Cultural Variation in the Use of Overimitation by the Aka and Ngandu of the Congo Basin

Studies in Western cultures have observed that both children and adults tend to overimitate, copying causally irrelevant actions in the presence of clear causal information. Investigation of this feature in non-Western groups has found little difference cross-culturally in the frequency or manner with which individuals overimitate. However, each of the non-Western populations studied thus far has a history of close interaction with Western cultures, such that they are now far removed from life in a hunter-gatherer or other small-scale culture. To investigate overimitation in a context of limited Western cultural influences, we conducted a study with the Aka hunter-gatherers and neighboring Ngandu horticulturalists of the Congo Basin rainforest in the southern Central African Republic. Aka children, Ngandu children, and Aka adults were presented with a reward retrieval task similar to those performed in previous studies, involving a demonstrated sequence of causally relevant and irrelevant actions. Aka children were found not to overimitate as expected, instead displaying one of the lowest rates of overimitation seen under similar conditions. Aka children copied fewer irrelevant actions than Aka adults, used a lower proportion of irrelevant actions than Ngandu children and Aka adults, and had less copying fidelity than Aka adults. Measures from Ngandu children were intermediate between the two Aka groups. Of the participants that succeeded in retrieving the reward, 60% of Aka children used emulation rather than imitation, compared to 15% of Ngandu children, 11% of Aka adults, and 0% of Western children of similar age. From these results, we conclude that cross-cultural variation exists in the use of overimitation during childhood. Further study is needed under a more diverse representation of cultural and socioeconomic groups in order to investigate the cognitive underpinnings of overimitation and its possible influences on social learning and the biological and cultural evolution of our species.     

Social learning among Congo Basin hunter-gatherers

This paper explores childhood social learning among Aka and Bofi hunter-gatherers in Central Africa. Existing literature suggests that hunter-gatherer social learning is primarily vertical (parent-to-child) and that teaching is rare. We use behavioural observations, open-ended and semi-structured interviews, and informal and anecdotal observations to examine the modes (e.g. vertical versus horizontal/oblique) and processes (e.g. teaching versus observation and imitation) of cultural transmission. Cultural and demographic contexts of social learning associated with the modes and processes of cultural transmission are described. Hunter-gatherer social learning occurred early, was relatively rapid, primarily vertical under age 5 and oblique and horizontal between the ages of 6 and 12. Pedagogy and other forms of teaching existed as early as 12 months of age, but were relatively infrequent by comparison to other processes of social learning such as observation and imitation.     

The evolution of teaching

Teaching, alongside imitation, is widely thought to underlie the success of humanity by allowing high-fidelity transmission of information, skills, and technology between individuals, facilitating both cumulative knowledge gain and normative culture. Yet, it remains a mystery why teaching should be widespread in human societies but extremely rare in other animals. We explore the evolution of teaching using simple genetic models in which a single tutor transmits adaptive information to a related pupil at a cost. Teaching is expected to evolve where its costs are outweighed by the inclusive fitness benefits that result from the tutor's relatives being more likely to acquire the valuable information. We find that teaching is not favored where the pupil can easily acquire the information on its own, or through copying others, or for difficult to learn traits, where teachers typically do not possess the information to pass on to relatives. This leads to a narrow range of traits for which teaching would be efficacious, which helps to explain the rarity of teaching in nature, its unusual distribution, and its highly specific nature. Further models that allow for cumulative cultural knowledge gain suggest that teaching evolved in humans because cumulative culture renders otherwise difficult-to-acquire valuable information available to teach.     

Who teaches children to forage? Exploring the primacy of child-to-child teaching among Hadza and BaYaka Hunter-Gatherers of Tanzania and Congo

Teaching is cross-culturally widespread but few studies have considered children as teachers as well as learners. This is surprising, since forager children spend much of their time playing and foraging in child-only groups, and thus, have access to many potential child teachers. Using the Social Relations Model, we examined the prevalence of child-to-child teaching using focal follow data from 35 Hadza and 38 BaYaka 3- to 18-year-olds. We investigated the effect of age, sex and kinship on the teaching of subsistence skills. We found that child-to-child teaching was more frequent than adult-child teaching. Additionally, children taught more with age, teaching was more likely to occur within same-sex versus opposite-sex dyads, and close kin were more likely to teach than non-kin. The Hadza and BaYaka also showed distinct learning patterns; teaching was more likely to occur between sibling dyads among the Hadza than among the BaYaka, and a multistage learning model where younger children learn from peers, and older children from adults, was evident for the BaYaka, but not for the Hadza. We attribute these differences to subsistence and settlement patterns. These findings highlight the role of children in the intergenerational transmission of subsistence skills.     

Feasting, Craft Specialization, and the Ritual Mode of Production in Small-Scale Societies

Economic intensification has been documented in a diversity of small-scale societies. The existing archaeological theory concerning such intensification has tended to privilege economic and political explanations and largely ignores social action and ritual performance as motivations for economic change. In this article, 1 use both ethnographic and archaeological data to argue that ceremonial feasting and the need for socially valued goods, which are critical for ritual performance and necessary for a variety of social transactions, create the demand that underwrites and sustains economic intensification in small-scale societies. Food for large-scale feasts is acquired through the intensification of food production and procurement targeted specifically for feasting, rather than from the surplus available from routine subsistence production. Large-scale demands for socially valued goods tend to result in specialization on the production of "extraordinary" material culture, which is characterized by two modes of circulation, in networks of social obligations or as offerings in sacred locations. [Key words.craft specialization, exchange, feasting, ritual]     

Social Networks and Knowledge Transmission Strategies among Baka Children,Southeastern Cameroon

The dynamics of knowledge transmission and acquisition, or how different aspects of culture are passed from one individual to another and how they are acquired and embodied by individuals, are central to understanding cultural evolution. In small-scale societies, cultural knowledge is largely acquired early in life through observation, imitation, and other forms of social learning embedded in daily experiences. However, little is known about the pathways through which such knowledge is transmitted, especially during middle childhood and adolescence. This study presents new empirical data on cultural knowledge transmission during childhood. Data were collected among the Baka, a forager-farmer society in southeastern Cameroon. We conducted structured interviews with children between 5 and 16 years of age (n?=?58 children; 177 interviews, with children being interviewed 1–6 times) about group composition during subsistence activities. Children’s groups were generally diverse, although children tended to perform subsistence activities primarily without adults and with same-sex companions. Group composition varied from one subsistence activity to another, which suggests that the flow of knowledge might also vary according to the activity performed. Analysis of the social composition of children’s subsistence groups shows that vertical and oblique transmission of subsistence-related knowledge might not be predominant during middle childhood and adolescence. Rather, horizontal transmission appears to be the most common knowledge transmission strategy used by Baka children during middle childhood and adolescence, highlighting the importance of other children in the transmission of knowledge.     

Explaining Corporal Punishment of Children: A Cross-Cultural Study

Corporal punishment of children is a frequent child-training technique in many societies in the ethnographic record. In other societies it is infrequent or rare. Using a worldwide sample of largely preindustrial societies in this article, we test previous and new theories that might explain the variation. Our multiple regression analyses indicate that frequent corporal punishment of children is predicted by higher levels of social stratification and political integration, and long-term use of an alien currency. These findings are consistent with our theory that societies are likely to practice corporal punishment to prepare children for living in a society with native or imposed (e.g., colonial) power inequality. In addition, corporal punishment appears more likely in societies in which nonrelative caretakers help raise children. And in nonpacified societies, undemocratic political decision making and a culture of violence also predict corporal punishment of children.     

Preservice Teacher Understanding and Vision of how to Teach Biological Evolution

The learning and teaching of biological evolution is conceptually challenging. To fully comprehend evolution, it is posited that individuals also need to understand the roles that the nature of science and situations of chance play in the process. The consistent detection of misconceptions of evolution suggests that new approaches to increasing understanding need to be explored. I predicted that preservice teachers’ ideas for teaching biological evolution could be influenced by three brief web-based interventions, one focused on the common misconceptions of evolution, one on the nature of science, and one on situations of uncertainty in the context of evolution. An experimental group received a combination of the three web-based tutorials while a control group received the misconceptions and nature of science instruction and a time on task filler tutorial. Participants were directed to develop a lesson idea applying the knowledge they learned from the tutorials. The lesson ideas were examined for evidence of the influence of the web-based instruction, participant understanding and misconceptions of concepts, and their ideas about teaching evolution. The results of this study revealed that the participating preservice teachers held a wide range of conception and misconception of evolution, were somewhat influenced by the tutorials, and had an array of visions for teaching evolution. The outcomes support the need for further investigation into the multifaceted nature of preparing preservice teachers to teach evolution.     

Questions in Lessons: Activity Settings in the Homes and School of Two Puerto Rican Kindergartners

This ethnographic study describes continuities and discontinuities between a bilingual kindergarten and the homes of two Spanish-dominant Puerto Rican children. The concept of activity setting was used to explore the relation of culture to question use in lessons taught in both settings. Findings highlight a complex web of continuities and discontinuities and the importance of the joint construction of a culture of teaching and learning by parents, teachers, and children.     

Environmental Exchange Box

In this activity, teachers in one state create and share an “exchange box” of environmental and cultural items with students of another state. The Environmental Exchange Box activity enables teachers to improve students' skills in scientific inquiry and develop attitudes and values conducive to science learning such as wonder, curiosity, and respect for different social perceptions. Teachers will be able to work beyond the limits of the classroom and introduce outside resources to help increase students' global awareness and promote respect for the culture and environment of diverse populations. Specifically, this activity can help teachers fulfill national Teaching Standards B, D, and E.     

A "how to" guide for developing a publishable Scholarship of Teaching project

In order for the efforts of scholarly teaching to be recognized, the work must become public and presented to peers for review. Scholarship of Teaching is not only improving instruction and learning but also methodically assessing whether specific teaching interventions have had the desired effect. In this paper, the author presents a step-by-step guide for how to develop a Scholarship of Teaching project that is well thought out and worthy of publication. Factors to consider before performing such pedagogical research include developing a clear research hypothesis for the classroom, reviewing the background literature, obtaining Institutional Review Board (Human Subjects) approval, and determining which methods of assessment may be used. This "how to" guide discusses how to handle all of these factors and prepare the data for publication and introduces the reader to references related to the Scholarship of Teaching and learning as well as educational research and theory.     

Learning,productivity, and noise: an experimental study of cultural transmission on the Bolivian Altiplano

The theory of cultural transmission distinguishes between biased and unbiased social learning. Biases simply mean that social learning is not completely random. The distinction is critical because biases produce effects at the aggregate level that then feed back to influence individual behavior. This study presents an economic experiment designed specifically to see if players use social information in a biased way. The experiment was conducted among a group of subsistence pastoralists in southern Bolivia. Treatments were designed to test for two widely discussed forms of biased social learning: a tendency to imitate success and a tendency to follow the majority. The analysis, based primarily on fitting specific evolutionary models to the data using maximum likelihood, found neither a clear tendency to imitate success nor conformity. Players instead seemed to rely largely on private feedback about their own personal histories of choices and payoffs. Nonetheless, improved performance in one treatment provides evidence for some important but currently unspecified social effect. Given existing experimental work on cultural transmission from other societies, the current study suggests that social learning is potentially conditional and culturally specific.     

基于成果导向教育理念的“病原生物学”课程教学改革探索与实践

为进一步提升教学质量,基于成果导向教育(outcome based education,OBE)理念,探索病原生物学课程教学体系的改革和应用效果。课前,教师通过超星泛雅网络教学平台上传学习资料,明确教学目标,精心设计预习任务。课中,教师对学生的预习成果进行测试,进而有目的地实施教学并在课程中融入思政元素,激发学生的学习动力并培养社会主义核心价值观;运用思维导图整合学生的逻辑思维;设置多种互动环节提高学生的主动性。课后,优化考核评价体系,运用综合评价及反馈提高学生的学习效果。教学改革最终实现“以学生为中心,以成果为导向”的目标,培养能力突出的高素质应用型医学人才。     

Status competition,inequality, and fertility: implications for the demographic transition

The role that social status plays in small-scale societies suggests that status may be important for understanding the evolution of human fertility decisions, and for understanding how such decisions play out in modern contexts. This paper explores whether modelling competition for status—in the sense of relative rank within a society—can help shed light on fertility decline and the demographic transition. We develop a model of how levels of inequality and status competition affect optimal investment by parents in the embodied capital (health, strength, and skills) and social status of offspring, focusing on feedbacks between individual decisions and socio-ecological conditions. We find that conditions similar to those in demographic transition societies yield increased investment in both embodied capital and social status, generating substantial decreases in fertility, particularly under conditions of high inequality and intense status competition. We suggest that a complete explanation for both fertility variation in small-scale societies and modern fertility decline will take into account the effects of status competition and inequality.     

Teaching plastic surgery from different perspectives

Just as everyone has a different learning style, teachers too approach the task from different perspectives. There are five basic teaching perspectives or styles: transmission, apprenticeship, developmental, nurturing, and social justice. The acronym BIAS is useful to describe the beliefs, intentions, assessments, and strategies associated with each perspective. The authors present a hypothetical 1-week rotation in plastic and reconstructive surgery in which a student encounters instructors who embody the five basic teaching perspectives. By presenting these perspectives, the authors introduce valuable teaching techniques that can benefit all those charged with the education of learners along the spectrum from premedical to continuing education venues. Educational objectives include the following: (1) explain and illustrate different approaches to effective teaching in plastic surgery; (2) introduce readers to the Teaching Perspectives Inventory as a means of determining their primary teaching style; and (3) argue for a "plurality of the good" in teaching.     

Biology student teachers’ dialogic talk in inquiry-based instruction

ABSTRACT

Inquiry-based learning has generally accepted by scholars as a most effective teaching approach in biology education. The talk during inquiry-based teaching needs to be practiced. There is less evidence how student teachers talk with students during their inquiry-based biology instruction. This knowledge is needed in supporting student teachers to develop their teachership in biology education. In this qualitative case study, the dialogic talk of biology student teachers (N = 6) was studied in the context of inquiry-based lessons in lower secondary school. The student teachers’ lessons were video and audio recorded and the data was analyzed using content analysis. The student teachers used dialogic talk in their inquiry-based instruction only occasionally, mainly in the examination and the conclusion stages. During the introduction stage, dialogic talk was less used and it was mainly explaining and instructing the content. In the examination stage, student teachers also guided students and stated facts. During the conclusion stage, student teachers mainly explained and also evaluated students’ statements. The lesson’s topics and methods used in inquiry-based learning may enable the dialogic talk of student teacher to some extent. However, teacher education should focus more on scaffolding student teachers’ talk with their students in all kinds of inquiry approaches.     

Lessons from animal teaching

Many species are known to acquire valuable life skills and information from others, but until recently it was widely believed that animals did not actively facilitate learning in others. Teaching was regarded as a uniquely human faculty. However, recent studies suggest that teaching might be more common in animals than previously thought. Teaching is present in bees, ants, babblers, meerkats and other carnivores but is absent in chimpanzees, a bizarre taxonomic distribution that makes sense if teaching is treated as a form of altruism. Drawing on both mechanistic and functional arguments, we integrate teaching with the broader field of animal social learning, and show how this aids understanding of how and why teaching evolved, and the diversity of teaching mechanisms.     

"PBL, SP, SBME" 教学模式在八年制脊柱外科中的应用与思考

目的:探讨"PBL、SP、SBME"相结合的教学模式与传统教学模式在八年制脊柱外科教学中教学效果的差异,分析这种教学模式的优缺点,为今后八年制学生教学改革中提供参考。方法:选取在我院学习的2009级和2010级八年制学生共60人,随机分为2组,A组和B组,每组30人。A组运用"PBL、SP、SBME"相结合的教学模式,B组采取传统教学模式。教学结束后,通过调查问卷和考核综合评估教学效果。结果:A组主动学习能力、独立思考能力、团队协作能力、沟通交流能力、知识掌握程度明显优于B组(P0.05),有统计学意义。结论:"PBL、SP、SBME"相结合的教学模式比能增强八年制学生的学习积极性,提高学生知识的掌握程度和综合素质,这种教学模式传统教学模式更适合八年制脊柱外科的教学,在以后的教学过程中值得推广。     

How Do Hunter-Gatherer Children Learn Subsistence Skills?

Hunting and gathering is, evolutionarily, the defining subsistence strategy of our species. Studying how children learn foraging skills can, therefore, provide us with key data to test theories about the evolution of human life history, cognition, and social behavior. Modern foragers, with their vast cultural and environmental diversity, have mostly been studied individually. However, cross-cultural studies allow us to extrapolate forager-wide trends in how, when, and from whom hunter-gatherer children learn their subsistence skills. We perform a meta-ethnography, which allows us to systematically extract, summarize, and compare both quantitative and qualitative literature. We found 58 publications focusing on learning subsistence skills. Learning begins early in infancy, when parents take children on foraging expeditions and give them toy versions of tools. In early and middle childhood, children transition into the multi-age playgroup, where they learn skills through play, observation, and participation. By the end of middle childhood, most children are proficient food collectors. However, it is not until adolescence that adults (not necessarily parents) begin directly teaching children complex skills such as hunting and complex tool manufacture. Adolescents seek to learn innovations from adults, but they themselves do not innovate. These findings support predictive models that find social learning should occur before individual learning. Furthermore, these results show that teaching does indeed exist in hunter-gatherer societies. And, finally, though children are competent foragers by late childhood, learning to extract more complex resources, such as hunting large game, takes a lifetime.     

Trends in Biological Education-An International Review

We examined selected situational emotions (interest, well-being and anxiety) experienced by 291 secondary school tenth graders during a hands-on gene technology lesson. Two different instruction groups (I-1, I-2) participated in the same teaching unit, in which four basic gene technology experiments were performed. Using a modified ‘constructivist teaching sequence’, a teacher confronted group I-2 with the alternative conceptions of their peers regarding central issues and processes of gene technology in addition to providing the scientific concepts. The pupils within the I-2 group scored higher in the positive emotions of interest and well-being. The negative emotion anxiety was almost absent in both instruction groups. Furthermore, our results indicate a potential influence of interest and well-being upon learning success. Pupils who felt fine and worked with interest in the experimental lessons scored significantly higher on the cognitive achievement test. Eliciting pupils’ alternative conceptions and using them in a wide variety of teaching contents is therefore advisable. By doing so, teachers could help create a classroom environment where pupils feel safe and confident. Also, a pupil’s interest regarding the choice of material needs to be taken into account if positive emotions need strengthening and the learning achievement needs improvement.