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Everyday Objects (everyday + object)
Selected AbstractsEveryday objects of learning about health and healing and implications for science educationJOURNAL OF RESEARCH IN SCIENCE TEACHING, Issue 2 2006Wanja Gitari The role of science education in rural development is of great interest to science educators. In this study I investigated how residents of rural Kirumi, Kenya, approach health and healing, through discussions and semistructured and in-depth interviews with 150 residents, 3 local herbalists, and 2 medical researchers over a period of 6 months. I constructed objects of learning by looking for similarities and differences within interpretive themes. Objects of learning found comprise four types of personal learning tools, three types of relational learning tools, three genres of moral obligation, and five genres of knowledge guarding. Findings show that rural people use (among other learning tools) inner sensing to engage thought processes that lead to health and healing knowledge. The sociocultural context is also an important component in learning. Inner sensing and residents' sociocultural context are not presently emphasized in Kenyan science teaching. I discuss the potential use of rural objects of learning in school science, with specific reference to a health topic in the Kenyan science curriculum. In addition, the findings add to the literature in the Science, Technology, Society, and Environment (STSE) approach to science education, and cross-cultural and global science education. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 43: 172,193, 2006 [source] Reflective verbalization improves solutions,the effects of question-based reflection in design problem solvingAPPLIED COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 2 2004Annekatrin Wetzstein In this experimental study (N=60), the impact of question-based reflective verbalization on the quality of a design solution was investigated. Participants first designed an everyday object (garden grill) using various design strategies and then either answered questions of a naive partner, where they had to verbally describe, explain, justify and evaluate their solution (experimental group), or were given a filler task (control group). After the intervention, participants continued their design. The improvement in the design quality was significantly larger for the experimental group than for the control group. Significantly more participants of the experimental group developed new principles and added new explanations of functions to their design, whereas in the control group only corrections were made. We suggest that the dialogue specific style of reflective verbalization in the experimental group is linked to a specific way of thinking which is important for solving complex problems. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] ,No goats in the mother city': using Symbolic Objects to help students talk about diversity and changeENGLISH IN EDUCATION, Issue 1 2007Dr Arlene Archer Abstract This paper reports on a first year project in a South African engineering foundation programme which attempted to bring a cultural studies perspective to teaching academic literacy. Students identify and investigate everyday objects that have symbolic meanings in their communities. Objects are seen as catalysts for enabling student narratives to emerge, and are a way of exploring the tensions between convention and change in cultural practices. A project such as this breaks disciplinary frames, working across diverse contexts such as engineering and cultural studies. The aim is to begin to explore some of the complexities around ,development' in contexts of diversity and change, globalization and relocalization. [source] Repetition suppression of induced gamma band responses is eliminated by task switchingEUROPEAN JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE, Issue 9 2006Thomas Gruber Abstract The formation of cortical object representations requires the activation of cell assemblies, correlated by induced oscillatory bursts of activity >,20 Hz (induced gamma band responses; iGBRs). One marker of the functional dynamics within such cell assemblies is the suppression of iGBRs elicited by repeated stimuli. This effect is commonly interpreted as a signature of ,sharpening' processes within cell-assemblies, which are behaviourally mirrored in repetition priming effects. The present study investigates whether the sharpening of primed objects is an automatic consequence of repeated stimulus processing, or whether it depends on task demands. Participants performed either a ,living/non-living' or a ,bigger/smaller than a shoebox' classification on repeated pictures of everyday objects. We contrasted repetition-related iGBR effects after the same task was used for initial and repeated presentations (no-switch condition) with repetitions after a task-switch occurred (switch condition). Furthermore, we complemented iGBR analysis by examining other brain responses known to be modulated by repetition-related memory processes (evoked gamma oscillations and event-related potentials; ERPs). The results obtained for the ,no-switch' condition replicated previous findings of repetition suppression of iGBRs at 200,300 ms after stimulus onset. Source modelling showed that this effect was distributed over widespread cortical areas. By contrast, after a task-switch no iGBR suppression was found. We concluded that iGBRs reflect the sharpening of a cell assembly only within the same task. After a task switch the complete object representation is reactivated. The ERP (220,380 ms) revealed suppression effects independent of task demands in bilateral posterior areas and might indicate correlates of repetition priming in perceptual structures. [source] External Freedom in Kant's Rechtslehre: Political, Metaphysical,PHILOSOPHY AND PHENOMENOLOGICAL RESEARCH, Issue 3 2004JENNIFER K. ULEMAN External freedom is the central good protected in Kant's legal and political philosophy. But external freedom is perplexing, being at once freedom of spatio-temporal movement and a form of noumenal or ,intelligible'freedom. Moreover, it turns out that identifying impairments to external freedom nearly always involves recourse to an elaborated system of positive law, which seems to compromise external freedom's status as a prior, organizing good. Drawing heavily on Kant's understanding of the role of empirical ,anthropological'information in constructing a Doctrine of Right, or Rechtslehre, this essay offers an interpretation of external freedom that makes sense of its simultaneous spatio-temporality, dependence on positive law, intelligibility (or ,noumenality'), and a priority. The essay suggests that this account of Kantian external freedom has implications both for politics and for the metaphysics of everyday objects and institutions. [source] | ||||||||||