On the value of Candoco's Teacher Training Intensive

In September 2013 I was asked to write a guest blog for Candoco Dance Company, who are world leaders in inclusive dance practice. I participated in their Teacher Training Intensive in 2010 and it has had a significant effect on shaping my pedagogy as an early career academic

Hammers and blind man’s sticks: re-examining the digital double

This presentation draws on my research in to technological embodiment as part of my PhD studies, which explores a phenomenon called the ‘digital double’ – a manipulable representation of the human body in a variety of performance and new media contexts. My research uses lived experience and autoethnographic writing as a methodology to document and reveal embodied knowledge of the interfaces of body, technology and self when technologically embodied through the digital double. This presentation gives an overview of my research alongside discussion of Me and My Shadow (2012), an interactive telematic and live motion-capture performance installation by sound and media artist Joseph Hyde. Using extracts from autoethnographic writing about my embodied experience of the installation as an audience member, I illustrate the theoretical and embodied bases of my research. My intention is to highlight flaws in current theorisations of the digital double and technological embodiment in this context, which stem from reliance on Merleau-Pontian philosophy of the body as the basis for the research area, and its inherent ‘somatophobia’ (Barbour, 2005). I argue that, through an embodied research methodology and consideration of somatic philosophy and dance scholarship, a more holistic understanding of technological embodiment can be reached

AgEcon Search: An International Disciplinary Repository

4th International Conference on Open RepositoriesThis presentation was part of the session : Conference PresentationsDate: 2009-06-04 08:30 AM – 10:00 AMAgEcon Search, http://ageconsearch.umn.edu, is a discipline-oriented repository, started in 1995, which includes working papers, conference papers and journal articles in the field of applied economics. Running on DSpace, it is housed at the University of Minnesota and coordinated by two librarians. Involvement of professional associations has been critical in its success, and other contributors include academic departments, government agencies and NGOs. Over 32,000 documents are included, from 170 groups in 35 countries.Farm Foundation; Agricultural and Applied Economics Association Foundation; USDA Economic Research Servic

AgEcon Search: Partners Build a Web Resource

Originally published in Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship, Spring 2002Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession,

Skills, Capabilities and Inequalities at School Entry in a Disadvantaged Community

Socioeconomic inequalities in children’s skills and capabilities begin early in life and can have detrimental effects on future success in school. The present study examines the relationships between school readiness and sociodemographic inequalities using teacher reports of the Short Early Development Instrument in a disadvantaged urban area of Ireland. It specifically examines socioeconomic (SES) differences in skills within a low SES community in order to investigate the role of relative disadvantage on children’s development. Differences across multiple domains of school readiness are examined using Monte-Carlo permutation tests. The results show that child, family and environmental factors have an impact on children’s school readiness, with attendance in centre-based childcare having the most consistent relationship with readiness for school. In addition, the findings suggest that social class inequalities in children’s skills still exist within a disadvantaged community. These results are discussed in relation to future intervention programmes.School readiness, Socioeconomic inequalities, Monte-Carlo permutation tests

Objectively measured physical activity and sedentary behaviour in young children

Study 1: Aims: Compare the uniaxial MTI/CSA accelerometer and the biaxial Actiwatch accelerometer against direct observation of total physical activity and minute-by-minute physical activity in 3-4 year olds. Methods: MTI/CSA-7164 and Actiwatch accelerometers simultaneously measured activity during 35-45 minute sessions of structured play in 78, 3-4 year olds. Rank order correlations between accelerometry and direct observation were used to assess the ability of the accelerometers to assess total activity. Within-child minute-by-minute correlations were calculated between accelerometry output and direct observation. Results: For assessment of total activity MTI/CSA output was significantly positively correlated with direct observation (r 0.72, p0.05). Conclusion: The present study suggests that for epidemiological assessment of total physical activity in young children the MTI/CSA-7164 provides greater accuracy than the Actiwatch. Study 2: Aim: To cross-validate the 1100 counts/ minute cut-off for the assessment of sedentary behaviour in an independent sample of young children using the MTI/CSA accelerometer. Methods: A previously developed cut-off for MTI-CSA accelerometry output (validation study) in 30 healthy Scottish 3-4 year olds, was cross-validated against direct observation in an independent sample of (n = 52) healthy Scottish 3-4 year olds. Results: In the cross-validation study sensitivity was 83%: 438/528 inactive minutes were correctly classified. Specificity was 82%: 1251/1526 non-inactive minutes were correctly classified using this cut-off. Conclusion: Sedentary behaviour can be quantified objectively in young children using accelerometry

Exploring Educational Leaders Enactment of Emotional Intelligence

It is widely accepted that the success of schools is dependent on effective leaders and leadership practice. School leaders manage an increasingly complex set of demands, including policy transformations, advances in technology and ongoing curriculum changes. Acknowledgement of the importance of educational leadership roles and the recognised complexity of such positions has resulted in considerable research interest in identifying the skills of successful school leaders (Holmberg et al., 2016). There is now growing evidence to support the proposition that emotional intelligence is strongly linked to effective school leadership and an ability to navigate the complexities of contemporary school environments (Doe et al., 2015; Dabke, 2016) However, the current body of research provides limited descriptions of what emotional intelligent skills look like in the everyday practice of school leaders, and how they have been supported in the enactment of these skills. A qualitative case study approach was used to explore how four school leaders understood and enacted emotional intelligence in their practice. Observations, debriefing discussions, interviews and participant reflection diaries provided the material for detailed narrative accounts of the leaders’ understanding and enactment of emotional intelligence. Key themes in terms of their enactments of EI in practice were identified. Drawing on models of emotional intelligence (Goleman, 1998; Mayer & Salovey, 1990), theories on emotional regulation (Gross, 2014), as well as models of conflict management (Rahim & Bonoma, 1979) and literature on leading change (i.e., Fullan, 2011; Issah, 2018), this study investigated how these four leaders (Principal, Deputy Principal, Assistant Principal and Head Teacher), ranging in seniority and leadership experience, understood and applied emotional intelligent skills in their individual contexts. This research inquiry responded to the need for greater understanding of the nexus between emotional intelligence and school leadership practices. The findings support the premise that emotional intelligence is highly relevant for effective leadership in educational environments. A key conclusion drawn from the study’s findings was that a leader’s management of their own and others’ emotions influences the ways in which they present and facilitate organisational change in their context, as well as how they approached and managed conflict. The findings present practical illustrations of the leaders practice and point to specific areas of professional learning for middle leaders as well as senior executive positions, including greater opportunities for mentoring and professional development in emotional intelligence

An exploration of preservice teachers' experiences of the higher diploma in education and aspects of their subject matter knowledge.

Research report submitted to the Faculty of Science University of the Witwatersrand Johannesburg, in part completion for the Master of Science Degree,Three case studies were conducted involving Andrew, Ferrial and Mary. A number of aspects relating to their experiences were explored and are described in this report. In addition to their personal accounts, their views about the nature of science, science teaching and learning were sought. The study also surveyed HDE students' knowledge of certain concepts related to chemical bonding and acids and bases. The case studies were observed during their teaching practice to establish how the aspects mentioned above relate to their practices in the classroom. Data was collected through intervews, journals, classroom observation both in their science methodology classes and during teaching practice and diagnostic tests. It was found that school backgrounds influenced Ferrial's and Mary's perceptions of the HDE programme. They both appreciated those aspects of the metholodologies that were directly linked to preparation for teaching, such as the mini lessons, test design, the practical work, and enriching their knowledge of science concepts through discussing science content. Both were very anxious about their competence in teaching science. They considered the assignment work excessive, irrelevant, and frustrating and were sometimes not sure what was expected. Ferrial felt .they were given too much work. Andrew, on the other hand did not seem to find any problems. He liked the practical approach followed in the classes and appreciated the suggestions made. His experiences were more of a personal nature and related to the fact that he was engaged in part time teaching. Their conceptions of science, teaching and learning were modified rather than changed during the year of study. They were not always successful in trying out their theories of teaching and learning and applying the suggestions made in the HDE courses because such moves were sometimes unacceptable to their students or cooperating teachers. In Andrew's situation implementation of suggestions were impeded by lack of appropriate facilities. It was also found from this study that student teachers had several erroneous ideas about chemical bonding and acids and bases irrespective of the depth of their chemical background. It was further found that discussing chemical bonding helped the students change some of their ideas to more acceptable ones.Andrew Chakane 201

Lexical segmentation and word recognition in fluent aphasia

The current thesis reports a psycholinguistic study of lexical segmentation and word recognition in fluent aphasia.When listening to normal running speech we must identify individual words from a continuous stream before we can extract a linguistic message from it. Normal listeners are able to resolve the segmentation problem without any noticeable difficulty. In this thesis I consider how fluent aphasic listeners perform the process of lexical segmentation and whether any of their impaired comprehension of spoken language has its provenance in the failure to segment speech normally.The investigation was composed of a series of 5 experiments which examined the processing of both explicit acoustic and prosodic cues to word juncture and features which affect listeners' segmentation of the speech stream implicitly, through inter-lexical competition of potential word matchesThe data collected show that lexical segmentation of continuous speech is compromised in fluent aphasia. Word hypotheses do not always accrue appropriate activational information from all of the available sources within the time frame in which segmentation problem is normally resolved. The fluent aphasic performance, although quantitatively impaired compared to normal, reflects an underlying normal competence; their processing seldom displays a totally qualitatively different processing profile to normal. They are able to engage frequency, morphological structure, and imageability as modulators of activation. Word class, a feature found to be influential in the normal resolution of segmentation is not used by the fluent aphasic studied. In those cases of occasional failure to adequately resolve segmentation by automatic frequency mediated activation, fluent aphasics invoke the metalinguistic influence of real world plausibility of alternative parses