Predictors of Hispanic School Teachers' Self-efficacy in the Pedagogical Uses of Technology

A study to predict teachers' self-efficacy in using technology for pedagogical purposes was conducted in a predominantly Hispanic school district in south Texas; 438 elementary teachers completed a 32-item survey aligned to the National Educational Technology Standards for Teachers. Findings suggested that the instrument is highly reliable in measuring Hispanic school teachers' self-efficacy when they are asked to rate their confidence in their ability to perform technology tasks for educational purposes. An exploratory factor analysis (orthogonal and nonorthogonal) allowed the derivation of composite measures. Three subscales regarding issues of pedagogy composed the dependent variable. Regression analyses (OLS and 2SLS) revealed that two derived composite measures and two contrast variables listed in the general information of the survey strongly predicted the response variable.     

Teaching skills to promote clinical reasoning in early basic science courses

Basic and superior reasoning skills are woven into the clinical reasoning process just as they are used to solve any problem. As clinical reasoning is the central competence of medical education, development of these reasoning skills should occur throughout the undergraduate medical curriculum. The authors describe here a method of teaching reasoning skills in a clinical context during a human anatomy course. Anat Sci Educ 3:267–271, 2010. © 2010 American Association of Anatomists.     

Aprendizaje,memoria y comprensión de textos expositivos. Dos estudios de intervención sobre el texto

Resumen

Este artículo se encuadra en el área de investigación de la psicología de la comprensión de textos. Se realiza una breve revisión de conceptos fundamentales en orden a una mejor comprensión de los dos estudios que a continuación se presentan. La manipulación experimental se centra sobre el texto. El principal cbjetivo de ambos estudios consiste en comprobar la eficacia diferencial de dos tipos de ayuda—esquema y objetivos—sobre los procesos de memoria, comprensión y recuperación de la información procedente de textos expositivos. Un segundo objetivo es la comprobación del efecto de algunas modificaciones experimentales en los textos utilizados. La pauta de resultados obtenidos es consistente con la idea de que la presentación de un esquema previo a la lectura del texto optimiza los procesos de almacenamiento y recuperación de la información. Mostrándose, sin embargo, los objetivos como una ayuda de efectos muy limitados y específicos, o incluso nulos.     

Musselin,Christine & Teixeira,Pedro N ed (2014) Reforming higher education Springer (Berlin) isbn 978‐94‐007‐7027‐0 233 pp £90 http://www.springer.com/education+%26+language/higher+education/book/978‐94‐007‐7027‐0

As a whole, this is an extraordinary book if you wish to study and understand the evolution of higher education—especially in Europe in these times of change of educational paradigms generated by the Bologna Process. However, if the subject of this book is relevant to you as a learning technologist, I advise that you will probably find only parts of it of interest or use. Jesus Garcia Laborda     

Stein,Jared & Graham,Charles R (2014) Essentials for blended learning Routledge (New York & London) isbn 978‐0‐415‐63616‐2 210 pp £19.99 http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415636162/

This reader‐friendly jargon‐free volume is a down‐to‐earth and visual guide for practitioners seeking new ways to improve educational opportunities in times when quality needs to be enriched by simple but effective online experiences. It is a must for those involved in integrating technology into the classroom. If this book deals with a subject likely to be relevant to you, I recommend you buy a copy. Jesus Garcia Laborda     

Overeducation in developing economies: How can we test for it, and what does it mean?

A worker is said to be overeducated if he/she has acquired more education than is required to perform his/her job. In the absence of data measuring the number of years of schooling required to perform particular jobs, we propose a new approach to testing for overeducation. Overeducation is confirmed if we observe that education levels rose in jobs that offer very low returns to education and that underwent little technological change. Using labor force surveys from four developing countries, we find evidence of overeducation in unskilled jobs in the Philippines, mild evidence in Mexico, and little evidence in India and Thailand. We show that a job's mean and modal years of schooling are poor proxies for required education. We also show that overeducation sometimes increases within unskilled jobs, even while a growing share of educated workers enter skilled jobs. This may be because the quality of education segments the labor market.     

Optimal and robust control for linear state-delay systems

This paper presents the optimal regulator for a linear system with state delay and a quadratic criterion. The optimal regulator equations are obtained using the maximum principle. Performance of the obtained optimal regulator is verified in the illustrative example against the best linear regulator available for linear systems without delays. Simulation graphs demonstrating better performance of the obtained optimal regulator are included. The paper then presents a robustification algorithm for the obtained optimal regulator based on integral sliding mode compensation of disturbances. The general principles of the integral sliding mode compensator design are modified to yield the basic control algorithm oriented to time-delay systems, which is then applied to robustify the optimal regulator. As a result, the sliding mode compensating control leading to suppression of the disturbances from the initial time moment is designed. The obtained robust control algorithm is verified by simulations in the illustrative example.     

Chinese and Indian higher education students go abroad: listening to them to determine what their needs are

Tertiary Education and Management - This paper voices the opinions of international students’ from China and India, and highlights the intentional process of integrating their perceptions of...     

Analysis of the distances covered and technical actions performed by professional tennis players during official matches

The purpose of this study was to analyse the physical and technical performances of professional tennis players during official matches. The trajectories of eight players were obtained during matches, using an automatic tracking method. The distances covered and technical performances were analysed for the first and second sets. The athletes covered (mean ± standard deviation) a total of 1702.4 ± 448.2 m in the first set, 1457.6 ± 678.1 m in the second set and 3160.0 ± 880.1 in the entire match. No differences were found between the sets for the physical variables (lateral and forward displacements, distance covered per rally, per game and per set, and the percentage of time spent in each range of velocity). However, the distances covered by the athletes during the rallies in which they were serving (median = 5.2; interquartile range (IQR) = 6.7 m) were statistically smaller than when they were returning (median = 6.2; IQR = 7.7 m). Forehand ground stroke proficiency decreased from the first (mean ± standard deviation: 75.2 ± 4.11%) to the second set (mean ± standard deviation = 65.5 ± 14.3%). In conclusion, tennis players did not present reduced physical performance from the first to the second set.