Using Gamification Strategies to Cultivate and Measure Professional Educator Dispositions

One of the most important outcomes of pre-service teacher education is the transition from assignment-oriented students to service-oriented education professionals. Faculty can assist in this process by cultivating professional educator dispositions within their courses. Gamification strategies can be an effective way to provide students with timely feedback regarding their progress toward professional educator dispositions. This study investigated the effectiveness of points, timely feedback, and leaderboards on cultivating and measuring specific professional educator dispositions among pre-service teachers. Data was collected in four domains - personal responsibility, intellectual engagement, professional ethics and stewardship, and supportive interactions- where gamification strategies were additively implemented over five semesters. Results from this study indicate gamification strategies, when bundled together to leverage motivating factors such as competition and personalization led to increased gains in the four domains of professional educator dispositions.

Dare Not to Compare

This chapter urges educators to think differently about identifying and serving young children in gifted education services. Embedded in the chapter are principles for creating equitable services for young children which include focusing on and respecting the strengths and talents that all young children bring to their early learning environments. Creating thinking environments maximizes opportunities to promote and strengthen intellectual engagement as well as social and emotional development. Described through the metaphor of a jazz musician, the author emphasizes the important roles that teachers play in implementing culturally responsive pedagogies that embrace teaching for social justice. The author concludes with a scenario that illustrates the principles for creating equitable services for all young students and reiterates the need to change conceptions of early childhood gifted education from comparative practices to strengths-based and appropriately challenging instruction for all.

Spaces of Communication

Semio-pragmatics, an approach to the study of film and audiovisual media first proposed by Roger Odin in the early 1980s, shifted the focus from textual analysis to the interaction of text and context and to the institutional modes of framing and reading which shape the viewer’s engagement with the film. A response to an impasse in post-1968 film semiotics and psychoanalytical approaches to film spectatorship, semio-pragmatics contributed significantly to the further development of film studies alongside Cultural Studies, neo-formalism, historical reception studies and the phenomenology of film. Spaces of Communication offers a concise introduction to semio-pragmatics and condenses the intellectual trajectory of one of the foundational figures of film studies into a relatively short and accessible volume. It is a book which testifies to the author’s deep and rich intellectual engagement with a vast array of objects ranging from the classics of the cinephile canon to television news programs, home movies and mobile phone films.

Changing Times

Returning to England, Herbert found James I’s court and government in disarray but was forced to witness events from the side-lines due to illness. Chapter 6 explores his re-engagement with his family, estates, and court politics and his interest in the religious conflict of the period. It looks at his response to the trial of the earl and countess of Somerset for Sir Thomas Overbury’s murder, the removal of the Howard family from royal office, and the rising influence of the earl of Pembroke and his protégé, Sir George Villiers. It examines Herbert’s intellectual engagement with the soteriological conflict between Gomarists and Arminians in the United Provinces over the doctrine of predestination and his growing interest in Arminian and Socinian religious teaching. The development of his religious thinking is captured in letters written to Sir Robert Harley during 1617 to 1619, critiquing hard-line Calvinist teaching on salvation, and clearly influenced the writing of De Veritate which he drafted during the same period. The chapter ends with his return to court circles and successful application (with the support of Villiers, created earl and later duke of Buckingham by the besotted king) to advance his career as ambassador to the court of Louis XIII following the outbreak of rebellion in Bohemia.

‘…her aim was to ruin my reputation’: Cyberstalking Victimization Experiences among University Students in Nigeria

While global knowledge about cyberstalking is growing, intellectual engagement of the phenomenon in Nigeria is still at infancy and focused mainly on awareness. Scanty attention has however been paid to the nature of victimization experiences and its effects on victims. Against this background, this study investigated the nature and effects of cyberstalking among victims at the University of Ibadan. Using purposive and snowball sampling techniques, 30 victims of cyber stalking were subjected to indepth interview. Results indicated that their active online activities and the anonymity guaranteed in cyberspace contributed to their victimization. While one of the social and psychological effects of cyberstalking is social estrangement of victims, most victims failed to report to the Police owing to fear of repeat victimization and lack of trust in the policing institution. Instead, they accessed informal coping mechanisms from friends and family.

What the 'lost children' helped us find

The public emphasis on 'lost learning' and hapless child victims fails to acknowledge children's drive to learn and misconceives the role of the teacher. Through direct conversations and close observations Emily Rowe, class teacher, and Jeni Smith, school governor, worked together to learn from year 5 and 6 children about their experiences of learning during the pandemic and to reflect on what children learn at home with the adults there and alone, and on the role that teachers play in children's intellectual growth. They reflect on the centrality of listening and careful observation, on children's resilience, ambition and intellectual engagement, and the significance of a community of learners in a primary school. The paper ends with a compilation of all that the children listed they had learned at home, at school and on-line during the time of lockdown.

Education for Black Liberation

Popular education has played a central role in Pan-African liberation struggles historically and in the present moment. In the period following African independence, social movements that emerged around and through education in Africa were informed by and in dialogue with related decolonial movements of the Global South. However, the specific contributions of Pan-Africanist revolutionaries to the broader philosophy and praxis of education for liberation is often under-appreciated. This paper explores this impact through Paulo Freire’s political and intellectual engagement with Pan-Africanist popular education movements, radical intellectuals, and broader revolutionary struggles. In considering Freire’s work in dialogue and practice with African revolutionary thinkers, this paper shows that, while Freire shaped elements of liberation education in Africa, he was also deeply shaped and influenced by the historical conditions of the time and key African revolutionaries who were struggling towards similar objectives. Additionally, we explore the continued salience of Freirean educational praxis in contemporary Pan-Africanist social movements, through the example of a present day online pedagogical experiment, the Pan-African Activist Sunday School and Solidarity Collective.

The perspective of artisan vendors' resilience, dedication to product authenticity, and the role of marketing and community: 21st century

PurposeThis study creates new knowledge that addresses issues significant enough to warrant intellectual engagement. It fills a gap in the academic and practitioner literature by examining a profitable yet understudied cottage industry (artisan vendors). It examines marketing concepts that influence dedication to authentic craftsmanship and artisans' willingness to continue in the industry.Design/methodology/approachThis study examines historical evidence and connects it with subjective and interpretive analyses from 29 in-depth interviews of today's US artisan vendors to identify sustainable marketing best practices for the industry.FindingsResearchers uncovered factors behind artisan vendors' willingness to stay committed to their craft and remain in the industry. From the findings of this study, marketing best practices (branding, brand communities and product adaptation while remaining authentic to their craft) were identified as tools for resilience and remaining a viable competitor in the marketplace.Originality/valueHistorically, artisan vendors have been engaging in marketing practices before terms defined their activities. Thus, this study is original in that it contributes to the academic literature by first conducting an analysis of the history of an understudied cottage industry (artisan vendors) starting in the Mesopotamian Era. The key marketing factors discovered in the historical study contributing to the resilience of this industry were then used to conceptualize a qualitative study of the highly profitable US artisan vendor industry.

Deep Meaningful Learning

Deep meaningful learning is the higher-order thinking and development through manifold active intellectual engagement aiming at meaning construction through pattern recognition and concept association. It includes inquiry, critical thinking, creative thinking, problem-solving, and metacognitive skills. It is a theory with a long academic record that can accommodate the demand for excellence in teaching and learning at all levels of education. Its achievement is verified through knowledge application in authentic contexts.

A Social Sonic Paradigm

This chapter presents an examination of why—in contemporary Africa, with Southern Africa as the primary focus—there are very few artists working with sound in a manner that fits the paradigm of sound art as it is known in Euro-America. Emphasis is not placed on a lack of intellectual engagement, which is significant in the Euro-American definition of sound art. What is presented does not aim to deviate from this, but rather acts to affirm an engagement with alternative forms of knowledge and mechanisms of sound found in the South. Three areas are explored; these however are interlinked and do not stand alone. The first is an understanding of the practice of interdisciplinarity as political engagement. The second explores the role of community and communal interaction with sound and how this is fundamental to form in the region. The third extends this by showing how the histories of knowledge and power are fundamental to these explorations in the region, emphasizing how contemporary explorations of sound are used to both contain and shift these histories. The chapter takes shape with the use of case studies and draws on interviews conducted by the authors.