scholarly journals BEING AN INNOVATIVE AND CREATIVE TEACHER: PASSION-DRIVEN PROFESSIONAL DUTY

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 125-144
Author(s):  
Vilma Žydžiūnaitė ◽  
Ander Arce

The research problem relates to the lack of existing research in terms of understanding the meaning of being an innovative and creative teacher in association with a passion connected to professional duty. Research questions were the following: “What does it mean for a teacher to be innovative and creative? What makes an innovative and creative teacher?”. The aim was to explore the meaning of being an innovative and creative teacher through teachers’ experiences. The methodology was based on integration of practical phenomenology and epistemological phenomenology. The sample consisted of ten teachers from ten innovative Basque Country schools. Data was collected by using open-ended interviews. Findings showed that the passion-driven professional duty integrates being an ambitious professional, being professional through ethical and moral actions, endeavoring to discover students’ learning needs, designing learning environments, being coherent with school philosophy, and testing for improvement. Findings showed that a teacher’s innovativeness and creativeness are directed to the self, professional actions, students, school, and professional development. Conclusions are focused on empirical facts that innovative and creative teachers experience the meaning of their practices through duties, which they perform with passion. Teachers’ innovativeness and creativity are related to ethical, moral, professional, intellectual, social, institutional, individual, and processual needs.

Symmetry ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (11) ◽  
pp. 1768
Author(s):  
R. Nemec ◽  
A. Jahodova Berkova ◽  
S. Hubalovsky

This article describes the research results aimed at distance education during the Covid-19 pandemic and closing schools and its symmetry with the classical state in terms of time, difficulty, and the mental and physical condition of students. An important aspect is therefore to maintain the symmetry of attitudes to teaching in face-to-face form and distance form. In terms of the eight-year gymnasium in the Czech Republic, students’ attitudes to the teaching subject informatics were investigated. The main research questions in our study dealt with whether students felt equally balanced regarding the amount of tasks and time taken for home preparation during the Covid-19 outbreak compared with the time before the quarantine and their condition (both mental and physical) during the Covid-19 outbreak. The research was conducted using an anonymous questionnaire, which was answered by 110 out of 180 students. According to the results, it is evident that students felt that during the distance education, there are more tasks compared to face-to-face ones. Students also claimed to spend more time learning at distance education than at school. On the other hand, they agreed that the self-education schedule is suitable for them. In terms of the questionnaire, their condition (both mental and physical) was also evaluated, which was slightly above the average.


Author(s):  
Alexander Mikroyannidis ◽  
Alexandra Okada ◽  
Andre Correa ◽  
Peter Scott

Cloud Learning Environments (CLEs) have recently emerged as a novel approach to learning, putting learners in the spotlight and providing them with the cloud-based tools for building their own learning environments according to their specific learning needs and aspirations. Although CLEs bring significant benefits to educators and learners, there is still little evidence of CLEs being actively and effectively used in the teaching and learning process. This chapter addresses this issue by introducing a European initiative called weSPOT (Working Environment with Social, Personal and Open Technologies for Inquiry-based Learning) for supporting and enhancing inquiry-based learning in STEM education via a cloud-based inquiry toolkit. The chapter presents evidence of using this toolkit within a case study that investigates how a secondary education community of students / co-learners selects information sources on the web and identifies factors associated with the reliability of information sources during their collaborative inquiry (co-inquiry) project in online environments.


2010 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 141-145
Author(s):  
Fern Snart

Within current Canadian learning environments, learners bring sophistication in areas such as communication/technology, a wide diversity of learning needs, and often an orientation towards social justice. This commentary refers to the ongoing responsiveness of teacher education programs to these evolving learner attributes, using as exemplars the areas of global citizenship education and technology integration. A backdrop for this discussion is the observation that the knowledge and skills that contribute to successful adult lives are also evolving.


2007 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Linda Weber

Internationalization is powerfully impacting the missions, planning documents, and learning environments of Canadian universities. Internationalization within Canadian universities is viewed from a local as well as global context. Accounts of the composition of domestic students studying abroad and international students studying in Canada, and the implications of these statistics, are related. Emphasis is given to a discussion of the contribution that economic factors play in internationalization decisions. Economic factors have undeniably shaped the face of internationalization at Canadian universities. Complexities of the relationship between global context and educational goals are outlined and educators are challenged to responsibly interpret and implement university changes resulting from internationalization while prioritizing the learning needs of students.


Author(s):  
Philippa Cranwell ◽  
Elizabeth M Page

The use of a group-based approach to project working has been shown to provide significant advantage to students in terms of project outcomes, motivation and engagement. The Department of Chemistry at the University of Reading has recently explored the use of group projects for final year practical work. In this model, students are presented with a research problem that they investigate within a team of three to five students. Students are expected to divide the work and share results in a manner that closely resembles project working in industry. This paper will report the experiences and attitudes of final-year BSc students towards this group-based approach, and outline the self-identified skills development of these students.


2019 ◽  
pp. 71-93
Author(s):  
Remigiusz Rosicki

The objective scope of the analysis performed in the text encompasses selected aspects of policy in its topological dimension. The space of policy is understood as both a theoretical construct (a policy field) and relations between the characteristics of political actors and their special kind of geographical co-existence. The following have been recognised as essential characteristics of policymaking: (1) electoral process and pluralism, (2) functioning of government, (3) political participation, (4) political culture and (5) civil liberties. These features can become an object of analysis in the assessment of democratic and authoritarian tendencies in selected countries. The text uses two statistical methods of multidimensional comparative analysis (Ward’s method and k-means method), apart from which use has been made of basic descriptive statistics and a comparative analysis of the values of the parameters of political characteristics. A selection of 40 European countries (EU-28 and 12 other countries) have been subjected to a statistical analysis according to the 2018 data. The main goal of the analysis is to connect facts and characteristics attributed to policy with a specific geographical area. In order to elaborate the objective scope of the research problem, the following research questions have been presented in the text: (1) Which of the characteristics of policy will determine the division of state entities according to a special type of clusters?, (2) Will political characteristics determine the division of particular state entities according to a special type of geographical division? The addressed research questions have been related to the hypotheses subjected to verification in the text.


Author(s):  
Martha María Hernández-Ochoa ◽  
Alfredo Netzahualcoyotl Torres-Lopez

Nowadays, the network traffic has increased exponentially due to amount of information and number of users which are connected to Heterogeneous Networks (HetNets) in this case we focus on LTE-WiFi technologies. This is an important issue that need to solve for an efficient network communication process end to end. The aim of this article is to present the-state-of-theart about performance models for LTE-WiFi HetNets and a classification of key performance metrics which help to analyze HetNets behaviour. The article concludes with a methodology that will be applied later for this research problem, as well as opened research questions. We believe, that apply our methodology using accurate and suitable models in HetNets the transmission process will have a fairness traffic when both networks coexist.


Author(s):  
Catherine McLoughlin ◽  
Ron Oliver

<span>Flexible delivery of educational resources must take account of cultural variables and recognise the specific learning needs, preferences and styles of learners. In designing instruction, there may be a tension between the need to ensure access for a diverse student population, while at the same time taking into account the need for localisation to accommodate learners' particular cultures, cognitive styles and preferences. Considering the micro and macro cultural levels of instructional design is therefore essential if appropriate learning environments are to be created. The acceptance, use and impact of WWW sites is affected by the cultural backgrounds, values, needs and preferences of learners.</span><p>One of the limitations in current instructional design models is that they do not fully contextualise the learning experience, and are themselves the product of particular cultures. The design of Web based instruction is not culturally neutral, but instead is based on the particular epistemologies, learning theories and goal orientations of the designers themselves. Recently, theorists have argued for a cultural dimension in the design process and the need to provide culturally sensitive learning environments.</p><p>In this paper, we trace the design processes involved in the development of an online learning environment for indigenous Australian learners preparing to enter university, and account for the cultural issues that impacted on creation of learning tasks and styles of communication. The paper argues for cultural localisation, which means incorporating the local values, styles of learning and cognitive preferences of the target population. It also means going beyond surface level design considerations, to achieve culturally inclusive constructivist learning environments. Examples of tasks, activities and forms of online interaction are provided in the context of a bi-cultural model of learning that recognises diversity and different learning needs. It is recommended that when creating WWW based course support sites for cultural inclusivity, systematic attention must be given to particular design guidelines, which include responsiveness to learner needs, community based learning and cultural contextualisation of learning activities.</p>


Author(s):  
Terry McClannon ◽  
Robert Sanders ◽  
Amy Cheney ◽  
Les Bolt ◽  
Krista Terry

This study is based on survey research conducted in 2010 and 2011, involving graduate students using a 3D immersive environment for their coursework. Investigators examined students’ perceptions of community and presence via coursework offered in the immersive world. Utilizing the Sense of Community II index and the Communities of Inquiry survey, variables examined include students’ time within their graduate programs, time spent in the 3D environment, and their levels of immersion, as well as the relationship between the two instruments. Analysis showed significant results for each of the research questions for both instruments.


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