Leveling transparency via situated intermediary learning objectives (SILOs)

When designers set out to create a mathematics learning activity, they have a fair sense of its objectives: students will understand a concept and master relevant procedural skills. In reform-oriented activities, students first engage in concrete situations, wherein they achieve situated, intermediary learning objectives (SILOs), and only then they rearticulate their solutions formally. We define SILOs as heuristics learners devise to accommodate contingencies in an evolving problem space, e.g., monitoring and repairing manipulable structures so that they model with fidelity a source situation. Students achieve SILOs through problem-solving with media, instructors orient toward SILOs via discursive solicitation, and designers articulate SILOs via analyzing implementation data. We describe the emergence of three SILOs in developing the activity Giant Steps for Algebra. Whereas the notion of SILOs emerged spontaneously as a framework to organize a system of practice, i.e. our collaborative design, it aligns with phenomenological theory of knowledge as instrumented action

Assessing California's Multiple Pathways Field

The multiple pathways approach to high school education combines rigorous academic learning and career skills to give students the intellectual and real-world experience to succeed in college, career and life. Growing evidence shows that the multiple pathways approach holds promise for increasing academic engagement and achievement, reducing high school dropout rates and boosting students' future earning power. The James Irvine Foundation engaged the Bridgespan Group to assess the state of the multiple pathways field in California and to make recommendations to strengthen it. Assessing California's Multiple Pathways Field: Preparing Youth for Success in College and Career offers findings and recommendations based on a newly developed framework that assesses the multiple pathways field based on five characteristics of strong fields

Characteristics of Historic Areas and Buildings in the City of Uşak and Recommendations for a Sustainable Conservation Area Approach

This article is on creating a conservation framework for the historic areas and houses of the city of Uşak, which represents peculiar examples of vernacular architecture of the Anatolian region. The city of Uşak is an Anatolian city with a rich historical background. Even though the history of Uşak dates back to 4000 years, most architectural evidence of history have disappeared except late 19th and early 20th century houses. They stand as signifiers the historic identity of the city. From the ancient times many different civilizations have settled and developed in Uşak in a wide variety of ways of life, concepts and forms. Uşak has always been a most important regional location between Europe and Asia. Also it has experienced migration and settlement of various cultures and civilization through time. Through the influence of climatic and physical factors of the region and the historical variety of culture, the development of the Central Anatolian house form and culture has been comparatively significant. In Uşak, natural conditions had a direct and strong influence of the form of buildings and their construction. All factors have combined to produce a wide variety of forms and structures. Most of the traditional wooden houses are produced in the “himis” (Turkish traditional construction system which consist of wood and adobe) structural system technique. Uşak houses have been demonstrating qualities such as continuity of architectural identity, sustaining of collective memory, sustaining building techniques. There is an urgent need to include the Uşak houses as a conservation agenda to contemporary planning and design dynamics of the city. A sustainability framework for the conservation and reuse of these homes could be a major objective, fulfilling all or most environmental, economic and socio-cultural aspects. In addition to this article aims to provide solution alternatives that provide measures for the conservation (and reuse) of the historical houses in Uşak