Ubiquitous Technologies and Learning

This study makes an original contribution to the literature on social media usage for learning purposes through the phenomenological approach of enquiry. It examined the general motivations for social media usage; how social media is used to meet academic needs; perceived academic benefits; and how social media usage disrupts studies. A total of 24 undergraduate students were engaged in rigorous focus group discussions. Results showed that social media has been adapted to suit the academic needs of users through the process of appropriation. It was found that although social media could be a viable platform for inter-university-collaborative-learning, respondents hardly engaged in that. It was suggested that students create inter-university social media groups for collaborative learning. There were accounts of negative implications of using social media, like addiction and distractions. Students must adopt tactics to handle distractions which could prove helpful in out-of-school settings like the workplace.

A Study of Philosophical Theory and Educational Science of Insights on Ethics, Values, Characters, and Morals rooted into the Islamic and Contemporary Western Perspectives

The present article addresses the necessity for entrenching characters, morals, values, and ethical education in science teaching and science education. It explains the argument and rationale, and buttresses ethics, values, and nurturing of morals in students through a modified curriculum science education and describes their benefits to humanity. Additionally, the study discusses the rapidness of technological advancements, science, and globalization that are influencing the complications of human social life and underpinning the level of values, ethics, and morality in education and teaching sciences. Analyses and syntheses are presented to the pedagogical and philosophical questions related to the above-mentioned themes, as it may assist in conceptualizing and uttering a solid theoretical outline for the enhancement of school curricula. A proportional analysis in view of the philosophical, the collective Islamic moral education and values and hypothetical foundation of contemporary Western ethical education is outlined to generate and extend maximum academic benefits and to establish a supplemented theoretical background of character education and moral which may contribute to global acceptability of the character education and moral theoretical framework in Western.

Do younger children benefit more from cognitive and academic interventions? How training studies can provide insights into developmental changes in plasticity

Educational interventions are frequently designed to occur during early childhood, based on the idea that earlier intervention will have greater long-term academic benefits. However, surprisingly little is known about when cognitive and academic skills are most plastic, or malleable, during development. One way to study plasticity is to ask whether learning from targeted practice varies as a function of age. In this review, we summarize behavioral and neuroimaging studies that have tested for age-related differences in cognitive training gains, for executive functions, and for academic skills (reading and math). Findings are mixed, with no clear evidence for an overall younger age benefit. We discuss current challenges and opportunities for leveraging research on cognitive and brain plasticity to inform the timing and content of early academic interventions.

Utilizing a Growth Mindset and the Tadros Theory of Change to Increase Children’s Well-Being

Mindsets play huge roles in individuals’ goals, attitudes, relationships, motivation, and potential. A growth mindset is the desired mindset to have; it is very positive, learning focused, and encouraging. The academic benefits for students with growth mindsets include earning better grades, more motivation, and scoring higher on national standardized tests than students with fixed mindsets. Many studies have been conducted to determine the effects mindsets have on humans, specifically in terms of academics and overall well-being; however, there needs to be a stronger connection from research to practice to directly apply this mindset. The Tadros Theory of Change is integrated with a growth mindset to better conceptualize family strengths and structure as well as to empower and encourage growth and change. This article offers clinical implications for practice for both counselors and families and provides future research directions.

Which types of online evidence show the non-academic benefits of research? Websites cited in UK impact case studies

Whilst funders increasingly request evidence of the societal benefits of research, all academics in the UK must periodically provide this information to gain part of their block funding within the Research Excellence Framework (REF). The impact case studies produced in the UK are public and can therefore be used to gain insights into the types of sources used to justify societal impact claims. This study focuses on the URLs cited as evidence in the last public REF to help researchers and resource providers to understand what types can be used and the disciplinary differences in their uptake. Based on a new semi-automatic method to classify the URLs cited in impact case studies, the results show that there are a few key online types of source for most broad fields, but these sources differ substantially between subject areas. For example, news websites are more important in some fields than others, and YouTube is sometimes used for multimedia evidence in the arts and humanities. Knowledge of the common sources selected independently by thousands of researchers may help others to identify suitable sources for the complex task of evidencing societal impacts. Peer Review https://publons.com/publon/10.1162/qss_a_00145

Young Adult Literature (YAL): An Analytical Study Among Selected EFL Teachers in Jordanian Public Schools

The purpose of this study is to shed light on Young Adult literature (YAL) in Jordan. Eleven English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers and 62 EFL students in Jordanian public schools participated in this research to first measure their awareness of the YAL and to evaluate the academic benefits of integrating English YA literature into the Jordanian public school curricula. A group of EFL instructors and EFL learners were interviewed using a semi-structured guide. The instructors' interview questions focused on demographics, definitions of YA literature, age classification of YAL, benefits, and challenges of using YA novel in Jordanian English curricula. Questions for the learners centered on demographics, definition and age classification of YAL, and the use of YA novels in the EFL classroom. The study revealed that EFL teachers' reliance on the official curriculum tends to remove innovation and creativity from their teaching and limit their opportunities to adapt the curricula to the competence and interest of their EFL students. The research also revealed that EFL students who read English YA novels developed necessary competencies in both the English language and daily life experiences. The results showed that most EFL teachers in this research paper asserted that English YA novels positively affected EFL students in Jordan. This effect led to increased motivation and engagement in EFL classrooms. Received: 27 January 2021 / Accepted: 8 April 2021 / Published: 10 May 2021

The benefits of multiple arts-based field trips

The near-term social-emotional and academic benefits of arts-based field trips has been well documented, but a new study shows that multiple arts-based field trips can have positive effects that endure for multiple years. Laura Florick, Jay P. Greene, Rebecca Levenberg, and Rebecca Pogue describe a partnership between a school district and arts center in Atlanta in which students go on three field trips during the school year. Researchers sorted students into groups, with some attending all three field trips and others attending only one. Student surveys and school data provide evidence of the benefits of going on multiple field trips.

Evaluation of Building Safety System Aspect Based on Risk (Case Study Building Heritage in Jakarta)

Modern and cultural heritage buildings’ safety is mandatory. The damage they suffered, especially the heritage buildings, requires the owners and managers to further improve the supervision of the safety aspects. This study aims to identify, assess, and respond to the safety risk of the heritage buildings. This research was conducted in Jakarta utilizing interviews and questionnaires to identify the risks. Experts and other respondents were deliberately chosen were chosen according to their experience. The risks were analyzed by the probability and weight matrices. This study reveals three high risks and provides the solution to reduce the risk. In addition to academic benefits, the findings are beneficial for the owners and suggest the government carry out risk management.

Stunted upward mobility in a learning environment reduces the academic benefits of growth mindsets

Does stunted upward mobility in an educational system impede beneficial psychological processes of learning? We predicted that growth mindsets of intelligence, a well-established psychological stimulant to learning, would be less potent in low-mobility, as compared to high-mobility, learning environments. An analysis of a large cross-national dataset and a longitudinal experiment accumulated converging evidence for this hypothesis. Study 1 examined data from 15-y-old students across 30 countries (n = 235,141 persons). Replicating past findings, growth mindsets positively predicted students’ math, science, and reading literacy. More importantly, the country-level indicator of educational mobility (i.e., the percentage of children from low-education households to graduate from tertiary education) moderated the effect of growth mindsets. Depending on the subject, the gain in predicted academic performance from a one-unit increase in growth mindsets was reduced by 42 to 45% from a high-mobility to a low-mobility country. Results were robust with or without important covariates. Study 2 experimentally manipulated people’s perception of mobility in a carefully constructed learning environment. The moderating role of educational mobility was replicated and extended to learning behavior, which subsequently predicted performance. Evidence further suggests that in high-mobility environments, both advantaged and disadvantaged learners benefited from growth mindsets, albeit likely through diverging mechanisms; when the effect of growth mindsets was attenuated in low-mobility environments, the potential for the disadvantaged to overcome the performance gap was also limited. Implications for galvanizing the upward mobility of the disadvantaged, evaluating the effectiveness of mindset interventions, and conceptualizing social mobility from a psychological perspective are discussed.

“Monsters Are Coming!”: Learning Literacy and Playing Games

Background/Context There are recent trends of bringing highly defined, teacher-directed pedagogies into early-childhood contexts in Australia, the United States. and other Western contexts. While the justification for these moves is often the improvement of outcomes for young children, they ignore the large body of research that attests to the social, emotional, and academic benefits of children having time to play and to experience educational programs founded in play-based pedagogies. Focus of the study In this study, we were interested in considering how young children name their worlds in education contexts in which literacies and sustainability education are brought together as educational concepts. This article reports on the playing of one game over time and considers the opportunities that were created by the playing of the game and the competence of the young children in using the game to collaborate, to learn literacy, and to make spaces for other everyday business together. Setting The fieldwork which produced the data for this article involved two researchers attending a suburban Australian early-childhood education context regularly for one year. Participants The children and educators of the center were engaged in an approved program, in the year before school starts within Australian requirements. Therefore the children ranged in age from 3 to 5 years. Research design This article reports on a qualitative study of one class of young children and their educators. Data were collected during fieldwork visits over a period of one year. We observed the children's engagement in outdoor play, collecting data in the form of short video recordings, still images, field notes, and texts produced by the children. Conclusions Our analysis provides evidence that children can demonstrate competent understandings of how language, bodies, movement, and space position themselves and others. The children involved competently collaborated and used language and texts to get along and to sustain a game over many months. They were only able to achieve this because they were given space to play, to own and govern spaces of play, and to problem-solve together as issues arose. The opportunity to direct themselves and their friends was vital as they developed respectful language and literacy practices.