Understanding Culture Essay -- Sociology

Culture, is defined by Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary, as "the integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior that depends upon man's capacity for learning and transmitting knowledge to succeeding generations." People learn about culture through interaction rather than through the memorization of a text. To become fluent in any one culture you have to experience it and become involved. There are many ways that a culture can be shared among people without them being fluent in it such as through: food, customs, clothing, language, beliefs, and behaviors. With the increase of technology and new discoveries about the world developing daily it makes it impossible for cultures to remain stagnant; therefore, they must learn how to adapt in order to survive. Some people argue that complete cultural fluency in more than one culture is impossible. However, culture is a learned behavior therefore people should be able to learn and become fluent in more than one. Culture is distinctly human and is transmitted through learning traditions and customs that govern behavior. Cultural anthropologists study human society and culture through describing, analyzing, interpreting and explaining social and cultural similarities and differences. To study and interpret cultural diversity they engage in two activities which are ethnography and ethnology. Ethnography is based on fieldwork while ethnology is based on cross-cultural comparisons of the information collected through ethnography. The studies done on culture can be shared in two ways: first through theoretical or academic anthropology and second through practical or applied anthropology. An example of academic anthropology, which teaches us about culture, is a textbook ... ...nity. An example is the way they raised and slaughtered animals rather than buying them packaged at a store. Although a year may not be enough time to become fluent in a culture, the stories of the students living abroad prove that a person can learn and become part of more than one culture. Culture is what defines the difference between humans and animals. We grow up in a culture which influences who we are and how we live. Through studying different cultures we learn more about our own culture, ourselves, our strengths, and weaknesses. Yet to become fluent a person cannot simply study a culture, rather they must be on an interactive level and experience the culture first hand. Sources Cited http://www.merriam-webster.com/ Kottak, Conrad "Cultural Anthropology: Appreciating Cultural Diversity." McGraw-Hill Education; 15 edition, October 11, 2012

Kylie Kwong- Fusion Food

Fusion cuisine blends the culinary traditions of two or more nations to create innovative interesting dishes. It tends to be more common in French or Asian cooking. Where there is a wider audience for such food. Critics sometimes call it â€Å"confusion cuisine,† arguing that chefs rely on novelty to carry the food, rather than flavour, texture, and presentation. Kylie Kwong’s professional cooking career began with a four-year period as head chef of Sydney's Wockpool, a modern Asian noodle bar and restaurant owned by Neil Perry and Trish Richards. And then from mid-1998 she headed the kitchens of two cafes in Sydney, bills and bills2.In 1999, Kylie went on a life-changing trip to China. Food featured prominently. Over the years, she has been inspired and influenced by some great cooks and food writers, her mother to Alice Waters, Stephanie Alexander, Neil Perry, Stefano and Franca Manfredi, Maggie Beer, Jamie Oliver, Elizabeth David, Richard Olney and Patience Gray. Her cooking style has evolved from living in Australia, where we are able to have access to some of the world's finest produce, including seafood from pure waters, a generous range of Asian fruits, vegetables and herbs, free-range poultry and organically raised beef.Kylie and her business partner Bill Granger, both opened Billy Kwong opened in May 2000, in a narrow shopfront on cosmopolitan Crown Street in Surry Hills, Sydney. They have been inspired by the idea of re-creating a traditional Chinese eating house. Before the doors open each night the room is filled with the buzz of our intense daily ritual. There is fresh food stacked on every surface, awaiting preparation and cooking; there is a large vase of flowers in the centre of the kitchen bench; there is a steel wire stretched across the kitchen, where food orders are pegged during service. The tiny kitchen is the engine room of Billy Kwong and I feel most at home here’ (Kylie Kwong, 2013) At billy Kwong they use locally g rown, organic and biodynamic fruit and vegetables, poultry, meat and noodles. Most of the soy sauces, sugar, vinegar and oils that are used to flavour our food with are organic, as well as organic products they use Fair Trade tea and Fair Trade chocolate. http://www. kyliekwong. org/default. aspx

Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet – Film Comparison

There are many differences between the directors techniques used in both films. The choice of location is evidently different. Baz Luhrmann in his 1997 version of the film presents Verona as a modern city, dominated by scenes of chaotic urban violence. He uses panning shots across the metropolis with police cars and helicopters darting about, and human casualties strewn across the ground. This would be quite different to Shakespeare's original setting in a rural Italian town. Verona beach is the cities name, and this is used thorough pathetic fallacy to create a darker feel to the film – Mercutio's death cry â€Å"A plague, on both your houses!† seem to take immediate effect as a storm is called in. In Zeffirelli's 1968 film, Verona is a closer representation to what Shakespeare might have had in mind in the late 1500's – a small town, with only a few icons – such as the Church and the marketplace, instead of a whole city as in Luhrmann's film. Baz Luhrmann uses wide, panning aerial shots of the city, with quick changes – for example the introductory scene when flashes of newspaper headlines are transposed with writing from the chorus of the play. These camera shots create a sense of urgency and impending doom. He uses stills on the characters faces to emphasize emotions, and also on key features – to highlight their importance to the audience. For example: the statue of Christ with his arms outstretched, the heads of both families & archive footage of the previous brawls. The camera shots in Franco Zeffirelli's film differ though his more extensive use of close up action shots – such as the marketplace brawl between the Montagues and the Capulets. The diegetic sounds add realism, and so the audience feels like a participant in the action, rather than an onlooker. Zeffirelli also places the camera in the centre of the two families, to create a sense of equality and balance – emphasising the â€Å"Both alike in dignity,† quote from the chorus. The two directors have interpreted the mood differently, and this is shown in numerous ways – clothing, accent and attitude are all contributing factors. In Luhrmans film the Montagues are all shown with Hawaiian shirts and army haircuts, but they turn out to be the weaker, more submissive family when faced with the prospect of fighting without their masters. The Capulets however are completely different. With dark leather jackets and sunglasses they radiate malice, this is also shown though the music, as normal noises are heightened and western type music slowly plays. The sunglasses could also be a disguise, hiding their eyes and their background roots as Latin people. Latino's were considered to be an inferior race in America, and so they are trying to hide this by acting more aggressive and violent towards anyone who could be a threat. Zeffirelli uses bright and colourful costumes in his film for the Capulets – they are more laid back, almost like practical jokers with nothing to do. The atmosphere that they create lacks any kind of malice. It is almost the same with the Montagues in this film, but they wear more neutral colours, such as dark blue, and black to suggest their scholarly upbringing. There is also the underlying subject of the fate that is controlling Romeo and Juliet: For example just after Romeo kills Tybalt he shouts, † I am fortunes fool!† As a character I think Romeo is just trying to blame his own misfortune on something else to be free of guilt. Dramatic irony also plays a key part in both films, whereby the audience know vital pieces of information that the characters do not. For example in Luhrmann's film when Mercutio is stabbed, he puts on a brave face to his friends but reveals his true pain only to the camera when he turns around. Also in Zeffirelli's film, when Tybalt stabs Mercutio, only he and the audience can see the blood on his sword. Part 6 I think the audience response to each film would have been from an entirely different perspective. In Luhrmann's version both families are shown as if they had played an equal part in the death of Romeo & Juliet because of changes throughout the film – for example in the opening scene, the Montagues start the fight by biting their thumbs at the Capulets, instead of the other way around. This film would be suited for a modern audience, as Luhrmann has omitted some of Shakespeare's original language, making it accessible to a wider range of people. In the opening scene of the newer film, I think Luhrmann chose a modern city as the setting for the film, to present a hectic urban world familiar to a 20th centuary audience. The media coverage of the feud makes the play's events seem more realistic as they watch violent videos of the chaos on the streets of Verona. The updated and renamed Verona Beach is a clever mechanism by which peaceful and violent worlds collide. Franco Zeffirelli's opening to the film was much slower and spread out with a gentle beginning; he introduces the film with the main chorus and then goes on to the marketplace scene – the Capulet's are the main cause of the trouble and the audience take an instant dislike to them. I think this is a terrible way to start the film as the audience usually judge the main characters within their first few scenes, and Capulets are always the troublemakers. I personally prefer Baz Luhrmanns modern version of the opening scene, as it is more direct and engaging towards a modern audience with better special effects – such as the petrol station explosion; it has enhanced sound effects and a wide choice of music. It appeals to me more that the Zeffirelli version, which even though is more accurate and faithful to the original script, it now comes across to me as outdated. Luhrmann's omissions from the original script are vital into understanding what kind of film he wanted to demonstrate: for example he cut a lengthy dialogue between the Capulets Sampson and Gregory in favour of a more explosive and dramatic opening to the 3rd brawl in the petrol station. Many of the omissions are also to do with sexual hints or jokes, which would be perfectly ordinary in Shakespearean times, but a modern audience, would not understand or approve of them. Luhrmann also changed the timing of Juliet's scene to after Mercutio's death to show the change in attitude that Romeo has gone through, from being more faithful to his wife than his friends – to the exact opposite. In the end I think each films outcome was decided by what kind of film the directors wanted to portray to the audience – With Baz Luhrmann going for a modern love story / action film, and Franco Zeffirelli opting for a more traditional retelling of the classic play. This influenced how the characters would be portrayed, the location of the films, the scenery and most importantly, the language in their retelling of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.

Assessment and Feedback Essay

Assessment drives the choices students make about their learning. It is widely recognised that assessment and feedback contain the strongest potential to change how, and what, students do to succeed in their learning (Ramsden, 2003). This Effective Teaching Guide on Assessment provides practical suggestions on assessment and feedback. Assessment of Learning and Assessment for Learning David Boud, a recognised researcher and scholar of assessment in higher education, suggests that assessment has many purposes, but particularly to help students to improve their learning and certify students’ learning. These two purposes lead to different ways of thinking about what, how, and when to assess students: |Assessment OF Learning |Assessment FOR Learning | |Focused on learning that has already happened; |Focused on learning for the future; | |Making a judgement about final performance; |Goal is to provide useful information to students about how to learn | |Designed to discriminate between students’ achievement and performance; |more effectively; | | Focused on grades, precision and measurement; |Helps students to identify what they do and don’t know – focus is on | |Concerned that tasks are reliable and valid; |improvement; and, | |Testing usually takes place under ‘standardised’ conditions; and, |Develops students’ judgements about the quality of their work – and how | |Grade contributes to final certification. |to improve. | According to Boud and Associate’s Seven Propositions for Assessment Reform in Higher Education (2010), assessment has most effect when: 1. Assessment is used to engage students in learning that is productive (including the need for assessment to be designed to focus students on learning); 2. Feedback is used to actively improve student learning; 3. Students and teachers become responsible partners in learning and assessment; 4. Students are inducted into the assessment practices and cultures of higher education; 5. Assessment for learning is placed at the centre of subject and project design; 6. Assessment for learning is a focus for staff and institutional development; and, 7. Assessment provides inclusive and trustworthy representation of student achievement. The power of feedback Feedback plays an important role in improving students’ learning. A useful summary is that provided by Gibbs and Simpson’s (2004). In their meta-study of the research about how assessment and feedback support student learning, 7 of their 10 identified conditions relate to feedback, and students’ understanding of feedback. These are:  Ã¢â‚¬ ¢ Sufficient feedback is provided, both often enough and in enough detail; †¢ Feedback focuses on students’ performance, on their learning and on actions under the students’ control, rather than on the students themselves and on their characteristics; †¢ Feedback is timely in that it is received by students while it still matters to them, and in time for them to pay attention to further learning or receive further assistance; †¢ Feedback is appropriate to the purpose of the assignment and to its criteria for success; †¢ Feedback is appropriate, in relation to students’ understanding of what they are supposed to be doing; †¢ Feedback is received and attended to; and, †¢ Feedback is acted on by the student. Hounsell (2004) also makes the following points about feedback: †¢ It can be extrinsic (assessment-focused) or intrinsic (activity and practice-based); †¢ It can be immediate and verbal (in order to address the potential lack of engagement when it arrives after an assessment); †¢ It can be provided to be a whole class; †¢ It can be many to many where students are involved in identifying the strengths and weaknesses (peer feedback); and, †¢ Feedback can be a loop – it can be offered on unfinished work. Another useful idea is feed-forward. Feed-forward encourages students to use something like a marking rubric (also captured by the idea of criteria and standards) to help plan their approach to an assessment. While a marking rubric is routinely used by university teachers to mark/grade students’ work (as an expression of what a student needs to demonstrate (and the level they need to achieve) to receive a particular grade), the idea of feed-forward is about encouraging students to use that same information in the rubric to plan their work, and perhaps even, to self-assess it before submitting it for formal feedback. In summary: Feedback example: Develop a marking rubric as a cover sheet. The rubric identifies the elements of the assignment, together with a breakdown of marks for each element or a description of the standard for an A, B, C, D, P etc. Feed-forward example: Provide the marking rubric to students before the assignment is due so that they clearly understand what’s expected, the levels of achievement, and can plan their approach accordingly. In marking student work, you’ll need a suite of feedback techniques. Remember, if you’re going to be spending a lot of time providing feedback, you want to make sure that students read, use and engage with your feedback to improve their next assignment. The best way to do that is to have a range of techniques that you can draw on, when you need to. The table below describes some feedback techniques. |Technique |Why use this technique? |How would I use this technique? | |Use a marking rubric that contains information |To encourage students to engage, wrestle |Set aside time to discuss the rubric with students| |about criteria and standards. Offer it to |with and develop an understanding of the |in class. Provide examples of what an A, B, C, D | |students so that they can use it to plan high |criteria and standards related to an |and P level answer /assignment looks like. Explain| |achieving work. |assessment task before embarking on their|the differences to students and engage them in a | | |work. |dialogue. Get them to mark assignments samples so | | | |that they have to engage with the criteria and | | | |standards before embarking on their own | | | |assignment. | |Provide verbal ‘global’ feedback to the whole |To emphasise the common achievements and |As you mark assignments, make a list of 3 things | |class. |errors made across all assignments within|done well, and 3 things in need of improvement | | |a student cohort. |across the whole cohort. Use the next available | | | |class to provide feedback to the whole cohort. Be | | | |specific and provide an example. Post a summary on| | | |Moodle. | |Provide written feedback only. The mark/grade |To focus students’ improvement efforts on| | |is released only after students demonstrate a |the written comment rather than the | | |plan for improvement. |number/grade. The technique assumes that | | | |the learning for students is located in | | | |the staff comments. | | |Invite students to tell you 2-3 specific |To develop students’ capacity to |Ask students to write these 2-3 elements somewhere| |elements of the assignment they would like you |self-assess the quality of their |on the assignment cover sheet before submitting | |to focus your feedback on. |submitted work. |it. Your feedback on these elements does not need | | | |to be extensive but they warrant comment. | |Ask students to indicate the grade (ie, A, B, |To encourage students to engage with the |Invite students to write a 100 word justification | |C, D) they think their assignment should |criteria and standards for the assignment|about the grade they’ve nominated. Your final | |receive. |as part of their planning. |feedback and grade does not need to align with the| | | |students but you may wish to note any differences | | | |in each of your perceptions about the quality of | | | |the work. | |Encourage students to demonstrate/write how |For students to demonstrate how they have|Make this aspect a ‘hurdle’ requirement – to be | |they’ve used your feedback as part of the next |used feedback to improve future learning. |submitted with the next immediate assignment. | |assignment. | | | One observation you might make about each of these techniques is that they are focused on: (i) engaging students with the criteria and standards, and (ii) with what the student does with the feedback they receive. If you’d like to read more about these two ideas (and others like them), two articles may be especially useful to you: Rust, Price & O’Donovan (2003) and Price, O’Donovan & Rust (2004). Consistency and fairness in marking and feedback Consistency in marking, or moderation, is aimed at ensuring fairness in marking, and requires finding or establishing agreement between markers. Making sure that assignments contain criteria and standards is a good start because the expectations involved are clear to the student and clear to the marker. Although this does not absolve the marker from interpreting students’ work, without criteria or standards, the job of marking ends up being much harder. The procedures for marking are set out in the University’s Assessment Procedures (an excerpt of the principles is below): Where there is more than one marker, selected pieces of work from each assessment task should be reviewed by the subject coordinator to verify the level and consistency of the marks allocated by the marker. This process, called moderation, increases the reliability of the assessment process and application of standards, promotes consistency, supports objectivity and establishes a shared understanding of standards and fairness in assessment. The university also has a grading schema with a range of Pass grades. |80-100% |A | |70-79% |B | |60-69% |C | |50-59% |D | |Ungraded |P (may also denote satisfactory completion of a Masters Prelim course of | | |postgraduate thesis) | Graduate capabilities Alongside the conventional grading schema, from 2012, all commencing first year students will receive a result on the achievement of the university’s six graduate capabilities at the end of the year: †¢ Writing †¢ Speaking †¢ Inquiry/Research †¢ Critical thinking †¢ Creative Problem-solving †¢ Teamwork There are some subjects which have been designated cornerstone, mid-point and capstone status. This means that their curriculum has been designed to teach, assess, provide feedback and report specifically on these graduate capabilities. For each graduate capability, students will receive one of three results: exceeded expectations, met expectations or did not meet expectations. Each faculty has carefully crafted a description of what these standards look like. It may be the case that you will be asked to provide feedback to students about their graduate capability achievement as well. Because faculties will have already done substantial work outlining those standards, it is likely you will be asked to offer students that feedback. Summary When considered together, assessment and feedback are incredibly powerful levers for influencing the direction of students’ efforts, and their learning. For many students, the assessment in the subject is the actual curriculum. It is largely students’ reading and perception of what the assessment demands of them which is a key determinant in how they spend their time in a subject. Therefore, the messages that students take away about assessment from the documents; the Subject Guide; from interaction with other students, are important considerations. In the second week, you will discover just how crucial feedback is to this process and how the adoption of standards and criteria will help you mark and grade more efficiently and effectively. References Gibbs, G. and Simpson, C. (2004). Conditions Under Which Assessment Supports Student Learning. Learning and Teaching, Issue 1, pp: 3-31. Hattie, J. & Timperley, H. (2007). The Power of Feedback. Review of Educational Research, 77(1), 81-112. Hounsell, D. (2004). Reinventing Feedback in the Contemporary Scottish University. Scottish Quality Enhancement Workshop on Assessment, University of Glasgow [available online at: www. enhancementthemes. ac. uk/documents/events/20040604/Hounsellpaper. pdf]. O’Donovan, B. , Price, M. , & Rust, C. (2004). Know what I mean? Enhancing student understanding of assessment standards and criteria. Teaching in Higher Education, 9(3), 325-335. Orrell, J. (2006). Assessment beyond intuition. Central Queensland University [available online at: http://www. learning. cq. edu. au/FCWViewer/view. do? page=8896, accessed Feb 2011]. Price, M. , O’Donovan, B. , & Rust, C. (2004). Know what I mean? Enhancing student understanding of assessment standards and criteria. Teaching in Higher Education, 9(3), 325-335. Ramsden, P. (2003). Learning to teach in higher education. (2nd edition). Routledge, NY & London. Rust, C. , Price, M. , & O’Donovan, B. (2003). Improving Students’ Learning by Developing their Understanding of Assessment Criteria and Processes. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 28(2), 147-164. Taylor, J. (2008). Assessment in First Year University: A model to manage transition. Journal of University Teaching and Learning Practice, 5(1).

History Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 8

History - Essay Example tates, by virtue of any treaty which may be negotiated between them, and to the use by the Executive of the moneys herein appropriated, neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall ever exist in any part of said territory, except for crime, whereof the party shall first be duly convicted." Although this was famous, it was vanquished by the U.S. Senate adjournment. He was also a member of the peace convention. The compromise of 1850 involved Henry Clay. Clay took an active part and presented eight resolutions to the senate. The compromise aroused due to the spread of slavery that emerged out from the Mexican –American war around the territories of United States. Such territories include Texas, California and Mexico. The compromise was balanced between the expectations of these territories. The compromise for these territories differed accordingly; it was U.S paying the debts for Texas, which in turn allowed New Mexico to become a separate territory, California admitted as a state free of slavery. New Mexico determined its territory as â€Å"popular sovereignty† claiming that their state’s population would vote for a slave free notion, and the implementation of the New Fugitive Law of 1850. However, the compromises were not accepted by any political figures of the time such as Jefferson Davis, who felt that the compromise made for California might perturb the authority of Senates in South and North regions of United States. William Henry Seward, a famous representative of the Northern Whigs claimed that the Compromises of the 1850 and the old Fugitive Slave might lose the slaves as fugitives, which in turn would become a supporting. factor for the land claims of the people of Texas. Stephen Douglas was a lawyer and a politician He also qualified himself as a senator for fourteen years and then as a presidential candidate. Douglas’ the arguments concerning slavery with Abraham Lincoln took him to a popular phase. He then became the chairperson of the

IPv4 and ipv6 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

IPv4 and ipv6 - Essay Example The protocol accounts for most of today’s internet traffic and operates by describing a network in which there is no quality of service guarantee. IPV4 use 32 bit addressing and allows 4,294,967,296 unique addresses. IPV4 was widely used in modern transmission control protocol. The version provides basic datagram delivery characteristics and it has been highly rated by users for more than 10 years. IPv6 succeeded IPV4 and is currently used in directing 90% of internet traffic (Amer AbuAli 2001) The internet functions by transferring data between different hosts across different networks as specified by routing protocols. In order to transfer the data the protocols require a communicating mechanism and this is achieved by using IPv4 and IPv6. Migration from IPv4 to IPv6 is a cumbersome task because of the large numbers of IPv4 users. In today’s world, more people and organizations are using computers in their daily work. This will be hard to switch the IP protocol. The migration from ipv4 to ipv6 is implemented through step by step by utilizing auto configuration mechanism to eliminate manually configuration. Auto configuration mechanism allows users to mutually benefit from the upgraded IPv4 without affecting their connectivity. This method of migration is called the dual stack technique. Both the IPv4 and IPv6 are run at the same time. Data from IPv6 application in one end is interpreted by IPV6 protocol in the other end (Amer AbuAli 2001) Sets of simple internet procedures have been implemented fro smooth migration from IPv4 to IPv6 which include progressive and simple transition. Administrators update IPv4 routers one at a time without the need of upgrading other routers concurrent Administrators use the simple transition method simplifies in communication between IPv4 and IPv6. Networking devices which cannot be upgraded to IPv6 like the terminal servers can still operate on the IPv4 protocol using the transition model. In order to migrate

King Henry VIII Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

King Henry VIII - Essay Example In 1503, Henry became the Prince of Wales and in that very year his mother and grandmother were gathered unto their forefathers. In the year 1509, his father passed away and he ascended the throne as Henry the VIII (HENRY VIII (r. 1509-1547)). At that time England was an isolated kingdom in Europe. It had limited natural resources. England was surrounded by the sea on three sides. Scotland was to its north. The Scots were inimical to the English they joined forces with France, which was also an enemy of England. His father Henry VII had strived hard to restore independence to England and to enrich it in all respects. In order to achieve these goals, Henry VII had executed his opponents and enemies and annexed their properties in England. He had increased the amount of taxes to enrich the crown. He was disinterested in wars as they depleted the wealth of the nation. His son had totally different ideas in this respect and after his coronation; he adopted novel means to expand the power of England and to make it the greatest power in Europe (Kishlansky). Henry VIII was inimical of France and in the year 1513, he mounted a successful campaign against the French. This infuriated the Scots who waged a war against England. This engagement was famous as the Battle of Flodden Field. In that battle, the armies of Henry established their supremacy over that of the Scots. James IV, the king of Scotland was killed in that battle (Kishlansky). Henry VIII played the role of an arbitrator between France and Spain. He provoked these countries to wage war against each other, in order to assume a superior position in Europe. His subsequent military operations were failures. In the year 1520, Henry met with the king of France, Francis I, in France. Their meeting was a spectacular event in Europe. Despite, the existence of diplomatic relations with each other, they were unable to stop the