scholarly journals CREATIVITY AND SPONTANEITY IN THE THEORY OF THE COMMUNITY POWER LEARNING PROCESS

2021 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 178-187
Author(s):  
Tuovi Leppänen

In this article, the study of community power learning process is introduced. The aim of the study was to build a conception and a substantive theory of adult learners’ group learning. The theory has a dialogue with three perspectives: andragogy, sociometry and neuroscience. The community power learning process builds a close connection with Morenian approaches of using sociometry, peer support and spontaneity and creativity in a group learning process. Spontaneity and creativity are seen as an essential part of adult group learning. Four main categories were found: participation, communality, creativity, and tutoring. The core category was identified as the community power learning process. This study has been carried out using grounded theory research methodology.

2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 70-94
Author(s):  
Don Smith

This grounded theory research paper presents an analysis of the motivation of young men in commencing a three-stage leadership development program and the critical influences impacting their decision to return for subsequent stages of the program. The key findings are that both people and program influences are significant. The key program influences initially are the community and group in Stage 1 along with certain program-specific elements. This creates a momentum towards Stage 2 where a three-day wilderness Solo experience emerges as the core category / central phenomenon – drawing participants from Stage 1 and being motivational towards Stage 3. Specific program elements and “lenses” are identified for future research.


Author(s):  
Titus Tossy ◽  
Irwin T.J. Brown

The E-learning provision in East Africa including Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda is rapid gaining its way. E-learning providers are all groups tasked with e-learning activities including design, delivery, implementation and others. The e-learning providers are surrounded by issues and challenges (main concerns). The purposed of this study was to identify and examine the main concern amongst e-learning providers in East Africa (Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda). In this study the Classic Grounded Theory Research Methodology was used in order to identify the main concern of e-learning providers. In the course of repeated encounters with e-learning providers, this study found the concept of Cultivating Recognition to emerge as the main concern or core variable amongst these e-learning providers. The core variable within the Classic Grounded Theory research methodology is the main entity that accounts for most of the variation in the data. The core variable of the theory, the basic social psychological process of Cultivating Recognition is characterized by Legitimizing and Credentializing. The process of legitimizing involves convincing the e-learning stakeholders that the e-learning programs and projects will be delivered in a timely, valid and sustainable manner. Legitimizing process is achieved through Collaborating (reciprocal and asymmetric), Referral Networking and Strategic alliancing. Credentializing aims to enhance the stakeholders' belief in the e-learning providers' competence prior to the provision of the e-learning programs and projects. While Credentializing is achieved through Endorsementizing, Result Orienting and Prioritizing Duties, Result Orienting itself is achieved through Visualizing, Professionalizing, Focalizing and Role Delineating. This study will help e-learning providers and other groups to cultivate recognition and pave a way for their success in implementation of e-learning.


Author(s):  
Susan Gasson

This chapter presents a set of principles for the use of Grounded Theory techniques in qualitative field studies. Some issues and controversies relating to rigor in Grounded Theory generation are discussed. These include: inductive theory generation and emergence, how theoretical saturation may be judged, the extent to which coding schemes should be formalized, the objectivist-subjectivist debate, and the assessment of quality and rigor in interpretive research. It is argued that Grounded Theory is often criticized for a lack of rigor because we apply positivist evaluations of rigor to research that derives from an interpretive worldview. Alternative assessments of rigor are suggested, that emphasize reflexivity in the inductive-deductive cycle of substantive theory generation.


2015 ◽  
Vol 37 ◽  
pp. 25
Author(s):  
Saeed Ghaniabadi ◽  
Hamid Reza Hashemi

http://dx.doi.org/10.5902/2179460X19425The substantial achievements of the current research in the field of teaching English as a foreign language highlight the monumental influence of students’ identity construction on acquiring a foreign language. Due to the dearth of qualitative research that probe teachers’ awareness of the learners’ identity construction in classroom-oriented discourse and their reaction to it, the present study is to develop a systematic explanatory theory of those aspects of EFL learners’ identity disregarded by teachers in Iranian EFL context. This grounded theory research is founded upon the volunteer and theoretical sampling of 8 under-achieving learners from Azad university of Birjand, Iran. In-depth semi-structural interviews which took three weeks were employed by the researchers. The data collection and analysis procedure occurred between January and February, 2015. The iterative process of analysis yielded teachers’ failure to acknowledge the learners’ multiple identity as the core category that pulled together three other sub-categories including 1) the ignorance of imaginative identity of the students by teaches 2) teachers’ disregard of the multiple and dynamic identity of the learners in educational context 3) teachers’ lack of awareness from students contradictory identification with the culture of target language speakers. The results of this study are almost novel and of great significance for Iranian EFL teachers and other practitioners in this field.


Algorithms ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 39
Author(s):  
Carlos Lassance ◽  
Vincent Gripon ◽  
Antonio Ortega

Deep Learning (DL) has attracted a lot of attention for its ability to reach state-of-the-art performance in many machine learning tasks. The core principle of DL methods consists of training composite architectures in an end-to-end fashion, where inputs are associated with outputs trained to optimize an objective function. Because of their compositional nature, DL architectures naturally exhibit several intermediate representations of the inputs, which belong to so-called latent spaces. When treated individually, these intermediate representations are most of the time unconstrained during the learning process, as it is unclear which properties should be favored. However, when processing a batch of inputs concurrently, the corresponding set of intermediate representations exhibit relations (what we call a geometry) on which desired properties can be sought. In this work, we show that it is possible to introduce constraints on these latent geometries to address various problems. In more detail, we propose to represent geometries by constructing similarity graphs from the intermediate representations obtained when processing a batch of inputs. By constraining these Latent Geometry Graphs (LGGs), we address the three following problems: (i) reproducing the behavior of a teacher architecture is achieved by mimicking its geometry, (ii) designing efficient embeddings for classification is achieved by targeting specific geometries, and (iii) robustness to deviations on inputs is achieved via enforcing smooth variation of geometry between consecutive latent spaces. Using standard vision benchmarks, we demonstrate the ability of the proposed geometry-based methods in solving the considered problems.


2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jannike Karlstad ◽  
Cathrine Fredriksen Moe ◽  
Mari Wattum ◽  
Berit Støre Brinchmann

Abstract Background Caring for an individual with an eating disorder involves guilt, distress and many extra burdens and unmet needs. This qualitative study explored the experiences of parents with adult daughters suffering from anorexia nervosa or bulimia nervosa and the strategies they adopted. A subsidiary aim of the study was to explore the relationship between the caregivers’ perceived need for professional support and the support they reported receiving in practice from the health services. Methods Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 11 mothers and fathers from across Norway. Data collection, coding and analysis was conducted using the principles of constructivist grounded theory in an iterative process. The main concern shared by participants was identified by this process and their “solution” to the main concern then formed the content of the core category. Results ″Wearing all the hats″ emerged as the core category, indicating that the parents have to fulfil several roles to compensate the lack of help from health services. The three subcategories: “adapting to the illness”, “struggling for understanding and help” and “continuing to stay strong” described how the participants handled their situation as parents of adult daughters with eating disorders. Conclusions In daily life, the parents of adults with eating disorders have to attend to a wide range of caregiver tasks to help their ill daughters. This study suggests that the health services that treat adults with eating disorders should be coordinated, with a professional carer in charge. The parents need easy access to information about the illness and its treatment. They also need professional support for themselves in a demanding situation.


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Bobbie Bushman

[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] Children's librarians are challenged to provide inclusive programming in today's public libraries. There is a current trend in public libraries to provide special needs programming for children. This dissertation focuses on library programming for deaf and hard of hearing (D/HoH) children who visit U.S. public libraries. The American Library Association (ALA) states that hearing children need to know six pre-reading skills to be ready to read; however, some of these pre-reading skills focus on singing or rhyming which is difficult for D/HoH children. Grounded theory is "a systematic, inductive, and comparative approach for conducting inquire for the purpose of constructing theory" (Bryant and Charmaz 2007). This grounded theory research studies the programs, services, and story times that are implemented and modified for D/HoH children in U.S. public libraries. This study began with sending out a recruitment script and questionnaire found in Appendix A and B, respectively, which reached nearly 500 medium to large sized U.S. public libraries. Fifteen participants volunteered to be interviewed, and eleven were interviewed. Interviews were analyzed using open and axial coding, which is typical in grounded theory. Preliminary data and a review of literature on literacy acquisition for D/HoH children suggested that D/HoH children do not progress in four of the pre-reading skills outlined in the ALA's early literacy program, Every Child Ready to Read (ECRR), in the same way that hearing children do. Phonological awareness is largely not utilized by D/HoH children in learning to read. D/HoH children are also likely to build vocabulary, develop print motivation, and approach narrative skills differently than hearing children. This grounded theory research developed the model of successful library services and modifications to D/HoH children to explain which services, early literacy instruction, staff training and programs public libraries provide to children who are D/HoH. This research project also inquires about what kinds of modifications are made to serve D/HoH children, and what the impetus was for providing library services to deaf children. The first stage of the model highlights staff attitude as being warm and welcoming, taking initiative, and not seeing D/HoH as a disability. The second stage described the impetus for providing services as encountering a D/HoH patron in the library, knowing a disabled person in a librarian's personal life, or by encountering a nearby agency that serves D/HoH. In the third stage, librarians made accommodations by being inclusive in programming, providing ASL programming, or facilitating visual phonics instruction in place of phonological awareness instruction. In the fourth and final stage, this model reported outcomes such as educating both hearing and D/HoH individuals and building a sense of community.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document