'I wonder what you know...': Teachers designing requests for factual information

The early years are significant in optimising children’s educational, emotional and social outcomes and have become a major international policy priority. Within Australia, policy levers have prioritised early childhood education, with a focus on program quality, as it is associated with lifelong success. Longitudinal studies have found that high quality teacher-child interactions are an essential element of high quality programs, and teacher questioning is one aspect of teacher-child interactions that has been attributed to affecting the quality of education, linking open ended questioning to higher cognitive achievement. Teachers, however, overwhelmingly ask more closed than open questions. In the classroom, like everyday interaction, questions in interaction require answers. They are used to request, offer, repair, challenge, seek agreement (Curl & Drew, 2008; Enfield, Stivers, & Levinson, 2010; Hayano, 2013; Schegloff, 2007). Teachers use questions to set agendas and manage lessons (McHoul, 1978; Mehan, 1979; Sacks, 1995), and to gauge students’ knowledge and understanding (Lerner, 1995; McHoul, 1978; Mehan, 1979). Drawing on data from the Australian Research Council project Interacting with Knowledge: Interacting with people: Web searching in early childhood, this paper focuses on an extended sequence of talk between a teacher with two students aged between 3.5 and 5 years in a preschool classroom. The episode, drawn from a corpus of over 200 hours of video recorded data, captures how the teacher and children undertake an online search for images of lady beetles and hairy caterpillars on the Web. Ethnomethodological and conversation analysis approaches examine how the teacher asks questions, which call on the children to display their factual knowledge about the search topic. The fine grained analysis shows how teachers design their interactions to prompt children’s displays of factual knowledge, and how the design of factual questions affect a student’s response in terms of what and how they respond. In focussing on how the teacher designs factual questions and how children respond to these questions it shows that question design can close down a student’s reply; or elicit a range of answers, from one word to extended more detailed responses. Understanding how the design of teachers’ questions can influence students’ responses has pedagogic implications and may support educators to make intentional decisions regarding their own questioning techniques.

Wonder and method

In this paper, my aim is to address the twin concerns raised in this session - models of practice and geographies or spaces of practice - through regarding a selection of works and processes that have arisen from my recent research. Setting up this discussion, I first present a short critique of the idea of models of creative practice, recognising possible problems with the attempt to generalise or abstract its complexities. Working through a series of portraits of my working environment, I will draw from Lefebvre’s Rhythmanalysis as a way of understanding an art practice both spatially and temporally, suggesting that changes and adjustments can occur through attending to both intuitions and observations of the complex of rhythmic layers constantly at play in any event. Reflecting on my recent studio practice I explore these rhythms through the evocation of a twin axis: the horizontal and the vertical and the arcs of difference or change that occur between them, in both spatial and temporal senses. What this analysis suggests is the idea that understanding does not only emerge from the construction of general principles, derived from observation of the particular, but that the study of rhythms allows us to maintain the primacy of the particular. This makes it well suited to a study of creative methods and objects, since it is to the encounter with and expression of the particular that art practices, most certainly my own, are frequently directed.

'I wonder what you know...': Teachers designing requests for factual information

Optimizing the quality of early childhood education (ECE) is an international policy priority. Teacher-child interactions have been identified as the strongest indicator of quality and most potent predictor of child outcomes. This paper presents ethnomethodological and conversation analysis of an interaction between an early childhood educator with two children as they engage with each other, while performing a Web search. Analyses shows that question design can elicit qualitatively different responses with regard to sustained interactions. Understanding the design of teacher questions has pedagogic implications for the work of the teacher and for the broader quality agenda in early childhood education.

Plant regeneration from protoplasts of Capsicum annuum L cv. California Wonder

Plant regeneration from mesophyll protoplasts of pepper, Capsicum annuum L. cv. California Wonder has been demonstrated via shoot organogenesis, Protoplasts isolated from fully expanded leaves of 3-week-old axenic shoots when cultured in TM medium supplemented with 1 mgl(-1) NAA, 1 mgl(-1) 2, 4-D, 0.5 mgl(-1) BAP (CM 1) resulted in divisions with a frequency ranging from 20-25%. Antioxidant ascorbic acid and polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) in the medium and incubation in the dark helped overcome browning of protoplasts. Microcalli and macrocalli were formed in TM medium containing 2 mgl(-1) NAA and 0.5 mgl(-1) BAP (CM II) and MS gelled medium containing 2 mgl(-1) NAA and 0.5 mgl(-1) BAP (CM III), respectively, Regeneration of plantlets was possible via caulogenesis, Microshoots, 2-5 per callus appeared on MS gelled medium enriched with 0.5 mgl(-1) IAA, 2 mgl(-1) GA and 10 mgl(-1) BAP (CM IVc). Rooting of microshoots was obtained on half strength gelled medium containing 1 mgl(-1) NAA and 0.5 mgl(-1) BAP, Protoplasts isolated from cotyledons failed to divide and degenerated eventually.

Evaluación de cuatro herbicidas en el control de malezas y su influencia sobre el rendimiento del Capsicum annum L. cv. California wonder

En la estación experimental “Raúl González a. “ del valle de sebaco, Matagalpa, se comparó el efecto de tres diferente dosis de napropemida, trifluralina, metribuzin, alachlor, y dos testigo uno deshierbado y otro en hierba do en el cultivo del capaicum annum l.c.v “ california wender, bajo condiciones de riego, con el objetivo de determinar las dosis que permitieron obtener los mayores rendimiento y un control eficaz de las malezas. La siembra se realizo en forma directa el 12 de enero de 1987, concluyendo el ensayo en mayo del mismo año. Napropamida en pre-emergencia a dosis de 0.351 y 0.702 kg/ha, trifluralina en pre siembra incorporada a 0.674 kg/ha y metribuzin en pre-emergencia a razón de 0.049 kg/ha permitieron rendimiento de 4.49, 4.05, 3.98 y 4 t/ha respectivamente: siendo estos inferiores al testigo deshierbado cuyo rendimiento fue de 8.17 t/ha. Las tres dosis de metrbuzin presentaron el mejor control sobre la asociación de malezas presente, sin embargo, resultaron toxicas al cultivo.

Niagara and vicinity : views of the world's greatest wonder and its nearby cities. --

Cover title: Beauty spots of Niagara & vicinity.

Tales of wisdom and wonder.

Colección de cuentos procedentes de distintos países y culturas, en los que aparecen sorprendentes animales y gente extraordinaria; nada es como parece en este libro, pues se producen mágicas transformaciones. Al mismo tiempo, estas historias nos recuerdan de distintas maneras, cuán vasto y misterioso es nuestro mundo, y cómo nuestras vidas pueden transformarse totalmente por circunstancias inesperadas.

I wonder why the sun rises : and other questions about time and seasons.

Pertenece a una colección que quiere responder a las preguntas que se hacen los jóvenes lectores sobre el tiempo y las estaciones del año. Podemos conocer las respuestas a temas como la duración del día según la época del año, la influencia de la latitud para que haya cuatro o menos estaciones; la creación del calendario, la forma de medir con exactitud el tiempo, la diferencia horaria en los distintos países del mundo.

I wonder why the sun rises : and other questions about time and seasons.

Pertenece a una colección que quiere responder a las preguntas que se hacen los jóvenes lectores sobre el tiempo y las estaciones del año. Podemos conocer las respuestas a temas como la duración del día según la época del año, la influencia de la latitud para que haya cuatro o menos estaciones; la creación del calendario, la forma de medir con exactitud el tiempo, la diferencia horaria en los distintos países del mundo.

I wonder why the Sahara is cold at night : and other questions about deserts.

Trata de despertar la curiosidad de los jóvenes lectores al ofrecer una pequeña introducción sobre el desierto y sus características climáticas y físicas, así como sobre la flora y la fauna que vive en este medio tan adverso.También, se habla de curiosidades relacionados con el desierto:los pueblos que lo habitan y sus construcciones y ciudades; así como, el tipo de energía que proporciona.

I wonder why countries fly flags : and other questions about people and places.

Pertenece a una colección que quiere despertar la curiosidad de los pequeños lectores y desarrollar sus destrezas de lectura. En este caso, se tratan varios conceptos, el de país y el de bandera, ésta como una especie de insignia nacional. También, se explican otros temas, el número de países y de idiomas existentes, las características de algunas ciudades, sus tipos de viviendas, el folclore.

I wonder why mountains have snow on top : and other questions about mountains.

En esta colección se trata de responder a las preguntas que los jóvenes lectores se hacen sobre: las montañas y su formación, los volcanes, las plantas y animales que viven en ellas. También, de los deportes practicados en la montaña: montañismo, esquiar, ciclismo.