Nord-Trøndelag University College

Abstract This article is a small piece of a much larger and still evolving project. Herein we focus on six touchstones for wild pedagogies. The article begins with a short orientation to the larger ideas behind the project and then focuses on exploring six current touchstones with a view towards early childhood environmental educators. The six explored here are: (1) agency and the role of nature as co-teacher; (2) wildness and challenging ideas of control; (3) complexity, the unknown, and spontaneity; (4) locating the wild; (5) time and practice; and (6) cultural change.

Human capital management has been viewed as a necessity to acquire and maintain a sustainable competitive advantage for firms since modern management theory emerged. In this chapter we will first give an overview of how knowledge capital can be linked to the competitive situation of companies. Then we will focus more specifically on how knowledge capital can be measured. We will use the MERITUM framework to measure how different aspects of the knowledge of the employees contribute to the competitiveness of the company. In the empirical part we will show a case study of how this analysis and measurement can be done. From the empirical study we find that the knowledge transfer process is the most important single factor to enhance competitiveness.

The relative age effect (RAE) refers to that children born early in their year of birth show higher performance compared to children born late in the same cohort. The present study evaluated whether RAE exists within non-competitive physical education (PE) attainments, change in RAE magnitude with age, and possible gender differences. The results show a drop in PE attainment and a difference in number of high and low marks between the first and second half-year. Of the pupils who attained the highest mark, 73% were born in the first 6 months. In lower-secondary school, RAEs were larger in girls compared with boys. A possible explanation for the results is that the PE-teachers might be inspired by product-oriented criteria.

Physical Education (PE) in school aims to help pupils experience the joy of movement through various forms of physical activity and to acquire a positive attitude to physical activity and exercise. The teacher's task is to mediate the joy of movement and instil a positive attitude to exercise in the pupils. Drawing on the methodology of van Manen [(2002). Writing in the dark: Phenomenological studies in interpretic inquiry. London: The Althouse Press], this article takes a closer look at mediating the joy of movement and conveying attitudes through legitimate, expert and referent power [French, J. R. P., & Raven, B. (1959). The bases of social power. In D. Cartwright (Ed.), Studies in social power (pp. 150-167). Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan] as narrated by an experienced Norwegian PE teacher. The teacher's narrative is interpreted within a framework where these typologies of power refer to the teacher's formal position in PE classes and the teacher's athletic skills and teaching qualities. The teacher's narrative indicates that legitimate, expert and referent power influence pupils' views on PE, attitudes and effort in class. Referent power provides the potential to instil attitudes in the pupils, even to the point of getting them to enjoy taking exercise to the limit. It even embraces teachers' potential to influence pupils by displaying their own active lifestyle, which goes beyond teaching itself. However, some problematic and unresolved issues are pointed out within this approach. A didactic approach, where the teachers use their own lifestyle as a pedagogical tool, may prompt a negative rather than a positive reaction from pupils, because they may be (mis) construed as being too eager and physically active to the extreme. Referent power depends on establishing credibility with the pupils, and conveying attitudes through referent power implies a didactic instability. On the other hand, the approach may be a good strategy for achieving what teachers should be trying to achieve, which is to convey and instil the joy of movement and a positive attitude to physical exercise in the pupils.

The aim of the study was to compare the effects of a long warm-up and a short warm-up upon repeated-sprint performance in soccer players. Ten male soccer players (age, 21.9 +/- 1.9 years; body mass, 77.7 6 8.3 kg; body height, 1.85 +/- 0.03 m) conducted 2 types of warm-ups with 1 week in between: a long warm-up (20 minutes: LWup) and a short warm-up (10 minutes: SWup). Each warm-up was followed by a repeated-sprint test consisting of 8 3 30 m sprints with a new start every 30th second. The best sprint time, total sprinting time, and % decrease in time together with heart rate, lactate, and rate of perceived exertion (RPE) were measured. No significant differences in performance were found for the repeated-sprint test parameters (total sprint time: 35.99 6 1.32 seconds [LWup] and 36.12 +/- 0.96 seconds [SWup]; best sprint time: 4.32 +/- 0.13 seconds [LWup] and 4.30 +/- 0.10 seconds [SWup]; and % sprint decrease: 4.16 +/- 2.15% [LWup] and 5.02 +/- 2.07% [SWup]). No differences in lactate concentration after the warm-up and after the repeated-sprint test were found. However, RPE and heart rate were significantly higher after the long warm-up and the repeated-sprint test compared with the short warm-up. It was concluded that a short warm-up is as effective as a long warm-up for repeated sprints in soccer. Therefore, in regular training, less warm-up time is needed; the extra time could be used for important soccer skill training.