Book Review

Interpreting Ladies: Women, Wit, and Morality in the Restoration Comedy of Manners (Pat Gill) (Reviewed by Harold Weber) Swift\u27s Politics: A Study in Disaffection (Ian Higgins) (Reviewed by Carole Fabricant) The Life of Walter Scott: A Critical Biography (John Sutherland) (Reviewed by Ina Ferris) Imageless Truths: Shelley\u27s Poetic Fictions (Karen Weisman) Shelley\u27S Satire: Violence, Exhortation, and Authority (Steven Jones) (Reviewed by Mark Kipperman) Annoying the Victorians (James R. Kincaid) (Reviewed by Antony H. Harrison) Impressions of Theophrastus Such (George Eliot) (Ed. Nancy Henry) (Reviewed by John R. Reed) The Contingency of Theory: Pragmatism, Expressivism, and Deconstruction (Gary Wihl) (Reviewed by Robert Alexander) Memory, History, and the Extermination of the Jews of Europe (Saul Friedlander) (Reviewed by James E. Young

Scott Pilgrim vs. the Times

Bryan Lee O\u27Malley\u27s Scott Pilgrim series is, arguably, one of the most important American literary works of the early twenty-first century. Evaluating this work w/r/t multimediality and simultaneous multiliteracy, emotions and affective states, friends and their informal economies, and the role of active fandoms in current artistic production, this thesis seeks to explain why Scott Pilgrim has found such deep resonance with a generation of kids growing up at the time of publication

The impact of a mathematics research experience on teachers\u27 conceptions of student learning

Many mathematics teacher professional development programs have either incorporated or been organized around a goal of providing research-like (Cuoco, 2001) experiences. That is, teachers participate in a project that somehow simulates the mathematics research process. Though some research studies have shown positive outcomes from such programs, researchers have cautioned against assuming universally positive benefits without sufficient evidence (Proulx and Bednarz, 2001). Teacher conceptions of student learning play an important role in lesson development and preparation for classroom work (Penso & Shoham, 2003). Similarities between the processes of mathematics research and student learning (Dreyfus, 1991) beg the question of whether experience with one (mathematics research) might impact the way one thinks about the other (student learning). The current study investigates the impact of one research-like professional development program on teachers\u27 conceptions of student learning. This study used belief surveys combined with five case studies. The case studies were based on a series of task-based interviews utilizing lesson planning tasks that employed Simon\u27s (1995) notion of a hypothetical learning trajectory. The results indicate that teachers\u27 primary beliefs remained consistent and impacted the ways in which they interpreted their experiences, but that some peripheral beliefs changed. General themes included an increased emphasis on exploring multiple problems in order to motivate conjectures or generalizations and increased empathy toward students learning unfamiliar content. Individual teachers exhibited some idiosyncratic changes, as well. For each individual, changes in peripheral beliefs were consistent with those aspects of the teacher\u27s own learning experiences that he or she found to be most meaningful. Indeed, the results indicate that experience learning unfamiliar mathematics content was the aspect of the program that most powerfully impacted the participants. Teachers drew parallels between mathematics research and student learning, but only as they drew parallels between their own experience, which they understood to be research-like , and that of their students. The implications of these results and the directions they suggest for future research are also explored

An institutional economic approach to land and propterty markets: Urban dynamics and institutional change

Urban Development;Real Estate;Institutionalism;housing economics

The Evolution of Women\u27s Intercollegiate Athletics at Oberlin College

Over two years ago, I read an article written in 1973 entitled Sport is Unfair to Women. While researching possible honors topics, I remembered that article. Preliminary research uncovered a wealth of information on women\u27s athletics, Title IX, and the continuing problems faced by female athletes. By sheer coincidence, I learned that Oberlin College was investigated for possible Title IX violations. Further inquiry revealed that little if any research existed concerning the history of Oberlin\u27s young women\u27s athletic program. Before I could say Jack Scott, the topic entranced me, and I remain under its spell to this day. If ever I have experienced love with an academic project, this thesis embodies those feelings. I became fascinated with how the program evolved to its present state. Working with the premise that Title IX provided a subtle impetus behind the growth of the women\u27s athletic program at Oberlin College, I began my research. Many of the law\u27s effects were hidden by the overwhelming personality of Jack Scott, the director of athletics in the early 1970s. Yet, I wanted to trace the major developments in the program to ascertain the causes behind these changes. I wanted to examine Oberlin College\u27s response to a specific gender issue in light of federal legislation and a vocal constituency in favor of women\u27s athletics

Student learning and cognition in cooperative small groups : towards a fourth metaphor of human learning

Research into the benefits of cooperative learning has focussed most attention onto a social psychological perspective with the result that the putative cognitive benefits of these strategies have not been thoroughly researched and clearly delineated. One consequence of this research focus has been that cooperative learning strategies are not always adopted by teachers and included permanently into their regular classroom practice, thereby possibly denying some students the potential for cognitive gain. This study was conceived originally as an investigation into the claimed cognitive benefits of small-group cooperative learning from a cognitive perspective but the investigation of the cooperative learning literature also led to an investigation of the general learning literature base. Recent research suggested that human learning might not have been described adequately by the earlier perspectives. Some authors contended that a fourth metaphor of human learning may be emerging from the socio-cultural perspectives. Investigating how students learn in cooperative situations was seen as a potential vehicle for the wider investigation of a fourth metaphor. It was against this background that the present study was undertaken. Learning was not seen in terms of a dichotomy between the main cognitivist and socially based perspectives so a pluralist approach was adopted in this study in an attempt to reconcile some of the differences between the main perspectives. Process-product research has been criticised for providing a narrow view of the classroom lives of students. Additionally, critics of laboratory-based research have argued for research to regain its connection with real classroom settings. Given the contentions of several authors, this study was conceived as non-positivist, naturalistic and pluralist within the post-modernist era. Five groups of students at two schools were recruited for this qualitative case study. The students\u27 learning from five purpose-designed lessons was tracked through their transcribed discussions and their recall in learning journals . Journal data were collected as much as twelve months after the last lesson was completed, enabling the longitudinal tracking of student learning. A major finding of the research was the strong mediational effects on student learning of the classroom context and the group within the classroom. The nature of student talk also impacted strongly upon student learning. Evidence was found of both individual and social construction of knowledge. Knowledge sometimes seemed to appear initially as a group construct but was later modified significantly by the students\u27 individual minds. Although all knowledge originated in socio-cultural contexts, usually through the ultimate human social semiotic of language, the final form of the knowledge appeared highly individual and idiosyncratic. The idiosyncratic nature of the students\u27 learning led the researcher to posit that knowledge resided in the individual neural structures of the brain. This mind-as-brain proposition was advanced as a contribution towards a fourth metaphor of human learning. The findings suggested several implications for teachers about the recommended procedures for small-group cooperative learning. Implications for research included further neuroscience investigations into human learning because of the potential for this kind of research to inform practice