title: Advancing Scholarship /scholarship in geography classrooms

authors: Chalmers, Lex

abstract: The Scholarship examination is a longstanding feature of secondary school assessment. Scholarship is available to our “brightest and best” students in geography, and it is designed to recognise excellence and thereby enhance access to the tertiary education system. It is surprising, therefore, that geography Scholarship in New Zealand secondary schools has received little attention. Perhaps this is because Scholarship is a must-have feature of an education system shaped by meritocracy: it is hard to imagine a secondary education system that did not encourage students to think, act and perform independently at the highest level. Yet Scholarship is largely hidden; it has a publically available assessment specification and achievement standard, but it affects only a small proportion of the student population and teacher involvement in preparation for Scholarship is often modest, especially if low numbers cannot sustain a regular timetable slot. I will argue that while the intent of Scholarship is positive, the mechanism is crude: some very good students don’t enter Scholarship geography, some of the best don’t do themselves justice on the day, and not all forms of scholarship are revealed.
The first substantive section of this chapter looks at the use of the word ‘Scholarship’ (capitalised) to describe the outcome of an assessment process in secondary schools. This section is followed by a commentary on ‘scholarship’ (lower case) as a broader description of learning, teaching, research and intellectual developments in a discipline. The initial focus is thus on geography Scholarship as a prescription in the secondary sector, the second on scholarship as a career aspiration of those engaged in geography in the tertiary sector: two different uses of the word underpinning a commitment to lifelong education. While there are clear connections between school geography Scholarship and the development of tertiary scholarship in geography, retaining them as discrete, item-bound entities is artificial. In the concluding sections of the chapter I argue that the opportunities provided by the particular nature of the Scholarship experience at Year 13 can build into intellectual futures that include broader definitions of scholarship. Central to this argument is recognition of the scholarly functions of secondary teachers of geography.

text: Advancing Scholarship /scholarship in geography classrooms The Scholarship examination is a longstanding feature of secondary school assessment. Scholarship is available to our “brightest and best” students in geography, and it is designed to recognise excellence and thereby enhance access to the tertiary education system. It is surprising, therefore, that geography Scholarship in New Zealand secondary schools has received little attention. Perhaps this is because Scholarship is a must-have feature of an education system shaped by meritocracy: it is hard to imagine a secondary education system that did not encourage students to think, act and perform independently at the highest level. Yet Scholarship is largely hidden; it has a publically available assessment specification and achievement standard, but it affects only a small proportion of the student population and teacher involvement in preparation for Scholarship is often modest, especially if low numbers cannot sustain a regular timetable slot. I will argue that while the intent of Scholarship is positive, the mechanism is crude: some very good students don’t enter Scholarship geography, some of the best don’t do themselves justice on the day, and not all forms of scholarship are revealed.
The first substantive section of this chapter looks at the use of the word ‘Scholarship’ (capitalised) to describe the outcome of an assessment process in secondary schools. This section is followed by a commentary on ‘scholarship’ (lower case) as a broader description of learning, teaching, research and intellectual developments in a discipline. The initial focus is thus on geography Scholarship as a prescription in the secondary sector, the second on scholarship as a career aspiration of those engaged in geography in the tertiary sector: two different uses of the word underpinning a commitment to lifelong education. While there are clear connections between school geography Scholarship and the development of tertiary scholarship in geography, retaining them as discrete, item-bound entities is artificial. In the concluding sections of the chapter I argue that the opportunities provided by the particular nature of the Scholarship experience at Year 13 can build into intellectual futures that include broader definitions of scholarship. Central to this argument is recognition of the scholarly functions of secondary teachers of geography.

year: 2015

title: Learning to describe data in actions

authors: Maulsby, David

subjects: computer science

abstract: Traditional machine learning algorithms have failed to serve the needs of systems for Programming by Demonstration (PBD), which require interaction with a user (a teacher) and a task environment. We argue that traditional learning algorithms fail for two reasons: they do not cope with the ambiguous instructions that users provide in addition to examples; and their learning criterion requires only that concepts classify examples to some degree of accuracy, ignoring the other ways in which an active agent might use concepts. We show how a classic concept learning algorithm can be adapted for use in PBD by replacing the learning criterion with a set of instructional and utility criteria, and by replacing a statistical preference bias with a set of heuristics that exploit user hints and background knowledge to focus attention.

text: Learning to describe data in actions Traditional machine learning algorithms have failed to serve the needs of systems for Programming by Demonstration (PBD), which require interaction with a user (a teacher) and a task environment. We argue that traditional learning algorithms fail for two reasons: they do not cope with the ambiguous instructions that users provide in addition to examples; and their learning criterion requires only that concepts classify examples to some degree of accuracy, ignoring the other ways in which an active agent might use concepts. We show how a classic concept learning algorithm can be adapted for use in PBD by replacing the learning criterion with a set of instructional and utility criteria, and by replacing a statistical preference bias with a set of heuristics that exploit user hints and background knowledge to focus attention.

year: 1995

title: Governance and legitimacy: Indigenous development in Aotearoa

authors: Dodd, Materoa

subjects: Māori governance

abstract: Within the indigenous paradigm lies a paradox over what constitutes legitimate Māori authority: Iwi structures are legitimated and recognised by the state, and traditional forms (for example, Hapū and Māori women), have had their authority diminished. Iwi authorities are colonial constructs that diminish the rights of Hapū and Māori women. The manner in which such constructs have come about generally has not involved tribewide debate over important issues in which Hapū and Māori women have an interest. For their legitimacy, emergent self-governing structures will need to be grounded in principles that ensure legitimate representation of Māori people and not socially constructed hybrids of a colonial past. Structures need to recognise Hapū and Māori women in the formulation, anything less than this will trigger a legitimation crisis.

text: Governance and legitimacy: Indigenous development in Aotearoa Within the indigenous paradigm lies a paradox over what constitutes legitimate Māori authority: Iwi structures are legitimated and recognised by the state, and traditional forms (for example, Hapū and Māori women), have had their authority diminished. Iwi authorities are colonial constructs that diminish the rights of Hapū and Māori women. The manner in which such constructs have come about generally has not involved tribewide debate over important issues in which Hapū and Māori women have an interest. For their legitimacy, emergent self-governing structures will need to be grounded in principles that ensure legitimate representation of Māori people and not socially constructed hybrids of a colonial past. Structures need to recognise Hapū and Māori women in the formulation, anything less than this will trigger a legitimation crisis.

year: 2000-10