Guidance in Secondary Education: The Flemish Experience

This paper outlines the characteristics of peer mediation in schools and its potential, evident in the literature, for reducing pupil–pupil conflicts referred to teachers. Then, drawing on personal experience, research and a review of literature, the author argues that for peer mediation projects to be effective they need to be in synergy with the culture of the school, including its approach and vision to the management of conflict. Making this argument requires a means of modelling school culture, which will be outlined. Finally, the author argues that attention also needs to be given to how the service will be sustained.     

Interactive statistics for a diverse student population

Students from many different subject areas are required to study statistics as part of their qualification. The Open University developed a statistics module which could simultaneously be studied by students from a variety of different disciplines, by engaging them with topics which are of interest to everyone, namely money, education and health, rather than being based in the student’s own discipline. The module attracts students from a wide variety of backgrounds and has one of the highest retention and pass rates of any OU module at level one. In addition, it has succeeded in successfully teaching a highly visual subject, which includes a wide range of online resources, to all students, including widening participation priority groups. It is hoped this can provide a model for other large service teaching courses, together with providing career and professional development for professional bodies.     

Sonification of numerical data for education

ABSTRACT

Sonification is the use of non-speech audio to convey information. In this article, sonifications are representations of plots aimed at improving the accessibility of teaching materials. The electronic nature of sonifications means that they can be deployed to students via teaching interfaces such as virtual learning environments. We describe a two-phase study that explores sonifications of plots as a teaching tool in the context of distance learning in STEM. The overall objective of these two phases was to begin to assess the suitability of audio versions of graphs as a teaching tool for non-sighted and sighted students. In the first phase the effectiveness of sonifications within a small group of participants who took part in activities like those encountered in a distance learning setting was explored. We found that even though sonifications were new to them, participants were able to use them to gain impressions of the corresponding plots. The second phase deployed sonifications to all students on an Open University (OU) module. Although many of the students who chose to respond did so negatively, some found the sonifications an interesting augmentation of the plot. Overall, we demonstrate that for a subset of students, information in a plot can be communicated using sonifications.     

Robots,the Quiet Workers,Are You Ready to Take Over?

Robots are becoming more commonly used in libraries. A robot that does shelf reading and reports the results to human staff is one example of a practical use of robotics in a library. Others have been used to retrieve large items such as boxes, but identifying and picking up small and varied objects such as books is still on the edge of what can be done. Devices using artificial intelligence can act as guides, or in some cases, as personal assistants for library customers. Some are answering questions and learning as they go. If robots can perform library work effectively and more cheaply than humans it is inevitable they will be more widely used.     

A note on costing the teaching activity in higher education

This note explains one method of calculating unit costs for the teaching function in higher education. A formula is developed for allocating expenditures on the basis of a timetable analysis and tested on data from Lanchester Polytechnic and Loughborough University for the academic year 1972/73.     

Uncommon Ground: The Place of Cafés in Libraries

Library cafes have been around for about two decades but what does the future hold for them? The potential of using the café as a performative space has been explored by some public libraries. Other possibilities are the repair café and the science café.