Defining Peer-to-peer Learning – from an Old ‘Art of Practice’ to a New Mode of Forest Owner Extension?

Purpose: This paper explores the concept of peer-to-peer learning (P2PL) in the context of North-European small-scale forest owners. The aim is to develop a framework for initiating new and evaluating already existing forest owners' P2PL communities.

Design: Previous studies of peer-learning are used to determine and justify eight dimensions for forest owners' P2PL. To demonstrate and test the operability of the dimensions, two potential forest owners' peer-learning cases are described. The Finnish case focuses on forest owner clubs based on group interview data and the coordinator's interview, and in the Swedish case an ongoing study circle was observed and its participants interviewed.

Findings: The eight P2PL dimensions defined are: initiation, reinforcement, content profile, participant profile, schedule, role of professionals, responsibility and role continuity. Of the described cases, Finnish forest owner clubs rely heavily on the expertise of the invited forest professionals, while owners themselves have a stronger role in Swedish study circles.

Practical Implications: The two studied cases and the fictional example demonstrate how the framework defined can be used when assessing real life cases. The framework allows describing consistently P2PL, when designing new practices or implementing step-by-step changes to modify existing P2PL practices.

Value: The framework gives new insights into the research of forest owner extension, which has had an increasing interest towards P2PL approach, but where its conceptualisation has remained vague. However, since the domain of the study is novel, further research with various case examples is needed to develop both the theoretical framework and real life practices.     

Context and user needs in virtual learning in pursuit of qualities of learning

Learning is integral in the present dynamic environment characterized by factors, such as intense technological innovation and global economy. Thus, learning is constantly required as, for example, rapid development of technologies is both a push factor in learning requirements and a vehicle to advance the learning process. The global nature of the environment today calls for virtual learning because of convenience, time and cost factors. This research seeks to draw measures to promote virtual learning experience. The research is based on a virtual learning of a master’s level information and communication technology for development (ICT4D) course at the University of Tampere in 2016. This course was offered two times and to two sets of different student groups. A questionnaire was conducted at the mid-course stage to assess the virtual learning experience and propose the ways to improve learning process. The assessment included how well the virtual environment and pedagogy promoted qualities of learning, these are, active, constructive, collaborative, intentional, contextual, transfer and reflective learning. Excellence in learning should always be promoted and in virtual environment, there is always new opportunities because of the advances in technology. This research seeks to promote qualities of learning by considering context in terms of assessing the learning environment that is, participants’ virtual learning experience, study contents and learning technologies. Context is important in order to map the learning process that suits the learners and study contents. The results of this study include highlighting of pedagogical techniques and technological tools that fit the learners’ and study content requirements to foster learning in a virtual environment.     

Forward acceleration of the centre of mass during ski skating calculated from force and motion capture data

The purpose of this paper was to present and evaluate a methodology to determine the contribution of bilateral leg and pole thrusts to forward acceleration of the centre of mass (COM) of cross-country skiers from multi-dimensional ground reaction forces and motion capture data. Nine highly skilled cross-country (XC) skiers performed leg skating and V2-alternate skating (V2A) under constant environmental conditions on snow, while ground reaction forces measured from ski bindings and poles and 3D motion with high-speed cameras were captured. COM acceleration determined from 3D motion analyses served as a reference and was compared to the results of the proposed methodology. The obtained values did not differ during the leg skating push-off, and force–time curves showed high similarity, with similarity coefficients (SC) >0.90 in the push-off and gliding phases. In V2A, leg and pole thrusts were shown to contribute 35.1 and 65.9% to the acceleration of the body, respectively. COM acceleration derived from ground reaction forces alone without considering the COM position overestimated the acceleration compared to data from motion analyses, with a mean difference of 17% (P < 0.05) during leg push-off, although the shapes of force–time curves were similar (SC = 0.93). The proposed methodology was shown to be appropriate for determining the acceleration of XC skiers during leg skating push-off from multi-dimensional ground reaction forces and the COM position. It was demonstrated that both the COM position and ground reaction forces are needed to find the source of acceleration.     

Does Training in Syllable Recognition Improve Reading Speed? A Computer-Based Trial With Poor Readers From Second and Third Grade

Repeated reading of infrequent syllables has been shown to increase reading speed at the word level in a transparent orthography. This study confirms these results with a computer-based training method and extends them by comparing the training effects of short syllables and long frequent and infrequent syllables, controlling for rapid automatized naming. Our results, based on a sample of 150 poor readers of Finnish, showed clear gains in reading speed regarding all trained syllables, but a transfer effect to the word level was evident only in the case of long infrequent syllables. Rapid automatized naming was associated with initial reading speed, but not with the training effect.     

Training reading fluency among poor readers of German: many ways to the goal

Outcomes of two training programs aimed at improving reading speed for 39 German-speaking poor readers in grades 2 and 4 were evaluated. During a 6-week training period, a specific target for children in a computer group was to improve reading of word-initial consonant clusters by practice in associating an orthographic unit with a corresponding phonological unit. Children in a paired reading group read books with an adult tutor. The results showed that, in reading words in which the computer-trained sublexical items were included, both groups exhibited similar improvement. A post hoc analysis suggested that computer training was associated with better reading skills with respect to the trained sublexical items; however, this improvement did not show large generalization effects to the words with the sublexical items. The paired reading group showed a more rapid gain in global word reading fluency than the computer group. Neither of the groups improved their pseudoword reading.

Towards a framework for creative online collaboration: A research on challenges and context

The OnCreate project was initiated by ten universities with expertise in collaborative work in online-based learning environments and explores the specific challenges of implementing university courses in creative disciplines in such an environment. The first research phase comprises a literature search on creativity and its contextual factors in online collaboration in an educational setting. From this research a first set of possible key challenges and contextual key factors has been selected and applied to categorize the results of interviews and surveys on current good practice in creative online collaboration among experienced online teachers from the partner universities. From the key findings we formulate hypotheses to guide future research towards a framework for creative online collaboration. At the same time, the results can serve as inspiration for the educational practice. Notable observations of the good practice research among the partner universities are that they realise innovative collaboration concepts usually on mashed-up environments of state-of-the-art web services rather than on the omnipresent learning management systems (such as Moodle or Blackboard). Also, they show a paradigm shift from teaching to coaching and promotion of an open peer-review culture among the students.