Curriculum Unit Research Articles

Technical Guidance Preparation of the Education Unit Operational of the Kurikulum Merdeka for Teachers in Elementary Schools

This community service activity involving the IAI Agus Salim Metro Lampung PKM team aims to overcome obstacles for elementary school teachers in implementing the Independent Curriculum. This program provides benefits for various parties, including elementary school teachers at SDN 2 Sri Agung, SDN 2 Subing Karya, SDN 2 Ppurwosari, SDN 2 Srimulyo Anak Ratu Aji, and SDN 6 Tanjung Jaya, Central Lampung. The main obstacle faced by teachers in preparing the Operational Curriculum of Education Units in the Learning Curriculum is related to understanding concepts and their application in daily learning activities. Teachers need a comprehensive understanding of the preparation of the Operational Curriculum of Education Units with the Independent Learning Curriculum approach. The direction from the PKM Team makes an important contribution in delivering information, strategies, and approaches that support teachers to develop operational curricula effectively. Teachers in elementary schools who follow this technical guidance have experienced improved skills in developing operational curricula. This helps them to adapt the Merdeka Belajar Curriculum approach according to the characteristics and needs of students in their environment. Through a better understanding of the Merdeka Belajar Curriculum, teachers can design learning that is more contextual, relevant, and in accordance with student needs. This has the potential to improve the quality of education in Primary School, spark students' interest in learning, and improve their academic achievement.

The Use of Gamification for Learning SCRUM: Findings from a Case Study with Information Systems Students

Gamification has emerged in higher education as an innovative approach that engages and stimulates student participation and active learning, through the integration of game elements in the learning experience. This study presents a case study in the field of Information Systems, based on the use of gamification, through the use of Lego bricks, to learn SCRUM. The participants in the study include 12 first-year students, enrolled in the curricular unit of Information Systems, in the academic year of 2022/2023, at a Portuguese Higher Education Institution. The objective of the study is to analyze student’s understanding of the SCRUM approach, in regard to: (1) how students understand the different roles of SCRUM and the objective of each ceremony; and (2) how students understand the structure of the SCRUM framework. Findings from the study show that students who engaged in the gamified learning environment demonstrated higher comprehension of SCRUM roles, scoring significantly better on assessments compared to their non-participating peers. In general, students felt that the gamification experience achieved its objectives. Future work aims to bring the game closer to the reality of the software development process, making it more aligned with the lego4scrum methodology approach.

Elementary Students’ Use of Mechanistic Reasoning to Explain Community-Connected Engineering Design Solutions

Mechanistic reasoning about an artifact or system involves thinking about its underlying entities and the properties, activities, and cause-effect relationships of those entities. Previous studies of children’s mechanistic reasoning about engineering solutions have mostly focused on specific mechanical systems such as gear trains. Yet there is growing interest in more contextualized, community-connected engineering design experiences for elementary students. Important questions remain about how the specific features of community contexts influence student opportunities for engineering design practice and reasoning. In this study, we explore whether comparisons in students’ mechanistic reasoning can be made across a range of five different community design contexts. For this qualitative descriptive study, we focus on interview data collected after each of five community-connected engineering-enriched science curriculum units: accessible playground design (3rd grade, N = 8, district A, schools 1 and 2), displaced animal relocation design (3rd grade, N = 10, district A, school 1), migration stopover site design (4th grade, N = 4, district A, school 2), retaining wall design (4th grade, N = 13, district B, school 1), and water filter design (5th grade, N = 9 students, district A, school 3). The findings showed that all students named entities and described entity factors for the design solutions for all five units. For the playground, displaced animals, and stopover sites units, some students described the design artifacts without explicitly expressing connections between entity factors and/or the way factors linked up to the design performance. We argue that particular features of the design tasks influenced students’ approaches to explaining their design solutions. Therefore, we can claim that comparisons can be made across different community-connected engineering design contexts in terms of children’s mechanistic reasoning.

Organizational and Work Psychology and its contribution to a cooperative in the highlands of Paraíba: An intersection between management and sustainability

This work, which is the result of the curricular unit: Management processe concerns the basic internship, which took place in a solid waste cooperative. This report presents the theoretical background, which is essential to guide the practice, the methodology, the results of the intervention carried out and the final considerations. Based on on-site visits, permeated by observation and interviews with the leader of the square and the cooperative members, an institutional diagnosis was made and, based on this, a demand survey was carried out. Interpersonal relationships with a view to the well-being of workers and the growth of the organization, and the underlying interference of emotions, stood out as the main demand for intervention at the time. This experience provided contact with the field of Organizational and Work Psychology, reflecting the possibilities for professional work in this area.

NeuroLab 2.0: An Alternative Storyline Design Approach for Translating a Research-Based Summer Experience into an Advanced STEM+M Curriculum Unit that Supports Three-Dimensional Teaching and Learning in the Classroom.

In this case study, we describe an alternative storyline design approach that we adopted to translate an informal, out-of-school summer science experience with a strong emphasis on developmental neuroscience and data literacy into a more inclusive, replicable, and scalable experience for formal high school science instruction. Combining elements of problem- and project-based learning, a storyline is a curriculum model that engages students in the application of investigative science and engineering practices to incrementally build conceptual models that explain an observable (anchoring) phenomenon. Published reports on the storyline design process describe procedures and tools that are well suited to the creation of novel instructional units. However, these design methods are difficult to apply to projects aimed at translating pre-existing science experiences and resources into classroom storyline units. In this descriptive case study, we discuss a series of alternative design procedures that we utilized to achieve this adaptation. Our overarching project goal was to create the resources necessary to engage high school students in the construction of a multidimensional explanatory model for an unusual movement disorder that assimilates converging lines of behavioral, neuroanatomical, neurophysiological, molecular genetic, developmental, and cellular data. The methods described in this case study establish a design template for other biomedical scientists who are interested in adopting a storyline approach to bring aspects of their work or educational projects into science classrooms and into closer alignment with a new vision for science teaching and learning articulated in the National Research Council's A Framework for K-12 Science Education and the Next Generation Science Standards.

Pre-service teachers’ experiences of a core Bachelor of Education (primary) unit: Teaching and learning about relationships and sex education for and about sex, gender and sexual diversity

ABSTARCT The expectations placed on teachers and teacher educators have increased particularly in relation to education topics such as relationships and sex education. One group of four pre-service teachers and a teacher educator based in an Australian university studying a Bachelor of Education (primary) share their experiences of teaching and learning in a fourth-year core curriculum unit of study in health. The aim of this paper is to explore narrative accounts using Archer’s approaches to reflection (Archer, 2007) of our teaching and learning experiences. The reflections are shared within the context of making decisions about learning effective practices for relationships and sex education for and about sex, gender and sexual diversity as part of the curriculum, policy and pedagogical imperative in Australia. We found that queering pre-service primary school teacher practices for RSE is possible through deep reflection as part of teaching and learning in an initial teacher education course work core unit of study. Making this practice visible has implications for initial teacher educators in university contexts globally.

Comparative Analysis of Kyrgyzstan and Türkiye’s Secondary Geography Curriculums

The study was made as a qualitative document analysis. The geography curriculums implemented in secondary education in Türkiye since 2018 and in Kyrgyzstan since 2020 were compared by applying document analysis and content analysis. The curriculums were subjected to a comparative analysis in terms of achievements, content, learning and teaching approaches and assessment-evaluation features. Due to the difference in the educational levels of both countries, there are some difficulties in comparing only at the high school level. According to the findings, it was observed that the subjects included in the curriculum were more limited in Kyrgyzstan. In this context, it was more appropriate to make comparisons on the basis of human systems, global environment: regions and countries, and environment and society units in the Turkish geography curriculum. It is noteworthy that the geography curriculum in Kyrgyzstan has an approach that addresses geographical, geocological, social-humanitarian aspects in teaching the outcomes. When evaluated in this respect, it can be said that there is a great overlap in terms of the geographical perspective intended to be gained by students. It is noteworthy that the similarities in the updated constructivist teaching philosophy are also intense in terms of objectives and some guidance, educational situations and assessment-evaluation. In the Kyrgyzstan geography curriculum, there are a lot of details about educational situations and assessment-evaluation. The most important difficulty experienced in the comparison was the difference in the educational levels at which geography courses were taught in the two countries.

Online monitoring of histology as an adaptive element in medical education

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed teaching in all areas of medical education. The Histology discipline is theoretical-practical in nature and requires practical monitoring for student learning. However, with the implementation of Emergency Remote Education (ERE) due to the pandemic, tutoring also had to undergo adaptations during this period, being offered online mediated by technology. Thus, the objective of this study was to evaluate the importance of online monitoring mediated by technology in the Histology discipline in the first period of Medicine course. For this research, a descriptive, quantitative, cross-sectional, experience report type study was developed. When evaluating the data, it is observed that 94.7% of students attended the monitoring meeting at least once. Among the 3 curricular units that were analyzed, UC-2 was the most attended. When evaluating attendance in all UC, only 23.7% of the 38 students attended. The average grade of these students who participated in all UC was 8.21 points. Furthermore, there was a gradual increase in grades among those attending monitoring meetings, as only 13.1% obtained a grade lower than 06 points in UC-1, 21% in UC-2 and no student obtained a grade lower than 06 points. at UC-3. The results of this study indicate an important collaboration of online tutoring meetings, as they had a positive impact on students' academic performance, indicating that attendance in online tutoring is a key and strategic element that can contribute to students' learning in the subject of Histology.

Pharmacovigilance teaching and learning: a mixed cross-sectional analysis of the Portuguese public higher education system

Pharmacovigilance stands out for its importance in obtaining existing knowledge about medicine and patient safety and should be recognized as a continuous line of study. It constitutes a highly relevant component in the activities of health professionals, with spontaneous notification of suspected adverse drug reactions being its main emphasis. The underreporting that persists can be overcome through continuous professional development programs, reinforcing theoretical and practical knowledge in the curricular plans of health courses. As a result, more educated professionals will also allow citizens to recognize the importance of pharmacovigilance. The main objective of this study was to describe and characterize the teaching-learning process of pharmacovigilance in Portugal, analyzing the knowledge, perceptions and attitudes of students and health professionals. In total, ninety-three curricular unit forms of the seventeen healthcare courses included were analyzed, among which only three referred to pharmacovigilance as mandatory and thirty-nine did not address any keywords. The questionnaire applied was answered by 650 participants, both students (62%) and professionals (38%). Approximately 84.4% of the students and 54.7% of the professionals affirmed that they had never spontaneously reported an adverse drug reaction. Only 24.6% of the students and 17.8% of professionals referred to the existence of specific course content dedicated to pharmacovigilance in their coursework. In view of these results, it is evident that there is a need for a wider reflection regarding the further training and constant update of practicing professionals as well as in diverse health institutions, investing in the creation of an academic curriculum that integrates pharmacovigilance in healthcare courses.

Theoretical-methodological and didactic-pedagogical assumptions of the Professional Ethics curricular unit at Unifesp

Resumo: O objetivo deste artigo é refletir sobre a ética na formação profissional, na particularidade da Unidade Curricular de Ética Profissional na graduação em Serviço Social da Unifesp. Realizou-se pesquisa bibliográfica, documental e sistematização de experiências. Os resultados apontam para a importância do compartilhamento dos pressupostos teórico-filosóficos e das estratégias didático-pedagógicas no desenvolvimento das disciplinas específicas de ética, em coerência com as diretrizes curriculares da Abepss.

Experiencing Education 5.0 for Civil Engineering

Nowadays, the construction industry's digital transformation processes are challenging civil engineering education. In general, students and society underestimate the civil engineering field as an outdated and archaic knowledge area. Despite the defragmentation and heterogeneity of the sector, advances have been made on the path for Construction 4.0 and 5.0 scenarios. From this perspective, the CONSTRUCT-Gequaltec group of the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto have been sponsoring research and technological development using hardware and software targeting construction management solutions. This paper presents the work in progress mainly connected to the curricular units regarding project management in the Construction Section of the Civil Engineering Department. It also targets assumptions of some expected results across the research and innovation priorities from ECTP Innovative Built Environment and United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Two fundamental elements of the teaching practices are presented as the Construction Sites of the Future (Laboratory-Based Education initiative) and Digital products catalogue targeting Digital Twins in Construction (Project Based Learning initiative). The learning outcomes address increasing knowledge of innovative solutions, delivering skills to deploy 5.0 actions, and targeting human-centred and sustainable attitudes and values.

Developing and implementing an “All-day School” model in Lviv, Ukraine

Implementing an all-day school model was one of the steps undertaken in Lviv, Ukraine as part of the system-wide reforms introduced by the New Ukrainian School. The all-day school model increases the allocated class time for students and provides equal educational opportunities for all, regardless of social and economic backgrounds. The introduction of the innovations was preceded by the development and implementation of integrated curriculum units at the primary school level and was made possible by the formal acceptance of a Policy Directive by the Lviv City Council. Despite COVID limitations (2019–2021) and the proclamation of a State of War due to Russia’s full-scale invasion (2022–2024), the all-day school model has thrived and has been expanded. It is the purpose of this paper to present an overview of the implementation of the all-day school for grades 1–4 in the City of Lviv, Ukraine during the 2017–2024 period. A focus will be made on the pre-implementation activities that were conducted and the number of schools, teachers and classes that are currently participating in the project. Information will also be shared on how the needs of the teachers in filling the increased allocated time are being met. In conclusion, recommendations for further analysis of the all-day school will be made. Keywords: all-day school, allocated class time, New Ukrainian School, equal educational opportunities, integrated curriculum units.

Methodological Complexity: A Both/And Approach to Address Tool Validity and Reliability for Assessment of Cultural Responsiveness in Indigenous Serving Schools

This article presents the first psychometric validation of the Culturally Responsive Assessment of Indigenous Schooling (CRAIS) tool, alongside a call for methodological complexity when engaged in research with and in Indigenous contexts. We examined the 23 culturally responsive schooling (CRS) principles underlying the newly created CRAIS tool in independent samples of curriculum units produced by teachers. Of these, 22 principles loaded into two factors. We further investigated the rationale for all 23 items through a review of the literature and robust discussions about the lived experiences of the authors and the Indigenous teachers with whom we work. We suggest that this both/and approach of quantitative and qualitative analysis results in a richer and more nuanced tool, as compared to what one single method would have rendered. Embracing this methodological complexity allows us to both center Indigenous lived experiences and maintain fidelity to the statistical implications of our work.

Physical Education Teachers’ Representations of Their Training to Promote the Inclusion of Students with Disabilities

School inclusion is based on the need to adopt and implement a holistic view of education, training, and human development embodied in the idea of everyone, for everyone. In the context of Physical Education (PE), there are still several constraints to the realization of this universal desideratum. Among these, teacher training and qualification for the inclusion of students with Specific Health Needs (SHNs) stands out. That is, students with physical and mental health problems whose impact is significantly manifested in the learning process. Thus, the objective of this study was to identify the representations of PE teachers about their training to develop inclusive processes with students with SES. Participants in this study were 151 PE teachers from different regions and districts of Portugal (Algarve, Aveiro, Castelo Branco, Lisbon, Porto, and Viseu) who had 23.6 ± 8.1 years of teaching service. Teachers answered an online questionnaire, on the Google Forms platform, with open and closed questions about their education and training to develop inclusive processes in PE. The results indicate two significant dimensions: (1) initial training for teaching inclusive PE and (2) continuous training for inclusion. Regarding initial training, a large majority of the teachers under study, at the end of their initial training, did not have the essential skills to teach PE to students with SES. It was also identified that a large majority reported not having had any contact with students with SES throughout their training process for teaching. It was also recognized that this training was not adjusted to the development of intervention skills with students with SHN. Regarding continuous training, it was identified that attendance at this training increased their skills to teach PE to students with SHN. Workshops/actions/training courses are the main training models adopted. However, it is recognized that the training provided does not respond concretely to their training needs to intervene with students with SHN, since teachers essentially seek to improve intervention in the context of inclusive physical education. We conclude that teacher training for inclusion is not yet fully adjusted to the reality of the inclusive school paradigm. In this sense, in practical terms, the following are suggested: (1) the need for reinforcement in study plans with specific and long-term curricular units; (2) the introduction of real practice components in context; and (3) supervised pedagogical practice in diverse contexts.

Pedagogical Assessment in Higher Education: The Importance of Training

The diversity of students reaching higher education, the skills required of the 21st-century citizen, the Bologna Declaration, and the pressure exerted by international organizations impose a pedagogical reconfiguration of teaching, learning, and assessment through the recognition of the pedagogical dimension as a component of teacher professional development. We present the results of a study conducted at a university in Portugal with the following objectives: identifying conceptions and practices of pedagogical assessment and determining the influence of pedagogical training on these conceptions and practices. An online questionnaire (pre- and post-test) was administered to 31 teachers who had taken part in a training course on pedagogical assessment. It was found that: nearly half of the teachers experience difficulties in pedagogical assessment, with fairness being the main issue; the most commonly used instruments are written tests, research assignments, and reports; around two-thirds of teachers change the way they assess students, with the nature of the curricular units being the most influential factor in this decision; and there has been a change in the concept of assessment, in which the strict idea of testing, measuring, and classifying students’ knowledge has been replaced by the gathering of information for decision-making about the teaching and learning process.

Sanford Underground Research Facility’s approach to school education, community activities, and public outreach

The Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF) is the deepest underground science facility in the United States. SURF hosts world-leading experiments in neutrino, astroparticle and nuclear physics, as well as projects in biology, geology, and engineering, and is home to a major excavation project making space for Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory’s Long-Baseline Neutrino Facility (LBNF), which will power the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE). An emphasis on outreach and education is embedded in SURF’s mission statement: “to advance world-class science and inspire learning across generations.” To achieve this mission, SURF goes beyond established science communication methods, including operating an open-to-the-public visitor center, hosting multiple public outreach events per month, and an annual city-wide science festival. Furthermore, SURF is training K-12 science educators, developing school curriculum units, and providing classroom materials, based on science researched at the laboratory. The strategic approach, specific methods, and successful outcomes of these programs, which are based on SURF’s science, location, and community, may serve as examples for effective science education, public outreach, and community engagement.

Peer Feedback: Model for the Assessment and Development of Metacognitive Competences in Nursing Students in Clinical Training

Peer feedback serves as a pedagogical methodology that actively engages students throughout their academic journey. Developing metacognitive competences of students in a clinical training context motivates student’s engagement and active participation in the learning and assessment processes as added value for academic success. It is particularly effective in fostering competences that are crucial for future professional practice. This study introduces the design and development of a peer feedback model tailored for the assessment and development of metacognitive competences among nursing students undergoing clinical training, named PEERFEED-EClínico 1.0. The research employs a constructivist case study approach using a multi-method design comprising two stages: Stage 1 (S1) involves development and modeling, conducted through the first and second cycles of participatory action research (PAR); Stage 2 (S2) focuses on validity and feasibility, employing a quasi-experimental study (before and after) to validate the model’s requirements, receptivity, and potential compliance among teachers and students. Data were collected from 2018 to 2021 and involved 163 nursing students and 24 teachers/supervisors enrolled in curricular units related to clinical training during the 3rd and 4th years of their undergraduate nursing degrees. The findings highlight the PEERFEED-EClínico 1.0 model, which features four levels of implementation. The model emphasizes self-knowledge, self-reflection, and self-regulation along with communication, interpersonal relationships, and teamwork, all of which are deemed essential for students’ future professional practice. The peer feedback model promotes a centered student approach, allows the alignment of pedagogical methodologies with international frameworks of quality assurance in higher education, and contributes significantly to nursing education and science knowledge.

“So, we kind of started from scratch, no pun intended”: What can students learn from designing games?

AbstractMuch research attention has been focused on learning through game playing. However, very little has been focused on student learning through game making, especially in science. Moreover, none of the studies on learning through making games has presented an account of how students engage in the process of game design in real time. The present study seeks to address that gap. We report an exploratory embedded case study in which three groups of students in one classroom created a computer game designed to teach peers about climate science, while drawing on scientific knowledge, principles of game design, and computational thinking practices. Data sources were student design sheets, computer video, and audio screen capture while students created their game, and interviews after completing the curriculum unit. A theme‐driven framework was used to code the data. A curricular emphasis on systems across climate systems, game design, and computational thinking practices provided a context designed to synergistically supported student learning. This embedded case study provides a rich example of what a collaborative game design task in a constructionist context looks like in a middle school science classroom, and how it supports student learning. Game design in a constructionist learning environment that emphasized learning through building a game allowed students to choose their pathways through the learning experience and resulted in learning for all despite various levels of programming experience. Our findings suggest that game design may be a promising context for supporting student learning in STEM disciplines.

(Re)Creating Games with Poly-Universe: An Innovative Practice

The introduction of games as a teaching and learning strategy in the classroom is a pedagogical resource that presents excellent results, as it creates situations that allow the students to develop problem solving methods, stimulate their creativity and at the same time generate motivation. The theories of learning are used to describe the motives and processes of learning and teaching methods. In order to analyse the cognitive dimensions inherent in the teaching and learning process, we can consider Bloom's taxonomy. The present study was with students of 1st cycle studies, Bachelor's Degree, in the 2nd semester in the curricular unit Learning and Teaching Models. Several games were developed by the students based on the Poly-Universe material, with the objective of being used in classroom contexts with students. The conclusions of this study are very positive, as the students got involved in creatively playing games, drawing up a document with the rules of their created game.

Utilising a STEAM-based Approach to Support Calculus Students’ Positive Attitudes Towards Mathematics and Enhance their Learning Outcomes

Abstract The curricular unit Calculus I – Extraordinary Semester (UCCISE) – was explicitly created to respond to students’ difficulties in the curriculum unit Calculus I (UCCI). Only students who fail the UCCI are allowed to attend UCCISE. Considering the enrolled students’ familiarity with mathematical software, the potential of group work to stimulate collaboration among students, and the existence of several art pieces on the University Campus, led to the proposal of a groups’ project focusing on the calculus of areas based on sections of these pieces. Hence, a STEAM approach emerged to achieve the suggested UCCISE objectives. This study aims to understand how using a STEAM approach in a higher education Calculus course could improve students’ perceptions of mathematics, promote their learning, and contribute to lower levels of failure in UCCISE, using teaching experiments as a research methodology. Four researchers were involved in this study, including the Calculus teacher, so this study has action research characteristics. The interpretive paradigm of analysis was used with the triangulation of data. The collected data come from the students’ productions, interviews, and final questionnaires. Results show that the work developed by the 35 students was relevant and should be a practice to be used in UCCI. This experience led to a reduction in the levels of failure compared to the UCCI. However, in the first years at a university level, STEAM approaches are still challenging.