Educational Repercussions Research Articles

Mobile-based Extensive Reading

Mobile devices have sweeping repercussions in education and suggest shifting content-engagement paradigms. Extensive reading (ER) is not unaffected by the many evolving aspects of mobile technology in second language classrooms. This paper reflects on Xreading®, an online graded reader (GR) and learning management system (LMS) designed for digital ER. Students at a private university in Tokyo had access to this online library using mobile devices. While overall reflections were positive, actual engagement with GR's and the software, was significantly lower for a surprising number of participants. Focusing on those reluctant readers (RRs) this study investigates the basis for disengagement, both with ER and perhaps with mobile technology. Using a post-pilot questionnaire and focus group discussion, the authors attempted to understand reasons behind the disconnect. Key findings for why students neglected this system included: insufficient software training, misconceptions about reading extensively and ineffective exploitation of intrinsic and extrinsic motivators.

Rabbit-ears hybrids, VSEPR sterics, and other orbital anachronisms

We describe the logical flaws, experimental contradictions, and unfortunate educational repercussions of common student misconceptions regarding the shapes and properties of lone pairs, inspired by overemphasis on “valence shell electron pair repulsion” (VSEPR) rationalizations in current freshman-level chemistry textbooks. VSEPR-style representations of orbital shape and size are shown to be fundamentally inconsistent with numerous lines of experimental and theoretical evidence, including quantum mechanical “symmetry” principles that are sometimes invoked in their defense. VSEPR-style conceptions thereby detract from more accurate introductory-level teaching of orbital hybridization and bonding principles, while also requiring wasteful “unlearning” as the student progresses to higher levels. We include specific suggestions for how VSEPR-style rationalizations of molecular structure can be replaced with more accurate conceptions of hybridization and its relationship to electronegativity and molecular geometry, in accordance both with Bent's rule and the consistent features of modern wavefunctions as exhibited by natural bond orbital (NBO) analysis.

Postmortem studies in the contemporary pediatric intensive care unit*

To describe the implementation of an educational program that achieved high compliance with autopsy requests and consents in a pediatric intensive care unit. To evaluate the concordance between clinical diagnoses and autopsy findings and to identify patient characteristics in which postmortem diagnosis elucidated the primary disease process. Retrospective, observational study. A pediatric intensive care unit in a tertiary care teaching hospital. All pediatric intensive care unit patients with autopsy reports from 2000 to 2005. An educational program and protocol were initiated in 1995-1996 to raise awareness and formalize the process for autopsy request. From 2000 to 2005, data were collected from medical records and pathology department autopsy reports. Premortem and postmortem diagnoses were compared utilizing the modified Goldman's classification. The associations of Goldman's classification with age of patients and length of stay were explored. After the educational program was instituted, an autopsy rate of >50% was attained compared to 20%-30% in previous years (p < .05). From 2000 to 2005, 139 autopsies were performed. In 111 patients (79.8%), complete concordance of premortem and postmortem diagnoses was found; in 22 cases (16%), there was no concordance and in six cases the postmortem studies failed to explain the mechanism of death. Autopsies provided new and pertinent findings in 47.5% of all studies, with histologic information accounting for 58% of them. A relationship between short length of stay and the presence of autopsy findings elucidating the main disease process was found (p < .05). It is feasible to produce a sustainable increase in the rate of postmortem studies within an organization. Autopsy results added new information to almost half of the patients, particularly those who died soon after admission. A pediatric intensive care unit strategy to increase and maintain compliance with autopsy requests is an important practice with favorable clinical and educational repercussions.

The COPING Project - children of prisoners, interventions and mitigations to strengthen mental health

Background/Objectives: COPING is a child-centred project which aims to investigate the characteristics and care of children with imprisoned parents, their resilience, and their vulnerability to mental health problems. This group of children is exposed to break-up of the family, financial hardship, and extremes of stigma and secrecy, leading to adverse social and educational repercussions. COPING aims to enhance understanding of mental health needs of prisoners’ children; to explore childhood resilience and coping strategies and assess the value of these concepts for planning of interventions; to bring together European and international perspectives to investigate the nature and extent of mental health problems affecting prisoners’ children; to raise awareness of policymakers and service providers across EU countries to the needs of this under-researched group; and to identify effective policy interventions and steer public policy to ameliorate mental health implications for affected children.

The Educational Repercussions of Revisionist Theory in Academia: Are Educators Sanctioning Racial and Ethnic Discrimination?

The Educational Repercussions of Revisionist Theory in Academia: Are Educators Sanctioning Racial and Ethnic Discrimination?

Implications of Ubiquitous Computing for the Social Studies Curriculum

In March 2002, members of the National Technology Leadership Initiative (NTLI) met in Charlottesville, Virginia to discuss the potential effects of ubiquitous computing on the field of education. Ubiquitous computing, or “on-demand availability of task-necessary computingpower,” involves providing every student with a handheld computer—a situation with enormous repercussions for education and teacher education. Over a two-day period, participants engaged in intensive discussion of the issue of ubiquitous computing and developed seven conclusions. This paper, written by the representatives from social studies organizations, seeks to examine the specific implications of these seven conclusions for the field of social studies education. The paper discusses the concept of ubiquitous computing and the impact this technology shift may have on social studies curricula, teacher preparation, software development, and research agendas.

Ethnomathematics and the Brazilian Landless people education

The present study describes and analyses an investigation, shich was developed at a settlement of the Brazilian Landless Movement, a social movement organised to achieve land reform in Brazil. The main purpose of the research consisted in preparing and implementing pedagogical work in the field of mathematics education, from an ethnomathematics perspective, at a public school connected to the Landless Movement, looking at its educational repercussions. They are discussed in this study with regard to the relationship between the pedagogical principles enunciated by the movement for its schools and the perspective of ethnomathematics. The research done showed the potential for this contribution, indicating the possibilities of a specific area of knowledge participating in the construction of an education connected to the interests of the social groups which, throughout history, have been marginalized and excluded.

The Educational Legacy of Durkheim

Durkheim has justifiably been dubbed not only one of the founding fathers of general sociology, but also of the sociology of education, and is perhaps the most distinguished of those scholars who have ever held a chair in education. From his first appointment as a lecturer in Bordeaux, and throughout his later appointment to a chair in Paris until his death in 1917 he lectured on education as well as sociology. In this way not only was sociology introduced as a discipline into French universities, but education also gained a tenuous foothold. His audience were future primary and secondary teachers, and included the intellectual high-fliers of the Ecole Normale Superieure preparing for the agregation. Indeed over half of all his university lecture courses were in educational studies. His range was wide, but the theme of the historical development of the French education system, together with 'practical exercises', predominated. Of the other courses-moral education, pedagogy (which he defined as 'practical theory', 'neither the educational activity itself, nor the speculative science of education'), the education of the intelligence, and psychology applied to education-it was the first he professed most frequently. However, his publications on education are confined mainly to the courses he gave, and it is for his general sociological works that he is most remembered today. This French symposium presents an up-to-date assessment by French sociologists of his status today exclusively as a writer on education. Reviewing the collection of papers, one is struck by the little impact Durkheim has made on education outside his own country. In Britain his general sociology was discussed as early as 1904 at a meeting of the newly-formed Sociological Society. The previous year sociology had been introduced as a discipline at London University; undoubtedly pioneers in teaching the new subject such as Patrick Geddes and Westermarck were familiar with his work. Although Karl Mannheim gave a series of brilliant lectures at the London Institute of Education immediately after the war, sociology of education was hardly developed in Britain until the 1960s, and Durkheim's ideas would appear to have made little impact. A paper by Brian Davies makes the case for Basil Bernstein to be considered 'Durkheimian', but the educational repercussions of his work on social codes show little evidence of this, with the possible exception of his classificatory framework. (By contrast, as Henriot-Van Zanten points out, in France, where the part played by language in education is more seriously esteemed than in Britain, Bernstein's work has been influential. Viviane Isambert-Jamati, in another paper on Durkheim's view of the place of the humanities in the secondary school, quotes him (p. 176) as declaring language to be 'the common foundation of all

Diagnostic profiles obtained from a psychoacoustic assessment procedure with mathematically impaired subjects

A three‐phase assessment paradigm was implemented to identify possible areas of dysfunction in auditory visual perception and processing by mathematically impaired subjects. Phase I involved assessing peripheral auditory acuity, Phase II tested central auditory processing, and Phase III evaluated cortical integration of auditory and visual sensory information. Several diagnostically significant profiles emerged from the test data, and will be discussed in regard to relevance in designing successful mathematical training programs for the mathematically impaired population. The profiles will be presented and discussed as to clinical and educational repercussions.

Plato, Utilitarianism and Education.

Three lines of argument are central to this book: that Plato's views as expounded in the Republic indicate that he was a utilitarian; that utilitarianism is the only acceptable ethical theory; that these conclusions have significant repercussions for education. Throughout the book the exposition of utilitarianism and the interpretation of the Republic are closely linked. The author assesses the nature of recent Platonic criticism and provides a critical summary of the Republic. He expounds and defends utilitarianismn and examines in greater depth the consequences for education of accepting a utilitarian position, showing how, for example, from this standpoint such key terms in educational debate as 'autonomy' and 'self-development' must be reassessed as educational objectives.