title: Teacher questioning in a Chinese context: Implications for New Zealand classrooms

authors: Zhu, Yiyi

abstract: Teacher questioning is a very important aspect of teacher-student interaction in classrooms around the world. However, expectations of the purposes and types of these interactions can be variable, particularly across cultural contexts. This qualitative study considers the way teacher questioning is used in a mathematics class in a Chinese primary classroom. The types of questions, expectations for answers and teacher behaviours are described through the use of a short-structured observation. Questions were found to be restricted to a rapid-fire format and only a minority of students were called upon to answer questions. This is contrasted with the expectations of the use of questioning in Western contexts, and highlights the challenges for both Chinese teachers and students when they move into the New Zealand education system.

text: Teacher questioning in a Chinese context: Implications for New Zealand classrooms Teacher questioning is a very important aspect of teacher-student interaction in classrooms around the world. However, expectations of the purposes and types of these interactions can be variable, particularly across cultural contexts. This qualitative study considers the way teacher questioning is used in a mathematics class in a Chinese primary classroom. The types of questions, expectations for answers and teacher behaviours are described through the use of a short-structured observation. Questions were found to be restricted to a rapid-fire format and only a minority of students were called upon to answer questions. This is contrasted with the expectations of the use of questioning in Western contexts, and highlights the challenges for both Chinese teachers and students when they move into the New Zealand education system.

year: 2019

title: Resolving functional resilience of microbial communities to climate-induced change in the McMurdo Dry Valleys of Antarctica

authors: Rovisco Correia Goncalves Monteiro, Maria

subjects: Climate change

abstract: The McMurdo Dry Valleys of Antarctica are an abiotically driven ecosystem characterized by having a very simple trophic structure dominated by microbial communities, whose diversity is shaped by extreme abiotic gradients, particularly extreme aridity and oligotrophy. Regional isolation and dispersal limitations have concurrently led to the emergence of heterogeneous microbial communities with highly localized dominant taxa across the region. These taxa were selected based on specialized genetic and physiological adaptations accumulated during long-term isolation, which conferred an advantage to endure the physical and chemical stress. Models predict that over the coming decades, climate change will trigger hydrological changes in the system with potential consequences for its microbial communities and, subsequently, ecosystem-level processes. The capacity of the Antarctic microbiome to absorb change while maintaining its structural and/or functional attributes will determine the extent to which predicted environmental changes will threaten the system's stability. 
This research starts by developing and validating a space-for-time sampling approach using variations in geochemical factors that follow alterations in water availability as time progresses and to which biological communities respond. This approach was replicated across the six major lakes in the Wright and Taylor valleys, and builds on previous examples of environmental gradients, which used arbitrary distance-based metrics as sampling design, incorporating significant yet uncharacterized in situ geochemical variability. The approach developed here enabled the acquisition of a comprehensive dataset that predicts, with confidence, that future hydrological changes will significantly alter the composition and diversity  of microbial communities historically adapted to arid and oligotrophic conditions. The latter will result in significant changes in the metabolic activity of pathways associated with carbon, nitrogen, phosphorous and sulphur cycles, with an increase in functional diversity and activity as the system becomes wetter. This work further provides first time evidence that carbon fixation via atmospheric chemosynthesis is the primary active pathway for carbon acquisition under extreme aridity in polar deserts, being replaced by photosynthetic carbon fixation with prolonged exposure to wetness.
To complement predictions made in situ using a space-for-time approach, this research incorporated temporal observations using manipulative experiments, performed in a Polar Desert Environmental Chamber (PDEC), to test the sensitivity and resilience of microbial communities to short-term wetting disturbances. It demonstrated that co-existing microbial taxa respond asynchronously during wetting and drying periods, which indicates dry soil communities comprise co-existing taxa with preferences for different environmental conditions. It also experimentally showed, for the first time, the capacity of microbial communities from this region to recover from short-term wetting events associated with the ability of dry-adapted taxa, mostly affiliated with Actinobacteriota and Acidobacteria phyla, to persist during the wetting period. 
Through the incorporation of large-scale spatial transects in conjunction with manipulative experiments, this research delivered a fundamental evidence-based anticipation of the compositional and functional aspects that are likely to change in the McMurdo Dry Valleys ecosystem in response to alterations in water dynamics as well as on the microbial attributes that enhance the ecosystem's functional resilience to climate change.

text: Resolving functional resilience of microbial communities to climate-induced change in the McMurdo Dry Valleys of Antarctica The McMurdo Dry Valleys of Antarctica are an abiotically driven ecosystem characterized by having a very simple trophic structure dominated by microbial communities, whose diversity is shaped by extreme abiotic gradients, particularly extreme aridity and oligotrophy. Regional isolation and dispersal limitations have concurrently led to the emergence of heterogeneous microbial communities with highly localized dominant taxa across the region. These taxa were selected based on specialized genetic and physiological adaptations accumulated during long-term isolation, which conferred an advantage to endure the physical and chemical stress. Models predict that over the coming decades, climate change will trigger hydrological changes in the system with potential consequences for its microbial communities and, subsequently, ecosystem-level processes. The capacity of the Antarctic microbiome to absorb change while maintaining its structural and/or functional attributes will determine the extent to which predicted environmental changes will threaten the system's stability. 
This research starts by developing and validating a space-for-time sampling approach using variations in geochemical factors that follow alterations in water availability as time progresses and to which biological communities respond. This approach was replicated across the six major lakes in the Wright and Taylor valleys, and builds on previous examples of environmental gradients, which used arbitrary distance-based metrics as sampling design, incorporating significant yet uncharacterized in situ geochemical variability. The approach developed here enabled the acquisition of a comprehensive dataset that predicts, with confidence, that future hydrological changes will significantly alter the composition and diversity  of microbial communities historically adapted to arid and oligotrophic conditions. The latter will result in significant changes in the metabolic activity of pathways associated with carbon, nitrogen, phosphorous and sulphur cycles, with an increase in functional diversity and activity as the system becomes wetter. This work further provides first time evidence that carbon fixation via atmospheric chemosynthesis is the primary active pathway for carbon acquisition under extreme aridity in polar deserts, being replaced by photosynthetic carbon fixation with prolonged exposure to wetness.
To complement predictions made in situ using a space-for-time approach, this research incorporated temporal observations using manipulative experiments, performed in a Polar Desert Environmental Chamber (PDEC), to test the sensitivity and resilience of microbial communities to short-term wetting disturbances. It demonstrated that co-existing microbial taxa respond asynchronously during wetting and drying periods, which indicates dry soil communities comprise co-existing taxa with preferences for different environmental conditions. It also experimentally showed, for the first time, the capacity of microbial communities from this region to recover from short-term wetting events associated with the ability of dry-adapted taxa, mostly affiliated with Actinobacteriota and Acidobacteria phyla, to persist during the wetting period. 
Through the incorporation of large-scale spatial transects in conjunction with manipulative experiments, this research delivered a fundamental evidence-based anticipation of the compositional and functional aspects that are likely to change in the McMurdo Dry Valleys ecosystem in response to alterations in water dynamics as well as on the microbial attributes that enhance the ecosystem's functional resilience to climate change.

year: 2022

title: An interface of mātauranga Māori and archaeology to generate a whakapapa of pā tawhito

authors: McIvor, Isaac

subjects: Māori

abstract: Mātauranga Māori (Māori knowledge, epistemology) is foundational to iwi-Māori pasts and is essential to generating new knowledge about those pasts. Archaeology (the study of the physical remains of past human activity) is also an invaluable tool in understanding human history in Aotearoa New Zealand. Few studies have explored an interface between the two forms of knowledge, yet such an approach has great potential to develop new insights about the past that are relevant to descendants today. 

This thesis explores an interface between mātauranga Māori and archaeology to develop a whakapapa (relational genealogical framework) of the development of pā with a case study in Waikato. The word “pā” can refer to any tangata whenua (Indigenous people of the land, i.e., local Māori) settlement or village, but commonly refers to fortified forms, including villages, food stores and places of refuge. Many pā tawhito (historically occupied pā) have physical evidence that may simultaneously enhance descendant identity and well-being through ancestral connections and be a source of potential archaeological information. Researchers have recorded over seven thousand pā across the country (on the New Zealand Archaeological Association’s ArchSite database) at a much higher density than similar fortifications elsewhere in Oceania. Despite this proliferation, only limited and imprecise archaeological findings demonstrate when tangata whenua began constructing pā in their fortified form. We also do not sufficiently understand pā construction sequences through space and time.

This thesis is part of a broader Marsden-funded research project named ‘Rua Mātītī Rua Mātātā: A multidisciplinary investigation into the spatial-temporal role of pā in the development of Māori culture’. This project aimed to create a regional history of Waikato pā at the interface of archaeological science and mātauranga Māori. One side of the project included archaeological surveys and excavations in partnership with Waikato, Ngāti Apakura and Ngāti Maniapoto marae. This thesis focuses on the mātauranga Māori associated with pā in these areas and the broader Waikato region, and how tangata whenua and researchers may theoretically interface that information with archaeological knowledge.

The thesis has five research questions – each targeting a different facet of the whakapapa of pā in Waikato: (1) Why do kōrero (oral histories) include pā? (2) To what extent can we relate calendar years to whakapapa (tribal genealogies)? (3) When did warfare and pā construction develop in Waikato based on whakapapa? (4) Why did warfare and pā construction in Waikato develop at these times? (5) How do descendants relate to pā today?

Mixed methods included a thematic analysis of kōrero about pā and pakanga (warfare) from unpublished reo Māori (Māori language) manuscripts, Māori Land Court records, published sources and research interviews; the application of a Chronological Network Analysis (CNA) using ChronoLog software to relate whakapapa to calendar years; and a qualitative thematic analysis of research interviews with several Tainui descendants.

The review of textual information identified previously unrecognised primary reo Māori written texts for the vast majority of published twentieth-century Tainui kōrero authorities. Identifying these commonly uncited sources is a considerable contribution for future historians. Using a functionalist analysis of these sources, I argue that kōrero refer to pā as both real historical places and symbols of mana hapū (authority in collectives of extended families) in areas of land, their depth and breadth of occupation, socio-political changes and the strength of a community. Relating calendar years to whakapapa demands a historicisation of those structures, which is possible if one accepts the postmodern perspective that neither archaeology nor kōrero tuku iho (intergenerational oral histories) generate empirical or objectively true histories. Nonetheless, pursuing new and comprehensive understandings of the past is valuable.

A CNA model generated a 40-year median birthdate estimate span for over one thousand individuals born during the thirteenth to nineteenth centuries. Based on this whakapapa structure, kōrero pakanga (warfare histories) up until the battle of Mātakitaki in 1822 had five periods of higher frequency: 1420–1540, 1550–1580, 1600–1640, 1690–1730 and 1780–1822 CE. More conservative estimates combine the second and third periods, but the others are consistent. Smaller scale increases and decreases in the frequency of kōrero pakanaga were also present based on localised histories. The earliest kōrero pakanga correlate, if not slightly precede, the earliest known radiocarbon dates of pā fortification in approximately 1500 CE. Relative densities of kōrero pakanga and recorded archaeological pā also generally correlate by district.

Utu (rebalance) was the most common cause of warfare in kōrero across all periods. Meanwhile, conflict over mana rangatira (authority, influence, control) between related communities were more common in earlier kōrero pakanga. Warfare between more distantly related groups was more common from the 1600s and was commonly driven by utu and the occasional competition over whenua (land) and rawa taiao (resources). Contrary to anthropological literature, conflicts rarely resulted in conquest. Furthermore, there was a general increase in conflict size and political complexity in the later periods. The most recent layers of pā whakapapa are relationships held by living descendants who formed the qualitative interview group. I generated three themes based on interview responses: (1) pā (and wāhi tūpuna or ancestral places generally) are spaces of connection and identity affirmation; (2) colonising projects challenge those connections; and (3) descendants have kaitiakitanga (guardianship, through whakapapa) obligations to those places.

This thesis provides a whakapapa of pā, their origins, development, and importance to ngā kanohi ora (living descendants). It is only one among many potential interfaces between different ways to conceive and explain changes in time and space. The chosen method of exploring the interface treats it as multi-vocal, blurred, and complex. It exemplifies the potential avenues for fruitful knowledge generation between Western Science and Indigenous Knowledge Systems (in this case, mātauranga Māori). It also challenges the entrenchment of problematic terminology, such as “Prehistory” in Aotearoa New Zealand and demands space for, not only the protection of important wāhi tūpuna, but also the Crown’s development of resourcing, legislation, and policy to facilitate the exercise of kaitiakitanga. The results open potential ways in which archaeology may feedback into kōrero tuku iho in ways that are appropriate to the chronological whakapapa foundation of mātauranga ā-hapū.

text: An interface of mātauranga Māori and archaeology to generate a whakapapa of pā tawhito Mātauranga Māori (Māori knowledge, epistemology) is foundational to iwi-Māori pasts and is essential to generating new knowledge about those pasts. Archaeology (the study of the physical remains of past human activity) is also an invaluable tool in understanding human history in Aotearoa New Zealand. Few studies have explored an interface between the two forms of knowledge, yet such an approach has great potential to develop new insights about the past that are relevant to descendants today. 

This thesis explores an interface between mātauranga Māori and archaeology to develop a whakapapa (relational genealogical framework) of the development of pā with a case study in Waikato. The word “pā” can refer to any tangata whenua (Indigenous people of the land, i.e., local Māori) settlement or village, but commonly refers to fortified forms, including villages, food stores and places of refuge. Many pā tawhito (historically occupied pā) have physical evidence that may simultaneously enhance descendant identity and well-being through ancestral connections and be a source of potential archaeological information. Researchers have recorded over seven thousand pā across the country (on the New Zealand Archaeological Association’s ArchSite database) at a much higher density than similar fortifications elsewhere in Oceania. Despite this proliferation, only limited and imprecise archaeological findings demonstrate when tangata whenua began constructing pā in their fortified form. We also do not sufficiently understand pā construction sequences through space and time.

This thesis is part of a broader Marsden-funded research project named ‘Rua Mātītī Rua Mātātā: A multidisciplinary investigation into the spatial-temporal role of pā in the development of Māori culture’. This project aimed to create a regional history of Waikato pā at the interface of archaeological science and mātauranga Māori. One side of the project included archaeological surveys and excavations in partnership with Waikato, Ngāti Apakura and Ngāti Maniapoto marae. This thesis focuses on the mātauranga Māori associated with pā in these areas and the broader Waikato region, and how tangata whenua and researchers may theoretically interface that information with archaeological knowledge.

The thesis has five research questions – each targeting a different facet of the whakapapa of pā in Waikato: (1) Why do kōrero (oral histories) include pā? (2) To what extent can we relate calendar years to whakapapa (tribal genealogies)? (3) When did warfare and pā construction develop in Waikato based on whakapapa? (4) Why did warfare and pā construction in Waikato develop at these times? (5) How do descendants relate to pā today?

Mixed methods included a thematic analysis of kōrero about pā and pakanga (warfare) from unpublished reo Māori (Māori language) manuscripts, Māori Land Court records, published sources and research interviews; the application of a Chronological Network Analysis (CNA) using ChronoLog software to relate whakapapa to calendar years; and a qualitative thematic analysis of research interviews with several Tainui descendants.

The review of textual information identified previously unrecognised primary reo Māori written texts for the vast majority of published twentieth-century Tainui kōrero authorities. Identifying these commonly uncited sources is a considerable contribution for future historians. Using a functionalist analysis of these sources, I argue that kōrero refer to pā as both real historical places and symbols of mana hapū (authority in collectives of extended families) in areas of land, their depth and breadth of occupation, socio-political changes and the strength of a community. Relating calendar years to whakapapa demands a historicisation of those structures, which is possible if one accepts the postmodern perspective that neither archaeology nor kōrero tuku iho (intergenerational oral histories) generate empirical or objectively true histories. Nonetheless, pursuing new and comprehensive understandings of the past is valuable.

A CNA model generated a 40-year median birthdate estimate span for over one thousand individuals born during the thirteenth to nineteenth centuries. Based on this whakapapa structure, kōrero pakanga (warfare histories) up until the battle of Mātakitaki in 1822 had five periods of higher frequency: 1420–1540, 1550–1580, 1600–1640, 1690–1730 and 1780–1822 CE. More conservative estimates combine the second and third periods, but the others are consistent. Smaller scale increases and decreases in the frequency of kōrero pakanaga were also present based on localised histories. The earliest kōrero pakanga correlate, if not slightly precede, the earliest known radiocarbon dates of pā fortification in approximately 1500 CE. Relative densities of kōrero pakanga and recorded archaeological pā also generally correlate by district.

Utu (rebalance) was the most common cause of warfare in kōrero across all periods. Meanwhile, conflict over mana rangatira (authority, influence, control) between related communities were more common in earlier kōrero pakanga. Warfare between more distantly related groups was more common from the 1600s and was commonly driven by utu and the occasional competition over whenua (land) and rawa taiao (resources). Contrary to anthropological literature, conflicts rarely resulted in conquest. Furthermore, there was a general increase in conflict size and political complexity in the later periods. The most recent layers of pā whakapapa are relationships held by living descendants who formed the qualitative interview group. I generated three themes based on interview responses: (1) pā (and wāhi tūpuna or ancestral places generally) are spaces of connection and identity affirmation; (2) colonising projects challenge those connections; and (3) descendants have kaitiakitanga (guardianship, through whakapapa) obligations to those places.

This thesis provides a whakapapa of pā, their origins, development, and importance to ngā kanohi ora (living descendants). It is only one among many potential interfaces between different ways to conceive and explain changes in time and space. The chosen method of exploring the interface treats it as multi-vocal, blurred, and complex. It exemplifies the potential avenues for fruitful knowledge generation between Western Science and Indigenous Knowledge Systems (in this case, mātauranga Māori). It also challenges the entrenchment of problematic terminology, such as “Prehistory” in Aotearoa New Zealand and demands space for, not only the protection of important wāhi tūpuna, but also the Crown’s development of resourcing, legislation, and policy to facilitate the exercise of kaitiakitanga. The results open potential ways in which archaeology may feedback into kōrero tuku iho in ways that are appropriate to the chronological whakapapa foundation of mātauranga ā-hapū.

year: 2024-07