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Preservice Teachers’ Reflections on the Use of Visual Supports to Improve Mathematics Pedagogy: The Case Study of Fraction and Ratio
No full textThis case study inspected mathematical learning opportunities that employed the results from the participating preservice teachers’ (n=75) original visual arts creation process. Data obtained during this study provided empirical evidence for the educational viability of employing original Mondrian-style rectangle sets as a context for generating authentic mathematics inquiry opportunities. The participating preservice teachers generally indicated that through the process of creating their Mondrian-style rectangle sets and exploring the mathematical patterns within their works, such as the presence of fractions and ratios, they were able to develop an improved understanding of the pedagogy for teaching these mathematics concepts. The findings from this study suggest that both mathematics teachers and mathematics teacher educators might better serve their students by including more visual supports when teaching mathematics concepts
PRISON LABOR AND THE FAIR LABOR STANDARDS ACT: RESOLVING THE CIRCUIT SPLIT ON WHETHER INCARCERATED WORKERS ARE ENTITLED TO THE FEDERAL MINIMUM WAGE
Get PDFAt any given time, around half the incarcerated population in the United States works full-time. A large majority of incarcerated workers are engaged in “prison housework,” doing laundry, working in the kitchen, or providing janitorial services, etc. A smaller portion of individuals work in prison industries to produce goods and services for both government agencies and private corporations. National estimates for the annual value of prison and jail industrial output come to around 0.33 to $1.41 per hour.
Mass incarceration and the prison industry have become seamlessly intertwined with America’s racially stratified economy. Wal-Mart, Victoria’s Secret, Boeing, Microsoft, and Starbucks are some of the many major U.S. companies that have partnered with prison industries in the past to profit off of free or underpaid labor. In the absence of clear Supreme Court ruling or guidance from Congress, it remains unclear whether incarcerated workers may be considered “employees” as defined by the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) and therefore subject to the federal minimum wage protections. Without any guidance, lower courts have developed a patchwork of conflicting standards and formalistic dichotomies to address the issue of FLSA coverage for incarcerated workers.
This Note analyzes the circuit split on the question of FLSA coverage and provides recommendations on how the Supreme Court should decide the issue. This Note goes on to advance a new “but-for” test for courts to adopt when deciding which kinds of incarcerated workers should be covered by the FLSA
Investigating environmental values and psychological barriers to sustainable behaviors among college students
No full textSustainable and pro-environmental actions at the individual level are influenced by a myriad of external and internal factors. The “value-action gap” describes the disconnect between one’s environmental values and attitudes, and their actual behaviors. While many acknowledge that climate change is a major threat in today’s world, a multitude of structural and psychological barriers exist which prevent individuals from engaging in eco-friendly practices. This study investigated environmental values and psychological barriers to pro environmental behavior among college students in a North American University. Data was collected through a survey that received 765 responses and used the New Ecological Paradigm - NEP and the Dragons of Inaction Psychological Barriers - DIPB measurement scales. Students widely expressed environmental values and concern about climate change. Agreement or strong agreement with statements reflecting the New Ecological Paradigm ranged from 67% to 92%. Respondents agreed that action should be taken to promote sustainability, but they might need help to translate beliefs into action. The most influential psychological barriers showed: resistance to transforming habits and lifestyles, need for more information on how to change, and a feeling of unfairness in face of industry-caused environmental degradation. Most students would be willing to engage in a sustainability campaign. Identifying what prevents students from changing their habits and behaviors will help guide institutional efforts to promote a culture of sustainability on our campus. By understanding how students view and practice sustainability on an individual level, measures can be implemented that effectively address and overcome psychological barriers to pro-environmental behaviors
Complex Dynamic Systems Theory in Second Language Acquisition: Exploring Concepts and Unpacking Constructs
Get PDFIn January 2000, Stephen Hawking predicted, “the next century will be the century of complexity” (Sanders, 2003). Indeed, complexity science, or the study of the structure and behavior of complex dynamic systems, has become increasingly popular as researchers aim to understand the complexity that surrounds us – e.g., rainforests, immune systems, the global economy, and language (Sanders, 2003). In fact, at the time that Stephan Hawking made his prediction, complexity science and systems thinking had already permeated numerous disciplines, including, and of particular interest to the current forum, second language acquisition (SLA)
Puzzling Over Mechanical Errors: An Exploratory Practice Study
Get PDFThis study sought to solve the puzzle of persistent occurrence of mechanical errors in pre-service primary school teachers’ writings. Data consisted of short compositions from four intact classes (n=75) of second-year university students at the Higher Institute of Arts and Crafts of Tataouine (ISAMT), Tunisia. Results of data analysis revealed a high rate of mechanical errors and indicated that negative transfer and fossilization were major obstacles in the process of mastering L2 writing. 
Can't Help But Help: Valeria Luiselli and the Power of Translation
Get PDFIn her essay “Tell Me How It Ends,” Valeria Luiselli walks the reader through her work as a volunteer translator for migrant children entering the United States. Luiselli gives the reader a sampling of the questions she must ask each child, as well as the effect asking these questions has on her: “It’s impossible not to read and answer [the undocumented children’s questionnaire] with a growing feeling that the world has indeed become a more fucked-up place than what we all imagined it could be” (143). Presumably in response to this feeling, Luiselli describes how other people have taken action: her niece’s decision to major in law and work with area activists (174); her students’ formation of an action coalition (176) to work with undocumented immigrants. She speaks favorably about their choices, leading the reader to understand that she respects people who have taken action, who have done what they can to help reduce the damage this questionnaire reflects. And so, we expect Luiselli to view her own work as providing an essential kind of help to these children as well. But this is not how Luiselli characterizes it. When describing a conversation with one young man she worked with, she reveals having told him, “I’m no policewoman, I’m no official anyone, I’m not even a lawyer. I’m also not a gringa, you know? In fact, I can’t help you at all” (166).
Why would Luiselli say that she “can’t help . . . at all,” despite focusing throughout the rest of the essay on the absolute necessity of helping? What is she doing each day, if not helping? Throughout the essay, Luiselli gives us insight into what her days volunteering look like. She writes, “my task . . . is a simple one: I translate children’s stories from Spanish to English” (141). Here, she calls herself a translator, nothing more. But being a translator seems, by definition, to be helping people understand each other, which is absolutely essential, for example, for judges to grant the children visas (158-159). Thus, it seems reasonable to say that, despite what Luiselli says, one could indeed characterize her as “helping” the children with whom she works. So why doesn’t she think of herself that way?
To consider the answer, it is worth looking at the context surrounding Luiselli’s claim that she can’t help. She made this claim during a conversation with a boy she refers to as Manu, the first undocumented minor for whom she translated. Luiselli describes how, when she first asked him a question, Manu said nothing, only shrugged slightly and stayed silent (166). It was after this non-response that she told him: “I’m no policewoman, I’m no official anyone, I’m not even a lawyer. I’m also not a gringa… In fact, I can’t help you at all” (166). In relaying the conversation to the reader, Luiselli describes her action as “reassur[ing] [Manu]” (166). It isn’t immediately obvious why saying she is unable to help would be reassuring, but Luiselli seems to be right that it is. Her statement marks the turning point in her conversation with Manu: it breaks his silence. What, then, is it about this claim that worked? Why would Manu find something reassuring in the idea that the woman he was talking to could not help him “at all?”
By saying Luiselli can’t help Manu, she characterizes herself as lacking power and authority in the US immigration system. More specifically, she characterizes herself as someone who has no more power and authority than Manu. To “help” would mean there was something she could do for Manu that he could not simply do for himself. (In this sense, she actually can help—she can translate Manu’s stories from Spanish to English, something he cannot do on his own—but the claim that she cannot help need not be perfectly accurate to accomplish something in her conversation with Manu, or even to reflect some kind of truth.) In terms of accomplishing something in the conversation, her statement is successful: it establishes a common ground with Manu. As they continue to talk, Luiselli describes them as “both newcomers to this situation” (167), and, later, discusses their shared disbelief for the incredible view from the courtroom window (169-170). That is, she genuinely seems to feel she has something in common with Manu, that they both lack a certain kind of power and authority in the system they are attempting to navigate together.
But if this explains why Luiselli told Manu she could not help him, it still leaves open the question of why she chose to include the statement in her essay. She must, of course, have thousands of exchanges she could write about. Why did she decide to recount one in which she stated the work she has devoted so much time to was not helping?
If Luiselli told Manu she couldn’t help him in order to establish some common ground, and to begin to gain his trust, we might wonder whether she had similar reasons for relaying the statement “I can’t help . . . at all” to the reader. It is hard to imagine, however, that she is hoping to get the same reaction from the reader that she got from Manu, given how different her likely target audience—American readers from all walks of life—may be from him. Is it possible Luiselli might be trying to reassure her readers, too? Or is she hoping her readers understand something completely different when hearing this statement?
The answer may be both. To better understand what Luiselli wants the reader to take from this statement, let us first consider what she might want the reader to take from the essay as a whole. When describing the action coalition her students formed after attending her class, she says, “It only takes a group of ten motivated students to begin making a small difference” (176). That is: even a small group with motivation, initiative, and energy can make things better. When discussing what drives her to tell stories, Luiselli says it is a “combination of anger and clarity,” and a “country that is as beautiful as it is broken.” She and her family are somehow now part of it, “so we are also broken with it and . . . we have to do something about that.” These emotions, then, drive her to tell stories, which is her way of making change. For Luiselli, anger drives her to tell stories, which is her way of making change. Finding America broken makes her feel as though she, too, is broken, and, thus, that she has no choice but to try to repair this brokenness. It seems reasonable to assume, in an essay that centers around such a fundamentally broken part of America—the immigration system, and in particular, the intake system for undocumented children—that she expects the reader to come to a similar conclusion, to also think, this country, this system, is broken and because I am a part of it, I am broken, too, and must help repair it.
But if Luiselli wants the reader to see the entire essay as a call to action, why state in the middle of the piece that the action she herself is taking is not a form of “help”? Isn’t that terribly demoralizing? Luiselli has put in all this work, one might think, and still, she isn’t helping at all? If that’s the case, a reader might well wonder why they should ever hope to help. This could be a reasonable takeaway—but only if Luiselli had not already made it so clear how helpful she really is being. The reader knows that she is a translator, and that she is helping children tell their stories to judges who have the power to decide whether or not to issue visas to these children. Readers know that what she is doing is essential.
This suggests that Luiselli relays this statement to the reader for the same reason she told Manu: to establish common ground. It tells the reader that they are not alone in feeling absolutely overwhelmed, helpless, and powerless in a system that is as complicated as it is disturbing. In Luiselli’s words, there is a “trail of bloodshed” from “Patagonia to Alaska,” which is “one of the bloodiest and cruelest spectacles that the twenty-first century has given” (156). In the face of this, who wouldn’t feel helpless?
Certainly not Luiselli. This, then, finally allows us to see the twin purpose of Luiselli’s statement that she cannot help Manu at all. It establishes common ground twice, with two different audiences. First, it tells Manu that Luiselli, like Manu, lacks power and authority in the immigration system, and thus, that even if he may not trust her, it is safe for him to talk to her. And second, it tells the reader that Luiselli, too, knows what it is like to feel unable to help, but that she takes action nonetheless. For Manu, common ground offers reassurance; for the reader, it is a call to action.
The antidote to feeling powerless is not to turn away from the problem that made you feel that way, Luiselli seems to be telling us. The antidote to feeling powerless is to keep fighting, just as she does over and over, after every horrific story she hears, after every demoralizing day that leaves her with a “feeling of frustration, a sense of defeat” (159). A broken country leaves all of its people broken along with it. There might be no sure way to fix it. Luiselli certainly does not offer a solution or an easy path forward. But she does force us to see that we must keep taking action to make things better.
WORK CITED
Luiselli, Valeria. “Tell Me How It Ends (An Essay in Forty Questions).” Freeman’s: Family, 2016, pp. 141-183
Primary school learning in sub-Saharan Africa during COVID-19: a scoping review of responses and recovery initiatives induced during school closures
No full textGlobally, the COVID-19 pandemic caused unprecedented disruptions in education. School closures quickly followed the onset of the pandemic to contain the spread of the virus, forcing millions of students out of their regular academic calendars. Countries put in place interventions aimed to reduce the deleterious effects of school closures and disruptions in learning. For instance, many countries used various mediums to provide students with distance learning. This scoping review examines the interventions that education systems in low- and middle-income Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries (LMIC) implemented to mitigate learning loss in reading and writing skills among early grade learners (i.e., children attending primary schools) and discusses the reach of those programs. This review highlights the proportion of students reached by the targeted mitigation measures, revealing that LMIC countries in SSA provided students with remote learning opportunities through radio and television programming, provided teachers with professional development on the use of novel tools, and provided parents and families with support to help learners at home. However, these disruptions affected the traditional assessment methods. Various assessment methods were implemented to measure student progress, but there is a need for appropriate progress monitoring tools and accurate data to measure the effectiveness of the interventions. Many LMIC implemented Return-to-School policy frameworks, processes, and principles that ensured safe learning continuity
Social Emotional Learning with Refugees in East Africa: Understandings, Implementation, and Impact
No full textSocial emotional learning (SEL) has become a popular trend in the field of Education in Emergencies (EiE). Many SEL programs targeting refugee learners aim to help individuals develop skills that are necessary for learning and development, as well as mitigate the adverse impacts of crisis and displacement. While nearly half a billion USD has been invested in SEL initiatives for refugee and crisis contexts world-wide, little evidence exists about the impacts of SEL interventions with refugee communities. As 20% of all refugees globally reside in East Africa, and it is estimated that over 152 million African children live in active conflict zones, this study set out to qualitatively examine understandings, implementation, and implications of SEL interventions across actors engaging refugee communities in the region. The results expose tensions, challenges, and complex dynamics related to culture, power, and the complicated reality of implementing refugee education initiatives in East Africa. While further research into this area of inquiry is needed and proposed, these study findings provide a stronger understanding of the refugee education landscape in East Africa and its current insufficiencies through the example of SEL, and serve to inform other topical EiE interventions and the broader uptake of SEL by education systems globally
Ecofeminism in the Early Twentieth Century Bengali Literature: Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain’s Sultana’s Dream
Get PDFEcofeminism is a field of feminist inquiry and activism that has been used in literary criticism to illustrate the connection between ecology and feminism. To end women’s oppression, ecofeminism believes that it is necessary to end all forms of oppression, particularly environmental oppression. In the last few decades, a wide range of literary works delve into the “link between the domination of women and the domination of nature.”[1] Ecofeminism in literature explores the intersection between gender, nature, and patriarchal domination. This essay seeks to argue for the presence of ecofeminist thinking in early twentieth-century Bengali literature by analyzing Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain’s short story, Sultana’s Dream.
[1] Plumwood, “Ecofeminism: An overview,” 120