(2016). CALL Communities & Culture: Short Papers from EUROCALL 2016 (23rd, Limassol, Cyprus, August 24-27, 2016). Research-publishing.net The 23rd EUROCALL conference was held in Cyprus from the 24th to the 27th of August 2016. The theme of the conference this year was "CALL Communities and Culture." It offered a unique opportunity to hear from real-world CALL practitioners on how they practice CALL in their communities, and how the CALL culture has developed in local and global contexts. Short papers from the conference are presented in this volume: (1) The impact of EFL teachers' mediation in wiki-mediated collaborative writing activities on student-student collaboration (Maha Alghasab); (2) Towards the development of a comprehensive pedagogical framework for pronunciation training based on adaptive automatic speech recognition systems (Saandia Ali); (3) Digital literacy and sustainability–a field study in EFL teacher development (Christopher Allen and Jan Berggren); (4) Self-evaluation using iPads in EFL teaching practice (Christopher Allen, Stella K. Hadjistassou, and David Richardson); (5) Amateur… [PDF]
(1994). Appreciating Agrodiversity: A Look at the Dynamism and Diversity of Indigenous Farming Practices. Environment, v36 n5 p6-11,37-45 Jun. Discusses the agricultural practices of indigenous peoples in countries such as Peru, Papua New Guinea, and Thailand. (Contains 35 references.) (MDH)…
(2007). From Oral History to Leadership in the Aboriginal Community: A Five Year Journey with the Wagga Wagga Aboriginal Elders Group Incorporated. Rural Society, v17 n3 p299-307 Dec. This paper aims to identify the links that show how the establishment of an Aboriginal Elders Group in the Wagga Wagga community has contributed to the social capital of the Wagga Wagga Aboriginal Community. The paper will highlight the key educational episodes: oral history program; incorporation of the Elders group; self governance of the group, and confirmation of identities of community members that show how social capital has accrued and community capacity building has occurred. It will also highlight the leadership role and the accumulation of community civil capital that has developed for members of the Aboriginal Elders group over the time that they have been together. (Contains 2 figures.)… [Direct]
(2007). Walking and Talking Geography: A Small-World Approach. Social Studies and the Young Learner, v20 n2 p15-18 Nov-Dec. When teaching geography to students in the primary grades, teachers should provide firsthand experiences that young children need to make meaningful sense of their world. David Sobel, author of \Mapmaking with Children: Sense of Place Education for the Elementary Years,\ suggests that teachers in the early grades adopt a small-world approach to teaching geography, whereby instruction is designed to help students understand the geography that is closest to them. This article presents a unit of study in which a small-world approach to teaching geography is achieved by engaging young learners in a series of \sense of place\ activities related to their local environment. This unit of study moves through the four stages of a \learning cycle\: (1) engagement; (2) investigation; (3) reflection; and (4) explanation/clarification. Students are involved in creating two different kinds of graphic representations of what they are learning: individual students create a four-part \report\ with… [Direct]
(2007). Ndebele Culture of Zimbabwe's Views of Giftedness. High Ability Studies, v18 n2 p191-208 Dec. This study explored Ndebele culture of Zimbabwe's views of giftedness. Using questionnaire narratives, data were collected from thirty Zimbabwean teachers and lecturers of Ndebele cultural background. The study established that Ndebele culture views giftedness as an unusually outstanding ability blessed in an individual from birth, which manifests in extraordinary performances and expertise including creativity and inspirational power. The hallmarks of Ndebele culture's views of giftedness are achieving exceptionally outstanding success, creativity, ability to solve problems and inspirational power. Indigenous views warrant attention since contemporary psychology now recognizes multiple views of giftedness. The study therefore recommends considering the implications of indigenous views in planning and implementing broad-based culturally sensitive gifted programs in Zimbabwe. (Contains 6 tables. 12 questions pertaining to giftedness in Ndebele culture is appended.)… [Direct]
(2009). University Student Access and Success. Go8 Backgrounder 9. Group of Eight (NJ1) Group of Eight (Go8) universities currently provide a wide range of services and programs to facilitate access and support for students from disadvantaged backgrounds. However, Go8 Vice-Chancellors have also agreed to develop jointly a coordinated equity strategy to increase the participation and success of students from disadvantaged backgrounds. This backgrounder reports the results of some initial research being undertaken to inform the design of the proposed joint Go8 equity initiative. The analyses are based on data from the 2009 Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR) national unit record data collection for undergraduate applications, offers and acceptances and the annual student data collection. A key part of the Go8 Equity Strategy will be identifying target groups and building a better understanding of their unique circumstances. In particular, it will focus on developing long-term relationships with schools and the broader community to raise… [PDF]
(2008). Social-Cognitive Predictors of College Student Use of Complementary and Alternative Medicine. American Journal of Health Education, v39 n2 p80-90 Mar-Apr. Background: Little research has addressed the prevalence and predictors of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) use among undergraduate students. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to: (1) measure the prevalence and type of CAM use among a sample of college undergraduates, and (2) test the significance of select social-cognitive constructs and demographics as predictors of CAM use among a college population. Methods: A random sample of undergraduate students within the Texas A&M University system was solicited via e-mail to complete a web-based survey. Results: Findings show high rates of CAM use. Gender, attitude toward CAM, outcome expectancies regarding the health care encounter, and social network use of CAM were shown to be significant predictors of CAM use. Discussion: CAM use is popular among college students. Results from this study can inform health care and health education professionals interested in improving health care processes and addressing positive… [PDF] [PDF]
(2006). Culturally and Geographically Relevant Performance Interventions. Performance Improvement Quarterly, v19 n2 p115-134 Jun. This article attempts to showcase how one particularly financially endowed organization is seeking to modify its instructional and organizational practice to better serve its Inupiat (Eskimo) target/client population. This is an extreme and instructive situation of socio-cultural tension that provides interesting contrasts with the issues of performance in culturally diverse corporations, governmental and non-governmental organizations. Considering the thematic argument made in this issue that multiple levels of analysis are sometimes required in developing human performance interventions in complex socio-cultural contexts, this author observed that running a school system conceived almost entirely along Western lines while serving a predominantly non-Western population leads to some problems at the macro, meso, and micro levels. This strongly suggests that, in today's cross- and multi-cultural organizational contexts, human performance technology (HPT) analyses and interventions… [Direct]
(2008). "Because We Do Not Know Their Way": Standardizing Practices and Peoples through Habitus, the NCLB "Highly-Qualified" Mandate, and PRAXIS I Examinations. Journal of American Indian Education, v47 n1 p118-135. Standardized testing, mandated by NCLB, can act as a barrier to prevent Indigenous students from entering teacher training programs and achieving "highly-qualified" certification upon exiting. Such regulations work against the nation-to-nation trust agreements that would place Indigenous teachers within Native school systems. Although experiencing difficulty, when these students analyze the epistemological underpinnings of standardized examinations, experience individualized writing instruction, and participate in exam preparation workshops, they can reach their immediate goals of teacher training as well as their long-term career goals of becoming educators in their home communities. Even under less than ideal circumstances, they can exercise self- and community-determination…. [PDF]
(2007). Responding to Health Skills Shortages: Innovative Directions from Vocational Education and Training. A National Vocational Education and Training Research and Evaluation Program Report. National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER) This research examines innovative solutions developed by the vocational education and training (VET) sector in response to skill shortages in the health sector. The study focuses on VET-trained workers in the health industry, and includes enrolled nurses, nursing assistants, personal care assistants, allied health assistants and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health workers. The research, which also examines innovative overseas approaches to skill shortages in this industry, found that a partnership approach was one answer to dealing with skills shortages in this sector. (Contains 3 footnotes and 9 figures.) [This work has been produced with funding provided through the Australian Department of Education, Science and Training. The author/project team was funded to undertake this research via a grant under the National Vocational Education and Training Research and Evaluation (NVETRE) Program. For Support Document, see ED499737.]… [PDF]
(2009). Teaching Literature in the Multicultural Classroom. Teaching and Learning Research Initiative This Teaching and Learning Initiative (TLRI) research project explored ways of teaching literature effectively in multicultural and multilingual classrooms. It involved primary and secondary school teacher-researchers working in partnership with university-based researchers over two years on a series of case studies, within an action research framework. The case studies involved classroom-based interventions carried out by individual teachers and developed collaboratively with the larger project group. Teachers in this project have shown the need to move beyond the critique of the cultural heritage model of English that views it as canonising the utterances of dead, white males and recognise that all cultures have literary heritages (including oral ones) and that these have an important role in the way people identify. Moreover, regardless of what happens in schools, literature and poetry are still thriving in the real world and teachers need to ensure that students have… [PDF]
(2009). Ayurveda in the Age of Biomedicine: Discursive Asymmetries and Counter-Strategies. ProQuest LLC, Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Michigan. Since the beginning of the British colonial enterprise in India the representation of the relationship between Western biomedicine and Ayurveda has been based on a fundamental epistemological asymmetry. However much Ayurveda was represented in Orientalist literature as accurate, poetic, useful, scholarly, or interesting, it could never occupy with authority the privileged place of the scientific that was central to the rhetoric of colonial rationality. In postcolonial India the practice of Ayurveda, its textual and intellectual production, socialization, treatment, public health education, scientific debate, research, and pharmaceutical commerce, all take place in the shadow of this biomedical hegemony. This dissertation analyzes the historical contingencies of this asymmetry, its instantiation in the discursive practices of contemporary Ayurveda practitioners, and the counter-strategies developed and deployed in the context of Ayurveda's scientific modernization and… [Direct]
(2009). Hui Malama O Ke Kai: A Positive Prevention-Based Youth Development Program Based on Native Hawaiian Values and Activities. Journal of Community Psychology, v37 n8 p987-1007 Nov. Evaluation of after-school programs that are culturally and place-based and promote positive youth development among minority and indigenous youths has not been widely published. The present evaluation is the first of its kind of an after-school, youth-risk prevention program called Hui Malama O Ke Kai (HMK), that emphasizes Native Hawaiian values and activities to promote positive youth development for fifth and sixth graders (N = 110) in a rural Native Hawaiian community. Results indicated positive gains on youth self-reports in Native Hawaiian values, self-esteem, antidrug use, violence prevention strategies, and healthy lifestyle in Year 1, and in family cohesion, school success, and violence prevention strategies in Year 2. Parent reports of their children indicated positive gains in selected domains. Implications include the support for a promising culturally appropriate program, expansion to middle-school-aged youths, and parent involvement. (Contains 1 figure and 4 tables.)… [Direct]
(2008). The Roles of Research Universities in Indigenous National Technological Innovation. Frontiers of Education in China, v3 n3 p398-414 Sep. The world is increasingly merged into a global market economy, and the government's intervention power in economy has rapidly given way to that of science and technology. For the world's major economic powers, indigenous technological innovation has become a national strategy for enhancing competitiveness. Investment in scientific and technological innovation has become the most important form of strategic investment and strategic technological industry has become a forward-looking deployment and key priority in innovative national building. Research universities may have critical strength in and important social contribution to indigenous technological innovation. An innovative government may achieve this by making use of the research university's mechanism and characteristics of technology transfer, clarifying the university-industry relationship and providing relevant policy incentives. The article concludes with an analysis of the advantages, problems and making strategies of… [Direct]
(2008). Math Monsters, Learning Trails, Games and Interventions: Some of the Teaching and Learning Resources Developed by Teachers in the Mathematics for Learning Inclusion Program. Australian Primary Mathematics Classroom, v13 n4 p28-32. This article describes some of the features of the Mathematics for Learning Inclusion program. The program is designed to improve the teaching and learning of mathematics in clusters of primary schools serving low socio-economic communities (low SES). Specifically, it aims to improve the engagement and learning outcomes for low SES and Aboriginal learners by enhancing the capacity of primary teachers in the effective and inclusive teaching of mathematics. (Contains 4 figures.)… [Direct]