Series Of Lessons Research Articles

Changing the classroom climate to lower the threshold for child abuse and neglect self-disclosure: A non-randomized cluster controlled trial

BackgroundIn view of the serious consequences of chronic child abuse and neglect (CAN), facilitating children’s self-disclosure is important, as the self-disclosure may stop the abuse and initiate emotional support. ObjectiveThis study examined whether self-disclosure of CAN, specifically recognizing CAN and being able to talk about it (referred to here as talkability), improved by a classroom-based intervention to tackle CAN. Participants and settingA total of 757 children aged 10-12 years and 53 teachers from Dutch primary schools participated both at pretest and posttest. MethodsThe intervention consisted of an educational program comprising four lessons on CAN, using various methods including videos and group discussions. This study used a quasi-experimental design (i.e., non-randomized cluster-controlled trial) to test the effects of the intervention (pre-/posttest). Children’s recognition of CAN was assessed using vignettes on physical abuse, emotional abuse and neglect. Talkability was assessed by children’s self-reports. Multilevel logistic regression was used to test whether the intervention improved recognition and talkability. In addition, we tested whether these outcomes were moderated and mediated by social background, child and teacher characteristics. ResultsCompared to children in the control condition, those in the intervention condition reported significantly higher percentages of CAN recognition and talking about CAN outside school hours. ConclusionThis study shows that participating in a series of lessons about CAN is effective in increasing both recognition and talkability of CAN in primary school children of predominantly low-educated parents. This study supports the social ecology perspective that disclosure might be viewed as a person-in-environment interaction.

Improving learners’ productive disposition through realistic mathematics education, a teacher’s critical reflection of personal pedagogy

ABSTRACT This paper reports an action research study I conducted into the mathematical productive disposition of 29 tenth grade learners in the Philippines by analyzing their metaphorical conceptualizations of mathematics in a series of lessons following principles of Realistic Mathematics Education. Analysis of participants’ pre-intervention metaphors of mathematics revealed four conceptualizations that capture learners’ perceptions of mathematics reflective of their productive disposition: mathematics as a process, mathematics as a puzzle, mathematics as a problem, and mathematics as a difficulty. Insightful changes in the learners’ metaphors of mathematics support the argument that making mathematics matter to students can be achieved if teachers make considerable and devoted attempts at making what matters to students mathematical. Several challenges in the implementation of realistic mathematics lessons on Permutation included developing and enabling students’ awareness of their social and cultural environment and encouraging critical thinking. Reflecting on my experience, I argue that constant exposure to lessons that present mathematics as contextually and socially relevant can potentially improve students’ mathematical productive disposition together with other strands of their mathematical proficiency.

Generating mathematical knowledge in the classroom through proof, refutation, and abductive reasoning

Proving and refuting are fundamental aspects of mathematical practice that are intertwined in mathematical activity in which conjectures and proofs are often produced and improved through the back-and-forth transition between attempts to prove and disprove. One aspect underexplored in the education literature is the connection between this activity and the construction by students of knowledge, such as mathematical concepts and theorems, that is new to them. This issue is significant to seeking a better integration of mathematical practice and content, emphasised in curricula in several countries. In this paper, we address this issue by exploring how students generate mathematical knowledge through discovering and handling refutations. We first explicate a model depicting the generation of mathematical knowledge through heuristic refutation (revising conjectures/proofs through discovering and addressing counterexamples) and draw on a model representing different types of abductive reasoning. We employed both models, together with the literature on the teachers’ role in orchestrating whole-class discussion, to analyse a series of classroom lessons involving secondary school students (aged 14–15 years, Grade 9). Our analysis uncovers the process by which the students discovered a counterexample invalidating their proof and then worked via creative abduction where a certain theorem was produced to cope with the counterexample. The paper highlights the roles played by the teacher in supporting the students’ work and the importance of careful task design. One implication is better insight into the form of activity in which students learn mathematical content while engaging in mathematical practice.

The ‘Teacher Research Group’ as a collaborative model of professional learning

ABSTRACT In this study, we adopted a Teacher Research Group model, a collaborative approach to teacher education that draws on the principles of numerous action research models of enquiry. More specifically, a teacher educator worked alongside an experienced physical education teacher over a three-month period to plan, teach and evaluate a series of classroom-based lessons. The Teacher Research Group adopted five teaching strategies that were thought to be significantly related to optimal learning and then refined their use in response to an evaluation of pupils’ learning in the classroom. This article outlines the context for this model, describes its application and finally reviews its value as a means of promoting shared professional learning. Adopting the Teacher Research Group model did lead to changes in teaching strategies and improvements in pupils’ learning outcomes. Moreover, the model was an effective approach to shared professional learning, one that could lead to desirable change among education professionals elsewhere.

Machine learning for intrusion detection in industrial control systems: challenges and lessons from experimental evaluation

Gradual increase in the number of successful attacks against Industrial Control Systems (ICS) has led to an urgent need to create defense mechanisms for accurate and timely detection of the resulting process anomalies. Towards this end, a class of anomaly detectors, created using data-centric approaches, are gaining attention. Using machine learning algorithms such approaches can automatically learn the process dynamics and control strategies deployed in an ICS. The use of these approaches leads to relatively easier and faster creation of anomaly detectors compared to the use of design-centric approaches that are based on plant physics and design. Despite the advantages, there exist significant challenges and implementation issues in the creation and deployment of detectors generated using machine learning for city-scale plants. In this work, we enumerate and discuss such challenges. Also presented is a series of lessons learned in our attempt to meet these challenges in an operational plant.

The use of digital educational technologies in upbringing and education of senior preschoolers with disabilities

Introduction. The relevance of the study is due to the fact that the search for the most effective upbringing and education technologies is a strategic task of the modern education system that exists and is developing in a post-industrial society. Research purpose is to substantiate the pedagogical feasibility of using digital technologies in the context of transformation of the special education system, including the level of preschool education. Materials and methods. The experimental study was conducted in the Municipal Preschool Educational Institution “Child Development Center – Kindergarten No. 98” in the city of Magnitogorsk in the period from June 2020 to December 2020. Sixty-eight (68) senior preschoolers took part in the experimental work: eighteen (18) children with mental retardation, thirty-eight (38) children with difficulties in psychological development, twelve (12) children with autism spectrum disorders. Research results. Among the respondents of the experimental group, as a result of a series of innovative lessons conducted with the use of Logo 1 sensory wall-mounted developmental speech therapy complex, the percentage increase in the average score of secondary diagnosis in relation to the average score of primary diagnosis in the study of attention development was 15%, in the study of memory development – 23%, in the study of thinking development – 13%, in the study of the level of speech development – 20%. Discussion and conclusion. Digitalization of the preschool educational environment has a positive effect on the development of higher mental processes in preschoolers with disabilities, provided that the following conditions are met: the electronic forms of the provided material are colorful and bright so as to arouse a child’s interest; organized lessons harmoniously combine the classical elements of upbringing and digital educational components that contribute to the transition from simple forms of children’s activity to more complex ones; teachers are interested in studying and using digital analogues of classical forms of organizing correctional and developmental lessons.

Thinking about Progress: From Science to Philosophy

AbstractIs there progress in philosophy? If so, how much? Philosophers have recently argued for a wide range of answers to these questions, from the view that there is no progress whatsoever to the view that philosophy has provided answers to all the big philosophical questions. However, these views are difficult to compare and evaluate, because they rest on very different assumptions about the conditions under which philosophy would make progress. This paper looks to the comparatively mature debate about scientific progress for inspiration on how to formulate four distinct accounts of philosophical progress, in terms of truthlikeness, problem‐solving, knowledge, and understanding. Equally importantly, the paper outlines a common framework for how to understand and evaluate these accounts. We distill a series of lessons from this exercise, to help pave the way for a more fruitful discussion about philosophical progress in the future.

Discovering and Approaching Mature Happiness: The Implementation of the CasMac Model in a University English Class

The purpose of this study was to explore the effects of integrating meaning-centered positive education (MCPE) and the second wave positive psychology (PP2.0) into a university English speaking class. The study adopted Wong’s CasMac model of PP2.0 and designed a series of English lessons which aimed to understand the meaning of life through the perspectives of PP2.0 and its focus on MCPE. The participants were 38 university students, with upper-intermediate English proficiency, enrolled in an English speaking class. They participated in the English program for 15 weeks and 2 h each week. The quantitative data was collected from survey of the CasMac Measure of Character and analyzed with the pairedt-test method, and the qualitative data analysis was collected from students’ weekly learning sheets and journals. The results show that the integration of MCPE and PP2.0 in a university English class is feasible to enhance students’ understanding of mature happiness through the CasMac model and to promote their meanings in life. According to the research findings, it is suggested that the CasMac model can be applied to other fields or other groups who need help to enhance life meaning and improve wellbeing. Particularly under the pandemic of COVID-19, there are people encountering traumas, losses, and sorrows and it is crucial to transform sufferings with the support of approaching mature happiness.

Co-producing smart cities: A Quadruple Helix approach to assessment

Cities are increasingly expected to bring urban stakeholders together to deploy smart solutions that address urban challenges and deliver long-term positive impacts. Yet, existing theory and practice struggle to explain how such impacts can be achieved, measured or evidenced. This paper makes two major contributions. Firstly, the paper shows how the Quadruple Helix (QH) innovation approach can be used as the basis for co-producing smart city projects in order to better capture their impacts. In doing so we present a synthesis of current smart city and QH literatures to argue that assessment criteria and indicators must be co-produced with the full set of smart city stakeholders to ensure relevance to context and needs. Secondly, we present an example of a co-produced monitoring and assessment framework and methodology, developed to capture and measure the impacts of smart and sustainable city solutions with the stakeholder teams involved in the European Union Triangulum smart city programme. The paper draws on experiences working with 27 smart city demonstration projects involving public, private and third-sector organisations and communities across Manchester (United Kingdom), Eindhoven (The Netherlands) and Stavanger (Norway). We show how involving QH stakeholders in co-producing impact assessment improves the ability of projects to deliver and measure impacts that matter to cities and citizens. We conclude with a series of lessons and recommendations intended to be of use to the range of organisations and communities currently involved in smart city initiatives across Europe and the world.

Taking a nuanced view of the role of teacher feedback in the elementary classroom

ABSTRACT The dynamic nature of feedback makes provision of learning enhancing feedback challenging. A collaborative peer mentoring professional development case study utilising observational video data from a series of lessons examined how teacher feedback knowledge and beliefs are articulated and developed in pedagogical practices, and the tensions that arise in giving learning enhancing feedback in an active learning setting. The high level of teacher feedback knowledge and positively aligned beliefs was found to be contradictory to the feedback practices used in the classroom. The analysis showed that consistent provision of learning to enhance types of feedback was constrained due to environmental and pedagogical tensions. Predominantly, verbal, non-specific, positively oriented feedback was shown to be temporally situated, with tensions arising from the multiple purposes it serves, including classroom management and relationship building. Furthermore, despite the merits of a localised, situated professional development approach, teacher behavioural change proved complex to achieve. This study concluded some types of feedback not characterised as ‘learning enhancing’ can offer educational benefits and should not be dismissed.

Combining sociocultural discourse analysis and multimodal analysis to explore teachers' and pupils' meaning making

This paper explores a common educational dilemma, namely that of how to resource meaningful teaching and learning experiences, and the research challenge of how to represent the multimodal complexity of pedagogic intentions and instantiations. We share the sociocultural view of talk as a central tool in meaning making, aligned with attention to how teaching and learning conversations are mediated by communicative cues and interactions orchestrated across modes. We present extracts to exemplify the benefits of combining sociocultural discourse analysis (SCDA) and multimodal analysis, to explore classroom data at different levels of detail and temporal range. The context for the data collection was a series of lessons on the Great Fire of London with a Year 2 class (6–7 years). Lessons were part of a project using dance and interactive technologies to support understanding. We highlight the purposeful use of different analytic foci, enabled by SCDA and multimodal analysis, and explore what this can add to researchers' understanding of the contextualised nature of meaning making, building and weaving over time, in often unexpected ways. The original contribution of this paper is in offering an innovative mixed-methods approach to explore the complex detail, development and multimodal array of educational interaction. • Innovative mixed-methods approach to researching educational interactions • Combining sociocultural discourse analysis and multimodal analysis • Acknowledging the use of classroom talk and multimodality in meaning making • Exploring breadth and depth of classroom interactions toward meaningful learning

A case study exploring primary teachers’ experiences of a STEM education school-university partnership

ABSTRACT This paper explores the experiences and professional learning of a group of in-service primary school teachers, participating in a STEM education programme in Ireland. Four primary teachers from the same case school engaged in a two-year project to explore STEM teaching and learning. This STEM project was structured as a multi-tiered partnership involving these four in-service teachers collaborating with six STEM teacher educators and a group of pre-service primary teachers, working together to develop an effective school-university STEM collaboration. The project focused on developing and facilitating meaningful classroom-based STEM learning experiences for primary aged children in the school. This paper specifically explores the professional learning and experiences of the in-service teacher participants. The teachers engaged in co-creating and co-facilitating a series of STEM lessons over two years in partnership with, and supported by the university STEM Education faculty. The paper provides insight into the participating teachers’ professional learning in STEM education, as well as implications for school–university partnerships.

An instructional method, based on POE (Predict-Observe-Explain), for teaching two basic wave properties and the wave nature of light

This work presents a series of lessons containing didactic experiments, as well as the related educational research. The series concerns the instruction of prospective primary school teachers who possess a weak Physics background. The main topics of instruction are: basic concepts of wave behavior (mainly interference and diffraction), as well as the wave properties of light. This instruction is based on POE (Predict-Observe-Explain) techniques. It constitutes the basis of a broader effort in the making, which aims at teaching future teachers about wave properties and wave-particle duality. The benefits of teaching such notions of waves to teachers are examined, the learners’ previous knowledge and their views are scrutinised, and their learning progress is monitored. As a further step, the overall outcome of the improvement of learners’ knowledge regarding the given concepts is examined, using educational research tools.

A Newly Discovered Annotated Partimento Manuscript : "Rudimenti di Musica per Accompagnare del Sig. r Maestro Vignali" (1789)

The partimento tradition of eighteenth-century Italy developed within a musical culture that prioritized oral pedagogy. While these teaching methods were successful in producing generations of great composers, they have left scholars with vexing questions concerning the precise manner in which partimenti should be realized. The recent appearance of a remarkable and previously unknown manuscript—"Rudimenti di Musica per Accompagnare del Sig. Maestro Vignali," dated 1789—promises to shed invaluable new light on the oral tradition of partimento instruction. The manuscript's likely author is Gabriele Vignali (c. 1736– 1799), a maestro di cappella active in Bologna; it is unique in the presently known canon owing to the detailed footnotes that accompany each of its twenty-four Bassi (one in each major and minor key). Vignali's annotations provide precisely the sort of commentary that was ordinarily restricted to real-time explanation, teaching the student to recognize keys, scale degrees, modulations, cadences, typical bass progressions, and significant motives. The present article and accompanying English-language edition examine this exceptional partimento collection in detail, offering modern partimentisti the opportunity for the first time to listen in, as it were, on a series of lessons between an eighteenth-century maestro and his student.

The COVID-19 Army: Experiences From the Deployment of Non-Hospitalist Physician Volunteers During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

New York City was the epicenter of the outbreak of the 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic in the United States. As a large, quaternary care medical center, NYU Langone Medical Center was one of many New York medical centers that experienced an unprecedented influx of patients during this time. Clinical leadership effectively identified, oriented, and rapidly deployed a "COVID Army," consisting of non-hospitalist physicians, to meet the needs of the patient influx. We share feedback from our providers on our processes and offer specific recommendations for systems experiencing a similar influx in the current and future pandemics. To assess the experiences and perceived readiness of these physicians (n = 183), we distributed a 32-item survey between March and June of 2020. Thematic analyses and response rates were examined to develop results. Responses highlighted varying experiences and attitudes of our frontline physicians during an emerging pandemic. Thematic analyses revealed a series of lessons learned, including the need to (1) provide orientations, (2) clarify roles/workflow, (3) balance team workload, (4) keep teams updated on evolving policies, (5) make team members feel valued, and (6) ensure they have necessary tools available. Lessons from our deployment and assessment are scalable at other institutions.

An Examination of Intragroup Process in Service-Learning Teams

Small group work performed in the context of university service-learning projects has been seen as a vehicle well-suited to teaching students about group dynamics and how to work on real world problems as members of a team. Little research, however, has focused on the intragroup processes involved in service-learning. The present study was conducted in the context of a service-learning project in which twenty groups of four to five university business school students taught continuation high school students a series of lessons regarding life skills such as goal setting and career readiness. The lesson planning sessions of the university students were video recorded and the videos were then analyzed for patterns of utterances by group participants (questions; instructions; suggestions; etc.) that occurred during the sessions. An iterative process of coding and recoding was employed to capture each behavior for further study. The results suggest that the groups engaged in a surprising level of meaningful collaboration, with leadership shared among group members, and little evidence of individual dominance of groups, or conflict between students.

Videos versus print materials in incidental vocabulary acquisition: an impact study

Vocabulary constitutes an integral part of second language ability, i.e., English language ability in the context of university education in Sri Lanka. As a result of the advances achieved in mass media and communication technology, today’s second language learners of English have access to thousands of videos representing thousands of interactive situations that they could have experienced while absorbing the kernel language with incidental vocabulary. In contrast, there are print materials that are conventionally accepted to have an impact on incidental vocabulary acquisition. Limited research on the comparative effectiveness of using reading materials and video materials in incidental vocabulary acquisition and retention was addressed through this study that aimed at experimenting with videos and print materials with two parallel fifty-member groups in a reputed private university in Sri Lanka. Ten target words were exposed to the reading class through reading materials and the video class through video materials in a series of lessons that allowed incidental vocabulary acquisition. The results of the immediate tests and posttests of the video-based and reading-based groups were subjected to independent sample t-tests to measure the retention of vocabulary by the two respective groups. The data analysis did not demonstrate a statistically significant difference between the two groups at the immediate test with 0.37 as the P(T<=t) two-tail value. However, there was a statistically significant vocabulary gain in the video group over the reading group at the post-test with the P(T<=t) two-tail value at 0.04. Thus, it was concluded that, while both the video and reading methods supported vocabulary acquisition, the video input contributed to a greater as well as statistically significant long-term vocabulary retention over the reading input mode.

Applying Marketing Mix Model WebQuest in professional English teaching

Today, a serious problem of teachers has been the search for educational technologies aimed not only at assimilating students a certain amount of knowledge, but also at developing their personal, creative and cognitive abilities. One of the concepts that allow teachers to maintain such a balance in teaching professional English in universities and higher education institutions proved to be the WebQuest interactive activities on the Internet with the help of Marketing Mix Model WebQuest technology. Based on the "Marketing Mix Model WebQuest", a series of interactive lessons in the framework of the course ‘English for professional purposes’ was conducted in 2 groups (control and experimental) of 22 students each at the faculty of “Social Sciences and Mass Communications” in the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation. The aim of the research was to teach the students professional English terminology and topics through interactive activities on the Internet. Using WebQuest technology, students were asked to listen to foreign speech, adapt it in accordance with their level of perception, adjust the sound speed by breaking phrases into separate words and comparing the pronunciation and spelling of words. The results of the study and t-Student criterion calculation showed that the experimental group did better than the control one. Mean value of control group came up to 74,32 points whereas of experimental group – to 81,95 points. The significance level of t-Student test made p &lt; 0,001. The results obtained indicate that the implementation of Marketing Mix Model WebQuest technology facilitated a more intensive participation in the learning process of students, which made it possible to increase the efficiency of perception and memorization of educational material, as well as to use an interactive learning environment to solve professional problems, which is especially important for teaching a professional foreign language.

ПСИХОЛОГО-ПЕДАГОГИЧЕСКИЕ ОСНОВЫ ФОРМИРОВАНИЯ ИНФОРМАЦИОННО-ЯЗЫКОВОЙ КОМПЕТЕНТНОСТИ У ДЕТЕЙ ДОШКОЛЬНОГО И МЛАДШЕГО ШКОЛЬНОГО ВОЗРАСТА В УСЛОВИЯХ ЭМОЦИОГЕННОЙ НЕСТАБИЛЬНОСТИ ОБЩЕСТВА

The article is devoted to the study of the formation of information and language competence in preschool and primary school age. Children of the modern world are immersed in the information space, where they manage a variety of information stored and transmitted by the culture of society. At the same time, they must be aware of the value of information, which is the Foundation of motivation to learn, be able to find and analyze information, critically evaluate information content, be able to build meaningful statements and participate in new communication situations. This article includes a theoretical analysis and description of the organization of an experimental study of the process of formation of information and language competence in children of senior preschool and primary school age. Presents the research methods, criteria and indicators characterizing the level of development of information and language competence identified and approved a complex of psycho-pedagogical conditions providing efficiency of formation at pupils and students of information and language competence. Necessary and sufficient conditions of formation of information and language competency are the use of project activity in educational process of preschool and primary General education; development and conducting series of lessons aimed at the formation of information language competence, and orientation preschool and primary school children for language tolerance in direct communication and interaction in the virtual information-educational space. The observed changes in indicators for all components of information and language competence (cognitive, motivational, value-based, reflexive-evaluative and activity-based) convincingly prove the feasibility of using these conditions. Also, the formation of information and language competence is revealed as the prevention of asocial behaviors and intolerant signs of speech aggression at a younger age.

Improving instruction and sexual health literacy with serious games and gamification interventions: an outlook to students’ learning outcomes and gender differences

ABSTRACT This study evaluates the effect of game mechanics by employing serious games and gamification for improving learning outcomes. This is done by considering the performances of the students in terms of the test scores. In the quasi-experimental set-up, which consists of 108 students in their intact three classes attended a series of lessons on sexual health course that was delivered using serious games, gamification, and conventional training elements. The test scores were analysed and compared based on the defined methodology of this paper using SPSS statistical tool version 24. This study found that the students learning outcomes improved after the interventions as the results indicated that there was a statistically significant increase in the test scores from pre-test (M = 24.65, SD = 6.38) to post-test (M = 74.96, SD = 15.89), t(107) = 32.48, p < .001 (2-tailed). Also, there were statically significant differences in the mean scores across the three classes of game mechanics in the post-test F(2,105), 71.86, p <.001, of which serious game and gamification outperformed conventional training students. Moreover, the overall results demonstrated that there were no substantial statistical significance differences among boys and girls who participated in the serious game and gamification for all tests (p > .05). Thus, this study suggests that employing a combination of game elements such as leaderboard, points system, competition, badges, levels, and immediate feedback can serve as a recipe for interactive learning, hence, improves learning outcomes.