The Concept of Metamorphosis and its Metaphors

The article examines a number of links between the metaphorical uses of the concept of metamorphosis in literature and the various changes of the meaning of the concept that took place at the beginning of the modern scientific age between the 17th and 19th centuries, a period during which the notion of metamorphosis resurfaced in conflict with evolutionist thinking. We present the extent to which the concept of animal metamorphosis, the object of multiple redefinitions over the course of this historical period, became the vector of a very strong metaphorical meaning, which emerged in the literature of the period and survives to this day in certain children’s storybooks belonging to what we term the genre of “realistic fiction”. We intend, from a pedagogical standpoint, to identify which specific attributes of these metaphors exist in those storybooks, and to gauge the extent to which those attributes contradict the scientific characteristics and fictional representations of the concept of metamorphosis.     

Sounds,letters and meanings: the independent influences of phonological,morphological and orthographic skills on early word reading accuracy

This study was designed to examine the independent contributions of phonological awareness, orthographic processing and morphological awareness on early word reading. English‐speaking children in Grades 1 and 3 completed measures of these three constructs, as well as standardised measures of real and pseudoword reading and of vocabulary. Each of the three reading‐related variables made an independent contribution to both real and pseudoword reading. Independent contributions of phonological awareness (7–17%) were consistently larger than those of orthographic processing (5–10%) or of morphological awareness (1–2%). In terms of differences between the grades, there was particular evidence of an increase in greater contribution of orthographic processing to pseudoword reading at Grade 3 than at Grade 1. These findings are discussed in light of current models of reading development.     

Do expert clinical teachers have a shared understanding of what constitutes a competent reasoning performance in case-based teaching?

To explore the assessment challenge related to case based learning we study how experienced clinical teachers—i.e., those who regularly teach and assess case-based learning—conceptualize the notion of competent reasoning performance for specific teaching cases. Through an in-depth qualitative case study of five expert teachers, we investigate whether they share a common concept of what constitutes a good reasoning performance for a set of three teaching cases. We ask expert teachers to reflect on their problem-solving performances to extract specific expectations regarding the assessment of learners. Using visual representations of their performance, experts inspect and identify whether key elements are considered critical, necessary, and useful for the assessment of learners’ performance. Findings indicate that despite solving cases differently, expert teachers share a common concept regarding the key elements that demonstrate good clinical reasoning for specific cases. These results and methods used to trigger assessment criteria from expert clinical teachers show potential for the development of process measures in the assessment of clinical reasoning.     

Societal and ethical issues of digitization

In this paper we discuss the social and ethical issues that arise as a result of digitization based on six dominant technologies: Internet of Things, robotics, biometrics, persuasive technology, virtual & augmented reality, and digital platforms. We highlight the many developments in the digitizing society that appear to be at odds with six recurring themes revealing from our analysis of the scientific literature on the dominant technologies: privacy, autonomy, security, human dignity, justice, and balance of power. This study shows that the new wave of digitization is putting pressure on these public values. In order to effectively shape the digital society in a socially and ethically responsible way, stakeholders need to have a clear understanding of what such issues might be. Supervision has been developed the most in the areas of privacy and data protection. For other ethical issues concerning digitization such as discrimination, autonomy, human dignity and unequal balance of power, the supervision is not as well organized.     

The GLOBE Visualization Project: Using WWW in the Classroom

Though commercial interest in the World Wide Web is growing, the potential uses of the medium as a learning tool are numerous. The GLOBE Visualization Project is one such educational application. We have designed and implemented a WWW-based, user-friendly, language-independent, graphical user interface providing access to visualizations created for GLOBE, a multinational program of education and science. The target users of the system are K–12 students and their teachers from over 1100 schools in 39 countries; other clients include the GLOBE scientific investigators and members of the public internationally. Navigation is intuitive, and employs the metaphors of a Control Panel which changes the image appearing in a Viewscreen. The interface can be learned empirically by persons of all ages regardless of technical expertise or native language; context-sensitive help is provided for users who prefer documentation. The GLOBE Visualization server is on the World Wide Web at URL http://globe.gsfc.nasa.gov/globe/.     

Interactional effects of the environment on interviews

This study investigates the effect of the environment factor on discourse mode and content in an interview situation. Fifteen eight-year-olds were interviewed in three specific and different locations in their school (classroom, doctor's office and playground) that formed the three experimental groups. Analysis of the interview data (propositional discourse analysis) shows that each experimental group produced a specific type of speech characterized by the occurrence of particular language markers.     

Conceptual change about outer space: how does informal training combined with formal teaching affect seventh graders’ understanding of gravitation?

Concepts relating to outer space are difficult to grasp because we lack direct experience of this environment. We analysed students’ understanding of gravitation on Earth and beyond by testing the effect of training on it. In a pretest (T1), 28 seventh graders answered a questionnaire about space concepts. They all then underwent the same formal teaching at school, but half of them also went on a trip to a space museum. Students then responded to the questionnaire again (T2). We found that the students in the museum-going group made significant progress between T1 and T2. Most of them correctly predicted at T2 (unlike T1) that dropped stones would fall in planetary contexts. Moreover, the misconception linking air and gravity had disappeared by T2. We conclude that combining formal teaching with a trip to a museum helped the children in the present study to develop a more accurate scientific understanding of concepts that cannot be directly experienced.     

Education for sustainability in university studies: A model for reorienting the curriculum

A decisive factor for achieving a culture of sustainability is university training for future professionals. The aim of this article is to bring new elements to the process of reorienting university studies towards sustainability. Presented here is the ACES model (Curriculum Greening of Higher Education, acronym in Spanish), which is the result of a project involving a network of 11 European and Latin American universities. The methodology of the project is based on participatory action research. The ACES model is defined by 10 characteristics, detailed in this article, which can orientate a diagnosis of the level of curriculum greening and the design and application of the strategies and actions in order to facilitate incorporating the sustainability dimension in higher education. The potentialities and limitations found are also discussed. The ACES model has started a process for reorienting higher education studies towards sustainability.     

Fruitful student interactions and perceived learning improvement in DSLab: A dynamic assessment tool for distributed programming

This work presents an automated assessment tool for online distributed programming, called DSLab. It is a web-based environment that provides a transparent deployment and execution of assignments in remote computers, a transparent initialization and the possibility to add new logs by the students. DSLab has been evaluated in a real distributed learning environment by analysing students' own perceptions on their learning improvement and exploring whether students' interactions with the tool yielded a fruitful learning experience. Current research provides no evidence that the effects of such a tool have been investigated in the field of online distributed programming. Two types of analysis were performed: a quantitative analysis of data coming from students answering a questionnaire and an analysis of the log files of students' interactions with the tool. Our results showed that students perceived substantial learning improvement from the use of the automated assessment tool. Moreover, students produced fruitful interaction with the tool as soon as they achieved high familiarization and constant activity with it, which ultimately helped them improve their academic performance. Finally, the limitations of the current study and directions for future research are presented.     

Passion in sport: on the quality of the coach-athlete relationship

Vallerand et al. (2003) developed a dualistic model of passion, wherein two types of passion are proposed: harmonious (HP) and obsessive (OP) passion that predict adaptive and less adaptive interpersonal outcomes, respectively. In the present research, we were interested in understanding the role of passion in the quality of coach-athlete relationships. Results of Study 1, conducted with athletes (N=157), revealed that HP positively predicts a high-quality coach-athlete relationship, whereas OP was largely unrelated to such relationships. Study 2 was conducted with coaches (N=106) and showed that only HP positively predicted the quality of the coach-athlete relationship. Furthermore, these effects were fully mediated by positive emotions. Finally, the quality of the coach-athlete relationship positively predicted coaches' subjective well-being. Future research directions are discussed in light of the dualistic model of passion.