Diversity in language: Outdoor terminology in the Czech Republic and Britain

This paper reviews literature related to outdoor terminology as it is used within the languages of British English and Czech. It provides the background to the outdoors in the Czech Republic where terminology has adopted and adapted many English language outdoor terms. The paper analyses the differences and similarities between terms and deals with the problems associated with defining and explaining outdoor terms and translating the British English terms into Czech and vice versa. Semi structured interviews were conducted with British and Czech academic experts. The findings suggest that as the outdoor field develops there is a need for more understanding of the cultural, historical, and geographical differences between concepts and terminology used in both English and non-English speaking countries, for example, the specific indigenous nature of the Czech turistika activities.     

Strengthening Capstone Skills in STEM Programs

In this article we describe a curricular strategy that improves the full range of skillsets critical to capstone success. Improved Capstone (ICap) was developed and implemented across the thermo-fluids topical area in the undergraduate Mechanical Engineering Technology Program at the University of Hartford. ICap experiential courses sequentially introduce challenging and open-ended assignments that foster cognitive learning. Using a scaffolding structure, assignments are organized into three modules: (1) classical, (2) transitional, and (3) design of an experiment. ICap enables students to assume greater responsibility for their learning experiences and liberates the instructor to become a mentor. Consequently, higher level skills important in the capstone course are strengthened: critical thinking, quantitative reasoning, teamwork, communications, information literacy, and design process.     

The role of emotions in student teachers’ professional identity

This paper presents findings of a qualitative interview study of the role of emotions in the professional identity of student teachers. Strong positive and negative emotions (mostly related to pupils and supervisors) were expressed about personal teaching experiences. The results confirm that emotions play an important role in social learning and, therefore, influence the development of professional identity. The two most important findings were that negative emotions exercised the strongest influence and that supervisors neglected the role of positive emotions as a support for learning. The study supports the concept that it is important for teacher educators to help student teachers understand their emotional experiences (focusing foremost on positive factors in their experience) and to develop the ability to express their own emotions in addition to understanding the emotions of others.     

Evaluation of mobile assessment in a learning management system

This article discusses the problem of using and delivering educational content from the Moodle learning management system to mobile devices. The primary goal of this study was to investigate the students' habits, motivations and technical possibilities in order to incorporate mobile‐learning activities in the e‐learning process. A mobile quiz has been chosen as an activity to be delivered on mobile devices. The developed mobile quiz application was integrated into Moodle. The application interface was tailored to various types of mobile devices aiming to foster mainstreaming of mobile technologies in e‐learning. For the purposes of the evaluation, an experiment was conducted within the e‐learning system at the Faculty of Organizational Sciences, the University of Belgrade. Data were obtained from the students who attended e‐learning courses in the area of e‐business. Research findings have shown that integration of the mobile quiz application into Moodle improves students' results and increases satisfaction and motivation for using mobile devices in their learning process.     

Using quantitative data in World Bank per-student funding reform projects: data,designs and dilemmas in transition countries

Since the late 1980s, education systems have increasingly moved to allocating funding for general education by means of a per-student formula. The trend started with developed economies and moved to transition and developing economies, where the World Bank has promoted the adoption of per-student funding (PSF). But promoting a particular reform, such as PSF, by including it in a package of sector-specific development projects funded by World Bank grants or loans, and employing local and international specialist staff do not guarantee successful implementation. This paper examines experience with implementing PSF to school level in transition countries, comparing varying degrees of success to date (2013) in Bulgaria, Moldova and Kosovo. The paper considers the dilemmas inherent in designing PSF formulae for schools, how this played out in each of the countries and the reasons for varying success in implementation.     

A Journal from the South: Lithuanian Papers

The Australian peer-reviewed journal Lithuanian Papers has been published since 1987 in Hobart, Tasmania. The editor summarizes its history and invites readers to subscribe.     

Trip to Russia and Uzbekistan,April 2013

The author reports on her trip to Moscow and Uzbekistan. In Moscow she attended and presented a paper at the conference Rumiantsevskie chteniia [Rumiantsev readings] 2013. After the conference she set up a new approval plan for Yale University Libraries with Natasha Kozmenko Booksellers. In Tashkent she participated in the seventh international conference Information and Library Resources for Science, Education, Culture, and Business: Central Asia 2013. She and some of the other participants also traveled to Samarkand.     

Encounters with action research in the african context: a case study in the school curriculum in lesotho

This article is based on an action research study undertaken in the African context, in Lesotho. It illustrates understandings and insights that developed in this context about action research by reference to the factors that influenced the comprehension and implementation of the method, reflections of the research team on the method, and the potential of the method to improve practice. It is argued that the method had potential to improve practice in this context, and that the contextualisation of action research by reflection on the method was essential.     

Science Curricula and the Organization of Secondary Schooling

This paper explores the substance of competence-driven changes in teacher education curricula by testing the possibility of using a framework distinguishing between the German pedagogical culture of Didaktik and the Anglo-Saxon Curriculum culture to describe the substance of these changes. Data about the perceptions of competence-driven changes in teacher education curricula has been collected in 30 in-depth interviews with teacher educators, student teachers, and their school mentors in Serbia, and analysed with the help of qualitative data processing software. The coding procedures involved classification of utterances into five groups relating to the perceptions of (1) teacher evaluation, (2) teacher competence in subject matter, pedagogy, and curriculum, (3) understanding of the education system and contribution to its development, (4) teacher competences in dealing with values and child-rearing, and (5) changes in teacher education curricula related to these groups of competence. The perceptions in each group of utterances were interpreted in terms of their alliance with Didaktik or Curriculum cultures. The findings indicate that the framework cannot be used as a continuum since the utterances aligned with the two cultures co-exist in the individual responses, but could be useful as a reflection tool in teacher education curricula.