title: Bottom-up propositionalization

authors: Kramer, Stefan

abstract: In this paper, we present a new method for propositionalization that works in a bottom-up, data-driven manner. It is tailored for biochemical databases, where the examples are 2-D descriptions of chemical compounds. The method generates all frequent fragments (i.e., linearly connected atoms) up to a user-specified length. A preliminary experiment in the domain of carcinogenicity predictions showed that bottom-up propositionalization is a promising approach to feature construction from relational data.

text: Bottom-up propositionalization In this paper, we present a new method for propositionalization that works in a bottom-up, data-driven manner. It is tailored for biochemical databases, where the examples are 2-D descriptions of chemical compounds. The method generates all frequent fragments (i.e., linearly connected atoms) up to a user-specified length. A preliminary experiment in the domain of carcinogenicity predictions showed that bottom-up propositionalization is a promising approach to feature construction from relational data.

year: 2000-07

title: Teachers’ understandings of the role of translation in vernacular language maintenance in Malekula: some early thoughts

authors: Daly, Nicola

abstract: Existing research concerning literacy in the Pacific indicates three key considerations: (1) Traditional print literacy levels are low (Toumu’a 2016), (2) the development of culturally and linguistically relevant quality print resources is a key approach to raising these levels (Toumu’a 2016); and (3) the development of such resources can also contribute to maintenance of local knowledge (Paviour-Smith 2005).  Studies of traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) have also indicated that their inclusion in formal school curricula is an important aspect of the maintenance of this knowledge (McCarter & Gavin 2011). Paviour-Smith (2005) has worked with a community in the Aulua locale of Malekula to standardise orthography and develop materials in local languages with 26 villagers. Along the way he and his colleagues discovered the importance of paying attention to local discourse models. Thus, understanding the forms of local storytelling and the literacy practices surrounding these stories is an important first step in creating effective print resources using vernacular languages and containing TEK which aim to raise the print literacy levels in Malekula communities.

text: Teachers’ understandings of the role of translation in vernacular language maintenance in Malekula: some early thoughts Existing research concerning literacy in the Pacific indicates three key considerations: (1) Traditional print literacy levels are low (Toumu’a 2016), (2) the development of culturally and linguistically relevant quality print resources is a key approach to raising these levels (Toumu’a 2016); and (3) the development of such resources can also contribute to maintenance of local knowledge (Paviour-Smith 2005).  Studies of traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) have also indicated that their inclusion in formal school curricula is an important aspect of the maintenance of this knowledge (McCarter & Gavin 2011). Paviour-Smith (2005) has worked with a community in the Aulua locale of Malekula to standardise orthography and develop materials in local languages with 26 villagers. Along the way he and his colleagues discovered the importance of paying attention to local discourse models. Thus, understanding the forms of local storytelling and the literacy practices surrounding these stories is an important first step in creating effective print resources using vernacular languages and containing TEK which aim to raise the print literacy levels in Malekula communities.

year: 2017

title: Fanning the divine spark: Gaining understandings of micro-interactions in New Zealand classrooms

authors: Eley, Elizabeth Martha Ann

subjects: micro-interactions

abstract: New Zealand’s Treaty of Waitangi was signed by representatives of Iwi Māori (Indigenous tribal groups) and the British Crown.  Inherent in the heritages of both signatory groups is the ontological positioning that children are born of greatness; carriers of the divine spark from Tama-nui-te-rā (the central sun) and created in the image of God.  Almost all New Zealand children attend school.  For some, their ongoing classroom experiences with educators fans their divine spark and works towards the realisation of their innate potential.  For others, schooling is not a positive experience and their divine spark may be neither recognised nor celebrated.  

This research explores the relationships and pedagogical practices that underpin the classroom micro-interactions experienced by children.  Children’s schooling experience is made up of small interactions in classrooms that are situated in the social, political and legal contexts of schooling.  Therefore, this research applies both a centripetal and a centrifugal examination of the macro and micro contexts of classroom interactions.  

In examining the macro-context, ontological views of the child and the theoretical frameworks that guide pedagogy are considered.  The Education Acts governing New Zealand schooling have successively contained an ontological contradiction that enforces both a factory model as the preferred means of schooling for New Zealand and a requirement to honour the Treaty of Waitangi, including the worldviews of both signatories.  I conclude that educators within the compulsory schooling sector are not provided with specific guidance on how to navigate these contradictory worldviews.  Neither ontological views of how children are perceived within the system, nor theoretical frameworks that could and should inform views of knowledge and how learning occurs, are made explicit for educators.  

At the micro-context level, relationships and pedagogical practices are explored through case studies in three different New Zealand classrooms.  In each case, from video-recordings of classroom interactions, critical incidents were extracted and used to support interviews with participating teachers, students, parents and members of the wider school community.  Employing culturally responsive research methodologies, the interactions with participants were relational and dialogic.  The research found that classroom micro-interactions are pervasive and complex.  All participants, students, teachers and whānau, draw from the knowledge, understandings and positionings of the individual’s own cultural toolkits in classroom interactions.  Their cultural toolkits contain a range of factors to support learning, all of which were necessary and interdependent.  

The thesis calls for all children to receive an education that fans their inherent divine spark.  While this experience is not yet the case for all, there is opportunity in the rhetoric and structures already within New Zealand’s education system for this to occur.  Some schools and communities have begun to successfully challenge and address the prevailing theoretical and pedagogical status quo.  Therefore, there is reason for radical hope for a system-wide fanning of the divine spark in every child.

text: Fanning the divine spark: Gaining understandings of micro-interactions in New Zealand classrooms New Zealand’s Treaty of Waitangi was signed by representatives of Iwi Māori (Indigenous tribal groups) and the British Crown.  Inherent in the heritages of both signatory groups is the ontological positioning that children are born of greatness; carriers of the divine spark from Tama-nui-te-rā (the central sun) and created in the image of God.  Almost all New Zealand children attend school.  For some, their ongoing classroom experiences with educators fans their divine spark and works towards the realisation of their innate potential.  For others, schooling is not a positive experience and their divine spark may be neither recognised nor celebrated.  

This research explores the relationships and pedagogical practices that underpin the classroom micro-interactions experienced by children.  Children’s schooling experience is made up of small interactions in classrooms that are situated in the social, political and legal contexts of schooling.  Therefore, this research applies both a centripetal and a centrifugal examination of the macro and micro contexts of classroom interactions.  

In examining the macro-context, ontological views of the child and the theoretical frameworks that guide pedagogy are considered.  The Education Acts governing New Zealand schooling have successively contained an ontological contradiction that enforces both a factory model as the preferred means of schooling for New Zealand and a requirement to honour the Treaty of Waitangi, including the worldviews of both signatories.  I conclude that educators within the compulsory schooling sector are not provided with specific guidance on how to navigate these contradictory worldviews.  Neither ontological views of how children are perceived within the system, nor theoretical frameworks that could and should inform views of knowledge and how learning occurs, are made explicit for educators.  

At the micro-context level, relationships and pedagogical practices are explored through case studies in three different New Zealand classrooms.  In each case, from video-recordings of classroom interactions, critical incidents were extracted and used to support interviews with participating teachers, students, parents and members of the wider school community.  Employing culturally responsive research methodologies, the interactions with participants were relational and dialogic.  The research found that classroom micro-interactions are pervasive and complex.  All participants, students, teachers and whānau, draw from the knowledge, understandings and positionings of the individual’s own cultural toolkits in classroom interactions.  Their cultural toolkits contain a range of factors to support learning, all of which were necessary and interdependent.  

The thesis calls for all children to receive an education that fans their inherent divine spark.  While this experience is not yet the case for all, there is opportunity in the rhetoric and structures already within New Zealand’s education system for this to occur.  Some schools and communities have begun to successfully challenge and address the prevailing theoretical and pedagogical status quo.  Therefore, there is reason for radical hope for a system-wide fanning of the divine spark in every child.

year: 2020