Interdisciplinary Approach (S.T.E.M.) of the Rotational Motion of Solids Bodies: Α Comparative Study

The present paper explores issues concerning Senior High School students’ teaching and understanding of concepts and laws, related to the rotation of a solid body around a fixed axis of rotation, through a properly designed experimental type of teaching intervention, that incorporates custom-made educational material and utilizes ICT. Through an interdisciplinary-exploratory approach of teaching, the alternative ideas of 143 high school students, aged 16-17, were initially identified. The students were divided into a control group and an experimental one and completed a suitably designed questionnaire before and after the didactic interventions. The interventions aimed at investigating the extent to which the experimental student group alternative ideas, taught through an experimental scientific approach, changed compared to the ideas of the students of the control group, who were taught the same subjects in a conventional way. The results, obtained from a quantitative and qualitative analysis of questionnaires and interviews, indicate an improvement of the experimental student group understanding, in relation to the concepts of rotational movement. Additionally, they indicate the development of a positive attitude towards the experimental procedure, applied throughout the intervention, as opposed to that of the control group, where the teaching was carried out in a conventional way.

Tracing conceptual understandings and misunderstandings of science by students with and without vision impairment through a pilot study: the case of density and heat

The purpose of this pilot study was to describe and analyze the perceptions and alternative ideas of individuals with and without vision impairments regarding the concepts of “density” and “heat”. The perceptions of sighted, age- and gender-matched participants were compared with those of visually impaired participants (two groups). Semi-structured interviews were conducted, and the analysis of the data followed the method of tracing and developing categories and sub-categories. The analysis revealed that the two groups held diverse understandings about “density”, while most participants seemed to identify “heat” as “temperature” and vice versa. The results are presented in the form of conception correlation matrices highlighting common concepts and alternative ideas towards the notions of “density” and “heat”. The findings demonstrate that in both groups there are common patterns of alternative ideas, which may lead to the assumption that vision loss or blindness and proficiency in science do not constitute a causal relation. The results may lead to useful implications for differentiated instruction regarding the comprehension of science in an integrated educational setting in conjunction with technological advances and inclusive practices.

Existing and Emerging Students’ Alternative Ideas on Geodynamic Phenomena: Development, Controlling Factors, Characteristics

This paper studies Greek junior high school students’ alternative ideas, both initial and synthetic, on geodynamic phenomena. It comments in detail on students’ concepts on Earth structure, earthquake occurrence, volcano formation, and relief change. Additionally, it attempts to trace and interpret how and why these ideas form (concept development), presenting that initial and synthetic ones are indissolubly attached and utterly directed by environmental interaction. Data analysis verifies that curriculum inadequacy and false scientific terminology in textbooks enforce the generation of alternative ideas. New synthetic alternative ideas on geodynamic phenomena are presented which are mainly characterized by intermittent and fragmentary perspective. Furthermore, the characteristics of both initial and synthetic alternative ideas are outlined, giving emphasis on the facts that students represent geodynamic phenomena as instantaneous events and that they are able to describe the repeatability of the phenomena, but they show difficulty in capturing their continuity. Finally, more factors that control alternative idea development on geodynamic phenomena are highlighted—such as (i) lack of continuous thinking, (ii) distribution, intensity and frequency of geodynamic phenomena, and (iii) current affairs (i.e., pollution, technology evolution, human intervention)—hoping that their revelation will lead to alternative ideas’ decomposition and thus to pure scientific knowledge.

The Nature of the Commonwealth

An important catalyst for the upsurge of interest in analysing earthly political communities came in 1510, when the French king Louis XII called a Council of the Church to Pisa. Like previous Councils, it encouraged debate about the location, representation, and exercise of power, but the Council at Pisa was especially notable because its defenders—including Jacques Almain and John Mair—leaned heavily on the concept of natural law in making their case against the Pope. By appealing to natural law they made clear that they saw their writings as relevant not only to the internal workings of the Church, but to all communities, temporal as well as ecclesiastical. Soon new arguments began to circulate in Europe in which the basis of political power was grounded in natural law rather than in any direct grant of power from God. These arguments helped to explain why political power was diffused among a number of independent communities rather than united in the Empire, and they could also be used to show how and why the Church was different from the state or temporal community. This chapter also considers alternative ideas about the relationship between Christianity and politics, including those developed by Thomas More, Niccolò Machiavelli, and Francesco Guicciardini.

A Comparison of Alternative Forms of the Epic Manimegalai

According to the motto, “Change is the only thing that changes” occur over time in civilization and culture. Similarly in in the Literature, the creators create their ideas (themes) according to the change of time –epic, drama, poetry to the readers. Thus the Manimgalai epic written by sethalichattanar teaches Buddist concepts. Alternative forms are born with the aim of further simplifying the concept of the maimegalai and presenting alternative ideas with the intention of introducing the reader to his or her own ideas. Thus the various myth of genetics are their forms, literary style, content, opinions etc will feature change. This article seeks to illustrate how Manimegalai and their other forms of ‘Manimegalai play’ ‘manimegalai venba’ which originated has taken shape and significance distortions.

Material-discursive changes: posthuman methodologies to (re)conceptualize postgraduate encounters in/with/through language

This paper aims to demonstrate how posthuman research methodologies foster change in analytical thinking strategies to encourage new understandings of academic literacy. It details data and insights from a recent PhD study exploring postgraduate students undergoing transformational entanglements of becomings with ‘academic language’. By presenting fragments of interviews with postgraduate students sites of contradictions and assumed expectations of communicative competence are explored. This is analysed by overlaying several thoughts on top of Deleuzo-Guattarian concepts major and minor language, desire, and the pre-personal. Posthuman methodologies are used to re-think ‘the problem’ of academic language, unsettling longstanding ‘deficit model’ understandings of academic literacy. Exploring possibilities of the ‘more than’ in and of language creates generative spaces for new possibilities in analytical processes. Thus, I unsettle my own thinking practices by re-turning to the data to offer multiple diffracted readings for alternative ideas about the role of language in postgraduate learners’ becomings.

God and Human Sovereignty in Islamic Political Tradition

The debate on the concept of political sovereignty leads to the question of whether sovereignty comes from God or humans. It is related to the foundation of state management and has implications for the political system. Islamic political tradition has not an authoritative text that explains sovereignty. This thesis was conducted based on the evidence of Islamic political history which did not present a concept of universal and standard sovereignty. Muslim thinkers proposed some alternative ideas of sovereignty such as nomocratic, theo-democracy and democracy. The author sees that the sovereignty concept in Islam is discussed as ijtihādiyyah (intellectual interpretation and judgment) which lead to multiple interpretations in some contemporary Muslim countries show that the sovereignty concept in Islam is dynamic and can be negotiated according to the political needs of the society.

Conclusions

Each of the chapters has a section on ‘flipping the thinking’, an entreaty to encourage the reader to think about child poverty in a way that deviates from the current dominant discourse. At present, what people know or think they know about child poverty and its impacts derives from received wisdom, common sense ideas, what they hear and what they read in the media. Even many professionals working with families living in poverty do not necessarily appreciate the nuance of its risks, causes and consequences. These chapters’ entreaties to ‘flip the thinking’ are picked up and discussed further in chapter ten, the conclusions chapter. In this chapter questions are asked such as ‘what could be done? What should we do? How do we respond to thinking about child poverty differently?’ This chapter also explores the implications of the previous chapters, including the policy and practice changes required to improve the lives of children living in poverty. The implications addressed are: the importance of money, the importance of relationships, received wisdoms and unconscious bias, addressing the living conditions of those looking after children, and making successful transitions. The aim is to encourage all of us to ‘flip our thinking’ and allow alternative ideas and explanations to guide us on a path that might actually prevent and eradicate child poverty.