(2012). Digital Socrates: A System for Disseminating and Evaluating Best Practices in Education. Campus-Wide Information Systems, v29 n4 p226-237. Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine existing learning innovation systems and propose a systematic methodology of delivering educational innovations in the right amount, in the right place and at the right time. Design/methodology/approach: Higher education is not effectively incorporating new discoveries in cognitive science and human learning into effective teaching strategies. In this paper, the authors explore the various impediments to change. To partially overcome these barriers, Drexel University, in collaboration with Untra Academic Management Solutions, LLC, has embarked on the development of a knowledge management system to assist instructors in obtaining, implementing, evaluating and disseminating new educational innovations. The system as envisioned would be capable of adapting to various educational environments and evolving with changes in curricula, faculty expectations, learning outcomes and student characteristics. Findings: The SocraticNet as a learning… [Direct]
(2011). The Mechanisms Underlying the Interhemispheric Integration of Information in Foveal Word Recognition: Evidence for Transcortical Inhibition. Brain and Language, v118 n3 p81-89 Sep. Words are processed as units. This is not as evident as it seems, given the division of the human cerebral cortex in two hemispheres and the partial decussation of the optic tract. In two experiments, we investigated what underlies the unity of foveally presented words: A bilateral projection of visual input in foveal vision, or interhemispheric inhibition and integration as proposed by the SERIOL model of visual word recognition. Experiment 1 made use of pairs of words and nonwords with a length of four letters each. Participants had to name the word and ignore the nonword. The visual field in which the word was presented and the distance between the word and the nonword were manipulated. The results showed that the typical right visual field advantage was observed only when the word and the nonword were clearly separated. When the distance between them became smaller, the right visual field advantage turned into a left visual field advantage, in line with the interhemispheric… [Direct]
(2018). How Current Rural Superintendents Believe Aspiring Superintendents Can Best Prepare for the Position. ProQuest LLC, Ed.D. Dissertation, University of Northern Colorado. The demands and challenges placed upon individuals starting a new career as a school superintendent can be daunting. As the chief education officer (CEO) of the school district, the superintendent faces a tremendous number of dynamic issues and complex problems (Cambron-McCabe, Cunningham, Harvey, & Koff, 2005; Kowalski, McCord, Peterson, Young, & Ellerson, 2011). At a time of increasing complexity with the role of the superintendency, approximately 49% of the individuals in the position that participated in an AASA survey in 2010 stated they planned to retire by 2015 and an additional 33% responded in an AASA survey taken in 2014 that they planned to retire by 2020, suggesting the probability of increased turnover for individuals currently employed as a school superintendent (Finnan, McCord, Stream, Mattocks, Petersen, & Ellerson, 2015; Kowalski et al., 2011). Approximately 80% of surveyed superintendents rated their academic preparation as "good" or… [Direct]
(1984). Project of National Significance for Providing Advocacy Services to Hispanic and Asian Developmentally Disabled Persons Residing in California. Final Report. In 1982, Protection and Advocacy, Inc. (PAI) was awarded funds to provide advocacy services to Hispanic and Asian developmentally disabled persons residing in California. Initial target populations selected were the urban Korean, Vietnamese, and Hispanic communities of Los Angeles. The project's goals were (1) to provide training in self-advocacy skills; (2) to increase availability and accessibility of services; and (3) to insure attainment of services through advocacy for human, civil, service, and legal rights. The acculturation process of California's Asian and Hispanic groups is encumbered by language, family, and religion. But each subgroup has its own reasons for being reluctant or unable to discuss problems or seek assistance. Buddhist-influenced groups, for instance, feel enormous guilt over disabled family members. For many Hispanics, social services bear the stigma of "charity," and undocumented Hispanics must avoid any attention. PAI had to develop a… [PDF]
(2001). Early Childhood Matters: The Bulletin of the Bernard van Leer Foundation, 2001. Early Childhood Matters, v97-99 Feb-Oct. This document consists of the three 2001 issues of The Bernard van Leer Foundation's "Early Childhood Matters," a periodical addressed to practitioners in the field of early childhood education and including information on projects funded by the foundation. Articles in the February 2001 edition focus on fathers and include: (1) "Fathers Matter Too" (Jim Smale); (2) "The Changing Roles of Fathers" (Wim Monasso); (3) "Involving Fathers in Community-based Early Childhood Programs: A Report from Israel and the Palestinian Autonomous Region" (Farid Abu Gosh); and (4) "Men in Families: Exploring the Impact of Men and Reproductive Health and Choices in Mexico." The June 2001 issue focuses on children's rights and the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child. The articles include: (1)"Rights from the Start: ECD and the Convention on the Rights of the Child" (Feny de los Angeles-Bautista); (2) "Moving Promises to Action: A… [PDF]
(1974). Expressive Thought and Non-Rational Inquiry. A significant problem with inquiry teaching is that too much emphasis is placed on inquiry as a logical, scientific, and rational way of knowing. Feelings and mood are rarely dealt with except in rather off-handed remarks about intuitive leaps and creative encounters. Few consider what a model of inquiry based on mood and feeling might look like. The purpose of using inquiry strategies is to train students in the formulation of bold conjectures as well as the process of severely testing those same conjectures. It is most essential that these conjectures be bold but not necessarily rational, logical, or scientific. Rationality is identified with four features which include a formal set of rules, use of language, clarity for its own sake, and the connection of results with other test results. This conception of rationality dominates all thinking about inquiry at the expense of other forms of knowing. What was begun with good intentions has become a straitjacket around the development… [PDF]
(2012). Sustainability as Moral Action. New Directions for Student Services, n139 p73-82 Fall. When one considers sustainability as a moral action, there are equally complex realities at hand–climate change, resource depletion, water and land rights. One author describes this broad sense of sustainability as \the connection of specific social and environmental problems to the functioning of human and ecological systems\ (Jenkins, 2011). Yet one of the most commonly accepted definitions of sustainability argues simply that it is \the ability to meet the needs of the current generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs.\ The focus of the conversation on sustainability as moral action is situated in a higher education and student affairs context and encourages action through the broad application of ideas and resources for social change. This expanded definition of sustainability includes a holistic integration of social and economic equity along with an environmental focus. This article operationalizes \sustainability\ using the triple… [Direct]
(2012). Big Data: What Is It and Why Does It Matter?. Campus Technology, v26 n2 p11-16 Oct. Colleges and universities are swimming in an ever-widening sea of data. Human beings and machines together generate about 2.5 \quintillion\ (10[superscript 18]) bytes every day, according to IBM's latest estimate. The sources of all that data are dizzyingly diverse: e-mail, blogs, click streams, security cameras, weather sensors, social networks, academic research, and student portfolios, to name just a few. And it's all coming at warp speed: Google alone reportedly processes 24 petabytes (that's a \quadrillion\–10[superscript 15]–bytes) every day. The industry buzz phrase for this phenomenon is \Big Data,\ which loosely refers to data sets too large and/or diverse for conventional tools to manage and mine efficiently. For colleges and universities, Big Data presents a challenge that will only get…well…\bigger\. But approached with the right tools and strategies, Big Data also offers an incredibly rich resource for improving retention rates, fine-tuning curricula, and… [Direct]
(2012). Splitting Attention across the Two Visual Fields in Visual Short-Term Memory. Cognition, v122 n2 p258-263 Feb. Humans have the ability to attentionally select the most relevant visual information from their extrapersonal world and to retain it in a temporary buffer, known as visual short-term memory (VSTM). Research suggests that at least two non-contiguous items can be selected simultaneously when they are distributed across the two visual hemifields. In two experiments, we show that attention can also be split between the left and right sides of internal representations held in VSTM. Participants were asked to remember several colors, while cues presented during the delay instructed them to orient their attention to a subset of memorized colors. Experiment 1 revealed that orienting attention to one or two colors strengthened equally participants' memory for those colors, but only when they were from separate hemifields. Experiment 2 showed that in the absence of attentional cues the distribution of the items in the visual field per se had no effect on memory. These findings strongly suggest… [Direct]
(2020). Decision Making, Distributed Leadership and the Objective Knowledge Growth Framework. International Journal of Educational Management, v34 n2 p217-231. Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to know the extent to which a decision-making framework assists in providing holistic, comprehensive descriptions of strategies used by school leaders engaging with distributed leadership practices. The process by which principals and other education leaders interact various school-based actors to arrive at a distributed decision-making process is addressed through this paper. The position taken suggests that leadership does not reside solely with principals or other education leaders, but sustains the view that the actions of various actors within a school setting contribute to fuller and more comprehensive accounts of distributed leadership. Design/methodology/approach: While the application of rational/analytical approaches to organizational problems or issues can lead to effective decisions, dilemmas faced by principals are often messy, complex, ill-defined and not easily resolved through algorithmic reason or by the application of rules, as… [Direct]
(2010). Children's Right to Play: An Examination of the Importance of Play in the Lives of Children Worldwide. Working Papers in Early Childhood Development, No. 57. Bernard van Leer Foundation (NJ1) In this working paper, Wendy Russell and Stuart Lester of the UK's University of Gloucestershire discuss why play is fundamental to the health and well-being of children. They argue that both state signatories to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (Article 31 of which enshrines the right to play) and adults generally should take seriously the importance of providing suitable conditions for children to play. In the words of Gordon Burghardt, quoted in the working paper, \The problem of defining play and its role is one of the greatest challenges facing neuroscience, behavioural biology, psychology, education and the social sciences generally… only when we understand the nature of play will we be able to understand how to better shape the destinies of human societies in a mutually dependent world, the future of our species, and perhaps even the fate of the biosphere itself.\ (Contains 5 footnotes.)… [PDF]
(2013). How Decisions Emerge: Action Dynamics in Intertemporal Decision Making. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, v142 n1 p93-100 Feb. In intertemporal decision making, individuals prefer smaller rewards delivered sooner over larger rewards delivered later, often to an extent that seems irrational from an economical perspective. This behavior has been attributed to a lack of self-control and reflection, the nonlinearity of human time perception, and several other sources. Although an increasing number of models propose different mathematical descriptions of temporal discounting, the dynamics of the decision process behind temporal discounting are much less clear. In this study, we obtained further insights into the mechanisms of intertemporal decisions by observing choice action dynamics via a novel combination of continuously recorded mouse movements and a multiple regression approach. Participants had to choose between two hypothetical options (sooner/smaller vs. later/larger) by moving the mouse cursor from the bottom of the screen either to the top left or to the top right. We observed less direct mouse… [Direct]
(2009). Rethinking Humane Education. Ethics and Education, v4 n2 p201-214 Oct. The increase in violence in South African schools, as elsewhere, has been associated with a general "decline in moral values". There have been three different responses that emphasise the decline in religious teaching at schools, the loss of traditional values like "ubuntu," communalism and the like; and humankind's increasing alienation from nature. In other words, in terms of teaching and learning initiatives, we should turn to religion, community and the common good and nature (the natural environment and nonhuman animals) in order to feel the force of morality and, consequently, to counteract human violence and cruelty. After critically examining these responses, the present article focusses on the third as the most promising, albeit one that is in need of re-conceptualisation. We need to teach not "as if" nature mattered but "that" it matters. Concepts and principles like justice, equality and rights have worked in the past. They have been… [Direct]
(2015). PERSPECTIVES: Stories From the Trenches: The Application of Infant Mental Health Theory to Everyday Practice. ZERO TO THREE, v35 n6 p18-20 Jul. The author was wholly unprepared for what he encountered when he entered Fraiberg's Child Development Project at the University of Michigan in 1973, joining five others in a special 2-year training program in infant mental health. He sputtered in astonishment. He resisted the interpretations. But there was no turning back, once he was exposed (on reel-to-reel video) to moms and dads and babies struggling to make a life and a connection together. For the next 40 years, the author found himself in the presence of the uncommon: parents beating their babies, right in front of him; families who seemed determined to destroy themselves, and nearly did so; and children turning themselves inside out, fighting off the love they so very much wanted. It was sometimes his job to reawaken pain in both children and adults, as a prerequisite to healing. The core of his job, as he understood it, was to quietly watch, to stay curious, to follow the stories these families–including the babies–told…. [Direct]
(2011). The Critical Humanisms of Dorothy Dinnerstein and Immanuel Kant Employed for Responding to Gender Bias: A Study, and an Exercise, in Radical Critique. Studies in Philosophy and Education, v30 n4 p385-402 Jul. Two humanist, critical approaches–those of Dorothy Dinnerstein and Immanuel Kant–are summarized, compared, and employed to critique gender bias in science education. The value of Dinnerstein's approach lies in her way of seeing conventional \masculinity\ and conventional \femininity\ as developing in relation to each other from early childhood. Because of women's dominance of early childcare and adults' enduring, sexist resentment of that dominance, women become inhumanely associated with the non-adult qualities of immaturity, dependence, and childish vulnerability and punish-ability; and male human beings–to whom woman-resenting convention assigns the impossible task of absolutely triumphing over \the feminine,\ childhood experience, and all human vulnerability–become inhumanely held to unachievable standards of super-hero invulnerability and god-like mental and practical infallibility. The value of Kant's approach lies in his insistence that our sense of what is right and… [Direct]