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Mathematics competency is fast becoming an essential requirement in ever greater parts of day-to-day work and life. Thus, creating strategies for improving mathematics learning in students is a major goal of education research. However, doing so requires an ability to look at many aspects of mathematics learning, such as demographics and psychological dispositions, in an integrated way as part of the same system. Large-scale assessments such as the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) provide an accessible and large volume of coherent data, and this gives researchers the opportunity to employ data-driven approaches to gain an overview of the system. For these reasons, we have used machine learning to explore the relationships between psychological dispositions and mathematical literacy in Australian 15-year-olds using the PISA 2012 data set. Our results from this strongly data-driven approach re-affirm the primacy of mathematics self-efficacy and highlight novel complex interactions between mathematics self-efficacy, mathematics anxiety and socio-economic status. In this paper, we demonstrate how education researchers can usefully employ data-driven modelling techniques to find complex non-linear relationships and novel interactions in a multidimensional data set.

Background: We explored whether school-based Cogmed Working Memory Training (CWMT) may optimise both academic and psychological outcomes at school. Training of executive control skills may form a novel approach to enhancing processes that predict academic achievement, such as task-related attention, and thereby academic performance, but also has the potential to improve the regulation of emotion, social problems and behavioural difficulties. Methods: Primary school children (Mean age = 12 years, N = 148) were cluster-randomised to complete active CWMT, a nonadaptive/placebo version of CWMT, or no training. Results: No evidence was found for training effects on task-related attention when performing academic tasks, or performance on reading comprehension and mathematics tasks, or teacher-reported social, emotional and behavioural difficulties. Conclusions: CWMT did not improve control of attention in the classroom, or regulation of social, emotional and behavioural difficulties.

Australia requires a flexible and scientifically literate population if we are to maintain and possibly raise our competitive edge for innovation in an ever-changing global economy (DEST, 2006). Central to achieving this outcome is a workforce of competent teachers of Science with the pedagogical expertise, subject knowledge and enthusiasm necessary to engage our students as life-long learners of science. While we recognise that this process of student engagement begins in the early years and continues throughout formal education, this paper focuses specifically on secondary schooling. In the paper, we report on a study to capture the demographic profile and academic qualifications of secondary teachers of science in South Australia. Analysis of this data identifies potential workforce issues for our future science teachers around: (i) permanency for our new graduates; (ii) the lack of subject knowledge expertise for senior teachers, particularly for Physics; and (iii) the inequity regarding the proportion of qualified secondary science teachers in metropolitan schools when compared to rural schools. It is our view, that by considering these impeding issues now there is an opportunity to implement counteractive strategies and so minimise the future impact. Importantly, we consider that the findings presented here are relevant to secondary science teachers across Australia. (Contains 9 tables and 7 figures.)

Methylphenidate treatment is used for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and can improve learning and memory. Previously, improvements were considered a by-product of increased attention; however, we hypothesize that methylphenidate directly alters mechanisms underlying learning and memory, and therefore examined its effects on hippocampal long-term potentiation and long-term depression. Methylphenidate enhanced both mechanisms in the absence of presynaptic changes and in a noradrenalin [beta]-receptor-dependent manner. These findings can explain both the improved learning and memory and decreased learning selectivity found with methylphenidate treatment and constitute the first demonstration of direct actions of methylphenidate on mechanisms implicated in cognition.

UK government targets aim for 50% of 18- to 30-year-olds entering higher education; however, with the vast choice of subjects to study available at this level, it is important to help pupils make informed decisions. As part of this process, awareness of newer fields such as neuroscience, which is not on the syllabus for science at school, needs to be promoted. Various challenges face neuroscientists working with visiting school pupils, including the lack of appropriate teaching resources, the culture and language barrier, and the risk of misinterpretation through oversimplification. The authors have designed a workshop to promote neuroscience and related scientific issues with school pupils aged 16 to 18 years. Pupil feedback showed that awareness of options within science increased after the workshop. The workshop also used resources taken from an undergraduate course successfully, demonstrating that appropriate resources are already available. A practical session using human brains was most popular, with all pupils believing it to be thought provoking and interesting. The final session aimed to challenge stereotypes within science, and despite the lowest pupil ratings overall, the majority agreed this aim was met. Pupils reported that the workshop was interesting and that the information about options within science useful. The most impressive outcome was that, although no pupil recorded less inclination to continue in science following the workshop, 46% said that they were more likely to do so. These data confirm the importance of outreach work for pupils' interest and career choice. NEUROSCIENTIST 13(5):447-453, 2007. DOI: 10.1177/1073858407299942 KEY WORDS Neurosciences, Career choice, Educational activities, The current national target in the United Kingdom is to have 50% of 18- to 30-year-olds benefit from higher education by 2010 (Department of Education and Skills 2002). Therefore, it [...]

Dimerization in glycopeptide antibiotics is thermodynamically linked to cell wall analogue binding efficiency. A model explains the influence of dimerization in the physiological action of glycopeptide antibiotics and considers homodimer formation. Conformational change is responsible for the cooperativity between ligand binding homodimerization.

The importance of neuroscience in education is becoming widely recognized by both neuroscientists and educators. However, to date, there has been little effective collaboration between the two groups, resulting in the spread of ideas in education poorly based on neuroscience. For their part, educators are often too busy to develop sufficient scientific literacy, and neuroscientists are put off collaborations with risk of overinterpretation of their work. We designed and led a successful 6-month collaborative project between educators and neuroscientists. The project consisted of a series of seminars on topics chosen by both parties such as the neuroscience of attention, learning, and memory and aimed to create a dialog between the two. Here, we report that all teachers found the seminars relevant to their practice and that the majority felt the information was presented in an accessible manner. Such was the success of the project that teachers felt there were direct changes in their classroom practice as a consequence and that the course should be more widely available. We suggest that this format of co-constructed dialog allows for lucrative collaborations between neuroscientists and educators and may be a step to bridging the waters that separate these intrinsically linked disciplines. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]