Teacher Agency Through Collaborative Expertise-building

Drawing on teacher agentive acts in the process of collaborative expertise-building in selects tertiary institutions in Southeast Asia, this paper maps out the conceptual configurations of teacher agency. In doing so, it avoids both the overly deterministic and individualistic views of agency by locating it within structuring conditions where individual acts are also mobilized. However, while most socially constructive views of agency focus on situated and institutional constraints of agency, this paper conceptualizes teacher agency in its broadest possible sense as historical, cultural and ideological phenomenon, arguing that agentive acts cannot merely be seen as either working for or against educational reform and transformation; rather teachers must take control of the process of knowledge production because it is by doing so that teachers can take ownership over their everyday classroom tactics and practices. Teacher agency in this sense is not simply a capacity to act but, in fact, an accomplishment of acts of producing knowledge for one’s professional practice

Mapping Out Unequal Englishes in English-medium Classrooms

The link between globalization and the spread of English is well established in the literature, resulting in the emergence and burgeoning of studies on the pluralization and localization of English. However, Englishes are also valued unequally and, thus, impact the lives and identities of their speakers differently as well. This paper aims to discuss the politics of Unequal Englishes by mapping out the specific ways inequalities of Englishes are realized in classrooms in Singapore. This requires mapping out accurately both the dynamics of locally produced but globally shaped teaching of English, as well as concrete instantiations of culturally responsive pedagogies which aim to make learning and teaching more nondiscriminatory and equitable

Questions as beliefs: investigating teachers’ beliefs in reading through inquiry questions

Much has been written about teachers’ beliefs, including their beliefs about reading. Due to its established impact on how it affects classroom practices, teachers’ beliefs as a psychological construct is considered by some researchers as the most important in relation to teaching and teaching education. Thus, increasingly teachers of reading have been encouraged to reflect on their teaching practices as well as beliefs about reading. However, less work has been done on investigating reading teachers’ beliefs through the lens of the questions they ask about reading itself. This paper argues that questions are constitutive of people’s beliefs about what they deem important in life or in professional practice, and are regulative acts and evidence of reflection. Thus, analysing inquiry questions or what teachers ask about reading will enable identification and description of certain beliefs held by the teachers themselves. In other words, framed within an understanding of teachers’ questions as teachers’ beliefs, through thematic analysis this paper presents six themes that reveal teachers’ beliefs related to reading instruction

Diverse Picturebooks for Diverse Children: The Others in Singapore Teachers’ Discourse and Pedagogy

This study investigates how teachers construct the Others in their use of diverse picturebooks for diverse children. Data from open-ended learning prompts and focus group discussions with in-service teachers in Singapore reveal their conflicted discourse and practice in relation to using diverse picturebooks in the classroom to promote inclusive education. On the one hand, the teachers navigate their way around an “awareness of Others” but, on the other hand, they also express discomfort toward an expanded definition of “multiculturalism” and “diversity” in a relatively tightly controlled educational context. This paper aims to bring to the surface the multifaceted nature of teachers' newly found openness to broader and more inclusive notions of Others, which is conflicted but also actively compartmentalizes different discourses in order to make inclusive classroom practice possible

Sweet basil leaves as adjunct therapy for stage 1 and 2 hypertension: a pilot clinical trial

Ocimum basilicum L. (Sweet Basil) is a medicinal herb used in traditional Indian and Chinese medicine to treat a variety of disease conditions including hypertension, and has well established antihypertensive effects among renovascular hypertensive rats. The aim of this study was to evaluate the antihypertensive effects of O. basilicum as adjunct in the management of stage 1 and 2 hypertensive patients. A double blind-randomized controlled trial was performed, with participants (n=24) randomized into a control and treatment group. Participants randomized into the control group (n=12) were given their prescribed antihypertensive medication plus placebo while those in the treatment group (n=12) were given their antihypertensive medication plus Ocimum basilicum L. capsules containing 128 mg of dried, powderized leaves once a day. Participants’ blood pressure (BP) was measured at baseline, 1 week, and 2 weeks of drug administration and the Mean Arterial Pressure (MAP) calculated. Results showed that systolic and diastolic BP in the treatment group measured from baseline, one and two weeks of drug administration are significantly different, whereas the control group had insignificant findings. Furthermore, the MAP in the control group (105.25±9.52 mm/Hg, 104.08±8.45 mm/Hg and 104.47±8.85 mmHg) were comparable while that in the treatment group (106.47±6.65 mm/Hg,100.89±9.99 mm/Hg, and 97.14±9.96 mm/Hg) showed significant lowering (p=<0.0001) over time by Repeated Measures-Anova with Bonferroni’s post-hoc test. The significant findings in this study support the antihypertensive action of Ocimum basilicum L. among humans which warrant further exploration. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.427494

UNMANNED AERIAL VEHICLE (UAV) SURVEY-ASSISTED 3D MANGROVE TREE MODELING

3D visualization is a tool that supports geospatial analysis through the application of scientific information. It enhances the quality of standard photography and can be used in many applications. Through this study, a 3D mangrove tree model is generated, as assisted by a tree crown derived from UAV images. The researchers explored different platforms namely: MeshLab, SketchUp (with 3D Tree Maker extension), and Clara.io, to come up with a more realistic three-dimensional (3D) model of a mangrove tree. From an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) derived Digital Surface Model (DSM), an isolated tree crown was selected which was then used as an assisting tool in creating the final 3D mangrove tree model. A default tree object was modified according to the characteristics as described by the DSM. Additional branches and leaves were added to the existing tree object, and its shape was modified to conform to the tree crown. The resulting model may be used to more accurately depict objects in the area to be visualized, however an automation procedure is recommended for an easier and more effective generation of multiple tree models expected in an area

The influence of light on nitrogen cycling and the primary nitrite maximum in a seasonally stratified sea

Author Posting. © The Author(s), 2011. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of Elsevier B.V. for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Progress In Oceanography 91 (2011): 545–560, doi:10.1016/j.pocean.2011.09.001.In the seasonally stratified Gulf of Aqaba Red Sea, both NO2- release by phytoplankton and NH4+ oxidation by nitrifying microbes contributed to the formation of a primary nitrite maximum (PNM) over different seasons and depths in the water column. In the winter and during the days immediately following spring stratification, NO2- formation was strongly correlated (R2=0.99) with decreasing irradiance and chlorophyll, suggesting that incomplete NO3- reduction by light limited phytoplankton was a major source of NO2-. However, as stratification progressed, NO2- continued to be generated below the euphotic depth by microbial NH4+ oxidation, likely due to differential photoinhibition of NH4+ and NO2- oxidizing populations. Natural abundance stable nitrogen isotope analyses revealed a decoupling of the δ15N and δ18O in the combined NO3- and NO2- pool, suggesting that assimilation and nitrification were co-occurring in surface waters. As stratification progressed, the δ15N of particulate N below the euphotic depth increased from -5‰ to up to +20‰. N uptake rates were also influenced by light; based on 15N tracer experiments, assimilation of NO3-, NO2-, and urea was more rapid in the light (434±24, 94±17, and 1194±48 nmol N L-1 day-1 respectively) than in the dark (58±14, 29±14, and 476±31 nmol N L-1 day-1 respectively). Dark NH4+ assimilation was 314±31 nmol N L-1 day-1, while light NH4+ assimilation was much faster, resulting in complete consumption of the 15N spike in less than 7 hour from spike addition. The overall rate of coupled urea mineralization and NH¬4+ oxidation (14.1±7.6 nmol N L-1 day-1) was similar to that of NH¬4+ oxidation alone (16.4±8.1 nmol N L-1 day-1), suggesting that for labile dissolved organic N compounds like urea, mineralization was not a rate limiting step for nitrification. Our results suggest that assimilation and nitrification compete for NH4+ and that N transformation rates throughout the water column are influenced by light over diel and seasonal cycles, allowing phytoplankton and nitrifying microbes to contribute jointly to PNM formation. We identify important factors that influence the N cycle throughout the year, including light intensity, substrate availability, and microbial community structure. These processes could be relevant to other regions worldwide where seasonal variability in mixing depth and stratification influence the contributions of phytoplankton and non-photosynthetic microbes to the N cycle.This research was supported under the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Science for Peace Grant SfP 982161 to AP and AFP, a grant from the Koret Foundation to AP, a National Science Foundation Biological Oceanography grant to AP, the Israel Science Foundation grant 135/05 to AFP, and research grant 8330-06 from the Geological Society of America to KRMM

Fostering translingual dispositions against Unequal Englishes

Despite solid work on the structural, sociolinguistic and political legitimacy of the Englishes of the world, the fact remains that some Englishes are more privileged than others. Thus, the circulation of different Englishes in the classroom demands a call to dismantle the symbolic and material infrastructures of unequal Englishes. This paper explores the complex dynamics of fostering translingual dispositions against unequal Englishes in English language classrooms. It argues that dispositions which embrace the plurality of English must also include the imperative to act on and work against ideologies and practices which unequally value and stratify different Englishes in the classroom. Fostering translingual dispositions does not always result in unmasking or overturning ideologies, practices and structures of unequal Englishes, but it surfaces conflicted conditions and ideologies which may progressively lead to addressing linguistic inequalities in the classroom, making learning of English more just and compensatory

Decentering language: displacing Englishes from the study of Englishes

Much has been written about the linguistics, pragmatics and politics of the pluralization of English under conditions of colonization and globalization. By and large, however, the focus of the work on World Englishes has understandably been on “Englishes” rather than the “world”. This paper explores the theoretical potential of strategically displacing “Englishes” from the study of World Englishes and, instead, train our lens on the study of the “world” by operationalizing such strategic decentering in the context of Philippine English studies. Thus, the specific argument of this paper concerns the need to train our lenses on what constitutes “Philippine” in Philippine English. This crucial modifier of English is rarely discussed, much more unpacked and critiqued, thus “English” remains relatively disconnected from its very complex “local” moorings. In the end, however, a strategic decentering of English from the study of Philippine English will strengthen the conceptual power of our accounting of the critical role of English in Philippine society. This mobilizes the field to go beyond the study of Philippine English and into Unequal Philippine Englishes

Language, class, and coloniality in medium of instruction projects in the Philippines

This chapter maps out the interplay of social class, neoliberalism, and colonialism in spaces of disconnect and tension between language policy and practice. More specifically, it examines the historical and socio-political conditions of the production of the language policy of a university in the Philippines which aims to elevate the status of Filipino, the national language, by promoting its use as a language of instruction in the university. However, the infrastructures of the admission process, specifically its admission test, sustain the privileging of English as the main language of instruction. Thus, language choices in the classroom continue to privilege the use of English since it serves mainly both the needs of the global market, as well as the needs of “multilingual” students who, despite coming from different parts of the country, are essentially socially privileged, having had access to quality English-medium instruction (EMI) prior to coming to the university. Hence, as access to English is provided through EMI, the dominance of English is all the more perpetuated at the expense of the national language and other local languages. The privileging of English as medium of instruction despite the incorporation of a "nationalist" agenda into language policy reveals how class, neoliberalism, and colonialism come together as conditions which shape language choices in educational settings