Learning Spaces Research Articles

Using Social Learning Spaces to Think Beyond and Innovate Conventional Conferencing Formats

Across the academic landscape, scientific organizations host conferences that enable researchers to come together to foster learning, stimulate innovation, and promote change. Within the diverse field of kinesiology, conferences can help develop and disseminate knowledge on a range of issues such as athlete development and coach education. The purpose of the present article is to discuss the possibilities of thinking beyond conventional conferencing formats by creating dynamic social learning spaces that promote networking, critical thinking, and reflexivity. The theory underpinning social learning spaces is explained, followed by a narrative chronology of the three phases of evolution of the blue room group, an interdisciplinary collaboration of youth sport scholars who aim to foster innovation across subdisciplines of kinesiology. An interpretative summary of the blue room group as a social learning space is presented, in accordance with the principles of caring to make a difference, engaging uncertainty, and paying attention. The perceived benefits of kinesiology, as well as the challenges and limitations of the blue room, are discussed based on the authors’ experiences operating within a continuously evolving and shifting social learning space.

Building Back Better: Exploring the Resilience of Schools in Disaster Recovery

As natural and human-made disasters escalate globally, the urgency to rebuild resilient communities is increasingly evident. With this study, Building Back Better: Exploring the Resilience of Schools in Disaster Recovery explores the experiences, disaster recovery, challenges, coping mechanisms, and insights of three school administrators and four teachers designated as school Disaster Risk Reduction coordinators in the Monkayo East District of Davao de Oro. This study utilized qualitative phenomenological study to delve into the lived experiences of educational professionals during post-disaster recovery. This research aims to gain a deep understanding of the challenges, coping mechanisms, and insights from a purposive sample of four teachers designated as school Disaster Risk Reduction coordinators and three school administrators who have directly engaged with the recovery processes following natural disasters. The data were gathered through an in-depth face-to-face interview and used an audio recorder to record the discussion. The significant finding from the study is the multifaceted and long-lasting impact of disasters on students' learning environments. This finding highlights how disasters not only cause physical damage to school infrastructure but also disrupt the educational process, widen achievement gaps, and affect the emotional well-being of students. The disruption of normal routines and the psychological stress experienced by students underscore the critical need for comprehensive recovery strategies, including academic support and mental health resources, to help students regain stability and continue their education effectively. This emphasizes the importance of preparedness and resilience in educational institutions to mitigate the impact of such crises. This study highlights the need for timely assessments, repairs, and coordination with local authorities to ensure the structural integrity of school facilities. It underscores the importance of disaster preparedness and the implementation of robust recovery strategies to mitigate the impact on the educational environment and maintain a safe and conducive learning space. This focus on infrastructure is foundational, as it directly influences the ability of schools to function effectively post-disaster. Teachers and school heads are pivotal in disaster risk reduction within educational institutions. They create safety plans, organize drills, and educate students on emergency procedures, fostering a culture of preparedness. School heads provide leadership, while teachers act as first responders, guiding students to safety and offering necessary care. Collaboration between teachers, school heads, and stakeholders is crucial for a resilient school environment. By involving the entire school community in planning and implementing safety measures, schools can effectively respond to disasters, ensuring the safety and well-being of everyone involved. This partnership promotes a proactive approach to disaster preparedness, making safety a priority in all school activities.

Pemberdayaan Masyarakat Melalui Sosialisasi Pemanduan Wisata di Desa Ekowisata Pancoh

Rural areas as the locus of tourism development need to prepare themselves to welcome the arrival of tourists. In order to create an empowered village community, one of the initial strategies that can be implemented is through a community service programme through socialisation of community empowerment through tour guiding in Pancoh Ecotourism Village. The socialisation of tour guiding activities is delivered through lecture and discussion methods about tour guiding, what things the guide needs to prepare before meeting tourists, and ways to find out the type or characteristics of tourists. Through this community service programme, the capacity of local human resources is prepared as well as possible to receive tourist visits and be able to provide services and guides according to professional standards. This community service programme is held to create a learning space for the community to improve their knowledge and abilities in the field of tour guiding.

An adversarial network reinforcement method for power data time series generation based on knowledge transfer and Rayleigh differential privacy

Abstract In order to solve the problem of sensitive information leakage of power data in machine learning and artificial intelligence processing, this paper proposes a method of civic-text data reinforcement based on time series generation adversarial network, which combines knowledge transfer and Rényi differential privacy protection framework to balance privacy and availability, while improving the accuracy of the model. First, the generative adversarial network generates training data that is similar to the real data but secure through adversarial learning, ensuring that even if the data is stolen, the original information cannot be inferred. Secondly, through the integration of recurrent neural network training and autoencoder, the dynamic and static characteristics of the power load data can be effectively captured, and the high dimension of the learning space can be reduced. In addition, knowledge distillation technology is used to guide the generator of training student models through a powerful teacher network of knowledge transfer, improving the diversity and quality of the generated data. Finally, from the four aspects of privacy, data similarity and diversity, and practicability, the practical application value and potential of the framework for electricity consumption data are comprehensively evaluated.

Disinterest, normalisation of gender violence and fear of being cancelled: Mediatised learning on antifeminist and anti-LGBTIQ+ discourses among teenagers in Barcelona

This article examines the proliferation of antifeminist and anti-LGBTIQ+ discourses among teenagers in Barcelona (Catalonia) and the role of media and the manosphere – online communities and spaces where discussions about masculinity, anti-feminism, gender relations and men's issues take place – on the pollination of these discourses. Through short-term ethnography conducted in three education centres, involving the collaboration of 59 teenagers between 14 and 18 years old, the study researches the discourses that young people embrace, what mediatised environments are referring to when they speak about gender, feminism and LGBTIQ+ topics, and the meaning young people give to these media content. Findings reveal the manosphere facilitates young people's access to masculinist cultures and point to the urge of addressing the affective dimension of it. To conclude, it highlights the need to challenge these informal learning spaces within contemporary youth culture to promote gender equality and social justice.

Constrained Off-policy Learning over Heterogeneous Information for Fairness-aware Recommendation

Fairness-aware recommendation eliminates discrimination issues to build trustworthy recommendation systems. Existing fairness-aware approaches ignore accounting for rich user and item attributes and thus cannot capture the impact of attributes on affecting recommendation fairness. These real-world attributes severely cause unfair recommendations by favoring items with popular attributes, leading to item exposure unfairness in recommendations. Moreover, existing approaches mostly mitigate unfairness for static recommendation models, e.g., collaborative filtering. Static models can not handle dynamic user interactions with the system that reflect users’ preferences shift through time. Thus, static models are limited in their ability to adapt to user behavior shifts to gain long-run user satisfaction. As user and item attributes are largely involved in modern recommenders and user interactions are naturally dynamic, it is essential to develop a novel method that eliminates unfairness caused by attributes meanwhile embrace the dynamic modeling of user behavior shifts. In this article, we propose Constrained Off-policy Learning over Heterogeneous Information for Fairness-aware Recommendation (Fair-HINpolicy) , which uses recent advances in context-aware off-policy learning to produce fairness-aware recommendations with rich attributes from a Heterogeneous Information Network. In particular, we formulate the off-policy learning as a Constrained Markov Decision Process (CMDP) by dynamically constraining the fairness of item exposure at each iteration. We also design an attentive action sampling to reduce the search space for off-policy learning. Our solution adaptively receives HIN-augmented corrections for counterfactual risk minimization, and ultimately yields an effective policy that maximizes long-term user satisfaction. We extensively evaluate our method through simulations on large-scale real-world datasets, obtaining favorable results compared with state-of-the-art methods.

Introduction to Special Issue: Centering Community Healing, Sustenance, and Resilience in STEM and Computing Education Through Art and Social Justice

Computing, technology, and engineering education are in particular need of examining how we can bring love, community, and joy to the center of learning experiences to support a diversity of youth to flourish. Computing and STEM disciplines are often taught in ways that detach knowledge from people and communities, making it difficult to explore a variety of personal, social, and societal connections that are not already at the center of the tech industry. These exclusionary practices limit the way work is accomplished—including who is involved in the design work and who technological innovations are designed for; as well as the way the work is situated within our society—including what problems technology is designed to solve and who benefits from particular innovations (Benjamin, 2019; Noble, 2018). Learning experiences and spaces for technology education should support youth as they develop new knowledge and skills in ways that recognize them as full humans, and enable them to ground it in their ideas, perspectives, interests, goals, identities, communities, relationships, and local environments. The goal of this special issue is to bring together educators’, researchers’, and youth voices in conversation about how we are centering self-empowerment in our educational work and how we can drive forward our practices.

비실시간 온라인 수업에서 수업 구성원 간 상호작용과 학습지속의향의 관계

This study is an empirical study to confirm the influence of online self-regulated learning and negative emotions in the relationship between class members’ interactions and learning persistence in asynchronous online instruction. To this end, data was collected and analyzed for 447 college students. The results are as follows. First, the mediating effects of online self-regulated learning were positively significant and negative emotions were negatively significant in the relationship between class members’ interaction and learning persistence. Second, the sequential mediating effects of online self-regulated learning and negative emotions were significant in the relationship between interaction and learning persistence. That means as more active class members’ interactions were perceived in asynchronous online instruction, the more online self-regulated learning is promoted, which can result in a higher learning persistence by reducing negative emotions. Based on this, it was suggested to promote online self-regulated learning capabilities by promoting dynamic interactions between class members’ in asynchronous online instruction, and to create an online classroom environment that can offset negative emotions and enhance positive learning persistence by encouraging learners to participate in independent online learning spaces.

Elementary students’ shared understanding of angle during an educational robotics task

IntroductionPrior research has documented students’ struggles in conceiving of angle and angle measurement, which may stem from textbook and curriculum representations of angles as static. In this study, we examined grade 3-5 students’ mathematical thinking of angle during an educational robotics task implemented within a making space learning environment in a school setting (i.e., hybrid making space).MethodsOur analysis included 19 video recordings of six groups of students in grades 3-5.ResultsResults from this study demonstrate how students negotiated a shared understanding of angle through multiple epistemic tools (e.g., gestures, bodily actions, language) that were situated and contextualized within the task. This included developing a shared language, conceptualizing angle as a dynamic entity, and perceiving angle through directionality and degree measures.DiscussionWe contend that learning experiences within a hybrid making space provide young students with opportunities to engage in mathematics as a social phenomenon and human activity.

Designing for the materialization of networked learning spaces

The potential of a Networked Learning (NL) space comes into being when participants establish communication, build connections among each other, and create a dialogic space. Moving from this premise, this article poses a complex question: How to design for the materialization of a NL space? It bases its theoretical framework on Bakhtin’s idea of centrifugal and centripetal forces, the concepts of network core and periphery, as well as the idea of the strength of weak ties. Through these lenses, the article presents a cross-case analysis of two projects aiming at technology education in Denmark. Forces, connections, and movements are exposed and analyzed, showing the importance of unstructured communication processes that nurture a networked community. These results lead to new speculations for future educational design of NL spaces.

Doctoral students’ season schools

Part of the work of universities worldwide is to train new doctors who can meet current and future challenges and who have the knowledge and skills required in academic life. There are many ways to achieve these goals, and it is necessary to explore these avenues. For the last decades, a diversity of spaces for learning and networking beyond formal ones has been provided to doctoral students. International seasonal schools, intensive programs, international writing retreats, international research communities of practice, and international seminar groups, among others, have been learning opportunities where students have the opportunity to discuss their work with peers, mentors and teachers. These learning spaces are organised by various facilitators such as universities, scientific associations, and researchers who usually focus on the same topic. In many cases, those experiences became even more relevant during the pandemic, keeping some of those activities in online environments with a significant role as a supportive network for social isolation (Cullinane et al., 2022). Now that the restrictions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic have been lowered in most countries of the world and people seem to be craving to meet other people once again face-to-face, it is reasonable to assume that participating in these learning opportunities will become even more popular.

The Formative, Critical and Emancipatory Potential of the Arts in General and Theatre in Particular

Objective: The aim of this study is to make a reflective and critical contribution to theatre as a learning space, considering paths towards education through art, education for art and education in art. Theoretical Framework: The text is based on the pedagogical, aesthetic, ethical and technical experiences of artists such as Bertolt Brecht, Peter Brook, Eugenio Barba, Augusto Boal, Antonin Artaud, Jerzy Grotowski, Pina Bausch and Ariane Mnouchkine, with the aim of establishing a network of currents of thought that intertwine with Socrates, Theodor Adorno, Walter Benjamin, Paulo Freire, among others, in the combination of art, pedagogy and social transformation. Method: The methodology adopted for this research comprises a bibliographical review, which is decisive for the essayistic and dialogical form that the article seeks to establish with the reader. Results and Discussion: The results obtained indicate that the concept of teaching artist must take on theatre itself and understand that artistic and pedagogical action focused on modes of stage production, scenic thinking and language research already constitute education. Within the concept of the teaching artist, the very structuring of theatre, in its multiple possibilities of experiences, involves artistic-pedagogical decisions and choices. Based on their artistic training and interest in education through art, the teaching artist must link their work to the creative, mobilising and knowledge-building potential that theatre possesses, in direct relation to society from an inter-arts perspective. Research implications: The practical and theoretical implications of this research are based on a conceptual universe that substantiates and emphasises the social and pedagogical role of theatre, the artist and the teacher interested in scenic perspectives that reaffirm the formative, critical and emancipatory potential of the arts. Originality/Value: This study contributes to the specific literature in the area, as well as resulting in a proposition of the Teaching Artist as a mobiliser and builder of theatrical knowledge in direct dialogue with society and other arts.

Studying spaces in networked learning

As universities are making huge efforts on newly emerged learning spaces to accommodate the technologies involved in networked activities (Boys, 2014), it is important to know what students’ practical preference of the study spaces on campus are. This paper found four types of study spaces on campus that international postgraduate researchers preferred, including university libraries, university postgraduate researchers’ offices, student accommodations, and university cafés. However, due to the impact of COVID-19 pandemic, in the United Kingdom, higher educational institutions had to move almost all the learning activities online. This paper concerned international postgraduate researchers’ learning experience during the lockdown in 2020 in the UK. At that time, many international postgraduate researchers often faced difficulties of lacking both learning resources and learning connections in the community and losing access to the study space they preferred previously on campus. This paper found students have different learning experiences during this period. While isolation brought negative impacts on some international postgraduate researchers’ learning experience and connections with others in the community, others have not been influenced by it or even have benefited from it. These contrary learning experiences were mainly associated with students’ different preferences for study spaces, ways of communication, and methods of having connections with others in the community on campus. Finally, the authors suggest that universities should change postgraduate students’ offices and accommodations to enhance students’ learning outcomes.

Symposium 3: Networked learning in the time of pandemic

Digital networking technologies have allowed lecturers and students to remain connected while being physically isolated during global lockdowns resultant from the COVID-19 pandemic. We argue that the increased utilization of online spaces for teaching and learning during the time of isolation has brought the question of intersubjectivity and alienation in cyberspace to the forefront. As part of an ongoing phenomenological analysis of the virtual, we survey the experiences of networked learning reported by a group of South African university students in their end of course surveys. We track particularly their experience of alienation, their capacity to engage with material in the online environment, and their awareness of self as a learner. For Merleau-Ponty there resides in intersubjectivity a founding corporeity that serves to explicate the composition of the intersubjective world as based in a plurality of anonymous subjects and in the intersubjectivity of intellectual consciousnesses. In terms of the virtual, a redeployment of Merleau-Pontian thought (and particularly his concept of the flesh) reveals that the body-subject and digital technology artefact are co-implicit in the generation of the virtual. The virtual serves as a point of networked intersubjectivity that concretely expands and constrains human experience and behaviour. Furthermore, in the virtual we navigate a reified landscape. Virtual reification, though seemingly a contradiction, sees us treating the virtual as concrete from the basis of our embodiment. This leads us to an alienated networked intersubjectivity, whereby all potentialities are founded in ordered and carefully arranged systems that promulgate pragmatic and capitalist logics. We investigate how reification makes up the virtual, and how our engagement with the virtual points us back to the nature of alienation (indeed, for Marx, alienation is an intersubjective social relation). We find in the virtual therefore not isolation, but rather a deficient mode of intersubjectivity. While the individual never becomes atomized, for even in the virtual a deficient mode of intersubjectivity remains nevertheless a mode of intersubjectivity, we find that the individual functions as part of a deficient and distorted network. We suggest in conclusion certain teaching methods that may minimize or mitigate students’ experience of alienation.

Impact of school gardens on secondary schools' agricultural science education in east Berbice Corentyne, Guyana

This study aimed to investigate gender disparities among Agricultural Science teachers in Region 6, East Berbice Corentyne, Guyana, focusing on their perceptions of school gardens and their influence on the pedagogy of agricultural science in secondary schools. Data were collected via electronic questionnaires from 30 teachers across 17 secondary schools to examine the integration of school gardens and their impact on teaching agricultural science. The results revealed that students participating in school gardening activities showed a greater propensity towards considering agriculture as a potential career and demonstrated an enhanced understanding of its practical aspects. Furthermore, incorporating school gardens facilitated interdisciplinary learning, bridging agricultural science with subjects such as social studies, language arts, and mathematics. This interdisciplinary approach promoted a deeper understanding of real-world applications across various disciplines. The findings emphasised the significance of creating conducive learning environments to support effective agricultural science instruction. Providing teachers and students with comfortable teaching and learning spaces fosters engagement and enhances pedagogical efficacy. This study contributes to the expanding body of literature advocating for integrating school gardens into educational curricula, particularly in agricultural science instruction. By recognising the multifaceted benefits of school gardens, educators and policymakers can better support the development of holistic and engaging learning experiences for secondary school students.

Designing Spaces of Learning with a Child Rights Approach and Participatory Planning

Designing Spaces of Learning with a Child Rights Approach and Participatory Planning

Evidence-based meets community-centred: A new approach to creating informal learning opportunities for children.

Informal learning spaces present ripe opportunities to supplement formal learning experiences. In this paper, we offer a new approach to creating enriching learning activities for public spaces that reflects evidence-based practices rooted in developmental psychology and uses community-centring practices from participatory research approaches. We first argue that extant theory and research supports the use of guided play pedagogy to foster learning. Second, we argue that effective translation of research to practice should incorporate community voices at every stage of the design, implementation and evaluation process. We describe a new initiative called Playful Learning Landscapes that reflects tenets of core developmental theory including constructivism and social learning theories as well as guided play pedagogy. Playful Learning Landscapes also extends the scope and scale of these evidence-backed theories by collaborating with communities to design activities for local community spaces. Taken together, we offer a way of upholding core developmental theory with equitable, culturally inclusive research and intervention practices. Transforming community spaces into hubs for children's learning promises wide-reaching implications for equitable access, school readiness and early childhood education.

Advancing equity, diversity, inclusivity, and accessibility in primary care: The development of an integrated educational experience model.

This article presents the development of the Equity, Diversity, Inclusivity, and Accessibility (EDIA) Cross-Cutting Theme Project within the Team Primary Care (TPC) initiative, aimed at addressing systemic inequities through innovative educational strategies. Grounded in the social accountability of health professions framework, this project aims to equip primary care teams with the knowledge, skills, and attitudes necessary to promote health equity. The EDIA Integrated Educational Experience (IEE) model includes a self-assessment tool, digital learning space, and national mentorship network, providing a comprehensive approach for primary care teams to promote health equity. The IEE model utilizes a layered micro, meso, and macro approach to support cultural transformation within highly complex healthcare environments. Key lessons learned involve trust- and relationship-building processes to help dismantle historical silos and encourage open dialogue. Future efforts focus on implementation, ensuring adaptability, scalability, and sustainability, positioning the model as a catalyst for equitable primary care delivery.

Use of microsoft teams and teaching performance

In the pandemic, Microsoft Teams has been widely used in the educational field to teach lessons through a virtual learning space. The objective of this work is to evaluate the relationship between the use of Microsoft Teams and teaching performance to improve virtual teaching in the Cañar-Ecuador state education system. The methodology was cross-sectional, quantitative to know the shortcomings of the use of Microsoft Teams in teaching performance in the state education system. Forty third-year high school teachers from four Ecuadorian educational institutions in the urban area participated. 80% of teachers consider that teaching performance is good when the use of Microsoft Teams is well-prepared in virtual environments. The lack of strategies causes a regular impact when the use of Microsoft Teams is not adequate, it is detrimental to 91.7% of teachers due to the lack of teaching materials in the classes. As a conclusion, curricular planning is necessary to achieve digital educational excellence.

Immigrant Children and Families: Committing to Cultural Inclusion in Early Childhood Education and Care Settings

In this paper we discuss the value of multiculturalism in early childhood settings, barriers to cultural inclusion, and the importance of partnering with families of young children to enrich school learning and engagement. Examples from our work will provide illustrations of research-practice partnerships using asset-based, culturally grounded approaches and principles of co-construction to create school and community spaces of learning that honor the lived experiences and cultural heritages of children from immigrant families.