Researching creatively with pupils in Assessment for Learning (AfL) classrooms on experiences of participation and consultation

This paper reports on an ESRC TLRP project, Consulting Pupils on the Assessment of their Learning (CPAL). The CPAL project provides an additional theoretical perspective to the ‘educational benefits’ perspective of engaging pupil voice in learning and teaching (Rudduck et al., 2003) through its exploration of pupil rights specifically in relation to assessment issues presently on the policy agenda in the Northern Ireland context – notably Assessment for Learning (AfL). An emergent framework for assessing pupil rights, based on Article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (Lundy, 2007), is being used to explore the ways in which AfL classroom practice creates the conditions for increased pupil participation and consultation. Pupil views on their AfL classroom experiences and participation are explored by means of a variety of pupil-centred, creative research methods that engage and stimulate pupils to observe, communicate and analyse their learning and assessment experiences and give meaning to them. This presentation highlights preliminary data based on a sample of 11-14 years pupils' experiences of participation and consultation in classrooms adopting AfL pedagogical principles, and identifies characteristics that support or inhibit pupil participation in their learning and the expression of their views about such matters

The Performance of Alfalfa Synthetics in the First and Advanced Generations

During alfalfa breeding investigations conducted at the Nebraska Agricultural Experiment Station, numerous superior clones were selected and tested as clones, and in polycross progeny tests. Information was needed on the performance of synthetic varieties in the first and advanced generations, on the optimum number of clones to include in a synthetic variety, and on parent-progeny relationships. Clones with high general combining ability for forage yield as measured by polycross progeny tests, and in certain instances specific combining ability based on single-cross tests, were intercrossed in various ways to produce synthetic varieties. A group of synthetics varying in number of parents from 2 to 6 clones, having in some instances certain clones as common parents, was tested initially in the first generation of synthesis (referred to as Syn-1 from here on), later in the Syn-1 versus the Syn-2, and in some instances in the Syn-1, Syn-2, and Syn-3, and ultimately in the Syn-1,-2,-3, and -4 generations. The purposes of this bulletin are to report (1) comparative results obtained in yield trials involving the Syn-1,-2,-3, and -4 generations of 5 two-clone and 14 multiple-clone synthetics at Lincoln, Nebraska, and Ithaca, New York, and (2) parent-progeny relationships

Stability and asymptotic behavior of periodic traveling wave solutions of viscous conservation laws in several dimensions

Under natural spectral stability assumptions motivated by previous investigations of the associated spectral stability problem, we determine sharp $L^p$ estimates on the linearized solution operator about a multidimensional planar periodic wave of a system of conservation laws with viscosity, yielding linearized $L^1\cap L^p\to L^p$ stability for all $p \ge 2$ and dimensions $d \ge 1$ and nonlinear $L^1\cap H^s\to L^p\cap H^s$ stability and $L^2$-asymptotic behavior for $p\ge 2$ and $d\ge 3$. The behavior can in general be rather complicated, involving both convective (i.e., wave-like) and diffusive effects

Consulting secondary school students on increasing participation in their own assessment in Northern Ireland

The Consulting Pupils on the Assessment of their Learning (CPAL) project comprised three interrelated studies focusing on (1) the development of Annual Pupil profiles in NI in the context of giving pupils ‘a voice’ (Lundy, 2007); (2) students' perceptions of ‘AfL classrooms’; and (3) teachers' and parents' perceptions of pupils increasing participation in assessment. This paper presents the main findings and educational implications of studies 2 and 3 which consulted pupils at key stage 3 (11-14 years). It identifies teachers', parents' and students' perceptions of the increasing pupil participation in the assessment of their own classroom learning. Preliminary findings of this twenty-one month study, completed at the end of February 2007, were presented in this ECER Children's Rights Network last year (see Leitch et al. 2006). This presentation updates some of the main findings for Key stage 3 pupils. The samples included approximately 200 students and a sample of their parents (n=180) from six post-primary schools in Northern Ireland, as well as 11 teachers of different subjects (i.e. Arts, Maths, English, Geography and Science). All teachers were engaged in an in-service course to help them embed Assessment for Learning (AfL) - a pedagogical approach that emphasizes the use of formative assessment to help students take control of their own learning by being aware of where they are, ‘where they need to go to improve, and how best to get there’ (Gardner, 2006). It establishes that, where principles of AfL are embedded in practice, pupils can experience high levels of participation in their learning and assessment. However, the relationship between consultation and participation requires further clarification and there is a need is to promote greater consistency amongst teachers in understanding what consultation means from a rights-based perspective

The Las Campanas Infrared Survey. III. The H-band Imaging Survey and the Near-Infrared and Optical Photometric Catalogs

(Abridged) The Las Campanas Infrared Survey, based on broad-band optical and near-infrared photometry, is designed to robustly identify a statistically significant and representative sample of evolved galaxies at redshifts z>1. We have completed an H-band imaging survey over 1.1 square degrees of sky in six separate fields. The average 5 sigma detection limit in a four arcsecond diameter aperture is H ~ 20. Here we describe the design of the survey, the observation strategies, data reduction techniques, and object identification procedures. We present sample near-infrared and optical photometric catalogs for objects identified in two survey fields. We perform object detection in all bandpasses and identify ~ 54,000 galaxies over 1,408 square arcminutes of sky in the two fields. Of these galaxies, ~ 14,000 are detected in the H-band and ~ 2,000 have the colors of evolved galaxies, I - H >3, at z > 1. We find that (1) the differential number counts N(m) for the H-band detected objects has a slope of 0.44 at H 19. In addition, we find that (2) the differential number counts for the H detected red objects has a slope of 0.85 at H 20, with a mean surface density ~ 3,000 degree^{-2} mag^{-1} at H=20. Finally, we find that (3) galaxies with red optical to near-IR colors (I-H > 3) constitute ~ 20% of the H detected galaxies at H ~ 21, but only 2% at H = 19. We show that red galaxies are strongly clustered, which results in a strong field to field variation in their surface density. Comparisons of observations and predictions based on various formation scenarios indicate that these red galaxies are consistent with mildly evolving early-type galaxies at z ~ 1, although with a significant amount of on-going star formation as indicated by the large scatter in their V-I colors.Comment: 48 pages, 13 figures, accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journa

The First Supernova Explosions: Energetics, Feedback, and Chemical Enrichment

We perform three-dimensional smoothed particle hydrodynamics simulations in a realistic cosmological setting to investigate the expansion, feedback, and chemical enrichment properties of a 200 M_sun pair-instability supernova in the high-redshift universe. We find that the SN remnant propagates for a Hubble time at z = 20 to a final mass-weighted mean shock radius of 2.5 kpc (proper), roughly half the size of the HII region, and in this process sweeps up a total gas mass of 2.5*10^5 M_sun. The morphology of the shock becomes highly anisotropic once it leaves the host halo and encounters filaments and neighboring minihalos, while the bulk of the shock propagates into the voids of the intergalactic medium. The SN entirely disrupts the host halo and terminates further star formation for at least 200 Myr, while in our specific case it exerts positive mechanical feedback on neighboring minihalos by shock-compressing their cores. In contrast, we do not observe secondary star formation in the dense shell via gravitational fragmentation, due to the previous photoheating by the progenitor star. We find that cooling by metal lines is unimportant for the entire evolution of the SN remnant, while the metal-enriched, interior bubble expands adiabatically into the cavities created by the shock, and ultimately into the voids with a maximum extent similar to the final mass-weighted mean shock radius. Finally, we conclude that dark matter halos of at least M_vir > 10^8 M_sun must be assembled to recollect all components of the swept-up gas.Comment: 16 pages, 14 figures, published in Ap

Derivation of Hebb's rule

On the basis of the general form for the energy needed to adapt the connection strengths of a network in which learning takes place, a local learning rule is found for the changes of the weights. This biologically realizable learning rule turns out to comply with Hebb's neuro-physiological postulate, but is not of the form of any of the learning rules proposed in the literature. It is shown that, if a finite set of the same patterns is presented over and over again to the network, the weights of the synapses converge to finite values. Furthermore, it is proved that the final values found in this biologically realizable limit are the same as those found via a mathematical approach to the problem of finding the weights of a partially connected neural network that can store a collection of patterns. The mathematical solution is obtained via a modified version of the so-called method of the pseudo-inverse, and has the inverse of a reduced correlation matrix, rather than the usual correlation matrix, as its basic ingredient. Thus, a biological network might realize the final results of the mathematician by the energetically economic rule for the adaption of the synapses found in this article.Comment: 29 pages, LaTeX, 3 figure