http://www.merlot.org:80/merlot/ A search of MERLOT materials Copyright 1997-2013 MERLOT. All rights reserved. Sun, 19 May 2013 12:17:31 PDT Sun, 19 May 2013 12:17:31 PDT http://www.merlot.org:80/merlot/images/merlot.gif http://www.merlot.org:80/merlot/ 44 34 http://www.merlot.org/merlot/viewMaterial.htm?id=652638 This paper addresses the question: how do mathematics teachers make meaning from curriculum statements in relation to their teaching practices. We report on a teacher development activity in which teachers mapped test items from an international test against the national curriculum statement in mathematics. About 50 mathematics teachers across Grades 3-9 worked in small groups with a graduate student or staff member as a group leader. Drawing on focus group interviews with the teachers and the group leaders we show that the activity focused the teachers on the relationships between the intended curriculum and their teaching, i.e. the enacted curriculum, in four areas: content coverage; cognitive challenge; developing meaning for the assessment standards; and sequence and progression. We argue that the activity illuminates ways in which international tests can provide a medium for teacher growth rather than teacher denigration and alienation. http://www.merlot.org/merlot/viewMaterial.htm?id=652715 In this paper, I illuminate the notion of mathematics for teaching (its matter) and argue that it matters (it is important), particularly for mathematics teacher education. Two examples from studies of mathematics classrooms in South Africa are described, and used to illustrate what mathematics teachers use, or need to use, and how they use it in their practice: in other words, the substance of their mathematical work. Similarities and differences across these examples, in turn, illuminate the notion of mathematics for teaching, enabling a return to, and critical reflection on, mathematics teacher education. http://www.merlot.org/merlot/viewMaterial.htm?id=652541 A 37-slide PowerPoint presentation. Includes graphics and cases with clinical implications. Part 1 of 3-part lecture series about infections with Gram-negative obligate anaerobes. http://www.merlot.org/merlot/viewMaterial.htm?id=652542 This learning resource is a 46-slide PowerPoint presentation on infection with gram-positive obligate anaerobes. It includes graphics and has clinical implications. Part 2 of 3-part lecture series about infections with Gram-negative obligate anaerobes http://www.merlot.org/merlot/viewMaterial.htm?id=652543 This is a 44-slide PowerPoint presentation on infection with Gram-negative obligate anaerobes. It includes graphics and clinical cases. Part 3 of 3-part lecture series about infections with Gram-negative obligate anaerobes http://www.merlot.org/merlot/viewMaterial.htm?id=652729 In the aftermath of apartheid and apartheid education, South African universities are exploring ways in which they can make their curricula more responsive to the needs of under-prepared students. There are many possible kinds of ‘curriculum responsiveness'. This paper focuses on ‘curriculum responsiveness' for epistemological access. It explores what it means to be responsive to both epistemological activities underpinning systematised forms of inquiry synonymous with academic practice and to the needs of under-prepared students in relation to these. The main focus of the paper is on the practices which constitute academic knowledge as fundamentally different from everyday-life ways of making meaning. This account entails an examination of the analytic logic of academic practice and the social conditions which underpin it. This account includes an analysis of the systematic inquiry through which university studies fulfil their necessary functions. The paper explores ways in which under-preparedness for such practices may be demonstrated, particularly in relation to "text-based practices" (Wertsch, 1991). It concludes with an examination of ways of initiating newcomers into these specialised activities of academic meaning making. This paper is based upon, and developed from an earlier paper we wrote on ‘Curriculum Responsiveness' commissioned by SAUVCA and published in H. Griesel (Ed.) Curriculum Responsiveness: Case Studies in Higher Education, 2004. Pretoria: South African Universities Vice-Chancellors Association. 2004. http://www.merlot.org/merlot/viewMaterial.htm?id=652730 The generally acknowledged play of subjectivity in the judgement of art makes the concept of achievement in the discipline a complex one. In this paper I show that there are sought after albeit tacit criteria for secondary school art in a south-western region of South Africa, and that these features are similar to criteria in art assessment literature. I describe attempts to elicit the existence and nature of criteria from the teachers and moderators responsible for evaluation of learners' final-year exhibitions, these displays being the only school art graded by teams rather than single individuals. Delineation of criteria is based on interviews and a ranking task administered to teachers and moderators. While results show broadly similar criteria, rankings are not uniform. Rankings are, however, patterned in a finite number of ways traceable in terms of art traditions. I argue that this existence of broadly structured tacit criteria, while rendered sensible with reference to Bernstein's theory of knowledge and art as a weakly structured discipline, has implications for pedagogy. The transmission-acquisition process needs to include establishment of and induction of acquirers into, shared sought-after criteria. It is expected that findings of the study will have relevance for other weakly structured disciplines. http://www.merlot.org/merlot/viewMaterial.htm?id=652734 This special focus edition of the Journal of Education focuses on the poetics of pedagogy. The introduction elaborates on what this phrase means as well as commenting on how the four papers by Hoadley, Slonimsky and Shalem, Bolton and Rule work the field. http://www.merlot.org/merlot/viewMaterial.htm?id=652735 Wayne Hugo provides the editorial for this special focus edition of Journal of Education. http://www.merlot.org/merlot/viewMaterial.htm?id=652736 The introduction elaborates on what this phrase means as well as commenting on how the four papers by Hoadley, Slonimsky and Shalem, Bolton and Rule work the field.