Implementing Restorative Practices in Schools. A Practical Guide to Transforming School Communities : Margaret Thorsborne and Peta Blood London. Jessica Kingsley Publishers (2013) pp.230 paperback £25 ISBN 978-1849053778

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Special Education in the Twenty First Century : Challenges and Opportunities or a New Graveyard?

1999 Brown, reprinted 2016Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Ticking the ethnic box : minority young in rural communities

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Real-time information processing of environmental sensor network data using Bayesian Gaussian processes

In this article, we consider the problem faced by a sensor network operator who must infer, in real time, the value of some environmental parameter that is being monitored at discrete points in space and time by a sensor network. We describe a powerful and generic approach built upon an efficient multi-output Gaussian process that facilitates this information acquisition and processing. Our algorithm allows effective inference even with minimal domain knowledge, and we further introduce a formulation of Bayesian Monte Carlo to permit the principled management of the hyperparameters introduced by our flexible models. We demonstrate how our methods can be applied in cases where the data is delayed, intermittently missing, censored, and/or correlated. We validate our approach using data collected from three networks of weather sensors and show that it yields better inference performance than both conventional independent Gaussian processes and the Kalman filter. Finally, we show that our formalism efficiently reuses previous computations by following an online update procedure as new data sequentially arrives, and that this results in a four-fold increase in computational speed in the largest cases considered

Football: a counterpoint to the procession of pain on the Western Front, 1914-1918?

In this article, three artworks of the First World War containing images of recreational football are analysed. These three images, In the Wings of the Theatre of War, Artillery Men at Football and Gassed, span the war from its beginning to its conclusion and are discussed in relationship to the development of recreational football in the front-line area, the evolving policies of censorship and propaganda and in consideration of the national mood in Britain. The paper shows how football went from being a spontaneous and improvised pastime in the early stages of the war to a well organized entertainment by war’s end. The images demonstrate how the war was portrayed as a temporary affair by a confident nation in 1914 to a more resigned acceptance of a semi-permanent event to be endured by 1918; however, all three artworks show that the sporting spirit, and hence the fighting spirit, of the British soldier was intact

The implementation of portfolio assessment into the secondary mathematics curriculum

The signing of the No Child Left Behind Act, NCLB, on January 8, 2002 made it clear that the government’s main concern in education was assessment. NCLB was designed to hold schools accountable for every student achieving academic proficiency. Since the signing of this important piece of legislature the mean proficiency score for the state of North Carolina in Algebra 1 has increased only 1.4 points. Traditional assessment methods such as standardized multiple choice tests are the current tool used for measurement of student proficiency. But, can you really measure whether students have mastered, or are proficient, in a subject by their score on one multiple choice test. Would a better judge of student proficiency be a semester or year long summative evaluation? This study discusses the potential advantages of implementing portfolio assessment into the mathematics classroom. I investigated the achievement levels of two Algebra 1B classes in which all participants had failed Algebra 1 at least once. Portfolio assessment was implemented in one class while the other received traditional assessment methods. The effects of implementing portfolio assessment were examined using the North Carolina Algebra 1 End of Course Exam scores. The results showed that implementing portfolio assessment did not lead to a higher mean score than the traditional assessment group. However, the two students in the portfolio assessment group who had previously taken the North Carolina Algebra 1 EOC Exam increased their achievement level on the exam by 30 points and 7 points respectively. Also, the mean scores were only 1.2 points apart and both classes were over 80% proficient which leads to a strong implication for portfolio assessment as a useful strategy for students who struggle in and/or fail Algebra 1

Progression of motor subtypes in Huntington’s disease. a 6-year follow-up study

The objective of this study is to investigate the progression of predominantly choreatic and hypokinetic-rigid signs in Huntington's disease (HD) and their relationship with cognitive and general functioning over time. The motor signs in HD can be divided into predominantly choreatic and hypokinetic-rigid subtypes. It has been reported in cross-sectional studies that predominantly choreatic HD patients perform better on functional and cognitive assessments compared to predominantly hypokinetic-rigid HD patients. The course of these motor subtypes and their clinical profiles has not been investigated longitudinally. A total of 4135 subjects who participated in the European HD Network REGISTRY study were included and classified at baseline as either predominantly choreatic (n = 891), hypokinetic-rigid (n = 916), or mixed-motor (n = 2328), based on a previously used method. The maximum follow-up period was 6 years. The mixed-motor group was not included in the analyses. Linear mixed models were constructed to investigate changes in motor subtypes over time and their relationship with cognitive and functional decline. Over the 6-year follow-up period, the predominantly choreatic group showed a significant decrease in chorea, while hypokinetic-rigid symptoms slightly increased in the hypokinetic-rigid group. On the Total Functional Capacity, Stroop test, and Verbal fluency task the rate of change over time was significantly faster in the predominantly choreatic group, while on all other clinical assessments the decline was comparable for both groups. Our results suggest that choreatic symptoms decrease over time, whereas hypokinetic-rigid symptoms slightly increase in a large cohort of HD patients. Moreover, different motor subtypes can be related to different clinical profiles

Construction of an instrument for assessing cognitive learning based upon "Ready? Set... Go!" : a television course for elementary physical education/level one

The major purposes of this study were to construct a group-administered paper-and-pencil test for first and second graders to assess knowledges and understandings based on "Ready? Set... Go!" a television course for elementary school physical education/Level One and to establish the validity and reliability of the instrument. The subpurposes included the testing of the following hypotheses: 1. There will be no significant difference in the cognitive scores of boys and girls. 2. There will be no significant difference in the cognitive scores of first- and second-grade children. The cognitive objectives in the "Ready? Set... Go!" Teacher's Manual were identified and classified according to Bloom's (1956) Taxonomy of Educational Objectives. Only the objectives which could be measured with a group paper-and-pencil pictorial test were included. A two-way table of specifications was constructed to insure adequate coverage of the content at the appropriate behavioral level and to avoid construction of too many or too few items on a topic or a particular type of behavior

The advantages of being Proteus : five filmed versions of Richard III

William Shakespeare, through his unique literary voice, tried to make sense of the Renaissance world for his Elizabethan audiences. Since that time, many have been seeking, through adaptation, to make their own cultural sense of his plays. A handful of plays has attracted a great deal of attention in this regard. Richard III, with its plot about the rise and fall of a corrupt King, is the last of Shakespeare’s cycle of history plays about the Wars of the Roses. Because it chronicles the closing of an era, the play might be assigned a place of stable significance. Its title The Tragedy of King Richard III links it with the medieval tradition and encourages attempts to regard it as conventionally and generically finished. Richard has his roots in the tradition of the morality plays’ Vice figure, still followed by many in Shakespeare’s time, and the play fits the pattern of tragedy as defined by Chaucer in The Monk’s Tale. It is a play that, despite the many reasons to settle its meaning, has inspired various actors and directors in the twentieth century. For one thing, Shakespeare endows his characters, especially Richard, with unruly qualities that call for modern adaptation. For another, the provocative “loose ends” that he incorporates into his handling of the historical account keep evoking treatments that, by emphasizing one or another of the ambiguities, escape the neat pattern that fits the play into the historical ending of an era. Richard III was the first film made of a Shakespeare play in the United States. Produced for the screen as a silent movie in 1908, it was a Vitagraph one-reel film lasting ten minutes produced under the general supervision of J. Stuart Blackton, but probably directed by the Shakespearean actor William Ranous. The fact that an American company chose this play as its first experiment in Shakespeare on film emphasizes that, though its subject matter seems to be about a distant period in British History, its themes are nevertheless relevant to quite different eras. Even at this early stage of film making, there seems a compulsion to grab the loose ends of the play and make them the American filmmaker’s own. Richard III was also one of the first plays to be filmed in other countries at the beginning of the twentieth century; those countries include France, Russia, and the United Kingdom. The play has continued to intrigue the film and television world ever since. The power of Richard III to “spin off ” various “special angle” adaptations has been especially evident in the film versions of the second half of the twentieth century. This paper will be an extended, exploratory study focusing on five filmed versions of the play from the second half of the twentieth century. By applying certain theoretical ideas, especially those derived from new historicism, it will attempt to situate the film versions in their cultural contexts. After the introduction, there will be five chapters about each of the films: Laurence Olivier’s Richard III (1955); Herbert Ross’s The Goodbye Girl (1977); Jane Howell’s The Tragedy of Richard III (1983); Ian McKellan and Richard Loncraine’s Richard III (1996); and Al Pacino’s documentary Looking for Richard (1996). These films display a number of controversial themes that are raised by the play relating to class, fascism, gender, and war that are especially relevant to the second half of the twentieth century. The paper concludes by discussing what has been discovered about the cultural contexts

School requirements for adopting and sustaining meaningful learning for the 21st century

This thesis examines meaningful learning as a means of addressing the needs of students in schools of the 21st century. Situated in the context of a wide range of approaches, three are selected for study: problem based, integrated/thematic and mantle of the expert within process drama. The barriers to meaningful learning being implemented in school are discussed along with implications for school leadership