The construction of a vocabulary test for the intermediate grades,

Thesis (M.A.)--Boston Universit

Advancing Adult Education: Shifting, Producing, Advocating, & Embracing

This symposium activates participants and presenters as we engage in dialogue, debate, and discernment about how we are advancing adult education. We explore adult education in diverse practice sites such as post secondary education, the entertainment industry, and sites of ecological reframing in homes, workplaces and faith communities. We debate the key concerns of adult education as envisioned by the presenters and participants and seek to uncover the places and spaces where adult education is shifting, exploring, and creating meaning, justice, and peace in our personal, social, and spiritual worlds. The symposium is guided by social constructivism and transformational learning theories. Shifting Expectations: Designing Effective Educational Technology fo

Socially transformative wellbeing practices in flexible learning environments: Invoking an education of hope

Objectives: Student wellbeing is closely linked to young people’s satisfaction with life at school. Wellbeing practices in an alternative learning environment take on a particularly significant role as they aim to re-engage young people who are disenfranchised from Australia’s education system. The Wellbeing Project, which is described and reported on here, aimed to capture young people’s perceptions to strengthen and create a Youth+ model of wellbeing in participating centres. Design: A mixed methods approach was employed to explore student experiences of wellbeing. A quantitative methodology informed the development of surveys, and focus groups adopted a semi-structured qualitative approach. Setting: Youth+ Flexible Learning Centres (Flexis) in various parts of Australia. Method: Students in the flexible learning centres were invited to complete a survey during class time. Young people from each centre were then invited to participate in focus group discussions. Four groups were held in Melbourne, two in Geelong and Adelaide and one each in Hobart, St Mary’s, Alice Springs, Wollongong and Geraldton. Results: Thematic analysis revealed that being supported by staff to learn and working towards long-term goals in an individual way were central to the development of wellbeing among young people involved in the centres. Relationships with staff were highly valued. Conclusion: Findings demonstrate that wellbeing for young people in flexible learning centres is associated with staff support and respect. There is value in giving young people the opportunity to engage in a socially transformative education, enabling them to envision new learning and work opportunities. </jats:sec

Musical identities mediate musical development

This article has two main aims. The first is to identify those aspects of developmental psychology as a whole that are most useful in trying to explain musical development in particular. The second is to develop the central argument that the study of people's musical identities is an essential part of the explanation of their musical development. The article is organized as follows. The first section summarizes the main theoretical perspectives on musical development since the 1980s. The second section provides representative examples of empirical research from three broad areas—cognitive, social, and affective— and then looks at the cognitive aspects of musical development and learning: This was the predominant emphasis of developmental studies in the 1980s. The third section focuses on the social aspects of musical development, which have come to include the study of personality. The fourth section considers the development of the affective aspects of musical behavior, that is, those concerning emotion

Predicting Successful Aging in a Population-Based Sample of Georgia Centenarians

Used a population-based sample (Georgia Centenarian Study, GCS), to determine proportions of centenarians reaching 100 years as (1) survivors (43%) of chronic diseases first experienced between 0–80 years of age, (2) delayers (36%) with chronic diseases first experienced between 80–98 years of age, or (3) escapers (17%) with chronic diseases only at 98 years of age or older. Diseases fall into two morbidity profiles of 11 chronic diseases; one including cardiovascular disease, cancer, anemia, and osteoporosis, and another including dementia. Centenarians at risk for cancer in their lifetime tended to be escapers (73%), while those at risk for cardiovascular disease tended to be survivors (24%), delayers (39%), or escapers (32%). Approximately half (43%) of the centenarians did not experience dementia. Psychiatric disorders were positively associated with dementia, but prevalence of depression, anxiety, and psychoses did not differ significantly between centenarians and an octogenarian control group. However, centenarians were higher on the Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS) than octogenarians. Consistent with our model of developmental adaptation in aging, distal life events contribute to predicting survivorship outcome in which health status as survivor, delayer, or escaper appears as adaptation variables late in life

Functional Memory B Cells and Long-Lived Plasma Cells Are Generated after a Single Plasmodium chabaudi Infection in Mice

Antibodies have long been shown to play a critical role in naturally acquired immunity to malaria, but it has been suggested that Plasmodium-specific antibodies in humans may not be long lived. The cellular mechanisms underlying B cell and antibody responses are difficult to study in human infections; therefore, we have investigated the kinetics, duration and characteristics of the Plasmodium-specific memory B cell response in an infection of P. chabaudi in mice. Memory B cells and plasma cells specific for the C-terminal region of Merozoite Surface Protein 1 were detectable for more than eight months following primary infection. Furthermore, a classical memory response comprised predominantly of the T-cell dependent isotypes IgG2c, IgG2b and IgG1 was elicited upon rechallenge with the homologous parasite, confirming the generation of functional memory B cells. Using cyclophosphamide treatment to discriminate between long-lived and short-lived plasma cells, we demonstrated long-lived cells secreting Plasmodium-specific IgG in both bone marrow and in spleens of infected mice. The presence of these long-lived cells was independent of the presence of chronic infection, as removal of parasites with anti-malarial drugs had no impact on their numbers. Thus, in this model of malaria, both functional Plasmodium-specific memory B cells and long-lived plasma cells can be generated, suggesting that defects in generating these cell populations may not be the reason for generating short-lived antibody responses

Establishing tephrostratigraphic frameworks to aid the study of abrupt climatic and glacial transitions: a case study of the Last Glacial-Interglacial Transition in the British Isles (c. 16-8 ka BP)

Distally dispersed tephra layers have become an important tool in the investigation of palaeoenvironmental and archaeological records across the globe. They offer possibilities for the synchronisation and improved chronological control in those records to which they can be traced and hence contribute to an improved understanding of the pattern and timing of environmental and archaeological change during periods of rapid climatic adjustment. However, their use as robust isochronous markers for synchronising records is frequently compromised by uncertainties relating to stratigraphical context, precise chronology and chemical composition. Here we collate and review the tephrostratigraphical information dating to the Last Glacial-Interglacial Transition (LGIT; c. 16-8 ka BP) in the British Isles based on published and unpublished records obtained from 54 sites. Based on details of their stratigraphic position, chronology and chemical composition, we propose that 26 individual eruption events may be represented in this collective record which spans the LGIT. The great majority of these eruptives can be traced in origin to Iceland, but we also report on the recent discoveries of ultra-distal tephra from the North American Cascades range, including for the first time the Mount St Helens J Tephra at a site in southern Ireland. These particular ultra-distal discoveries have resulted from a reinterpretation of older data, demonstrating the potential importance of ‘unknown’ analyses in older tephra datasets. The outcome of this review is a comprehensive but provisional tephrostratigraphic framework for the LGIT in the British Isles, which helps to focus future research on parts of the scheme that are in need of further development or testing. The results, therefore, make an important contribution to the wider European tephrostratigraphic framework, while adding new discoveries of transcontinental isochronous tephra markers