An inquiry into methods of initiating a teachers' training college course in education

PEOPLE who have themselves suffered from a particular disease are, not infrequently, sufficiently interested in the problem presented by the disease to study it and try to eliminate it. In other directions the same sort of thing may happen. This thesis provides a case in point, for when I was myself at Training College I felt that the work we did in Education, Psychology, and Method, was not adequate. It aroused in students<br>little enthusiasm, gave them little light in their professional task, and left them without direction or purpose. Our course was severely practical on the one side and remotely theoretical on the other.<br>Two years after leaving Training College, when writing to one of my lecturers, I suggested that we should have discussed the general purpose of education before we began to study teaching method in any subject, and that as we began to study the teaching of each subject we should consider the particular contributions made by that subject to the general purpose of education. I still incline to that opinion.

An inquiry into methods of initiating a teachers' training college course in education

PEOPLE who have themselves suffered from a particular disease are, not infrequently, sufficiently interested in the problem presented by the disease to study it and try to eliminate it. In other directions the same sort of thing may happen. This thesis provides a case in point, for when I was myself at Training College I felt that the work we did in Education, Psychology, and Method, was not adequate. It aroused in students<br>little enthusiasm, gave them little light in their professional task, and left them without direction or purpose. Our course was severely practical on the one side and remotely theoretical on the other.<br>Two years after leaving Training College, when writing to one of my lecturers, I suggested that we should have discussed the general purpose of education before we began to study teaching method in any subject, and that as we began to study the teaching of each subject we should consider the particular contributions made by that subject to the general purpose of education. I still incline to that opinion.

Optimizing Machine Translation to Overcome Mechanical Engineering Vocational Education Students Difficulties in Academic Writing

Background: Machine translation has been proved to be a favourable style to execute. However, some research evidence difficulties indicates that its focus is on students' difficulties in academic writing, not on how to overcome them by using machine translation. As a result, this research aims to determine how machine translation might be optimized to help mechanical engineering vocational education students with academic writing difficulties. Methodology: The data was collected from 27 second-semester mechanical engineering vocational education students currently enrolled in an English college course at one of the Universities in Jakarta. Questionnaires online were used to obtain the data, which was analyzed and interpreted descriptively. Questionnaire 1 is used to determine whether or not the subject utilized machine translation and, if so, what type of machine translation they used most frequently. Question 2 was split into two sections. PART A was modified from Xiao & Chen (2015), who described students' challenges with academic writing. It comprises 12 items that were delivered to 27 students via Google Form. Meanwhile, the findings of Lee (2020) have been adapted into PART B. Findings: The result of this study revealed that 27 students of mechanical engineering vocational education in one of the Universities in Jakarta encountered several academic writing difficulties such as grammar (construct grammatically correct sentences, the use of appropriate tenses), expressions (discourse markers, part of speech), and vocabulary (proper vocabulary choices and finding synonyms). Grammar problems are the most challenging, followed by vocabulary and phrases. The optimization of machine translation was also discovered to be the most effective way of overcoming vocabulary issues followed by grammar and expression. Conclusion: Academic writing issues emerge in the classroom. According to the findings, the most difficulties students encountered fell into the grammar aspect. On the other hand, the students considered that machine translation would be the most helpful in overcoming their vocabulary challenges. Although machine translation helps deal with academic writing difficulties like developing vocabulary skills, increasing knowledge of grammar rules in context, and finding more authentic expression, teachers should also guide them in writing academically. Keywords: optimizing machine translation; academic writing difficulties; grammar; vocabulary; expressions.

Learning to Call Bullsh*t via Induction: Categorization Training Improves Critical Thinking Performance

Participants performed a categorization training task, where each trial presented an example scenario in which an individual makes a claim based on an observation, and participants marked which fallacy or bias, if any, the individual in the scenario was committing. In two studies, we measure the effect of this training task on critical thinking, measured using an open-ended critical thinking assessment, both pre- and post-training. In Study 1, we pilot these materials in an online college course across a full academic semester and observe credible improvements in critical thinking performance. In Study 2, we conduct a pre-registered randomized controlled experiment using online research participants and observe credible improvements in critical thinking relative to no training, and relative to comparable learning activities focused on conventional curricular content. We infer that the categorization training task facilitated inductive learning of patterns of biased and flawed reasoning, which improved participants’ ability to detect and identify such patterns in the delayed open-ended critical thinking assessment. Such categorization training shows promise as an effective and practical method for improving learners’ resistance to online disinformation.

Turnout for What? Do Colleges Prepare Informed Voters?

One of the traditional aims of higher education is to prepare informed citizens who are civically engaged. Although many voters are underinformed, there are multiple social benefits to having an informed electorate. Therefore, colleges should aspire to not only increase student voter turnout but to prepare informed voters. In this article, I use matching procedures to account for precollege civic engagement and estimate treatment effects of taking at least one community college course. I find that taking political science influences college student voter registration, voter turnout, and ability to correctly answer questions about the roles of U.S. political institutions.

Beyond “Feeling Blessed”: Using International Documentary Film to Foster Global Awareness in an Online College Course

As US colleges and universities incorporate an international requirement for undergraduate students, this study assesses the value of an online international documentary course. The effect of documentary viewing was evaluated using students’ reflective essays, noting possible shifts in perspectives on international issues after film viewing. Findings show that students gained new knowledge, displayed empathy, felt “blessed” for their privileges, and were inspired to help others. Findings also reflected an ignorance about inequitable power relationships between the United States and other countries, producing an “othering” effect. Recommendations are provided for engaging students in more critical research and reflection about local-global connections.