Storying diffractive pedagogy: reconfiguring groupwork in early childhood teacher education

This paper aims to investigate the affective flows and material intra-actions that unfold in micro-moments in Early Childhood Teacher Education (ECTE) within observations of student teachers’ cooperative work. Putting to work Haraway’s SF philosophy (1997, 2004 and 2016) we work towards reconfiguring the primacy of critical reflection, and the cultivation of reflexive practitioners by troubling pedagogical practices such as groupwork that claim to generate critical reflexivity. We ask what else gets produced during groupwork and argue that diffractive pedagogy might open up possibilities for student-teachers to move beyond a narrow concern with critical reflection. By playing with rhythm and plasticity we stretch established ideas about ECTE and offer diffractive pedagogy as a slippery, contingent, relational, emergent, speculative and ultimately less certain concept than critical reflection. Introducing diffractive pedagogy into debates about ECTE offers a generative rupture; an opportunity to extend conceptualisations and practices

Sticky stories from the classroom: from reflection to diffraction in early childhood teacher education

This article aims to challenge the prominence of reflexivity as a strategy for early childhood teachers to adopt by taking Norwegian early childhood teacher education as its focus. Observed micro-moments from a university classroom generate multilayered, multi-sensorial entangled narratives that address what reflection and diffraction are and what they do – where students, the educator, materiality, space and affects intra-act. Furthermore, the article explores the ways in which teacher educators and students in early childhood teacher education become-with the classroom and materiality, and, in doing so, ideas about professionalism in early childhood education are opened out. By identifying the limitations of reflection, the authors go on to explore what working with diffraction might offer to reach alternative understandings. By placing a focus on seemingly unremarkable and routine events in the life of an early childhood teacher education classroom, the authors offer other, potentially more generative ways to think about student teachers and their further professional practice in kindergartens

Why Advice on Task Selection May Hamper Learning in On-Demand Education

Taminiau, E. M. C., Kester, L., Corbalan, G., Alessi, S. M., Moxnes, E., Gijselaers, W. H., Kirschner, P. A., & Van Merriënboer, J. J. G. (2013). Why advice on task selection may hamper learning in on-demand education. Computers in Human Behavior, 29, 145-154. doi: 10.1016/j.chb.2012.07.028In on-demand education, learners are required to plan their own learning trajectory by selecting suitable learning tasks. A positive effect on learning is expected when learners select tasks that help them fulfil their individual learning needs. However, the selection of suitable tasks is a difficult process for learners with little domain knowledge and suboptimal task-selection skills. A common solution for helping learners deal with on-demand education and develop domain-specific skills is to give them advice on task selection. In a randomized experiment, learners (N = 30) worked on learning tasks in the domain of system dynamics and received either advice or no advice on the selection of new learning tasks. Surprisingly, the no-advice group outperformed the advice group on a post-test measuring domain-specific skills. It is concluded that giving advice on task selection prevents learners from thinking about how the process of task selection works. The advice seems to supplant rather than support their considerations why they should perform the advised task, which results in negative effects on learning. Implications for future research on giving advice in on-demand education are discussed

Conferencing otherwise: a feminist new materialist writing experiment

This paper attempts to reconfigure hegemonic framings of ‘the academic conference’ and thereby offer a means to (re-)encounter the spatial, temporal and affective forces that conferences generate, differently. We are a geographically dispersed but multiply entangled group of academic researchers united by theoretical fault lines within our work that seek to ask what if (Haraway, 2016) and what else (Manning, 2016). This ‘what if’ and ‘what else’ thinking has manifested in experimental and subversive doings otherwise at a series of academic conferences. The storying practices presented in this paper were made possible by the vital materialism (Bennett, 2010) of a shared google.doc. It was within this virtual environment that we attempted to weave diffractive accounts of what conferencing otherwise produces. This writing experiment offers a series of speculative provocations and counter-provocations to ask what else does conferencing make possible. This article is an invitation to the reader to plunge in and wallow (Taylor, 2016) within the speculative accounts which ensue and to contemplate the possibilities of breaking free from sedimented ways of neoliberal conferencing

Experimental and numerical study of the fragmentation of expanding warhead casings by using different numerical codes and solution techniques

AbstractThere has been increasing interest in numerical simulations of fragmentation of expanding warheads in 3D. Accordingly there is a pressure on developers of leading commercial codes, such as LS-DYNA, AUTODYN and IMPETUS Afea, to implement the reliable fracture models and the efficient solution techniques. The applicability of the Johnson–Cook strength and fracture model is evaluated by comparing the fracture behaviour of an expanding steel casing of a warhead with experiments. The numerical codes and different numerical solution techniques, such as Eulerian, Lagrangian, Smooth particle hydrodynamics (SPH), and the corpuscular models recently implemented in IMPETUS Afea are compared. For the same solution techniques and material models we find that the codes give similar results. The SPH technique and the corpuscular technique are superior to the Eulerian technique and the Lagrangian technique (with erosion) when it is applied to materials that have fluid like behaviour such as the explosive and the tracer. The Eulerian technique gives much larger calculation time and both the Lagrangian and Eulerian techniques seem to give less agreement with our measurements. To more correctly simulate the fracture behaviours of the expanding steel casing, we applied that ductility decreases with strain rate. The phenomena may be explained by the realization of adiabatic shear bands. An implemented node splitting algorithm in IMPETUS Afea seems very promising

Decision making and risk management in adventure sports coaching

Adventure sport coaches practice in environments that are dynamic and high in risk, both perceived and actual. The inherent risks associated with these activities, individuals’ responses and the optimal exploitation of both combine to make the processes of risk management more complex and hazardous than the traditional sports where risk management is focused almost exclusively on minimization. Pivotal to this process is the adventure sports coaches’ ability to make effective judgments regarding levels of risk, potential benefits and possible consequences. The exact nature of this decision making process should form the basis of coaching practice and coach education in this complex and dynamic field. This positional paper examines decision making by the adventure sports coach in these complex, challenging environments and seeks to stimulate debate whilst offering a basis for future research into this topic

Conferencing Otherwise : A Feminist New Materialist Writing Experiment

This article attempts to reconfigure hegemonic framings of "the academic conference" and thereby offer a means to (re-)encounter the spatial, temporal, and affective forces that conferences generate, differently. We are a geographically dispersed but multiply entangled group of academic researchers united by theoretical fault lines within our work that seek to ask what if and what else. This "what if" and "what else" thinking has manifested in experimental and subversive doings otherwise at a series of academic conferences. The storying practices presented in this article were made possible by the vital materialism of a shared google.doc. It was within this virtual environment that we attempted to weave diffractive accounts of what conferencing otherwise produces. This writing experiment offers a series of speculative provocations and counter-provocations to ask what else does conferencing make possible. This article is an invitation to the reader to plunge in and wallow within the speculative accounts which ensue and to contemplate the possibilities of breaking free from sedimented ways of neoliberal conferencing.Peer reviewe

On reminder effects, drop-outs and dominance: evidence from an online experiment on charitable giving

We present the results of an experiment that (a) shows the usefulness of screening out drop-outs and (b) tests whether different methods of payment and reminder intervals affect charitable giving. Following a lab session, participants could make online donations to charity for a total duration of three months. Our procedure justifying the exclusion of drop-outs consists in requiring participants to collect payments in person flexibly and as known in advance and as highlighted to them later. Our interpretation is that participants who failed to collect their positive payments under these circumstances are likely not to satisfy dominance. If we restrict the sample to subjects who did not drop out, but not otherwise, reminders significantly increase the overall amount of charitable giving. We also find that weekly reminders are no more effective than monthly reminders in increasing charitable giving, and that, in our three months duration experiment, standing orders do not increase giving relative to one-off donations

Agency, stewardship and the universal-family firm : a qualitative historical analysis

This paper introduces the idea of a non-kinship-based Universal-family firm, an organizational form we developed based on interpreting historical writings in their socio-economic context. We analyzed Luke’s gospel with an eye toward drawing implications for the stewardship-agency debate in the contemporary family business literature. Our paper makes contributions at two important levels. In addition to introducing and developing theory about the Universal-family firms, we also contribute to the methodological toolkit of family business scholars by providing a template for using historical documents to challenge, enhance and develop theory

Conferencing Otherwise: A Feminist New Materialist Writing Experiment

This article attempts to reconfigure hegemonic framings of “the academic conference” and thereby offer a means to (re-)encounter the spatial, temporal, and affective forces that conferences generate, differently. We are a geographically dispersed but multiply entangled group of academic researchers united by theoretical fault lines within our work that seek to ask what if and what else. This “what if” and “what else” thinking has manifested in experimental and subversive doings otherwise at a series of academic conferences. The storying practices presented in this article were made possible by the vital materialism of a shared google.doc. It was within this virtual environment that we attempted to weave diffractive accounts of what conferencing otherwise produces. This writing experiment offers a series of speculative provocations and counter-provocations to ask what else does conferencing make possible. This article is an invitation to the reader to plunge in and wallow within the speculative accounts which ensue and to contemplate the possibilities of breaking free from sedimented ways of neoliberal conferencing.</p