The problem of 0.999…: Teachers’ school-related content knowledge and their reactions to misconceptions

International audienceThe identity 0.999…=1 connects to a variety of mathematical concepts and therefore allows for an investigation of teachers’ school-related content knowledge (SRCK). This is a facet of their content knowledge (CK) that emphasizes links between school mathematics and the mathematics acquired in tertiary education. Some numerously reported misconceptions and potentially conflicting ideas on 0.999... were presented to secondary school teachers in interviews. Especially in the case of conflicting ideas the relation between SRCK and teachers’ reactions as part of their pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) was examined. The results showed that SRCK, as well as CK in general, is a prerequisite to successfully applying PCK. Further they lead to a discussion of the SRCK model’s use in qualitative research

Fat and Sugar—A Dangerous Duet. A Comparative Review on Metabolic Remodeling in Rodent Models of Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is a common disease in Western society and ranges from steatosis to steatohepatitis to end-stage liver disease such as cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. The molecular mechanisms that are involved in the progression of steatosis to more severe liver damage in patients are not fully understood. A deeper investigation of NAFLD pathogenesis is possible due to the many different animal models developed recently. In this review, we present a comparative overview of the most common dietary NAFLD rodent models with respect to their metabolic phenotype and morphological manifestation. Moreover, we describe similarities and controversies concerning the effect of NAFLD-inducing diets on mitochondria as well as mitochondria-derived oxidative stress in the progression of NAFLD

The development of early phonological networks: An analysis of individual longitudinal vocabulary growth

While much work has emphasized the role of the environment in language learning, research equally reports consistent effects of the child’s knowledge, in particular, the words known to individual children, in steering further lexical development. Much of this work is based on cross-sectional data, assuming that the words typically known to children at n months predict the words typically known to children at n+x months. Given acknowledged variability in the number of words known to individual children at different ages, a more conclusive analysis of this issue requires examination of individual differences in the words learned by individual children across development, i.e., using longitudinal data. In the current study, using longitudinal vocabulary data from children learning Norwegian, we ask whether the phonological connectivity of a word to words that the child already knows or words in the child’s environment predicts the likelihood of the child learning that word across development. We compare three different measures of phonological connectivity that have been used in the literature to-date. The results suggest that the early vocabulary grows predominantly in a rich-get-richer manner, where word learning is predicted by the connectivity of a word to already known words. However, word learning is, to a lesser extent, also influenced by the connectivity of a word to words in the child’s linguistic environment. Our results highlight the promise of using longitudinal data to better understand the factors that influence vocabulary development and the insights to be gained from analyzing different measures of the same construct

The problem of 0.999…: Teachers’ school-related content knowledge and their reactions to misconceptions

International audienceThe identity 0.999…=1 connects to a variety of mathematical concepts and therefore allows for an investigation of teachers’ school-related content knowledge (SRCK). This is a facet of their content knowledge (CK) that emphasizes links between school mathematics and the mathematics acquired in tertiary education. Some numerously reported misconceptions and potentially conflicting ideas on 0.999... were presented to secondary school teachers in interviews. Especially in the case of conflicting ideas the relation between SRCK and teachers’ reactions as part of their pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) was examined. The results showed that SRCK, as well as CK in general, is a prerequisite to successfully applying PCK. Further they lead to a discussion of the SRCK model’s use in qualitative research

The development of early phonological networks: An analysis of individual longitudinal vocabulary growth

While much work has emphasized the role of the environment in language learning, research equally reports consistent effects of the child’s knowledge, in particular, the words known to individual children, in steering further lexical development. Much of this work is based on cross-sectional data, assuming that the words typically known to children at n months predict the words typically known to children at n+x months. Given acknowledged variability in the number of words known to individual children at different ages, a more conclusive analysis of this issue requires examination of individual differences in the words learned by individual children across development, i.e., using longitudinal data. In the current study, using longitudinal vocabulary data from children learning Norwegian, we ask whether the phonological connectivity of a word to words that the child already knows or words in the child’s environment predicts the likelihood of the child learning that word across development. We compare three different measures of phonological connectivity that have been used in the literature to-date. The results suggest that the early vocabulary grows predominantly in a rich-get-richer manner, where word learning is predicted by the connectivity of a word to already known words. However, word learning is, to a lesser extent, also influenced by the connectivity of a word to words in the child’s linguistic environment. Our results highlight the promise of using longitudinal data to better understand the factors that influence vocabulary development and the insights to be gained from analyzing different measures of the same construct

Research

All research projects of the Psychology of Language Group that have an OSF page are linked here

Genome-Based Discovery of a Novel Membrane-Bound 1,6-Dihydroxyphenazine Prenyltransferase from a Marine Actinomycete

<div><p>Recently, novel prenylated derivatives of 1,6-dihydroxyphenazine have been isolated from the marine sponge-associated <i>Streptomyces</i> sp. SpC080624SC-11. Genome sequencing of this strain now revealed a gene cluster containing all genes necessary for the synthesis of the phenazine and the isoprenoid moieties. Unexpectedly, however, the cluster did not contain a gene with similarity to previously investigated phenazine prenyltransferases, but instead a gene with modest similarity to the membrane-bound prenyltransferases of ubiquinone and menaquinone biosynthesis. Expression of this gene in <i>E. coli</i> and isolation of the membrane fraction proved that the encoded enzyme, Mpz10, catalyzes two successive prenylations of 1,6-dihydroxyphenazine. Mpz10 is the first example of a membrane-bound enzyme catalyzing the prenylation of a phenazine substrate, and one of few examples of membrane-bound enzymes involved in the prenylation of aromatic secondary metabolites in microorganisms.</p></div

Psychology of Language @ Uni Göttingen

Lab Page of the Psychology of Language Research Group @ University of Göttinge