Unit standards : an 'easy' pathway for foundation learners : a thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Education (Adult) at Massey University, Massey Campus

Foundation learners come into the tertiary environment at levels one, two and three. They can select from courses of study that include unit standard assessment. These unit standards are credits toward a vast array of national certificates. In recent years, learners have been faced with an ever increasing variety of ways in which they can complete these qualifications from classroom based to online modes of delivery. Many of the programmes and courses on offer are zero fee and promise a self-paced and individualised learning environment. Further investigation reveals that even at this foundation level these programmes play an important role in the political and social agenda to upskill all New Zealanders to better prepare them for the 21st century. The sweeping reforms of the 1990s have turned educational courses at all levels into industry focused curricular (Peters & Marshall, 1996; Olssen & Mathews, 1997; O'Neill et al., 2004) and unit standards are increasingly the chosen pathway of those changes. Over the last 15 years, polytechnics and private training establishments have incorporated New Zealand Qualifications Authority unit standards into many of their programmes. The intention was that these units would be assessments only and would be able to be 'massaged' into existing courses. This proved to be challenging for educators (Goodwill, 1999) and unit standards now dominate the curriculum (Codd, 1997). This research focused on how foundation learners were experiencing unit standards. Nineteen foundation learners, studying at an ITP and two PTEs, were invited to talk about their feelings about assessment, what they thought unit standards were, and how they were finding them. These learners took part in an individual interview and a focused group conversation. The results identified that foundation learners are having an 'easy ride' with unit standards. They can learn the material and then pass the unit. If they don't meet the requirements of the unit standard, they get another chance and do a resit. They like learning 'unit' by 'unit' and doing the assessment straight after the learning, while it is still 'fresh.' If possible they prefer to do it at their own pace, working through the material and being assessed when they are ready. They are now finding assessment less scary than previous experiences and there is opportunity to feel a sense of achievement and not be compared with others. The transparency of the units appeals and the relationship with the tutor is seen as important. It was also evident that students are studying 'units' and that sometimes they find the language of the assessments difficult to understand. There has been a shift in learning, from curriculum-driven 'education' focused programmes to student-driven 'industry-influenced' credit acquisition. The National Qualifications Framework has succeeded in its goal of offering units as attractive learning packages. These learners accept the new language of learning; they don't have the knowledge or understanding about assessment to question the units that are offered to them. "They have no insights into the reforms, no understanding of their political rationales, nor any methods of critiquing them"(O'Neill et al., 2004, p, 17). The biggest challenge for educators is not to teach the unit standard, rather engage learners and encourage them to explore their curriculum in a broader sense. Foundation learners now understand the value of credits; they also need to be encouraged to understand the value of education. 'Learning for life' should be more intrinsic than getting a box ticked. This research highlights the importance of the learning environment, the relationship between learner and tutor, and the relevance of explaining clearly what unit standards are, and how they fit into the bigger picture of the National Qualifications Framework and education itself as a life changing path

Formation and characterization of inorganic membranes from zeolite-silica microcomposites

Small crystals of zeolites (500-1000 nm) with two- and three-dimensional channel systems (faujasite and ZSM-5 structures) were embedded in amorphous thin films derived from TEOS hydrolyzed in alcoholic solution. Scanning electron microscopy studies show that the zeolites can be quite evenly dispersed in the membrane, resulting in single layers of zeolite crystals protruding out of the amorphous matrix. In situ FT-IR studies with a series of probe molecules revealed that in most membranes the zeolites were 100% accessible from the gas phase. The membranes excluded molecules which are larger than the pore openings of the zeolite embedded in the composite

Entropic transport - A test bed for the Fick-Jacobs approximation

Biased diffusive transport of Brownian particles through irregularly shaped, narrow confining quasi-one-dimensional structures is investigated. The complexity of the higher dimensional diffusive dynamics is reduced by means of the so-called Fick-Jacobs approximation, yielding an effective one-dimensional stochastic dynamics. Accordingly, the elimination of transverse, equilibrated degrees of freedom stemming from geometrical confinements and/or bottlenecks cause entropic potential barriers which the particles have to overcome when moving forward noisily. The applicability and the validity of the reduced kinetic description is tested by comparing the approximation with Brownian dynamics simulations in full configuration space. This non-equilibrium transport in such quasi-one-dimensional irregular structures implies for moderate-to-strong bias a characteristic violation of the Sutherland-Einstein fluctuation-dissipation relation.Comment: 15 pages, 6 figures ; Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A (2009), in pres

Marmite Matters: Marmageddon and coping with disaster in New Zealand

Among its other devastating impacts, the February 2011 earthquake in the New Zealand city of Christchurch damaged and closed the only factory producing the local variant of Marmite (a dark, salty yeast-extract spread and noble by-product of beer brewing). Stocks of this staple of the New Zealand diet dwindled and then ran out, bringing on the aftershock of ‘Marmageddon’. Alongside Vegemite, Marmite is of central culinary and cultural importance to New Zealanders; it is a part of the country’s popular cultural fabric (‘kiwiana’), a literal consumption of national identity, and a product that is ‘world famous in New Zealand’ but barely sold anywhere else. This paper discusses the importance of Marmite (as well as Vegemite) in the New Zealand diet and maps the development and conclusion of the Marmageddon crisis. Marmageddon was a big deal; it lasted over a year and was discussed in high politics and in the national media as well as on an everyday level. Marmite-loyal New Zealanders had to make some difficult choices between hoarding supplies, rationing out doses, doing without, or substituting their preferred spread with Vegemite, which is made in Australia

Les fonctions étayante et conteneur de l’institution comme supports à la reconstruction des enveloppes familiales effractées

International audience« Les fonctions étayante et conteneur de l’institution comme supports à la reconstruction des enveloppes familiales effractées ». L’institution, lieu interactif de divers groupes (équipe, famille, individus), est le théâtre de croisements dynamiques entre ces différentes instances. Les auteurs émettent l’hypothèse, au travers du cas d’une famille ayant subi des traumas, que les étayages successifs, mais non exhaustifs, de la famille, participent à la reconstruction des enveloppes psychiques de celle-ci. Le transfert massif de la famille sur l’institution provoque un clivage dans l’équipe aboutissant au gel de la prise en charge de l’enfant présentant des troubles autistiques et de sa famille. Le questionnement groupal autour d’un élément fort d’une séance de psychothérapie permettra de relancer la chaîne associative groupale de l’équipe et de la famille, participant ainsi à la restauration de la fonction contenante familiale

First time description of dismantling phenomenon

International audienceDismantling is a complex psychic phenomenon, which is not easy to define, and little interest has been shown in the subject. The authors of this paper want to demonstrate that dismantling is the main defense mechanism in autism, bringing about de-consensus of senses. The effects perceived in a child with autistic disorder are passivity and lack of thought. The authors' purpose here is to define the dismantled state and reveal its underlying process. This paper will therefore describe for the first time in literature, the dismantling phenomenon and will submit a metapsychological approach of this defense mechanism

KIPP Middle Schools: Impacts on Achievement and Other Outcomes

The Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP) is a rapidly expanding network of public charter schools whose mission is to improve the education of low-income children. As of the 2012 -- 2013 school year, 125 KIPP schools are in operation in 20 different states and the District of Columbia (DC). Ultimately, KIPP's goal is to prepare students to enroll and succeed in college.Prior research has suggested that KIPP schools have positive impacts on student achievement, but most of the studies have included only a few KIPP schools or have had methodological limitations. This is the second report of a national evaluation of KIPP middle schools being conducted by Mathematica Policy Research. The evaluation uses experimental and quasi-experimental methods to produce rigorous and comprehensive evidence on the effects of KIPP middle schools across the country.The study's first report, released in 2010, described strong positive achievement impacts in math and reading for the 22 KIPP middle schools for which data were available at the time. For this phase of the study, we nearly doubled the size of the sample, to 43 KIPP middle schools, including all KIPP middle schools that were open at the start of the study in 2010 for which we were able to acquire relevant data from local districts or states. This report estimates achievement impacts for these 43 KIPP middle schools, and includes science and social studies in addition to math and reading. This report also examines additional student outcomes beyond state test scores, including student performance on a nationally norm-referenced test and survey-based measures of student attitudes and behavior

Closed Universes With Black Holes But No Event Horizons As a Solution to the Black Hole Information Problem

We show it is possible for the information paradox in black hole evaporation to be resolved classically. Using standard junction conditions, we attach the general closed spherically symmetric dust metric to a spacetime satisfying all standard energy conditions but with a single point future c-boundary. The resulting Omega Point spacetime, which has NO event horizons, nevertheless has black hole type trapped surfaces and hence black holes. But since there are no event horizons, information eventually escapes from the black holes. We show that a scalar quintessence field with an appropriate exponential potential near the final singularity would give rise to an Omega Point final singularity.Comment: 27 pages in LaTex2e, no figure

Factores de éxito escolar de alumnado de etnia gitana en opinión de sus profesores

Onzenes Jornades de Foment de la Investigació de la FCHS (Any 2005-2006)La realidad de las aulas multiculturales, con presencia de minorías étnicas, pone de relieve la necesidad de dotar a los docentes de la formación y recursos para poder abordar con éxito los procesos de enseñanzaaprendizaje en la escuela. Con el objeto de poder ofrecer una formación adecuada a los docentes, acorde a sus características y necesidades, es preciso conocer los conocimientos previos, creencias y actitudes que poseen, de forma que se puedan proponer propuestas que amplíen o incorporen novedades y alternativas a la manera de entender la educación. Esta investigación tiene como propósito llegar a una aproximación sobre los factores que los docentes consideran determinantes para lograr el éxito en una escuela de un barrio de atención preferente con población gitana

Comunicación cooperativa entre la familia y la escuela: un programa para ayudar a los padres y a los profesores a comunicarse mejor entre sí.

Onzenes Jornades de Foment de la Investigació de la FCHS (Any 2005-2006)Comunicación cooperativa entre la familia y la escuela es un programa resultado de la estrecha colaboración entre muchas personas preocupadas por la familia. Surge para intentar ayudar a los padres y a los profesores a aprender a comunicarse mejor entre sí, y para ayudar a los padres a aprender a implicarse en la escuela de forma significativa. Parte de la filosofía de la potenciación de los individuos y de los grupos y de la toma de decisiones conjunta. Su objetivo principal es favorecer las relaciones entre las familias y la escuela, por lo que primero trabaja con padres y profesores por separado, y luego con padres, profesores y equipo directivo conjuntamente, donde se decide entre todos que hacer. En este artículo se revisarán los antecedentes, elementos y materiales del programa Comunicación cooperativa entre la familia y la escuela, se analizará cual es el papel de los facilitadores y, finalmente, se presentará una actividad que se lleva a cabo en una de las sesiones del taller de padres