327 research outputs found
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If school is the problem, what is the solution?
No full textDiscussing fundamental problems in the current education system, Professor Peter Twining explores:
- how people learn, and thus how schools should support learning
- how the world is changing, and thus how school curricula should change
- the key barrier(s) to moving towards his vision for education of school age learners
- potential ways forwar
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ICT and the nature of learning : implications for the design of a distance education course
No full textEnormous changes are taking place regarding how people learn. The introduction of new technologies and in particular the resulting possibilities for our virtual presence in virtual spaces, highlights some comparatively neglected aspects of learning. This book seeks to redress the balance by presenting a collection of papers, which view learners as embodied actors in both real and virtual spaces. The authors look at the relationship between space, identity and learning and how it is changing as we move into the `information age'
The global trend in plant twining direction
No full textAim: To examine, at a global scale, patterns in the direction in which climbing plants twine. We tested three hypotheses: (1) that twining direction is determined randomly; (2) that twining direction is determined by apices following the apparent movement of the sun across the sky; and (3) that twining direction is determined by the Coriolis effect.
Location: Seventeen sites spanning nine countries, both hemispheres and 65° of latitude.
Methods: Twining direction was recorded for the first c. 100 stems encountered along transects through natural vegetation at each site.
Results: Ninety-two per cent of the 1485 twining stems we recorded grew in right-handed helices, i.e. they twined in an anticlockwise direction. This is significantly (P < 0.001) different from random. The proportion of stems twining right-handedly (anticlockwise) was independent of both latitude (P = 0.33) and hemisphere (P = 0.63). These data are inconsistent with the idea that twining direction is determined by either the relative passage of the sun through the celestial sphere or by the Coriolis effect. Thus, we reject all three of our hypotheses.
Main conclusions: The predominance of right-handed helical growth in climbing plants cannot be explained by hypotheses attempting to link plant growth behaviour and global location. One alternative hypothesis for our findings is that the widespread phenomenon of anticlockwise twining arises as a function of microtubule orientation operating at a subcellular level
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The Great Juristic Bazaar ::Jurists' Texts and Lawyers Stories /
No full text"Some law students find jurisprudence daunting, impersonal, dry and seemingly detached from practical affairs. William Twining believes that many jurists have been fascinating people struggling with questions that are both historically significant and relevant to contemporary issues. This book brings together previously published essays that centre on three related themes: reading Juristic texts, the role of narrative in law, and relations between theory and practice. Building on a pragmatic view of jurisprudence, the author explores different ways of reading and using Juristic texts, to set them in context, to bring them to life and to engage with the reader's own concerns. He applies this approach to throw fresh light on four familiar figures - Holmes, Bentham, Hart and Llewellyn. Challenging limited agendas and parochial points of view, Twining outlines a programme for a broad approach to legal theory in the context of globalization. He satirizes some bad habits in jurisprudence and explores in depth how stories can be seductive vehicles for cheating in legal contexts, yet are essential for making sense of disputes about fact or law."--Provided by publisher
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General Nathan Twining and the Fifteenth Air Force in World War II
No full textGeneral Nathan F. Twining distinguished himself in leading the American Fifteenth Air Force during the last full year of World War II in the European Theatre. Drawing on the leadership qualities he had already shown in combat in the Pacific Theatre, he was the only USAAF leader who commanded three separate air forces during World War II. His command of the Fifteenth Air Force gave him his biggest, longest lasting, and most challenging experience of the war, which would be the foundation for the reputation that eventually would win him appointment to the nation's highest military post as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Cold War
Instinctive presence: an examination of the maternal discourse in selected works by African American and Native American women writers, 1999
No full textThe purpose of this study was to examine the underlying maternal motifs in selected works by African American and Native American women writers. The study, specifically focused upon African American author Toni Morrisons Beloved, and Native American author Ella Cara Delorias Waterlilv. These respective African American and Native American women, through their unwavering positions on maternal supremacy, have rightfully positioned the mother figure, whether biological, cosmic or surrogate, to the forefront. Within this formation, the bearer of life is revealed and revered as the authoritative source of spiritual growth, generational sustenance, and ancestral tribute. Both authors emphasize the significance of the maternal figure through the use of revision and (re)memory, important literary devices reflective of both cultures, to illustrate the simultaneous past, present and future. The research confirmed that the selected African American and Native American women writers strategically devised their literary language to demonstrate the prominence of this central maternal figure, and her role as maintainer of cultural traditions, thus the preserver of a society
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Aspiring to transform education? 'Impossibility thinking' as a living experiment: Young learners aspiring towards creative education futures
No full textWhat kinds of principles might underpin the development of ideas by young people for transforming the education system they currently experience? From March 2006 until May 2007, Open University and University of Exeter staff collaborated with young people in two secondary schools, to explore this question, as part of a development and research project, funded by the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts. The programme, Aspire Pilot, offered young people a leadership role in developing provocations to support their own thinking, that of their peers and others, in considering future learning systems, or ‘schome’ (not school - not home - schome – the education system for the information age) (Twining, 2003). Aspire Pilot reflected a growing movement by policy makers here in the United Kingdom as well as in North America and Australasia, to offer young people a voice in their learning offer by sharing their schooling experience (Fielding, 2006).
This paper offers an exploration of the theoretical influences which shaped this project, firstly in its substantive focus and operation, and secondly in the methodology for researching it. Finally some reflections are offered on what our research strand tells us, about what aspects of the theoretical frame have manifested in practice for those involved, and particularly for the young people, in relation to aspiring to transform education
Exploring the educational potential of virtual worlds — Some reflections from the Schome Park Programme
No full textThis paper describes and reflects on the development of the Schome Park Programme (SPP), which was established with the specific aim of extending our thinking about schome, which aims to be the optimal educational system for the 21st century.
In an earlier stage of the Schome Initiative, it became clear that people find it almost impossible to break free from established conceptions of education. Open virtual worlds like Second Life® virtual world offer opportunities for people to have radically different ‘lived experiences’ of educational systems and thus seemed to be the ideal vehicle for exploring alternative models of education. The SPP therefore set out in late 2006 to use Teen Second Life® virtual world to support the development of the vision of schome, informed by current understandings about learning, pedagogy and the ‘tools’ available to us today.
This paper provides an overview of the first three phases of the SPP and briefly outlines the research methodologies used within it. This leads into a discussion of the potential of virtual worlds to support pedagogical exploration, which in turn leads to consideration of three dimensions of practice that emerged from the SPP. These three dimensions, which correspond closely with a framework developed in post-compulsory education, are illustrated by use of descriptions of activities and other data from the SPP. The paper concludes by raising questions about the extent to which pedagogical practices will change in the future as a result of the opportunities offered by virtual worlds
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