Building 6C’s (Critical Thinking, Collaboration, Communication, Creativity, Culture, Connectivity) in the Chinese Learning Classroom

This teaching portfolio is a product of the author’s studies in the Masters of Second Language Teaching Program at Utah State University and her experiences as a teacher of Chinese at the elementary school level in the State of Utah’s public school Dual Immersion program. The author provides a selection of teaching reflections and research that have had the most impact on her teaching practice. First, the author offers personal reflections and a theoretical framework for her pedagogy in the Teaching Perspectives section, through a discussion of her professional environment and teaching experience; this is followed by the Teaching Philosophy Statement, which explains the lens through which she views her teaching practice, and a discussion of a selection of teaching observations conducted. The Teaching Philosophy Statement speaks to the importance of connectivity and how learners may best connect with language. The Teaching Philosophy also offers some best practices for a student-centered, task-based, communicative, classroom environment and how best to facilitate language learning. Second, the portfolio focuses on the scholarship of teaching and learning, in the Research Perspectives section, in which the author includes two selected papers written in the course of the masters program, including: a paper that investigates teaching culture in the elementary Dual Language Immersion context and a paper that explores teaching Chinese as a foreign language through task-based learning and Computer-Assisted Language Learning. It concludes with an Annotated Bibliography that represents a literature review and crystallization of the topic of humor in enhancing learner engagement. Through these select theoretical and practical discussions of teaching, the author suggests that language teachers need to be mindful of 6 C’s: critical thinking, collaboration, communication, creativity, culture, connectivity, offering a modification of the 5 C’s in the American Council of Teaching of Foreign Languages standards. The portfolio culminates with the author’s career plans and the continuing journey to improve and innovate in her teaching

Rhetorical moves and identity performance in online child sexual abuse interactions

Online child sexual abuse (OCSA) is a pervasive problem facilitated by the anonymity afforded to offenders online. From a largely social constructionist perspective, this thesis explores linguistic expressions of identity by participants across a range of OCSA interactions, including offenders and suspected offenders, victims, and undercover police officers. The thesis is structured around three individual studies, each involving a different abusive interaction type. Each study employs Swales’ (1981; 1990) move analysis framework, exploring how participants use rhetorical moves as a resource for identity performance. Study 1 concerns a convicted offender who strategically cycled through numerous adopted personas when interacting with victims online. It considers his performance of various identity positions through his use of rhetorical moves across different personas. One persona is found to diverge significantly from the rest, and is identified as a possible reflection of the offender’s ‘home identity’. Study 2 considers interactions between suspected offenders and undercover police officers posing as offenders. It compares the participants’ move use and explores linguistic realisations of supportive exchanges, finding that aside a few notable differences, undercover officers perform the offender identity similarly to genuine suspected offenders. Study 3 explores dark web forum posts authored by ‘newbies’ attempting to join existing online communities of suspected offenders. It examines the identity positions performed in the posts and considers how positions of competence and expertise contribute to the persuasive process of seeking membership into online offending communities. Taking findings from these studies, the thesis discusses the possible contributions of move analysis to OCSA research and how rhetorical moves are used as a resource for identity performance, and offers an approach to identity analysis based on rhetorical moves. It concludes by arguing for move analysis as a useful goal-centred approach to identity investigation and describes potential implications of this work for law-enforcement, education and research

Christopher Small's concept of musicking: Toward a theory of choral singing pedagogy in prison contexts.

Ph.D., Music Education and Music Therapy, University of Kansas, 2007The purpose of this investigation was to raise and examine questions relevant to building a theory of choral singing pedagogy for prison-based choirs with reference to Christopher Small's (1927- ) concept of "musicking." Historical-biographical method was employed to construct an account of Small's life and work using published sources and personal interviews with Small. Philosophical inquiry was used to examine his published writing, the roots and logic of major propositions contributing to his mature concept of musicking, and published criticisms to date of Small's philosophy. Thereafter, Small's philosophy of musicking was investigated in terms of its explanatory power in building a theory of choral singing pedagogy in prison contexts. In that regard, Small's concept of musicking was compared to major propositions articulated by traditional aesthetic philosophies of music, and contrasted with three contemporary North American philosophies of music education (Reimer, Jorgensen Elliott) with respect to the logical capacity of each philosophical framework to respond to two primary assumptions: (a) choral singing typically entails the articulation and communication of words ("the word factor") and (b) choral singing evidences a union between musical agent and musical instrument ("the somatic factor"). Major arguments advanced were that (a) Small's concept of musicking more ably accommodates the word factor and the somatic factor than either traditional aesthetic philosophies or the three philosophies of music education examined; and (b) the contextual and relational components of Small's concept of musicking render it able to address many of the variables unique to choral pedagogy in prison contexts. Finally, a theory of interactional choral pedagogy in prison contexts, based on Small's concept of musicking, was advanced. The proposed theory was addressed in terms of defining its operational variables, specifying relationships among those variables, and stating the theory such that it could be falsified or confirmed through subsequent research and assessment. It was suggested that Small's concept of musicking may signal a paradigm shift in ways of thinking about choral singing pedagogy in prisons and other contexts

You are the controller: the ubiquitous interface and interactive digital media art installations

This is the Proceedings Book of the 2nd Interface Politics International Conference (After Post-Truth) organised at BAU College of Design in Barcelona which includes most of papers and keynotes held during the conference that took place in BAU, HANGAR and MACBA on 29, 29 and 30 of November 2018. The conference was organized by GREDITS (Research Group in Design and Social Transformation) with the contribution of HANGAR, MACBA and Artnodes Journal which published a special issue on the Conference. // Interface Politics is an International Conference originally created by GREDITS / BAU in 2016 with the aim of analyzing and discussing the role of interfaces as a communicational and linguistic mechanism, and as a device with political, commercial and labor agency. An interface can be defined as a communication system that serves to translate physical realities into technical languages and viceversa, or to make compatible different technical languages. // The second Conference was devoted to explore the relationships between interfaces and the Post-Truth regime

Knowledge and Management Models for Sustainable Growth

In the last years sustainability has become a topic of global concern and a key issue in the strategic agenda of both business organizations and public authorities and organisations. Significant changes in business landscape, the emergence of new technology, including social media, the pressure of new social concerns, have called into question established conceptualizations of competitiveness, wealth creation and growth. New and unaddressed set of issues regarding how private and public organisations manage and invest their resources to create sustainable value have brought to light. In particular the increasing focus on environmental and social themes has suggested new dimensions to be taken into account in the value creation dynamics, both at organisations and communities level. For companies the need of integrating corporate social and environmental responsibility issues into strategy and daily business operations, pose profound challenges, which, in turn, involve numerous processes and complex decisions influenced by many stakeholders. Facing these challenges calls for the creation, use and exploitation of new knowledge as well as the development of proper management models, approaches and tools aimed to contribute to the development and realization of environmentally and socially sustainable business strategies and practices

A COMPARISON BETWEEN MOTIVATIONS AND PERSONALITY TRAITS IN RELIGIOUS TOURISTS AND CRUISE SHIP TOURISTS

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the motivations and the personality traits that characterize tourists who choose religious travels versus cruises. Participating in the research were 683 Italian tourists (345 males and 338 females, age range 18–63 years); 483 who went to a pilgrimage travel and 200 who chose a cruise ship in the Mediterranean Sea. Both groups of tourists completed the Travel Motivation Scale and the Big Five Questionnaire. Results show that different motivations and personality traits characterize the different types of tourists and, further, that motivations for traveling are predicted by specific —some similar, other divergent— personality trait