Transformation of Instructional Practice through Aesthetic Experiences

This longitudinal ethnographic study involved a professional development project, Project Partnerships Achieve Literacy (Project PAL) in South Africa, with eight rural foundation phase teachers who taught Reception (kindergarten) through grade three (R-3). This Project was designed to support teachers in an under-resourced school as they learned strategic approaches to literacy teaching and learning with the aim to improve the reading achievement of their children. Located in aesthetics theory, researchers engaged teachers in aesthetic experiences, or experiences that were infused with the arts (art, drama, video, music, reader’s theater), children’s literature, and technology. Research questions were as follows: What can be learned from an aesthetic approach to professional development? What does engagement look like in aesthetic experiences in professional development? Do aesthetic experiences resonate with teachers and inform their instruction? Three findings emerged from an constant comparative analysis of classroom observations, interviews, teacher artifacts, researcher debriefs, video and audio recordings: 1) Feelings and the arts were significant in what and how teachers learned in professional development workshops; 2) Aesthetic experiences led to critical and democratic talk around professional development and issues of social importance; and 3) Aesthetic experiences informed teachers’ in and out of classroom practice. Findings from this study suggest that professional development holds significant promise when it is sustained, imaginative, and relatable, and positions teachers to think differently about themselves as learners and teachers through aesthetic experiences. We suggest that drawing only from cognitive approaches and one-shot single-session professional development does not deeply address the qualities, feelings, emotions, and embodied responses that comprise the aesthetic experience in professional development, and argue for a deeper understanding of professional development, one in which aesthetic learning and experiences are central to teacher learning

Knotty Articulations: Professors and Preservice Teachers on Teaching Literacy in Urban Schools

In this qualitative study, we examined preservice teachers’ articulations of what it meant to teach literacy in urban settings and the roles that we as university instructors played in their understandings of the terms urban, literacy, and teacher. We framed the study within extant studies of teacher education and research on metaphors. Data indicated that the participants metaphorically constructed literacy as an object that could be passed from teacher to student and that was often missing, hidden, or buried in urban settings. Implications of the study suggest that faculty members are one factor among several important influences in preservice teachers becoming professionals, and the metaphors faculty use in teaching preservice teachers deserve careful consideration

Critical Spaces for Critical Times: Global Conversations in Literacy Research as an Open Professional Development and Practices Resource

This paper reflects an OER (Open Educational Resources) critical literacy project, Global Conversations in Literacy Research (GCLR), (www.globalconversationsinliteracy.wordpress.com), now in its fourth year. GCLR annually hosts seven web seminars presented by internationally recognized literacy and education scholars. We outline key dimensions of GCLR not only as an OER but as an open educational practice (OEP) (Andrade et al., 2011) that through its design, not only provides open access to scholarship, but also understands the critical nexus among resources, practices and theory. Informed by data from a longitudinal study, this paper situates these dimensions within professional development literature, and outlines GCLR as a critical space designed for critical times, and the importance of intentionality when accessing OER. Like scholars before us, we argue that that availability is not the only consideration when using OER (Andrade et al., 2011); OER must be considered in relation to pedagogical considerations and how OER are used as a critical component to online professional development

The genetic architecture of the human cerebral cortex

The cerebral cortex underlies our complex cognitive capabilities, yet little is known about the specific genetic loci that influence human cortical structure. To identify genetic variants that affect cortical structure, we conducted a genome-wide association meta-analysis of brain magnetic resonance imaging data from 51,665 individuals. We analyzed the surface area and average thickness of the whole cortex and 34 regions with known functional specializations. We identified 199 significant loci and found significant enrichment for loci influencing total surface area within regulatory elements that are active during prenatal cortical development, supporting the radial unit hypothesis. Loci that affect regional surface area cluster near genes in Wnt signaling pathways, which influence progenitor expansion and areal identity. Variation in cortical structure is genetically correlated with cognitive function, Parkinson's disease, insomnia, depression, neuroticism, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder

Brain multiplexes reveal morphological connectional biomarkers fingerprinting late brain dementia states

Accurate diagnosis of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) before conversion to Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is invaluable for patient treatment. Many works showed that MCI and AD affect functional and structural connections between brain regions as well as the shape of cortical regions. However, ‘shape connections’ between brain regions are rarely investigated -e.g., how morphological attributes such as cortical thickness and sulcal depth of a specific brain region change in relation to morphological attributes in other regions. To fill this gap, we unprecedentedly design morphological brain multiplexes for late MCI/AD classification. Specifically, we use structural T1-w MRI to define morphological brain networks, each quantifying similarity in morphology between different cortical regions for a specific cortical attribute. Then, we define a brain multiplex where each intra-layer represents the morphological connectivity network of a specific cortical attribute, and each inter-layer encodes the similarity between two consecutive intra-layers. A significant performance gain is achieved when using the multiplex architecture in comparison to other conventional network analysis architectures. We also leverage this architecture to discover morphological connectional biomarkers fingerprinting the difference between late MCI and AD stages, which included the right entorhinal cortex and right caudal middle frontal gyrus

Multimodal and Multiscale Deep Neural Networks for the Early Diagnosis of Alzheimer’s Disease using structural MR and FDG-PET images

Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disease where biomarkers for disease based on pathophysiology may be able to provide objective measures for disease diagnosis and staging. Neuroimaging scans acquired from MRI and metabolism images obtained by FDG-PET provide in-vivo measurements of structure and function (glucose metabolism) in a living brain. It is hypothesized that combining multiple different image modalities providing complementary information could help improve early diagnosis of AD. In this paper, we propose a novel deep-learning-based framework to discriminate individuals with AD utilizing a multimodal and multiscale deep neural network. Our method delivers 82.4% accuracy in identifying the individuals with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) who will convert to AD at 3 years prior to conversion (86.4% combined accuracy for conversion within 1–3 years), a 94.23% sensitivity in classifying individuals with clinical diagnosis of probable AD, and a 86.3% specificity in classifying non-demented controls improving upon results in published literature

The impact of PICALM genetic variations on reserve capacity of posterior cingulate in AD continuum

Phosphatidylinositolbinding clathrin assembly protein (PICALM) gene is one novel genetic player associated with late-onset Alzheimer’s disease (LOAD), based on recent genome wide association studies (GWAS). However, how it affects AD occurrence is still unknown. Brain reserve hypothesis highlights the tolerant capacities of brain as a passive means to fight against neurodegenerations. Here, we took the baseline volume and/or thickness of LOAD-associated brain regions as proxies of brain reserve capacities and investigated whether PICALM genetic variations can influence the baseline reserve capacities and the longitudinal atrophy rate of these specific regions using data from Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) dataset. In mixed population, we found that brain region significantly affected by PICALM genetic variations was majorly restricted to posterior cingulate. In sub-population analysis, we found that one PICALM variation (C allele of rs642949) was associated with larger baseline thickness of posterior cingulate in health. We found seven variations in health and two variations (rs543293 and rs592297) in individuals with mild cognitive impairment were associated with slower atrophy rate of posterior cingulate. Our study provided preliminary evidences supporting that PICALM variations render protections by facilitating reserve capacities of posterior cingulate in non-demented elderly

Early role of vascular dysregulation on late-onset Alzheimer's disease based on multifactorial data-driven analysis

Multifactorial mechanisms underlying late-onset Alzheimer's disease (LOAD) are poorly characterized from an integrative perspective. Here spatiotemporal alterations in brain amyloid-β deposition, metabolism, vascular, functional activity at rest, structural properties, cognitive integrity and peripheral proteins levels are characterized in relation to LOAD progression. We analyse over 7,700 brain images and tens of plasma and cerebrospinal fluid biomarkers from the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI). Through a multifactorial data-driven analysis, we obtain dynamic LOAD–abnormality indices for all biomarkers, and a tentative temporal ordering of disease progression. Imaging results suggest that intra-brain vascular dysregulation is an early pathological event during disease development. Cognitive decline is noticeable from initial LOAD stages, suggesting early memory deficit associated with the primary disease factors. High abnormality levels are also observed for specific proteins associated with the vascular system's integrity. Although still subjected to the sensitivity of the algorithms and biomarkers employed, our results might contribute to the development of preventive therapeutic interventions

The long shot

96 p. : il; 23 c