Exploring Feedback and Gamification in a Data Modeling Learning Tool

Data modeling is an essential part of IT studies. Learning how to design and structure a database is important when storing data in a relational database and is common practice in the IT industry. Most students need much practice and tutoring to master the skill of data modeling and database design. When a student is in a learning process, feedback is important. As class sizes grow and teaching is no longer campus based only, providing feedback to each individual student may be difficult. Our study proposes a tool to use when introducing database modeling to students. We have developed a web-based tool named LearnER to teach basic data modeling skills, in a collaborative project between the University of South-Eastern Norway (USN) and Kristiania University College (KUC). The tool has been used in six different courses over a period of four academic years. In LearnER, the student solves modeling assignments with different levels of difficulty. When they are done, or they need help, they receive automated feedback including visual cues. To increase the motivation for solving many assignments, LearnER also includes gamifying elements. Each assignment has a maximum score. When students ask for help, points are deducted from the score. When students manage to solve many assignments with little help, they may end up at a leaderboard. This paper tries to summarize how the students use and experience LearnER. We look to see if the students find the exercises interesting, useful and of reasonable difficulty. Further, we investigate if the automated feedback is valuable, and if the gamifying elements contribute to their learning. As we have made additions and refinements to LearnER over several years, we also compare student responses on surveys and interviews during these years. In addition, we analyze usage data extracted from the application to learn more about student activity. The results are promising. We find that student activity increases in newer versions of LearnER. Most students report that the received feedback helps them to correct mistakes when solving modeling assignments. The gamifying elements are also well received. Based on LearnER usage data, we find and describe typical errors the students do and what types of assignments they prefer to solve.

Scour Hole Development in Natural Cohesive Bed Sediment around Cylinder-Shaped Piers Subjected to Varying Sequential Flow Events

Scour evolution and propagation around a cylinder in natural cohesive sediment was uniquely investigated under multi-flow event varying sequentially by velocity magnitudes. This flume study differs from others that only used test sediment with commercially available clays for single flow. The objective of this study was to explore the potential differences in scour hole development in natural riverbed sediments subjected to varying flow velocity scenarios, advancing our understanding from existing studies on scour. The study consisted of 18 experimental runs based on: velocity, flow duration, and soil bulk density. Scour hole development progressed initially along the cylinder sides, and maximum depths also occurred at these lateral locations. Scour hole depths were less for higher soil bulk densities (≥1.81 g/cm3) compared with lower densities, and erosion rates were slower. It was observed with all flow sequences that scour depths were similar at the end of each experimental run. However, scour initiation was observed to be time dependent for soils with higher bulk density (1.81–2.04 g/cm3) regardless of flow velocity sequences. The observed time dependency suggests a process feedback with the scour hole development initiated at the cylinder sides, which influence local 3D hydraulics as the scour hole depth progresses.

Deon and Telos: How Journalisms Are Evolving Their Ethical Approaches

Survey evidence shows a deontological ethical ideology remains dominant in global journalism, underpinned by a cultural value of detachment. This article opens by considering the strain imposed on these precepts in US corporate media while covering the Trump White House—ultimately to breaking point with the defeated president’s campaign to overturn the result, attempting to co-opt news organisations in the process. Feedback loops of cause and effect have, in any case, been exposed in today’s extended media, making the involvement of journalism in stories—through influence on audience responses and source behaviours—impossible to overlook. At the same time, new journalisms are emerging and growing, which adhere instead to a teleological ethical ideology. They openly identify themselves with external goals, and appeal for funds from donors and supporters on that basis. The article then goes on to present original data from analysing statements of aims and purpose put out by 12 news organisations working in four of these new fields: Peace Journalism; Solutions Journalism; Engaged, or Participatory Journalism; and Investigative Journalism, respectively. These represent a growing edge in journalism, it is argued, since they are positioned to respond positively to the changed conditions brought about by political and technological forces, which were illustrated by the Trump crisis. The study points to the changes in institutional arrangements now needed, if the structural foundations for their survival and success are to be strengthened.

Deepening the teaching and learning of clinical communication

Aims: clinical communication (CC) relates to health professionals’ interaction with patients/families. CC is fundamental for the physicians’ role. This paper aims to contribute to the discussion about reflection and feedback for meaningful teaching and learning of CC.Methods: the authors provided a short review and conceptual discussion of the history and nature of CC teaching, followed by exploring the role of reflection and feedback in teaching CC.Results: communicating well can be challenging as it requires medical students and professionals to adapt their communication to each patient/family while obtaining all the needed information, conveying trustworthiness, care, and compassion. The teaching of CC to medical students involves deepening the doctor-patient relationship’s technical, relational, and emotional elements. CC requires teaching that is flexible and tailored to the participants’ needs. Therefore, teaching CC must go beyond asking the appropriate question or applying specific checklist-based behaviours. In teaching CC, it is crucial to give medical students support to discuss personal and institutional barriers and attitudes and explore how to transfer their learning to clinical practice. To that end, reflection should be encouraged to allow students to express difficulties and feelings and enhance their understanding of themselves and others. Within this process, feedback is essential to moving beyond skill-based teaching to reflection-based learning.Conclusion: the move from skills-based learning requires using reflective processes and feedback to allow students to learn about their communication tendencies and needs to become more flexible and attuned to different patient’s needs in clinical encounters.

Evaluative methodology to develop higher skills

The objective of this research is to provide an evaluative methodology to develop higher cognitive skills. From the methodological perspective, a qualitative was required, based on primary and secondary sources of research to increase thinking. The results showed that a series of premises must be implemented for the development of lower and higher thinking, among them, purpose, explicit teaching, intentionality of the evaluation, evaluation criteria, simple and complex strategies, monitoring, formative evaluation, process feedback and homework, metacognition, among others. As part of the discussion, it seems that teachers need to apply training strategies and implement permanent monitoring in students to promote learning. On the other hand, they must recognize the lower skills that are not internalized in the learners, because these are the starting base to achieve the higher taxonomies. It is concluded that formative evaluation and feedback are effective actions to generate higher taxonomies.

The Early Development of Emotional Competence Profile: A Means to Share Information About Emotional Status and Expression by Children With Complex Communication Needs

Purpose This clinical focus article introduces a summary profile template, called the Early Development of Emotional Competence Profile (EDEC-P). This profile distills information from a longer interview tool that solicits a detailed case history (the EDEC), but in a format that is readily accessible for communication partners of children with complex communication needs, including parents, educators, and other professionals. Method In this clinical focus article, we will (a) introduce the EDEC-P structure, (b) illustrate via case examples the types of information that can be shared, and (c) offer preliminary feedback from parents and other professionals on its usefulness. We will review literature that supports the importance of scaffolding communication about emotions by specialists who work with children with complex communication needs and by parents and other communication partners. Results An EDEC-P was generated for two participants as an illustration of the process. Feedback was solicited from these children's parents and other communication partners. The feedback demonstrated that the EDEC-P was viewed as a positive tool and identified some of the ways that it might be used. Conclusions The EDEC-P may be useful for professionals who are interested in approaching communication about emotions in children with complex communication needs. Guidelines are proposed to present and discuss the results from the interview to support the decision-making process in the clinical practice and next steps in research. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.14219777

Students’ Peer Feedback in EFL Writing Class of English Study Program

As a part of writing process, feedback in writing place as the significant role and peer feedback is one type of feedback in classroom activities. This study was intended to find out the facts and expectation on peer feedback in writing classroom. A classroom-based research was employed as the research design and the participants were the students in writing 2 and writing 4 courses. Furthermore, Classroom observation, in-depth interview and review of related documents were designed to collect the data. The findings revealed that the application of peer feedback was not properly applied; it was more focused on the surface areas (grammatical errors, spelling and error punctuation) and neglected to the content and organization of writings. It could happen because the students lack of trainings and unavailability of rubric and guidelines provided in the writing classroom activities. For that reason, the students didn’t know the ways to provide meaningful and constructive feedback. They also have negative point of view about the peer feedback in writing courses. The students expected that providing writing rubric containing content and organization aspects precisely in giving feedback and guiding them step by step in taking and giving peer feedback should be considered by the lecturers for better improvement in the future.

Focused Written Feedback on Developing Quality Bachelor’s Thesis Proposal

The effectiveness of written feedback in learning is a debatable topic that divides opinion. Many researchers claim that written feedback does not have a significant effect on improving students’ learning achievement. However, many other researchers indicate otherwise. This research aimed to analyze the effect of using focused written feedback (FWF) on students’ writing skills. This research sample consisted of 10 students taught through practice to write a bachelor's thesis proposal. This research employed the equivalent time-series design. Observations were employed in a four-time series. There are four models for the implementation of focused written feedback: task feedback (FT), process feedback (FP), self-regulation feedback (FR), and self-feedback (FS). Then, there are three major questions: what are the goals? (Feed-up), what progress is being made toward the goal? (Feedback), what activities need to be undertaken to make better progress? (Feed-forward). The instruments of this study were written feedback assessment guidelines, and rubrics for assessing writing skills. The researchers had checked both instruments. The result showed that students’ writing skills improved the most in the section where they received the most practice. In conclusion, this study contributed to effective written feedback and provided some implications for lectures.

Evidence that horizontal moisture advection regulates the ubiquitous amplification of rainfall variability over tropical oceans

The column moist static energy (MSE) budget equation approximates the processes associated with column moistening and drying in the tropics, and is therefore predictive of precipitation amplification and decay. We use ERA-I and TRMM 3B42 data to investigate day-to-day convective variability and distinguish the roles of horizontal MSE (or moisture) advection versus vertical advection, sources, and sinks. Over tropical convergence zones, results suggest that horizontal moisture advection is a primary driver of day-to-day precipitation fluctuations; when drying via horizontal moisture advection is smaller (greater) than Chikira’s “column process,” precipitation tends to amplify (decay). In the absence of horizontal moisture advection, precipitation tends to increase spontaneously almost universally through a positive column process feedback. This bulk positive feedback is characterized by negative effective gross moist stability (GMS), which is maintained throughout the tropical convergence zones. How this positive feedback is achieved varies geographically, depending on the shape of vertical velocity (omega) profiles. In regions where omega profiles are top-heavy, the effective GMS is negative primarily owing to strong feedbacks between convection and diabatic MSE sources (radiative and surface fluxes). In these regions, vertical MSE advection stabilizes the atmosphere (positive vertical GMS). Where omega profiles are bottom-heavy, by contrast, a positive feedback is primarily driven by import of MSE through a shallow circulation (negative vertical GMS). The diabatic feedback and vertical GMS are in a see-saw balance, offsetting one another. Our results suggest that ubiquitous convective variability is amplified by the same mechanism as moisture-mode instability.