Content-specific Areas Research Articles

Reading in content specific areas: the experience at the School of Medicine, U.N.C.

En contexto universitario alumnos ingresantes se confrontan con géneros discursivos que suponen prácticas de lectura específicas,no siempre explícitas (Carlino, 2005).De ahí que interpretar correctamente los contenidos de textos de especialidad requiera competencias estratégicas,léxico-gramaticales y discursivas,de las que estudiantes podrán apropiarse acompañados por docentes que modelen e incentiven modos de lectura esperados en el nivel superior y,particularmente,del objeto de estudio.Este ensayo presenta y describe el proyecto llevado a cabo durante el Ciclo de Nivelación en la Facultad de Cs.Médicas para implementar modos de ayudar aspirantes a leer en contexto universitario en forma comprensiva y reflexiva.La experiencia contempló cuatro momentos:capacitación docente,clase a aspirantes, diseño de actividades de lectocomprensión e integración de contenidos curriculares con actividades que propiciaron modos de lectura propios del contexto académico.Este artículo de reflexión argumenta en favor de que los profesores expliciten los saberes que la cultura académica presupone,para lo que precisan,a su vez,el apoyo de las instituciones.

Identification of Priority Skill Areas for Volunteer Professional Development

Youth development programs often rely on volunteers to deliver programming to young people. Our study explored the skills and competencies volunteers self-identified as important for their roles. We analyzed qualitative responses to 2 open-ended questions asking University of California 4-H volunteers to identify priority skills to aid in their volunteer development. Using inductive thematic analysis, we developed a coding scheme to analyze 1,144 responses. Participants reported the need for professional development in content-specific areas, program management basics, and child development. Volunteers also reported desiring training in educational practices, organizational skills, specific volunteer roles, and communication skills. The modalities through which volunteers were willing to develop these skills were peer-to-peer learning; online, in-person, classes and conferences; and continuous education. Given the importance of adult volunteers to youth development programs, it is essential that volunteers’ professional and skill development be supported by both effective and preferred approaches.

Identifying the Training and Development Needs of Senegalese EFL Instructors Working in Content-specific Areas

Identifying the Training and Development Needs of Senegalese EFL Instructors Working in Content-specific Areas

Information-Theoretic Evidence for Predictive Coding in the Face-Processing System.

Predictive coding suggests that the brain infers the causes of its sensations by combining sensory evidence with internal predictions based on available prior knowledge. However, the neurophysiological correlates of (pre)activated prior knowledge serving these predictions are still unknown. Based on the idea that such preactivated prior knowledge must be maintained until needed, we measured the amount of maintained information in neural signals via the active information storage (AIS) measure. AIS was calculated on whole-brain beamformer-reconstructed source time courses from MEG recordings of 52 human subjects during the baseline of a Mooney face/house detection task. Preactivation of prior knowledge for faces showed as α-band-related and β-band-related AIS increases in content-specific areas; these AIS increases were behaviorally relevant in the brain's fusiform face area. Further, AIS allowed decoding of the cued category on a trial-by-trial basis. Our results support accounts indicating that activated prior knowledge and the corresponding predictions are signaled in low-frequency activity (<30 Hz).SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Our perception is not only determined by the information our eyes/retina and other sensory organs receive from the outside world, but strongly depends also on information already present in our brains, such as prior knowledge about specific situations or objects. A currently popular theory in neuroscience, predictive coding theory, suggests that this prior knowledge is used by the brain to form internal predictions about upcoming sensory information. However, neurophysiological evidence for this hypothesis is rare, mostly because this kind of evidence requires strong a priori assumptions about the specific predictions the brain makes and the brain areas involved. Using a novel, assumption-free approach, we find that face-related prior knowledge and the derived predictions are represented in low-frequency brain activity.

Examining the validity of the technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK) framework for preservice chemistry teachers

While various quantitative measures for assessing teachers’ technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK) have developed rapidly, few studies to date have comprehensively validated the structure of TPACK through various criteria of validity especially for content specific areas. In this paper, we examined how the TPACK survey measure is aligned with the TPACK lesson plan measure and how they are related to the measure of epistemological beliefs about chemistry. The participants were 280 Chinese preservice chemistry teachers enrolled in a university in China. Both exploratory and confirmatory factory analyses were performed on the TPACK survey measure to help to establish validity, including considerations for convergent and discriminant validity. This was followed by the invariance test to examine factorial validity as related to gender. To establish the predictive validity of TPACK, the relationships among teachers’ epistemological beliefs, TPACK, and their capacity for planning technology-integrated lessons were also examined. Overall, the results showed that all four types of validity looked at in this study (i.e., convergent, discriminant, factorial, and predictive) were satisfactorily established. Implications for TPACK research and teacher education are also discussed.

Interactions between Medial Temporal Lobe, Prefrontal Cortex, and Inferior Temporal Regions during Visual Working Memory: A Combined Intracranial EEG and Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study

It is a fundamental question whether the medial temporal lobe (MTL) supports only long-term memory encoding, or contributes to working memory (WM) processes as well. Recent data suggest that the MTL is activated whenever multiple items or item features are being maintained in WM. This may rely on interactions between the MTL or the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and content-specific areas in the inferior temporal (IT) cortex. Here, we investigated the neural mechanism through which the MTL, PFC, and IT cortex interact during WM maintenance. First, we quantified phase synchronization of intracranial EEG data in epilepsy patients with electrodes in both regions. Second, we used directional coupling analysis to study whether oscillatory activity in the IT cortex drives the MTL or vice versa. Finally, we investigated functional connectivity in functional magnetic resonance imaging data of healthy subjects with seeds in the MTL and PFC. With increasing load, EEG phase synchronization between the IT cortex and anterior parahippocampal gyrus and within the MTL increased. Coupling was bidirectional in all load conditions, but changed toward an increased top-down (anterior parahippocampal gyrus --> IT) coupling in the high gamma range (51-75 Hz) with increasing load. Functional connectivity between the MTL seed and the visual association cortex increased with load, but activity within the MTL and the PFC correlated with fewer voxels, suggesting that more specific neural networks were engaged. These data indicate that WM for multiple items depends on an increased strength of top-down control of activity within the IT cortex by the MTL.