(2021). Teaching Critical Physical Geography. Journal of Geography in Higher Education, v45 n3 p465-478. Critical Physical Geography (CPG) emerged as a discipline around 2014 and has since excited many human and physical geographers, as well researchers in political ecology, geomorphology, science and technology, and environmental science whose research, critiques, and methodologies have formed much of the basis of CPG. However, because of its recent emergence as a discipline, and because of the challenges in teaching transdisciplinary methods, there is a scarcity of literature on methods to teach CPG. The needs for these methods are exceedingly important right now as unprecedented, wicked environmental problems of the Anthropocene continue to emerge, and as structures of power, which have artificially separated the study of humans and the environment, are re-evaluated. CPG provides instructors with cross-disciplinary tools to explore environmental problems, and besides its focus on intertwining biophysical and social methodologies, it emphasizes environmental and social justice, as… [Direct]
(2006). Three Models of Education: Rights, Capabilities and Human Capital. Theory and Research in Education, v4 n1 p69-84. This article analyses three normative accounts that can underlie educational policies, with special attention to gender issues. These three models of education are human capital theory, rights discourses and the capability approach. I first outline five different roles that education can play. Then I analyse these three models of educational policies. The human capital approach is problematic because it is economistic, fragmentized and exclusively instrumentalistic. Rights and capabilities are in principle multi-dimensional and comprehensive models, and can therefore account for the intrinsic and non-economic roles that education plays. However, depending on how one fills out the specific details of the rights and capability frameworks, they also have some drawbacks. I conclude by arguing that the intrinsic aim of educational policy should be to expand people's capabilities, whereas we should use the rights discourses strategically, that is, when they are likely to contribute to… [Direct]
(2022). Higher Education for the People: Critical Contemplative Methods of Liberatory Practice. Research on Stress and Coping in Education. IAP – Information Age Publishing, Inc. This monograph aims to uncover value-belief-systems underlying dominant narratives in modern IHEs, impacting the lives of many multidimensional adult learners. To do so, Eurocentrism and neoliberalism are used to analyze the socio-cultural political movements of the U.S. and its influence on higher education trends. Then, models of adult consciousness and transformative approaches to adult learning are introduced to problematize dominant narratives and make the case for more complex epistemologies. With critical contemplation, acts of compassion for interdependence, self-compassion for intentionality, authentic relationships for political consciousness, listening for non-duality, and mindfulness for impermanence (CALM) are introduced as ways to emphasize self-transformation and self-actualization. CALM practice is just one way to join others in the social justice work of wholeness and humanity to better support multidimensional adult learners. Along with this understanding comes the… [Direct]
(2024). A Logic of Care in / of / for Voice: Tuning-in, Enacting and Assembling in Student Voice Practices and Education. Education 3-13, v52 n6 p843-855. The present moment is beset by many complex challenges. Young people face living with the consequences of decisions being made largely without their consent or involvement. Centering youth voices may be part of the solution. But we need to go beyond liberal, individualist and rights-based models that pay insufficient attention to the enabling conditions of meaningful voice, to temporalities, or to schooling as institution and process. Seeking alternative conceptualizations of voice, this paper draws on Annemarie Mol's work on the 'logic of care' in relation to health services. She describes this as a ceaseless, ongoing, mutual process of attunement to the unpredictable nature of human existence, implicating a range of actors, technologies, resources, materials, meanings, and affects. This description better captures aspects of good — responsive — educational practice. It also resonates with recent feminist scholarship on the posthuman, new materialist and affective dimensions of… [Direct]
(2024). Interactional Role Negotiation among Co-Facilitators in an Online Design Workshop. Classroom Discourse, v15 n2 p161-179. Research has demonstrated the important role of co-teacher communication and planning, but relatively little is understood about co-teacher interactions during the act of teaching itself and how these interactions relate to educators' positionings and ongoing identity development. This paper presents a case study of interaction between two co-facilitators of a team of Japanese youth during a week-long, synchronous, online workshop on human-centred design. One co-facilitator had several years of experience, and the other was a first-timer. Using positioning theory and discourse analysis, we show that the co-facilitators developed a relatively stable pattern of instructional authority delegation, or the social order that guides who has rights and responsibilities over which forms of instructional decision-making. We describe the delegation between the co-teachers in this study as involving 'instructional content authority' and 'instructional language authority', established through… [Direct]
(2020). Abstractions Made of Exemplars or 'You're All Right, and I've Changed My Mind': Response to Commentators. First Language, v40 n5-6 p640-659 Oct-Dec. In this response to commentators, I agree with those who suggested that the distinction between exemplar- and abstraction-based accounts is something of a false dichotomy and therefore move to an abstractions-made-of-exemplars account under which (a) we store all the exemplars that we hear (subject to attention, decay, interference, etc.) but (b) in the service of language use, re-represent these exemplars at multiple levels of abstraction, as simulated by computational neural-network models such as BERT, ELMo and GPT-3. Whilst I maintain that traditional linguistic abstractions (e.g. a DETERMINER category; SUBJECT VERB OBJECT word order) are no more than human-readable approximations of the type of abstractions formed by both human and artificial multiple-layer networks, I express hope that the abstractions-made-of-exemplars position can point the way towards a truce in the language acquisition wars: We were all right all along, just focusing on different levels of abstraction…. [Direct]
(2020). Developing and Applying Computational Resources for Biochemistry Education. Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Education, v48 n6 p579-584 Nov-Dec. Biochemistry is about structure and function, but it is also about data and this is where computers come in. From my time as a graduate student and post doc, whenever I encountered data I thought, "I can work this up by hand, but I think a computer could do a better job." Since that time, I have been working at the interface of biochemistry and computers, by attracting talented students and collaborating with colleagues with complementary skills. This has resulted in several exciting projects: a simulation of 2D electrophoresis and tandem mass spectrometry, the human visualization project, and two different programs that enable biochemists to search protein structures for enzyme active sites: ProMOL (promol.org) and Moltimate (moltimate.appspot.com). The human side of software development for education involved finding the right students and colleagues, communicating effectively across disciplines, building and managing effective teams and the importance of serendipity… [Direct]
(2018). Reading Direction Influences Lateral Biases in Letter Processing. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, v44 n10 p1678-1686 Oct. Humans have a limited capacity to identify concurrent, briefly presented targets. Recent experiments using concurrent rapid serial visual presentation of letters in horizontally displaced streams have documented a deficit specific to the stream in the right visual field. The cause of this deficit might be either prioritization of the left item based on participants' experience reading from left to right, or a right-hemisphere advantage specific to dual stimulation. Here we test the reading-experience hypothesis by using participants who have experience reading both a language written left-to-right (English) and one written right-to-left (Arabic). When tested with English letters, these participants showed a deficit, of a similar magnitude to that found previously, for reporting the item on the right. However, when the stimuli were Arabic letters the deficit was absent. This suggests that reading direction plays a large role in the second-target deficit. The pattern of participants'… [Direct]
(1988). Human Subjects and Informed Consent. Research Management Review, v2 n1 p1-4 Spr. The doctrine of informed consent has been enumerated to protect the rights of human subjects involved in biomedical research. The elements of informed consent are summarized along with the changes of emphasis that have evolved. The issue of liability and means for minimizing its impact are discussed. (Author/MLW)…
(2024). Female Students and the Field of Engineering: Stemming the Tide of Gender Underrepresentation for Sustainable Development. International Journal of Research in Education and Science, v10 n3 p641-652. Underrepresentation of females in the field of engineering is overwhelming and posing a serious concern to the human race, especially in the developing countries. This has grievous impacts on the socio-economic and environmental growth and development of the nation. The paper seeks to investigate: (i) female students' knowledge of the fields of engineering; (ii) female students' perceptions of what the gender of engineers ought to be; and (iii) the various factors that influence students' career choice in engineering. The study was a descriptive study of the survey type. Data were collected using a self-constructed questionnaire. The sample of the study was 366 public female senior secondary II students who were in science class in Ikere-Ekiti, Nigeria. The findings revealed that majority of the respondents were familiar with the traditional disciplines in the field of engineering. The respondents perceived engineering as a male-dominating profession. Personal, family, school, and… [PDF]
(2019). The Relational SNARC: Spatial Representation of Nonsymbolic Ratios. Cognitive Science, v43 n8 e12778 Aug. Recent research in numerical cognition has begun to systematically detail the ability of humans and nonhuman animals to perceive the magnitudes of nonsymbolic ratios. These relationally defined analogs to rational numbers offer new potential insights into the nature of human numerical processing. However, research into their similarities with and connections to symbolic numbers remains in its infancy. The current research aims to further explore these similarities by investigating whether the magnitudes of nonsymbolic ratios are associated with space just as symbolic numbers are. In two experiments, we found that responses were faster on the left for smaller nonsymbolic ratio magnitudes and faster on the right for larger nonsymbolic ratio magnitudes. These results further elucidate the nature of nonsymbolic ratio processing, extending the literature of spatial-numerical associations to nonsymbolic relative magnitudes. We discuss potential implications of these findings for theories… [Direct]
(1981). Professors, Presidents, and Politicians. Civil Rights and the University of Oklahoma, 1890-1968. Civil rights and academic freedom at the University of Oklahoma from 1890-1968 are examined by George Lynn Cross, president of Oklahoma University in the critical period from 1943 to 1968. The struggle for human rights is examined from the perspectives of teachers, students, administrators, and the community. Chapters include: "The Pioneer President"; "The Reorganization of 1908"; "Reorganization of the Academic Structure"; "The Reorganization of 1911"; "Brooks Strengthens the Presidency–Genesis of the American Association of University Professors"; "Bizzell's Beginnings, Triumphs, and Troubles"; "A Crisis Resolved"; "More of Murray"; "The DDMC Episode"; "A Year of Crisis: 1933"; "Better Days in Prospect?"; "Political Repercussions"; "The 'Red Hunt'–Genesis of the Oklahoms State System of Higher Education"; "Brandt Succeeds Bizzell"; "The…
(2002). Opportunities and Challenges of Bilingualism. Contributions to the Sociology of Language. This collection of papers examines, from an international perspective, opportunities and challenges of societal bilingualism in the new millennium. The 18 papers include the following: "Introduction: Opportunities and Challenges of Bilingualism" (Li Wei, Jean-Marc Dewaele, and Alex Housen); "'Holy Languages' in the Context of Societal Bilingualism" (Joshua A. Fishman); "Forlorn Hope?" (John Edwards); "When Languages Disappear, are Bilingual Education or Human Rights a Cure? Two Scenarios" (Tove Skutnabb-Kangas); "Core Values and Nation-States" (J.J. Smolicz); "French Language Policy: Centrism, Orwellian 'Dirigisme,' or Economic Determinism" (Harold F. Schiffman); "The Non-Linearity of Language Maintenance and Language Shift: Survey Data from European Language Boundaries" (Peter H. Nelde and Peter Weber); "Language Shift Among Siberian Estonians: Pro and Contra" (Juri Viikberg); "On Attitudes Towards…
(1995). What Should Be the Policy of the United States Government toward the People's Republic of China. National Debate Topic for High Schools, 1995-96. 104th Congress, 1st Session. Sampling the wide spectrum of opinions reflected in the current literature on the topic, this book presents a compilation of materials and bibliographic references designed to assist high school debaters in researching the topic of whether the United States government should substantially change its policy (foreign and economic) toward the People's Republic of China. Materials in the book include "China's Changing Conditions, Issue Brief" (Robert G. Sutter and others); "China after Deng Xiaoping–Implications for the United States" (Robert G. Sutter and James Casey Sullivan); "China's White Paper on Human Rights" (Tao-tai Hsia and Wendy I. Zeldin); "Hong Kong's Political Transition: Implications for U.S. Interests" (James Casey Sullivan and Robert G. Sutter); "National Interest and U.S. Foreign Policy" (Mark M. Lowenthal); "China in World Affairs–U.S. Policy Choices" (Robert G. Sutter); "United States Security…
(1981). Evaluation of the Unesco Associated Schools Project in Education for International Co-operation and Peace. In accordance with a mandate from Unesco's 1978 General Conference, an evaluation methodology and instruments were devised to assess the Unesco Associated School's success in encouraging international peace and human rights. The background of this assessment project and a report of evaluation activities are presented in this document. The Associated Schools Project originated in inititatives taken by Unesco in 1953 to help selected schools in Unesco member nations carry out special projects of education for living in a world community. By 1980, the project encompassed more than 1,400 participating institutions in 74 member states. Information is presented in three major sections. Section I describes the evaluation design. During the period June-July 1979, project consultants designed two questionnaires–one to be completed by coordinators of the project at national levels and the other to be filled out by faculty and administration at selected Associated Schools. Questions focused…