Writing to learn: can reflection journals be used to promote self-reflection and learning?

The purpose of the present study was to evaluate whether there is evidence of reflection in student-written journals and to investigate whether students show improvements in their reflective skills through journal keeping. To that end, the reflection journals of 3460 first-year students enrolled in a polytechnic were studied by means of an automated coding procedure. Data used in the analyses were students' journals for an entire week, collected once at the beginning and again at the end of an academic year. Outcomes of the content analyses suggest that there is evidence of reflection in students' journals and that students reflected on three general categories related to their learning: critical review of past learning experiences, cognitive learning strategies and summaries of what was learnt. Furthermore, the findings also indicate that students show improvements in their reflective skills as they progressed through the academic year. The findings when taken together suggest that reflection journals can be used to promote self-reflection and learning amongst students.     

Relooking Assessment: A Study on Assessing Developmental Learning Outcomes in Toddlers

In most countries the funding for early childhood education has increased and governments in some countries have taken serious steps to bring about positive change in the profession. However, the increase in funding by governments and other funding organisations around the world has, understandably, attracted increased accountability as these organisations need to know that their financial investments are achieving desired outcomes. To seek evidence that positive learning outcomes have indeed been achieved through these investments is a reasonable request, and there is a shared responsibility and accountability for professionals to provide appropriate evidence. The downside, however, can be the request for standardised test information, as if performance on such tests provides proof of all desired outcomes. More than ever before, it is important for early childhood educators to be able to provide accurate, objective information about children’s assessment in ways other than by standardised testing, which may not reflect the complex reality of children’s lives. This paper reports on a research study in Singapore that investigated curriculum effectiveness using developmental learning outcomes as a means of assessing children. The research was devised to examine if eight specified broad developmental learning outcomes could measure the effectiveness of the curriculum by assessing children’s learning as shown in qualitative data. Practical examples showed evidence of children’s learning and the role of the educator in facilitating and documenting developmental learning outcomes.     

Experimental and Numerical Analysis of a Novel Display Case Design: Case Study of the Renovated Anne Frank House

ABSTRACT

Many museums are housed in historic buildings, sometimes the building itself is part of the museum collection. Creating a stable environment by providing a nearly constant temperature and relative humidity at correct levels decreases the risk of object degradation. Maintaining this steady indoor environment, however, increases energy consumption and risks to the historic building. Museum display cases offer a solution to the mitigation of risks to which valuable objects may be subjected by providing an extra layer of protection to indoor climate fluctuations. The Anne Frank House is a historic house museum located in Amsterdam. The museum has undergone several renovations in the last years to deal with an increase in the number of visitors to over 1.2 million a year. The original diaries and other documents of Anne Frank are permanently on display in the Anne Frank House. With the recent refurbishment the possibility arose to design a new state-of-the-art display case. This study presents the results of the experimental research related to the design, performed in-situ. The temperature and relative humidity in the new exhibition space and inside the new display cases were monitored to gain insight into the hygrothermal behavior of these controlled environments. A complementary numerical study was performed to investigate effects of dynamic climate control of the exhibition gallery and climate conditions in the display case under various circumstances. Four main conclusions are presented in this paper. The investigated display case design is able to provide a stable relative humidity environment by means of silica gel, while using an active box-in-box climate control system to create stable temperature conditions. The inner case temperature depends on the temperature supplied by the display case air handling unit. Protocols must be in place in case of malfunction or failure of the climate control system of the display case. The air handling unit of the case needs to be shut off to create a passive environment for the objects on display until necessary actions are taken. Exhibition gallery set points can be less stringent when susceptible museum objects are on display in the display case. The environments are separated and provide an opportunity for energy saving set point strategies. The last conclusion drawn is that the numerical study provides valuable insight into imposing dynamic control of set points for temperature and relative humidity in the exhibition gallery and the effect on the display case environment.     

Researchers’ Mobility,Productivity and Impact: Case of Top Producing Authors in Seven Disciplines

The purpose of this study was to examine whether scientific mobility, either between countries or between affiliations has an effect on researchers’ productivity and impact. In order to investigate this issue, we examined the relationships between the number of institutional affiliations and countries of the top 100 authors in seven disciplines. The selected authors’ profiles contained the number of affiliations and countries each author is assigned. We studied the number of affiliations and countries and compared them to three bibliometric indicators: the number of publications in international, peer-reviewed journals, h-index and Field Weighted Citations Impact. Our findings show that although there are differences in the relationship between mobility, productivity and impact between disciplines, mobility between at least two affiliations has an overall positive effect on both output and impact while mobility between countries does not. Therefore, in most disciplines positive impact and productivity effects are tracked in affiliation mobility within a single country.     

Effects of problem-based discussion on studying a subsequent text: A randomized trial among first year medical students

The Purpose of this study was to examine effectsof group discussion of a medical problem on the comprehension of a subsequentproblem-relevant text by first year medical students.Forty-eight first-year medical students were randomly assigned toone of two conditions: The experimental group discussed a problem of blood pressureregulation, where the control group discussed a problem of vision. Subsequently, allstudents studied a text on the physiology of blood pressure regulation. Finally, a freerecall test was administered. Numbers of propositions accurately recalled were analyzed usinganalysis of variance (ANOVA). Students who discussed the blood pressure regulationproblem recalled 25% more from the text than those who discussed the control problem.This difference was statistically significant. The present study represented thefirst truly randomized trial in the ecologically valid context of a medical curriculum. Itdemonstrated the positive effects of problem-based tutorial group discussion on thecomprehension of text. It confirmed earlier findings from laboratory studies thatproblem-based learning, in addition to positive emotional and motivational long-term effectswell-documented in the literature, also has positive effects on learning.     

Author Index

Author Index

Author Index