living due to cheap rents in large, ex-industrial warehouse spaces. The artistic sociality of the area is imbued within its landscape, as prolific street artists have adorned ex-industrial warehouses and canal-side walls with graffiti and murals. Since the announcement of the 2012 Olympic Games, the area has been a site of intense political and aesthetic contestation. The post-Olympic legacy means that the area has been earmarked for redevelopment, with current residents facing the possibility of joining thousands already displaced by the games. The anxiety of dispossession is reflected by monstrous characters and sinister disembodied teeth, eyes and fingers embedded within the landscape, painted by local artists. Using geographically sensitive mobile and visual methodology to document the landscape and artwork, the chapter analyses and interprets the monstrous themes using a range of theorists including Mikhail Bakhtin, Georges Bataille and Nick Land. I argue that monstrous street-art lays visible claim to public territory for aesthetic purposes at odds with the visions of redevelopers and the needs of capital. Whilst street-art and graffiti do not fit easily within frameworks of organized political resistance or collective social movements, they operate as a kind of epistemological transgression that triggers transformative affects in the viewer. This creates conditions for pedagogies of resistance to gentrification by expressing and mobilizing political affects such as anger and anxiety, raising awareness of geographical politics, and encouraging the viewer to question the status quo of the built environment.

Critical Pedagogy: Origin, Vision, Action & Consequences

Critical pedagogy is a transformation-based approach to education. The aim of this article is to introduce the origin, vision, action and consequences of critical pedagogy. It also aims on finding out about educators’ possibility of actualising it in their practice. As a source materials articles, book chapters and books are used. The literature shows that critical pedagogy has its origin in the tradition of critical theory of the Frankfurt School and the work of the Brazilian pedagog Paulo Freire. According to the literature, its major theses is that education should go beyond transfer of knowledge and training the future labour force; to help developing critical consciousness, which leads to transformation of the individual, learning environment and society at large. Critical pedagogy is criticised for a focus on macro level system, for not having a model for classroom implementation and for being abstract. Despite some critics, I argue that critical pedagogy has still the potential to empower those in the field of education to increase their consciousness about the injustice in their society and to involve in transforming it.   Keywords: Critical pedagogy, critical thinking, critical theory, dialogue, Frankfurt School, transformation.

Utilizing educational theoretical models to support effective physical education pedagogy

Norm Friesen: The Place of the Classroom and the Space of the Screen, Relational Pedagogy and Internet Technology. New York, Bern etc.: Lang 2011 [Rezension]

Rezension von: Norm Friesen: The Place of the Classroom and the Space of the Screen, Relational Pedagogy and Internet Technology, New York, Bern etc.: Lang 2011 (183 S.; ISBN 978-1-4331-0959-1)

THE PRICE SENSITIVITY OF DEMAND FOR HIGHER EDUCATION AMONG NON-TRADITIONAL STUDENTS

This dissertation examines the price sensitivity of demand for higher education among non-traditional students in the United States. Chapter 1 discusses the issues related to the demand for higher education. It presents the recent trends and reviews the literature addressing these issues. A major conclusion that emerges from this chapter is that the price sensitivity of demand for higher education appears to depend on the source of the variation in price and the characteristics of the students who face the price change. The baseline estimate for the price sensitivity of demand is that a $1,000 (in year 2000 dollars) decrease in tuition costs should result in a 4 percentage-point increase in enrollment for the traditional 18- to 24-year-old student. Chapter 2 examines the price sensitivity of demand for higher education for military spouses resulting from variation in tuition due to military-mandated moves across states. The data suggest that a $1,000 (in year 2000 dollars) decrease in the cost of 2-year schools is associated with a 1--1.5 percentage-point increase in the probability of attending college. This estimate is less than half the previous estimates due to in-state tuition price differences faced by the civilian 18- to 24-year-old population on a percentage-point basis. However, this represents a 7--10 percent increase for this population, and the magnitude of this metric is in line with previous estimates. This suggests tuition assistance can be an effective means of increasing enrollment for military spouses, but other barriers to education for this population may also need to be addressed. Chapter 3 examines the impact of a change in the tax treatment of savings set aside for higher education by those who decide to suspend their education and enter the workforce. The taxation of these funds appears to have increased the rate at which these funds are included in an employee's initial contract and the quantity of funds allocated. These results are counterintuitive if the tax preference was the primary reason for the savings plan. However, these results suggest the rationale for the savings plan was to offer targeted additional compensation to recruits with greater negotiating power. Taxation of funds previously set aside did not appear to have a statistically significant impact on their utilization. Point estimates of the price sensitivity of demand from changes in the out-of-pocket costs for higher education induced by the taxation of these funds were small and often not statistically significant. The results from this dissertation show responses to changes in the net cost of college that differ by the source of price variation and the population experiencing them. This is consistent with the previous literature. This dissertation contributes to the literature by providing estimates for the price sensitivity of demand for higher education to previously understudied non-traditional students.

Climate Change or Urbanization? Impacts on a Traditional Coffee Production System in East Africa over the Last 80 Years

Global environmental changes (GEC) such as climate change (CC) and climate variability have serious impacts in the tropics, particularly in Africa. These are compounded by changes in land use/land cover, which in turn are driven mainly by economic and population growth, and urbanization. These factors create a feedback loop, which affects ecosystems and particularly ecosystem services, for example plant-insect interactions, and by consequence agricultural productivity. We studied effects of GEC at a local level, using a traditional coffee production area in greater Nairobi, Kenya. We chose coffee, the most valuable agricultural commodity worldwide, as it generates income for 100 million people, mainly in the developing world. Using the coffee berry borer, the most serious biotic threat to global coffee production, we show how environmental changes and different production systems (shaded and sun-grown coffee) can affect the crop. We combined detailed entomological assessments with historic climate records (from 1929-2011), and spatial and demographic data, to assess GEC's impact on coffee at a local scale. Additionally, we tested the utility of an adaptation strategy that is simple and easy to implement. Our results show that while interactions between CC and migration/urbanization, with its resultant landscape modifications, create a feedback loop whereby agroecosystems such as coffee are adversely affected, bio-diverse shaded coffee proved far more resilient and productive than coffee grown in monoculture, and was significantly less harmed by its insect pest. Thus, a relatively simple strategy such as shading coffee can tremendously improve resilience of agro-ecosystems, providing small-scale farmers in Africa with an easily implemented tool to safeguard their livelihoods in a changing climate.

Mineral and trace elements content of Black Sea Area traditional foods

The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement n.º 227118.

O tema no processo criativo da Asmarias Companhia de Teatro

Seted in the context of the educational actions of Casa Renascer, a non-governmental organization, located in Natal city, which had as its primary purpose the care with children and adolescent girls in vulnerable situations, this research is based on describing and analysis on the topic in the creative process developed by Asmarias Theatre Company from 1993 to 2003, a process that culminated in the assembly of the dramatic text, Mateus e Mateusa, of Qorpo-Santo. In this research is focused on the route of the Theatre Company has done so much theater in its early history (1993), with the practice of reading and dramatic writing in the preparation of didactic material called Primer of Inventions, as in the procedures with theater street and forum theater (1997 to 2000) to the reunion in 2001 of seven teenagers which articulated the last group formation next to the assembly's text Qorpo-Santo (2002- 2003). During the development on this learning, the evolution of the creative process based on institutional theme when asked if one can provide moments of educational experiences through the traditional form of theater, with reference to the issues inherent in the dramatic texts considered classics. The debate on the issue through research and analysis in its descriptions and finds in the interim between his past and present indications that lead to conclusive guises. The methodology, which is guided by research, is based in theatrical archeology (PAVIS, 2005), the evidential paradigm (GINZBURG, 1989) and the second approaches the experiences narrated by Benjamin (1985). We selected documents in formats of written texts, photographic and filmed, and identified in these files, marks and tracks which took us to understand the subject in the creative process of Asmarias Theatre Company during the tests with the dramatic text, Mateus and Mateusa, of Qorpo-Santo. In this theatrical practice, located in the field of the theater pedagogy, it appears that the actions across thematic theater in the Casa Renascer and allowed the formation of critical aesthetic perspective and personal social dimension of the subjects involved. The theme has gained a significant proportion in the theatrical activity as a guiding point of the creative process of Theatre Company, taking in the theatrical art form. In this sense, the creative process with the dramatic and classic texts won the educational dimension to address the issue in the movement of the drama as the focus of individual creation which added to the collective universe of the interactive game