An exploration of how a drama-based pedagogy can promote understanding of chemical concepts in 11-15 year old science students

A growing body of evidence suggests that some Science teachers use drama-based strategies in order to promote understanding of abstract scientific concepts. These strategies employ action and imagination to simulate systems and processes that are too fast, too slow, too big, too small, too expensive or too dangerous to observe in the classroom. A small group of quantitative and qualitative studies over the past thirty years has suggested that these physical simulations enable learning in secondary students, by promoting discourse and by conveying concept features through a range of sensations. The field is as yet under-theorised, consisting of single case designs and unreplicated methodologies. This multiple case study focused upon an intervention design based on a pedagogical model developed in my Masters research. This study aimed to explore the characteristics of students’ interaction and the nature of their resultant conceptions over four months. Each case focussed upon one of eight Key Stage 3 and Key Stage 4 classes across a variety of UK schools. In each, a curriculum-based particle theory topic was taught in a double-period lesson. Data included video, participant observations, and interviews with three students from each class collected at pre, post and delayed intervals. Findings suggested that the pedagogy engendered engagement and self-regulation in group model-making tasks, and supported thought experiment-type visualisations of dynamic processes. Conceptual development was found to continue up to four months after the lessons. A model of learning was developed in which social interaction and multimodal discourse promoted the association of conceptual features with affective, visual and embodied images, which supported recall, discussion and further conceptual development in the longer term

The healthy organisation: is it meaningful?

In the thesis we have defined what is understood as a high health organization, and this in comparison with what is commonly known as a high performance organization. While much research is undertaken around high performance organizations, little or no research is undertaken around high health organizations. The thesis attempts to find answers to what it takes to be or to become a high health organization, and how organizations could create such a place, or possibly better “space”. Indeed, a high health organization is not a place, a building, or on organizational structure; it is a state of mind, a purpose, a form of coherence. The work in this thesis is by definition multidisciplinary and systemic, rooted in three, for the purpose, complementary research areas. Workplace spirituality is slowly making its recognition in the management literature, though still too much as a discipline in itself. Ayurveda, the thousands of years old wisdom tradition around systemic health, living systems and purposefulness does get some attention in academic work, however mainly within its cultural roots (of India). Finally, systemic thinking, not really mainstream yet either, is a scientific discipline that did find its way in the sciences, but is much less popular and use in management studies. As argued, we think that in the intersection of workplace spirituality, Ayurveda and systemics, a real new concept of a high health organization is emerging. Key concepts identified in the introduction were consciousness and coherence, which they play an important role in the entire thesis. The prevailing management research is based on an ontology of materialism, while it is clear that workplace spirituality, Ayurveda and systemics do not necessarily fit such an ontology. We have commented on an ontology of non-materialism, based on complexity theory and in particular the understanding of complex adaptive systems. If we would like to explore the concept of a high health organization, an adequate ontology (and epistemology) is necessary. It is impossible to develop a non-materialistic concepts within a materialistic ontology. The consequence of this ontological choice for our research methods are multiple and innovative. Our research method goes beyond deterministic causality, and attempts to visualize entanglement. It can only be based on a much more systemic analysis than what we are used to, hence we use Artificial Neural Networks and Semantics as analytical tools. Based on the results of our field research, the high health organization in a nutshell has the following components: 1. A systemic, values-based vision is the lighthouse of the high health organization 2. Values, and in particular lived values, are the driver of the high health organization 3. Transparent, clear, respectful and non-violent communication is the binding factor 4. A knowledge and learning culture is the necessary condition for a healthy organization 5. Organisational consciousness in the organization is the sufficient conditio

Plato and the Internet: Liberating Knowledge From Our Heads

My aim in this paper is to look at corporate knowledge engineering and see what it tells us about the philosophy of knowledge. The question I am asking is whether there is anything specific in engineering that could change our understanding of what or how we know. I am interested less in generating a theory of the relationship, rather more in raising a set of questions which I hope will stimulate a dialogue between the disciplines of knowledge and engineering. The distinguished computer scientist Edsger Dijkstra, once said that “Computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes”, and in that spirit I want to argue that epistemology is no more about people than astronomy is about telescopes. This paper is in five sections. To begin with, I will provide a caricature of the philosophy of knowledge. Second, I want to look at where traditional epistemology fails to connect with people’s actual problems concerning knowledge. Third, I will look at the situation in reverse and think about who - or what - is the knowing subject and what epistemology would look like if actual practical problems were its starting point. Next will come a brief digression on knowledge technologies, before some tentatively-expressed (but no less firmly held) conclusions about the relationship between engineering and philosophy

Meeting disability with resiliency, hope and agency: a narrative study of caregivers of children with cognitive and physical disabilities

Studies of caregivers of children with disabilities have historically assumed a deficit or disease model, while at the same time relying heavily on quantitative measures of stress and maladaptive behaviors. There is a dearth of qualitative and constructivist research into caregivers who are successfully thriving while caring for children with significant physical and cognitive disabilities. The purpose of this dissertation is to use parent/caregiver narratives to provide a fuller picture of how the experience of raising a child with disabilities might in fact be positive and transformative. Eight caregivers and caregiving couples who self-identified as resilient, hopeful, and as advocates for their children are interviewed in both school and home settings, with the goal of giving medical, educational, and therapeutic professionals a fuller, more intimate picture of these lived experiences. A post-critical, ethnographic framework--putting the interviewer and interviewee in conversation with one another while preserving the textual integrity of the participants' stories--is central to the research methodology. Internal and external systems of caregiver support are examined, as well as the privileged concept of normalcy which acts to thwart full societal acceptance and inclusion. Implications for caregiver and community responses through advocacy, an ethic of care, and public policy initiatives are proffered