Education in outdoor settings: the teacher’s role in more-than-human curriculum making

Learning beyond classrooms is becoming more common in formal and non-formal education internationally. Research on outdoor learning and education has focussed on barriers, outcomes, and equity rather than processes or teachers’ practice. Despite claims around the importance of natural and outdoor places in education, the ways in which teachers consider and use particular places in preparing for and teaching outdoors is not well understood. Despite calls to do so, non-anthropocentric, posthumanist, and new materialist place theories remain under-utilised in empirical research in this area. Notably, there are only a handful of studies that include any reference to teachers’ views or practices with respect to the role of more-than-human elements. The aim of this thesis was to find out from teachers themselves when and how more-than-human elements became harnessed into the planning and enactment of curricula for outdoor learning. A multicase study was employed to inquire into the practice of five in-service school teachers based on place-responsive methods, namely, walking interviews and memory-box interviews. Drawing on postqualitative orientations to analysis, Deleuzoguattarian inspired vignettes produced four findings. In different ways, these teachers’ practice emerged through (1) their ability to notice the more-than-human, (2) attending to how their learners noticed and responded to the more-than-human in educational experiences, (3) seeking to become more attuned to the places visited, and (4) supporting the assembling of material, discursive, human, and more-than-human elements together in curriculum making. Implications for teacher education and in-service practice that encourage consideration of the more-than-human in educational practice are signposted. The thesis’ contribution provokes new considerations of how outdoor educational provision can be re-oriented to include more-than-human elements. These contributions may be significant in supporting education that could improve human environment relations and address environmental concerns

Reduction of Analgesia Delivery Time Based on PCA Data

Evidence based practice changes motivated by reduced time between patient\u27s reported pain onset and analgesia administration as shown by PCA research

Summer Camp as a Force for 21st Century Learning: Exploring Divergent Thinking and Activity Selection in a Residential Camp Setting

This study investigated change in divergent thinking (DT), an indicator of creative potential, at two gender-specific residential summer camps. Additionally, this study examined whether the change in DT varied by gender and by the type of activities campers self-select. Quantitative methods, using a quasi-experimental design was used in order to understand differences in camper scores. A total of 189 youth, 100 girls, 89 boys, between the ages of 9 and 14 years participated in the current study. Participants were administered a modified version of Guilford\u27s (1967) alternate uses task, a measure of DT, in which respondents were asked questions such as name all of the uses for a brick or name all of the uses for a plate before the camp session started, and then again at the end of the two-week session. Results indicate overall mean significant increases in DT across all scoring methods of fluency, flexibility, and originality. Participants who self-selected one or more artistic activities (e.g., drama, arts and crafts, dance) had significant increases on the tasks as opposed to participants who did not select any artistic activities (e.g., basketball, baseball, archery). Finally, girls significantly increased across all scoring methods, whereas boys slightly increased in fluency and flexibility but not in originality. These results indicate residential summer camp may provide a creativity benefit for youth in attendance, especially those who participate in certain activities. Practitioners should use this study to understand their own programming in terms of creativity, activity offerings, and camp cultur

Winner-take-all politics in Europe? European inequality in comparative perspective

In this introduction to the special issue on The New Politics of Inequality in Europe, we summarize recent literature on income inequality in the advanced democracies and argue that dominant accounts are too heavily focused on the United States, while the experience of western European countries has been neglected. While income inequality has risen nearly everywhere in the rich industrial democracies since the end of the 1970s, it has done so from different starting points, at different rates, and for reasons connected to different mechanisms and different parts of the distribution. Extending the analysis to Western Europe enables us to fully understand this variation

Enacting a place-responsive research methodology: walking interviews with educators

Place-based and place-responsive approaches to outdoor learning and education are developing in many countries but there is dearth of theoretically-supported methodologies to take a more explicit account of place in research in these areas. In response, this article outlines one theoretical framing for place-responsive methodologies for researching outdoor learning and education. We exemplify how this might work in practice with data and analysis from one suggested place-responsive research method: the walking interview. Implications and consequences are explored for how outdoor learning might be researched more widely

Disembedding the Italian economy? Four trajectories of structural reform

Southern Europe’s debtor nations need far-reaching structural reforms if they are to prosper within the strictures of the single currency, runs the constant refrain of the Euro crisis. 1 Yet Italy, the target of many such recent complaints, had already transformed its economy fundamentally over the past two decades, among other reasons in order that Italy could participate successfully in the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). The need to comply with the Maastricht convergence criteria drove major budgetary reforms in the mid- to late 1990s, as well as banking reform, privatization, decentralization, judicial reform, deregulation, and changes to the labor market and the welfare system. Europe provided a “vincolo esterno” or external constraint (Dyson and Featherstone 1996) that pushed Italy into accepting structural reforms which would otherwise have been resisted. Italy was “rescued by Europe” (Ferrera and Gualmini 2004)

The primacy of place in education in outdoor settings

In this chapter, we will show when and how place needs to be and can be reasserted as a key unifying concern for outdoor pedagogy. We argue for place-responsiveness as viable purposeful direction for outdoor education that allows us to address linked relational concerns: the development of the person, the development of skills and practice abilities, and the development of more sustainable relations with and in place. We trace when and how place is gaining more of a platform as a key aspect of international educational policy developments. The turn towards place in academic writing is noted and explored. Employing a relational ontology, we argue for place-responsiveness in outdoor education. To realise placeresponsiveness will require a widening of the frame of reference and a dynamic approach since the elements involved in place-as-event mean that place-based entities and people are relationally co-emerging. We offer a typology for planning with place in mind and a manifesto for placeresponsive outdoor teaching

Root anatomical traits contribute to deeper rooting of maize under compacted field conditions

© The Author(s) 2020. To better understand the role of root anatomy in regulating plant adaptation to soil mechanical impedance, 12 maize lines were evaluated in two soils with and without compaction treatments under field conditions. Penetrometer resistance was 1–2 MPa greater in the surface 30 cm of the compacted plots at a water content of 17–20% (v/v). Root thickening in response to compaction varied among genotypes and was negatively associated with rooting depth at one field site under non-compacted plots. Thickening was not associated with rooting depth on compacted plots. Genotypic variation in root anatomy was related to rooting depth. Deeper-rooting plants were associated with reduced cortical cell file number in combination with greater mid cortical cell area for node 3 roots. For node 4, roots with increased aerenchyma were deeper roots. A greater influence of anatomy on rooting depth was observed for the thinner root classes. We found no evidence that root thickening is related to deeper rooting in compacted soil; however, anatomical traits are important, especially for thinner root classes