Unveiling students’ writing argumentative essays barriers in online learning

Due to the closure of Schools and Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), HEIs had shifted the teaching and learning method from face-to-face to Screen-based learning, such as the use of Learning Management System or Moodle, and other applications. Moreover, screen-based learning, such as the use of Learning Management System or Moodle, and other applications the EFL students’ writing argumentative essays barriers in online learning as well as their learning strategies as alternative solutions to cope with them. The research employed descriptive qualitative design. The participants were six EFL students from the fifth semester who experienced writing argumentative essays during pandemic. The instrument used to gather the data was depth interviews about the issue of research. After analysis, it exposed three barriers in writing argumentative essays made by the participants, namely unusualness on the implementation of e-learning for writing, low bandwidth while learning, and students’ discouragement on writing argumentative essays. To overcome the barriers, students must be given a brief simulation previously before attending the real-time class, making classification and analogy for the complex materials up to the simple one, and get a relaxation during the argumentations class. So, it becomes a crystal clear that teacher must assist students to be aware of their weaknesses in writing argumentative essay class so that they can be more creative in writing. Besides, students are expected to be able to solve their barriers by maintaining well communication among the teachers and classmates to sharpen their understanding and implement the best learning styles individually.

Insect-Thinking as Resistance to Education’s Human Exceptionalism: Relationality and Cuts in More-Than-Human Childhoods

This article discusses the “more-than-human” turn in qualitative inquiry and education, engaging with the critiques presented by philosophers, animal studies scholars, and educational scholars toward the “too easy” adoption of an inclusive relational ontology. Based on Barad’s concept of re-turning, the article develops a methodology of insect-thinking, which folds memories as well as scientific and “low theoretical” sources in and out the analysis to re-narrate child–animal encounters as entangled with place, time, class, poverty, displacement, imagination, and planetary futures. Insect-thinking produces irritations and interruptions to the human exceptionalism that underpins educational research and childhood studies. Based on conflicts, avoidance, and violence in child–insect relations, the authors discuss “cuts in relationality” and propose insect-thinking as means to approach more-than-human worlds as both shared and incommensurable.

Constitutional and legal principles of Soviet Federalism

The subject of this research is establishment and development of the principles of Soviet federalism: ideocracy, class character, proletarian internationalism, party spirit, right of nations to self-determination, two-level nature, unity of legal space, dual sovereignty, inviolability of the territory of the republics, dual citizenship, etc. The goal lies in examination of the sources, peculiarities of constitutional layout, evolution of the principles of Soviet federalism, and their role in the crisis and downfall of the Soviet federalism. The author offers the   definitions of such phenomena as the Soviet federalism and the Soviet federation, which defines the novelty of this work. Classification is given to the principles of Soviet federalism in accordance with the criteria outlined by the author: 1) by the time of emergence, the principles are divided into ideological (ideocracy, class character, proletarian internationalism, party spirit, right of nations to self-determination, etc.) and state-legal (single citizenship, inviolability of the territories of the republics, unity of legal system, supremacy of federal legislation, etc.); 2) by the method of codification, the principles are divided into constitutional (ideocracy, class character, right of nations to self-determination, etc.), and stemming from the essence of constitutional norms (asymmetry, party spirit, two-level nature). It is noted that some principles of Soviet federalism fade their significance over time (class character), while others are eliminated from the constitutional and legal practice (principle of mutual control over observance of the all-union and republican legislation). It is substantiated that Soviet federalism was jeopardized mostly by the fundamental interrelated ideological principles: ideocracy, party spirit, and right of nations to self-determination. The author’s special contribution consists in introducing archival documents into the scientific discourse.

A study on untact online class operation －Focusing on 〈Inference and Argumentation〉 classes at University B

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced the majority of universities in Korea to switch to untact classes. However, we now expect that untact classes will expand even into the post-coronavirus era. Online learning has advantages when it comes to convenience, connectivity, and accessibility. In addition, many of the students who have experienced untact online classes expect to expand online classes if the qual-ity of the classes is guaranteed. Considering these points, it is necessary for us to seek qualitative improvements in the operation of untact classes.This study examines practical educational strategies and their effects in untact situations using the <Inference and Argumentation> course at University B in Bus-an as an example. The course consisted of pre-recorded video and real-time video classes in parallel every other week. In the pre-video class, students take in theo-retical explanations and conduct example solving activities, and assignments are required. The real-time class consists of the students solving the assignments tog-ether, so that prior learning and the real-time classes are organically linked. In the real-time class, students' problem solving was checked through chatting, enab-ling learners to understand and reinforce their understanding of learning. The eff-ectiveness of this untact class operation is checked through a questionnaire. In the questionnaire, not only the level of improvement in critical and logical thinking skills before and after learning were measured, but also their understanding of pre-recorded video classes. Although this is subjective survey, it is possible for us to gauge how much the learners' academic achievement has improved, as well as the educational efficacy they feel through the untact operation of the course.

Hierarchical clustering as a tool to develop a classification scheme for rabbit meat quality

<p>This study aimed to characterise the quality of meat from commercially-raised rabbits. Animals came from five different producers and were laughtered in three different plants under provincial or federal inspection jurisdiction. Animal behaviour evaluated by scan sampling prior to feed withdrawal (FW) and transport, as well as blood lactate concentration at exsanguination, did not raise concerns with respect to stress. Stomach pH was higher (<em>P</em>=0.047) when the FW time was short (≤13.5 h), at a mean value of 2.23. All pH values measured 1 h post-mortem from the Biceps femoris (BF) and almost all (97.6%) from the Longissimus lumborum (LL) were higher than 6. Values for ultimate pH measured 24 h postmortem(pH_u) ranged from 5.80 to 6.83 and from 5.70 to 6.70 for BF and LL muscles, respectively. The maximum meat drip loss recorded was 2.6%, while cooking loss reached 30%. Meat lightness (L*) and colour intensity (C*) for the long FW times (≥23 h) were no different from those with short and intermediate (15.5 to 17.3 h) FW times. However, these colour parameters were higher for the short FW time class compared to the intermediate FW time class (<em>P</em>&lt;0.02). A hierarchical cluster analysis based on pH_u, cooking loss and lightness (L*) from 200 rabbit loins was performed. Of the four clusters created, clusters 1 and 2 had the best and second-best meat quality, respectively. Clusters 3 and 4 had the lowest meat quality and presented DFD-like (dark, firm and dry) characteristics. Meat did not exhibit PSE-like (pale, soft, exudative) characteristics, even for the slaughter lot with the minimum mean pH_u. Of the eight slaughter lots evaluated, more than 50% of the meat from three of them fell into clusters 3 and 4; all three were in the intermediate FW time class. Overall, the quality of rabbit meat analysed was acceptable for commercial use, but rather variable. This suggests that there are factors within the value chain that are not yet fully controlled and require further investigation.</p>

Was (ver-)messen eigentlich Klassen? Zum Zusammenhang zwischen unterschiedlicher Operationalisierung sozialer Klassen und ihrer Erklärungskraft mit Blick auf Stratifikation und Ungleichheit in Deutschland

Deutsch: Darüber, wie die soziale Position in einer Gesellschaft am besten gemessen werden sollte, besteht keine Einigkeit. Da die Operationalisierung jedoch weitreichende Folgen für Forschungsdesign und Interpretation der Ergebnisse hat, werden hier sieben Konzeptionen sozialer Positionen auf ihre Erklärungskraft für ganz unterschiedliche Phänomene hin verglichen. Die Analyse sucht damit die vor allem methodische Frage zu beantworten, ob und wie sich die einzelnen Klassenmessungen in ihrer Erklärungskraft bezüglich Stratifikation und Klassenungleichheit bei 35 Eigenschaften von rund 25.000 Allbus-Befragten in Deutschland unterscheiden. Die Ergebnisse weisen darauf hin, dass Klassenzugehörigkeit Menschen nur in wenigen der hier untersuchten Eigenschaften wirklich stratifiziert. Gleichzeitig lassen sich aber bedeutende Klassenungleichheiten bei objektiven Statusindikatoren und intergenerationalen Mobilitätsmessungen finden. Während insgesamt Mikroklassen die höchste Erklärungskraft aufweisen, sind die Unterschiede in Bereichen, in denen aggregierte Klassifikationen eine besondere Erklärungsleistung für sich beanspruchen, marginal. Die Ergebnisse empfehlen neben den quasi paradigmatischen ESEC-Klassen auch andere der hier vorgestellten Klassifizierungen ergänzend in der Ungleichheitsanalyse einzusetzen. English: There is little agreement how to best measure social class position in contemporary societies. The chosen measurement, however, has substantial implications for a study‘s design and the interpretation of its findings. Therefore, I empirically compare the explanatory power of nine alternative social class concepts regarding their ability to map stratification and identify class inequality. The analysis is repeated for 35 characteristics measured in the Allbus data 1980 to 2018 for almost 25,000 individuals. Results indicate that class membership stratifies only few of the studied attributes. At the same time class concepts are able to detect meaningful class inequality especially in terms of but not limited to objective SES measures and social mobility indicators. While microclasses outperform more aggregated class measures in general, the differences are rather small in subject areas for which the latter theoretically claim particular explanatory power. In the spirit of parsimony, the results hence would seem to suggest the use of the more aggregated classifications at least with regard to some subject matters. I suggest to complement the almost exclusive usage of ESEC in contemporary stratification research with alternative class measures.

A study of the Bookery’s Library Assistants programme in Cape Town

The paper reports on a qualitative case study of one high school library. It forms part of a broader study of the Bookery’s School Library Project which has established 40 libraries in disadvantaged schools in Cape Town. The paper examines what difference the library is making to the school. The overarching aim is to find what might be learned from the Bookery’s Library Assistant (LA) programme about the staffing of school libraries in the South African context, where fewer than 20% of schools have functional libraries. The case study over two weeks comprised observations, interviews, and a questionnaire survey of the teachers. The working relations between the Bookery library assistant and the “teacher-librarian”, a full- time class teacher and the library’s driving force, are found to be crucial to the library’s sustainability. The library is clearly playing an important role in the students’ school experience and in meeting the information needs of teachers in their classroom teaching. But, despite general beliefs that the library is “a good thing”, only a minority of teachers integrate it into their teaching. It seems that teachers lack insight into the role of a library and information literacy in 21st century learning. Other key restrictions on the fulfilment of the library’s potential are its limited collections and the lack of ICTs. In the words of one participant, the overall conclusion is that “ It is helping but there are limitations”.