The preparation of pre-service student teachers’ competence to work in schools

Competence to work in schools is an important dimension of professional competence, although it is often a neglected dimension of teacher development. This article reports a qualitative study that examined student teachers’ learning experiences in initial teacher education (ITE) in relation to competence to work in schools. In-depth interviews were conducted with 12 student teachers on an undergraduate ITE programme in Hong Kong. The findings of the study show that competence to work in schools is characterised by student teachers’ deep contextualised learning. In addition, it offers a deeper understanding of this competence in the ITE context by identifying its three facets, namely understanding of the micro-political realities of schools, social capital building and social strategies. The study provides insights for ITE and schools to support student teachers’ development of their competence to work in schools, including the design of ITE curricula, ITE processes and co-curricular activities in undergraduate studies. Moreover, it suggests the importance of developing schools as growth-fostering and positive micro-political sites for ITE fieldwork and teacher induction.     

Are the Yo-Yo intermittent recovery test levels 1 and 2 both useful? Reliability,responsiveness and interchangeability in young soccer players

Abstract

The aim of this study was to compare the reliability, internal responsiveness and interchangeability of the Yo-Yo intermittent recovery test level 1 (YY1), level 2 (YY2) and submaximal YY1 (YY1-sub). Twenty-four young soccer players (age 17 ± 1 years; height 177 ± 7 cm; body mass 68 ± 6 kg) completed each test five times within pre- and in-season; distances covered and heart rates (HRs) were measured. Reliability was expressed as typical error of measurement (TEM) and intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC). Internal responsiveness was determined as effect size (ES) and signal-to-noise ratio (ES_TEM). Interchangeability was determined with correlation between training-induced changes. The TEM and ICC for distances in the YY1 and YY2 and for HR in YY1-sub were 7.3% and 0.78, 7.1% and 0.93 and 2.2% and 0.78, respectively. The ESs and ES_TEMs were 0.9 and 1.9 for YY1, 0.4 and 1.2 for YY2 and ?0.3 and ?0.3 for YY1-sub. Correlations between YY1 vs. YY2 and YY1-sub were 0.56 to 0.84 and ?0.36 to ?0.81, respectively. Correlations between change scores in YY1 vs. YY2 were 0.29 and ?0.21 vs. YY1-sub. Peak HR was higher in YY1 vs. YY2. The YY1 and YY2 showed similar reliability; however, they were not interchangeable. The YY1 was more responsive to training compared to YY2 and YY1-sub.     

Delinking rhetorics of neoliberalism: An analysis of South American leftist presidents’ speeches

We analyze the so-called Socialism of the twenty-first century in which nine South American governments turned to the left over the last 15 years. This South American socialist turn is seen as a delinking from the logics of dependency and pure neoliberalism. To explore the rhetorics that underlie this delinking process, we conducted both a macroanalysis and an intradiscursive rhetorical analysis of the inauguration and most significant speeches of all of the leftist South American presidents elected after 1999. We claim that a common critique of neoliberalism underlies the South American presidents’ speeches, which manifests through specific rhetorics concerning participatory democracy, social inclusion, and environmental protection. When they became transnational, these delinking rhetorics crafted a decolonial critique that calls for more indigenous models of development.     

The use of portfolios to foster professionalism: attributes,outcomes, and recommendations

The main objective of this research was to review the characteristics of portfolios and their outcomes for teaching professionalism to undergraduate medical students. A systematic review on the use of portfolios in teaching professionalism to medical students identified 1257 papers. Of these, 11 articles met all inclusion criteria. According to the papers, the use of portfolios for teaching professionalism shows versatility, supports learning strategies and has the potential to be used in different contexts, including for formative and summative purposes. The weaknesses were based on the artificiality of the reflections, deficient instructions, time-consuming processes and preference among students for other teaching methods. Students complained about feeling that the reflection was ‘forced’, and they tended to write based on social conventions rather than reveal their true thoughts. Reflection is a powerful component of the portfolio, but the method by which it is taught could easily ruin its potential to boost professionalism. Requiring reflection did not ensure its achievement; increased understanding by students regarding how and why they were doing it, the clarity of assessment methods and constructive feedback might strengthen the potential for success. A framework was designed to support faculty members in developing and applying portfolios with a clear and broad view of this teaching strategy.     

Chess Instruction Improves Cognitive Abilities and Academic Performance: Real Effects or Wishful Thinking?

Educational Psychology Review - In accordance with the outcomes from a number of reports, there are cognitive and academic improvements derived from chess learning and chess playing. This evidence,...     

Physiological correlates to off-road cycling performance

The aim of this study was to examine the relationships between maximal and submaximal tests for aerobic fitness and performance in an off-road cross-country circuit race. Thirteen competitive off-road male cyclists participated in the study. Peak oxygen uptake (VO2peak), peak power output, and lactate thresholds corresponding to 1 mmol x l(-1) above baseline (lactate threshold) and to 4 mmol x l(-1) (onset of blood lactate accumulation) were measured during an incremental cycling test. Race time and final ranking within the same group of cyclists were determined during a cross-country off-road competition. All correlations between the measured parameters of aerobic fitness and off-road cycling performance were significant, particularly between race time and physiological parameters scaled to body mass0.79 (r = -0.68 to -0.94; P < 0.05) and between final ranking and physiological parameters expressed relative to body mass0.79 (r = -0.81 to - 0.96; P < 0.001). Moreover, there was a large difference (effect sizes = 1.12-1.70) in all measured parameters of aerobic fitness between the group of six cyclists with a race time above the median and the group of six cyclists with a race time below the median (P < 0.05). In conclusion, the results of this study provide empirical support to the widespread use of these maximal (VO2peak, peak power output) and submaximal (lactate thresholds) parameters of aerobic fitness in the physiological assessments of off-road cyclists. Furthermore, our results suggest body size should be taken into account when evaluating such athletes.     

Soft approaches to information access on the Web: An introduction to the special issue

Soft Computing (SC) tools present a great potential in real-life problems related with engineering, industrial applications, medicine, finances, etc. In this special issue we present a set of seven papers that report original research about the use of SC techniques to solve the problems in the field of information access on the Web.     

A Study of the Use of Ontologies for Building Computer-Aided Control Engineering Self-Learning Educational Software

This paper describes research on the use of knowledge models (ontologies) for building computer-aided educational software in the field of control engineering. Ontologies are able to represent in the computer a very rich conceptual model of a given domain. This model can be used later for a number of purposes in different software applications. In this study, domain ontology about the field of lead–lag compensator design has been built and used for automatic exercise generation, graphical user interface population and interaction with the user at any level of detail, including explanations about why things occur. An application called Onto-CELE (ontology-based control engineering learning environment) uses the ontology for implementing a learning environment that can be used for self and lifelong learning purposes. The experience has shown that the use of knowledge models as the basis for educational software applications is capable of showing students the whole complexity of the analysis and design processes at any level of detail. A practical experience with postgraduate students has shown the mentioned benefits and possibilities of the approach.     

Adaptation and evaluation of a learning analytics dashboard to improve academic support at three Latin American universities

Despite the success of academic advising dashboards in several higher educational institutions (HEI), these dashboards are still under-explored in Latin American HEI's. To close this gap, three different Latin American universities adapted an existing advising dashboard, originally deployed at the KU Leuven to their own context. In all three cases, the context was the main ruling factor to these adaptations. In this paper, we describe these adaptions using a framework that focuses on four different elements of the context: Objectives, Stakeholders, Key moment and Interactions. Evaluation of the adapted dashboards in the three different Latin American universities is conducted through pilots. This evaluation shows the value of the dashboard approach in different contexts in terms of satisfaction, usefulness and impact in academic decision-making and advising tasks. The main contribution of this paper is the systematic reporting of the adaptations to an academic advising dashboard and showing the value of an academic advising dashboard on academic decision-making and advising tasks.     

Use of learning miniprojects in a chemistry laboratory for engineering

The aim of this paper is to describe the design of chemical engineering laboratory sessions in order to focus them on the learning company approach. This is an activity carried out in the classroom similar to the activities that exist in real companies. This could lead classroom practice to a more cooperative learning and a different style of experimentation. The stated goal is to make a design that seeks to motivate students in a cooperative manner to perform their experiments self-directed and self-organised. The teaching organisation and development of participatory action research are described.