title: An evaluation of the cultural supervision prototype undertaken within the Department of Corrections, Hamilton

authors: Masters-Awatere, Bridgette

subjects: Maori

abstract: Disproportionately high rates of offending and recidivism among Māori are well documented. As part of its attempt to better meet the needs of Māori offenders, the Department of Corrections is developing cultural supervision for staff in the Community Probation Service, the Public Prisons Service and the Psychological Service. The aims of cultural supervision include improving staff members’ knowledge of Māori cultural values, providing support for staff in managing complex cultural issues, and ensuring safe practice and culturally appropriate behaviour. During 2002, the Māori and Psychology Research Unit was contracted to conduct a survey of current practices in relation to cultural supervision and a process evaluation of a prototype of cultural supervision being trialled in the Waikato among probation officers (Hamilton Area) and sentence planners (Waikeria Prison) (Karapu, Masters, Robertson, Trynes, & Waitoki, 2002). Findings from the survey indicated that most staff had informal cultural support or advice available to them. Usually, this was in the form of Māori colleagues within the Department. Less commonly, support was sought from Māori in other organisations, from knowledgeable non-Māori within the Department, kaumātua and kuia, and whānau members. About a third of Corrections staff were receiving some formal cultural supervision, most of whom regarded it positively. Among other staff, both Māori and non-Māori, there was a high level of interest in cultural supervision, and a view that it would be beneficial to their professional practice. Overall, staff felt that the support and advice currently available to them was inadequate. Findings from the evaluation of the prototype suggested that while many of the participants viewed cultural supervision as important for their job, fewer considered that the supervision they were receiving was meeting their needs. Some experienced non-Māori staff seemed to be resistant to the idea of cultural supervision, feeling that they already knew how to relate to Māori offenders. Māori staff were generally enthusiastic about cultural supervision but wanted it to focus on their personal safety as Māori within a “mainstream” institution rather than on their practice. However, both Māori and non-Māori staff generally felt that the cultural supervision sessions provided a safe environment. The prototype appeared to be a good beginning and the model should be stronger when modified in the light of experience.

text: An evaluation of the cultural supervision prototype undertaken within the Department of Corrections, Hamilton Disproportionately high rates of offending and recidivism among Māori are well documented. As part of its attempt to better meet the needs of Māori offenders, the Department of Corrections is developing cultural supervision for staff in the Community Probation Service, the Public Prisons Service and the Psychological Service. The aims of cultural supervision include improving staff members’ knowledge of Māori cultural values, providing support for staff in managing complex cultural issues, and ensuring safe practice and culturally appropriate behaviour. During 2002, the Māori and Psychology Research Unit was contracted to conduct a survey of current practices in relation to cultural supervision and a process evaluation of a prototype of cultural supervision being trialled in the Waikato among probation officers (Hamilton Area) and sentence planners (Waikeria Prison) (Karapu, Masters, Robertson, Trynes, & Waitoki, 2002). Findings from the survey indicated that most staff had informal cultural support or advice available to them. Usually, this was in the form of Māori colleagues within the Department. Less commonly, support was sought from Māori in other organisations, from knowledgeable non-Māori within the Department, kaumātua and kuia, and whānau members. About a third of Corrections staff were receiving some formal cultural supervision, most of whom regarded it positively. Among other staff, both Māori and non-Māori, there was a high level of interest in cultural supervision, and a view that it would be beneficial to their professional practice. Overall, staff felt that the support and advice currently available to them was inadequate. Findings from the evaluation of the prototype suggested that while many of the participants viewed cultural supervision as important for their job, fewer considered that the supervision they were receiving was meeting their needs. Some experienced non-Māori staff seemed to be resistant to the idea of cultural supervision, feeling that they already knew how to relate to Māori offenders. Māori staff were generally enthusiastic about cultural supervision but wanted it to focus on their personal safety as Māori within a “mainstream” institution rather than on their practice. However, both Māori and non-Māori staff generally felt that the cultural supervision sessions provided a safe environment. The prototype appeared to be a good beginning and the model should be stronger when modified in the light of experience.

year: 2003

title: Māori and English textbooks designed for language learners at intermediate level: A comparison in terms of the occurrence and use of insights from research on discourse analysis

authors: Fester, Anthea

subjects: New Zealand

abstract: Over the past two decades, research in the area of discourse analysis has expanded rapidly and has yielded insights that could usefully inform the teaching and learning of languages. In this paper, we report on the results of a comparative study of a number of commercially available textbooks designed for learners of English and learners of te reo Māori at intermediate level in terms of the extent to which they can be shown to have been influenced by specific aspects of discourse analysis research. In the textbooks designed for learners of English, there is some evidence that the writers are aware of, and have been influenced by some aspects of discourse analysis research, particularly in the teaching of writing skills. In the textbooks designed for learners of te reo Māori, however, there is almost no sign of influence of research of this type. In view of the importance of the teaching and learning of te reo Māori in relation to the maintenance of the language, and in view of the fact that many young people in New Zealand now learn a range of academic subjects through the medium of te reo Māori, this raises issues that we believe need to be addressed.

text: Māori and English textbooks designed for language learners at intermediate level: A comparison in terms of the occurrence and use of insights from research on discourse analysis Over the past two decades, research in the area of discourse analysis has expanded rapidly and has yielded insights that could usefully inform the teaching and learning of languages. In this paper, we report on the results of a comparative study of a number of commercially available textbooks designed for learners of English and learners of te reo Māori at intermediate level in terms of the extent to which they can be shown to have been influenced by specific aspects of discourse analysis research. In the textbooks designed for learners of English, there is some evidence that the writers are aware of, and have been influenced by some aspects of discourse analysis research, particularly in the teaching of writing skills. In the textbooks designed for learners of te reo Māori, however, there is almost no sign of influence of research of this type. In view of the importance of the teaching and learning of te reo Māori in relation to the maintenance of the language, and in view of the fact that many young people in New Zealand now learn a range of academic subjects through the medium of te reo Māori, this raises issues that we believe need to be addressed.

year: 2007-11-21

title: Pitfalls in benchmarking data stream classification and how to avoid them

authors: Bifet, Albert

subjects: computer science

abstract: Data stream classification plays an important role in modern data analysis, where data arrives in a stream and needs to be mined in real time. In the data stream setting the underlying distribution from which this data comes may be changing and evolving, and so classifiers that can update themselves during operation are becoming the state-of-the-art. In this paper we show that data streams may have an important temporal component, which currently is not considered in the evaluation and benchmarking of data stream classifiers. We demonstrate how a naive classifier considering the temporal component only outperforms a lot of current state-of-the-art classifiers on real data streams that have temporal dependence, i.e. data is autocorrelated. We propose to evaluate data stream classifiers taking into account temporal dependence, and introduce a new evaluation measure, which provides a more accurate gauge of data stream classifier performance. In response to the temporal dependence issue we propose a generic wrapper for data stream classifiers, which incorporates the temporal component into the attribute space.

text: Pitfalls in benchmarking data stream classification and how to avoid them Data stream classification plays an important role in modern data analysis, where data arrives in a stream and needs to be mined in real time. In the data stream setting the underlying distribution from which this data comes may be changing and evolving, and so classifiers that can update themselves during operation are becoming the state-of-the-art. In this paper we show that data streams may have an important temporal component, which currently is not considered in the evaluation and benchmarking of data stream classifiers. We demonstrate how a naive classifier considering the temporal component only outperforms a lot of current state-of-the-art classifiers on real data streams that have temporal dependence, i.e. data is autocorrelated. We propose to evaluate data stream classifiers taking into account temporal dependence, and introduce a new evaluation measure, which provides a more accurate gauge of data stream classifier performance. In response to the temporal dependence issue we propose a generic wrapper for data stream classifiers, which incorporates the temporal component into the attribute space.

year: 2013