Collaborative Learning in Small Groups in an Online Course – A Case Study

Background: The ability to learn collaboratively and work in teams is an essential competency in both educational and healthcare settings, and collaborative student activities are acknowledged as being an important part of the pedagogical approach in higher education and teaching. The course that was the focus of this research, a 15-ECTS-credit online course in the philosophy of science and methods, was offered online as part of 11 master’s-level health programmes at a university in Norway. Collaborative learning in combination with digital teaching tools, was the preferred pedagogical approach in the online course. The aim of the study was to explore, describe and discuss factors influencing small group learning in this online course.Methods: We performed a qualitative case study, collecting data through both individual and focus group interviews between February 2018 and May 2019 of master’s-level students who had participated in the online course. We performed six focus-group and 13 individual interviews, and a total of 30 master’s students participated in the study. Data were analysed using content analysis.Results: The results showed that three different processes were used to facilitate completion of students’ course assignments and learning outcomes. These three working processes were not dynamic, with different groups changing working processes throughout the course, but static and constant. The names of the different working processes reflect the main characteristics of each one: 1. joint responsibility – flexible organization; 2. individual responsibility – flexible organization; and 3. individual responsibility – unorganized.Conclusions: Planning online learning requires a focus on how students collaborate and learn online, so that they can gain in-depth knowledge and understanding. This study shows that even if contextual factors are the same (e.g., group size, relevant assignments, and student autonomy in terms of group organization), the way in which students collaborate and work together differs. Although the identified working processes promoted collaboration and learning, the first process (joint responsibility, with flexible organization) was the only working process found to promote in-depth learning. Future online teaching might require an even stronger focus on students’ internal motivation for learning and the importance of teacher presence and teachers’ ability to facilitate online learning.

High-Speed Railway Passenger Station Based on Contingency Theory Promotes the Construction of Flexible Organization for the Integration of Industry and Service Industry

Firstly, the paper discusses the theoretical progress of contingency theory in organization construction, which lays a theoretical foundation for the research of flexible organization construction of high-speed railway passenger stations. Then, based on the contingency conceptual framework proposed by Lucence, the conceptual framework of flexible organization construction of high-speed railway passenger station is constructed in combination with the operational characteristics and operating environment of high-speed railway passenger station. This paper explains the connotation of flexible organization construction of high-speed railway station. On this basis, the paper puts forward the idea of flexible organization construction of high-speed railway passenger station. Finally, five supporting measures for the construction of flexible organization of high-speed railway station are put forward. These studies provide theoretical guidance and construction ideas for flexible organization construction of high-speed railway stations in response to passenger flow fluctuation; the main strategy is to give priority to the introduction and cultivation of producer services in developed cities.

Tidslojalitet

Exploring time loyalty. The interweaving of time and loyalty in faculty administrator’s work strategies This article has an exploring and theorizing approach and aims to explore the function of the notion of time together with the concept of loyalty. The notion of acceleration of time and the new ”flexible” working life has created a duality where bureaucratic and administrative systems exist side by side with a more flexible organization, within which people can organize and plan their work themselves. That creates unregulated spaces, where administrators have to navigate and manage conflicting loyalties and uncertain responsibilities, creating further uncertainty, putting questions about one’s use of time and loyalties in focus. We explore this development by using the concept time loyalty and use that connection to analyze interviews with administrative staff within a university. This article concludes that there are ongoing negotiations regarding what to do, for whom, and when as well as legitimizing actions to justify fail responses to loyalty claims.

Be flexible: turning innovativeness into competitive advantage in hospitality firms

Purpose While acknowledging the importance of innovation capability and its potential for creating competitive advantage for firms, the purpose of this paper is to further explain how firms can gain the most from this potential. In the face of the low success rate of innovations and innovation activities in the hospitality sector, this study explains – through the dynamic capability perspective – that building a flexible organization is instrumental in creating competitive advantage out of innovation capabilities. Design/methodology/approach The study uses data from hospitality firms operating in an emerging economy with a fast-growing hospitality sector. As this study uses survey and statistical methods, the possibility of common method bias is addressed by partial least squares structural equation modeling to test the hypothesized relationships. Findings The study finds that organizational flexibility (OF) is an important mediator in the relationship between innovation capabilities and competitive advantage. The study explains that building a flexible organization is instrumental in creating competitive advantage out of innovation capabilities in hospitality firms. Originality/value This study suggests that relying only on innovation capability offers hospitality firms just a fraction of what would be gained if such capabilities are properly aligned with OF. This is because such alignment generates better response power to changing needs as the firm becomes more mobile, responsive and agile to rapidly identify market trends, adjust internal operations and respond quickly to new market demand.

The Unity of Knowledge and Action: Professional Degrees in a Flexible Organization of Viewpoint—Research on Graduate Students’ Entrepreneurship Education

With the rapid expansion of the scale of professional degree graduate, how to carry out entrepreneurship education of professional degree graduates becomes an urgent problem. The current entrepreneurship education of college students generally has the drawbacks of the separation of knowledge and practice, which is rooted in the disconnections of the traditional entrepreneurship education under the “rigid” organizational system. The flexible organization theory, combined with the characteristics of graduate professional degree, to build the mode of “the Unity of Knowledge and Action” of graduate professional degree based on flexible organization, contributing to the realization of professional degree of entrepreneurship education of “the combination of professional and innovative , motivation and action, academic and industry”.

Cultural influences on the developing semantic lexicon

To determine whether the developing semantic lexicon varies with culture, we examined the animal and food naming of children from three communities distinguished by language, cultural heritage, and population density. The children were five- and seven-year-olds from Australia (n = 197), Taiwan (n = 456), and the US (n = 172). Naming patterns revealed hierarchical and flexible organization of the semantic lexicon. The content of the lexicon, particularly food names, varied with cultural heritage. In all three communities, wild mammals were predominant during animal naming, a likely influence of children's media. The influence of the Chinese zodiac was evident in the clustering of animal names in the Taiwanese sample. There was no apparent influence of population density and little influence of language, except that the Taiwanese children more frequently named foods at the superordinate level, a possible influence of the structure of Mandarin. Children develop their lexicons in response to culture as experienced first-hand or through media.

The Tagging Alternative

Tags are an effective tool for organizing and retrieving Web 2.0 data, but they show low adoption rates when organizing and retrieving personal files and emails. Tags potentially offer flexible organization and retrieval by letting users apply multiple labels to the same information item. In practice, however users prefer folders over tags, and make very little use of multiple classification. In Web 2.0 settings the sheer number of information items means that users cannot possibly know where every item is located. In PIM on the other hand, users are highly familiar with their own information organization, having stored items according to their own subjective needs. In most PIM settings, they are therefore able to retrieve their own personal information quickly and efficiently without the need to generate multiple retrieval labels.