Research? Learning? Exploring? Individual Knowledge Acquisition

The development and modification of learning skills did not follow the boom of the other areas. In the teaching materials verbal knowledge is still the most significant, which does not require thinking and creativity from the students during acquisition; what more, sometimes even the pedagogues do not like those students, who apply unique problem-solving strategies. Making the knowledge applicable does not happen via passive reception, but rather via active learning based on individual thinking and experiences. Research based knowledge acquisition may be applied already from the age of 10; and it enables an prepares children to get along creatively in our knowledge-based society, which requires the individual search and use of information and sources, sensitivity towards problems and a general knowledge of research methods. During the lecture I will introduce the working group of young researchers, where children learn the basics of research step-by-step and show how the roles of students and teachers change during the individual discoveries. So-called “Dunántúli Mandulafa” is a scientific competition of 10-19-year-old young researchers, where they show their first ever presentation and make their first scientific publication - considering the abilities originating from their age, certainly.

The Subject “Physical Education and Sport” in the Higher Schools in Bulgaria

The purpose of this report is to present briefly some problems about the physical education and sport in higher education institutions in Bulgaria, results of a survey with students from Sofia University “St. Kl. Ohridski”, as well as trends in the activities within the subject “Physical education and sport”. Emphasis is placed on the inclusion of the fitness within the types of sport offered to students; the present state of the system of fitness training in the higher school is being studied.

Hearing Impaired Children and ASD: The Importance of Early Identification and Intervention and its Role in Further Development of Life

Dealing with hard of hearing or deaf children plus ASD diagnosis has had limited data available in the literature. This article is a brief of overview of about the heterogeneity of hearing-impaired children’s group, the differential diagnostic aspects and difficulties in the professional field and summarizes of our team work. One of the key aspects of the article is the parents' view, the parents' informing. We introduce some single-case studies which demonstrate the Hungarian practice.

The Role of Feedback in Developing Reflective Competence

The role of feedback is unquestionably crucial in a teachers’ profession. In our context of teacher education giving effective feedback is also an essential skill and tool of pedagogical evaluation for developmental purposes when educating university students and future teachers. Effective feedback fosters development, gives guidance, opens windows and new opportunities. In addition, the descriptive nature of feedback has a lot more potentials and positive effect on the teacher-student relationship than traditional assessment. In addition, giving and receiving feedback can be considered the starting point of reflection. Only by having looked into ‘the mirror’ first can one face reality, review and analyse an experience and learn from it. As a result, teaching effective feedback skills through experiential learning is a very important element in reflective teacher education. Taking all the above into consideration, a lot of emphasis is put on teaching effective feedback skills at our Centre for Teacher Education of Károli Gáspár University. Moreover, we aim at changing our students’ perspectives in assessment practice through creating a more positive feedback culture. Giving and receiving feedback effectively can only be learnt by practice and reflecting on the experience. The ultimate aim is to develop our trainees’ reflective competence which serves as a basis for their continuous professional development. Our paper first aims at interpreting feedback from a pedagogical point of view and presenting our best practice in the context of developing trainees’ reflective competence. We shall also give details of everyday practice: how it is incorporated into the pedagogy, psychology and methodology seminars in preservice training. Finally, we shall discuss how and why developing feedback skills is also incorporated into our programme of school placement and mentor training.

Professional Development in Higher Education

The University of Debrecen is a participant of the PETRA project (Promoting Excellence in Teaching and Learning in Azerbaijani Universities) with the University of Jyvaskyla, Finland, University of Applied Sciences Vienna, Austria, Polytechnic University of Valencia, Spain. The aim of the project is promoting of teaching and learning excellence in Azerbaijan Universities, by supporting the professional development in higher education and, in the academic community. For this reason, the program wants to enhance the usage of technology and innovative forms of teaching, to provide support for designing courses and for choosing and using diverse approaches in assessment. The purpose of this study is to identify the possibilities of promoting the professional development in higher education and to explore the theoretical landscape: the roles and implications of the professional development. This paper explores the connections between the reflective behaviour of the teachers and their assessment methods and wants to provide new approaches to assessment in the context of the institutional strategies of the higher education. This paper argues for innovative forms of assessment such as the portfolios in teacher preparation or the group-based assessment forms - as methods of promoting higher quality learning. The study investigates the ways towards the autonomous assessment in the higher education, using self-assessment and peer assessment.

Blended Learning Opportunities in Ukrainian IT Public Education

Based on previous surveys the usage of ICT and blended learning is at a low level in Ukraine. To catch up with the European average, it is important to familiarize the students and teachers with blended learning in the secondary school. The information technology classes provide the best opportunity to introduce the blended learning, because they are well equipped with computing devices. This choice is positively affected by the new Ukrainian IT curriculum. The aim of this paper is to introduce the available options for blended learning in Ukrainian secondary IT education. By examining the curriculum, the possibilities of using the online space in the educational process has been determined. The blended learning methodology has been tried in practice as well.

Irony and Culture in Feminist Educational Writings: Wollstonecraft, Macaulay, Edgeworth

The context of the present paper is given by my research on philosophy of female education and the questions of female culture in the 18th and 19th centuries in England. I have been studying not only works of educationalist and philosophical concerns, but also literary works such as the education romans and utopias written in the related period. Female writings - either literary-utopian or educational-philosophical - seemingly rely on the framework and theoretical background of wellknown male works so that they should present a critical and ironical reading while also raise the questions of social solidarity and (e)quality in individual education. I will mainly highlight the strategies of feminist rhetoric, taking my textual examples from Mary Wollstonecraft’s anti- Rousseau A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), while I also refer to two of her contemporaries, Catherine Macaulay’s and Maria Edgeworth’s educational writings.

Socially Disadvantaged Social Groups and Adult Education: Chance for Integration?

Abstracts Nowadays, whether we discuss either adult education or continuing training we possess comprehensive knowledge of the input side of the trainings. We have detailed data of the accredited institutions, instructors, the structure, content and operational indicators of the trainings, still we know less of the drop-outs, absentees and the reasons for the low participation rate in adult education. We have minimal information even when we analyse the existing data concerning the outcome of the successfully finished adult educational programs.

Students’ Attitude Towards Arabic Language Varieties: The Case of the Fuṣḥā Arabic

Arabic speaking countries live in diglossic communities. This is where two or more varieties of a language are used by the same speech community. This paper examines students’ attitude towards Arabic language varieties. It focuses mainly on Egyptian students’ attitude towards the fuṣḥā on one hand and the Egyptian Arabic (EA) variety on the other. A survey of fifty university students from the American University in Cairo and Ain Shams University, Cairo was conducted using the questionnaire instrument. The data was analysed descriptively. The study reveals that Egyptian students have a slightly positive attitude towards the fuṣḥā Arabic. Notwithstanding, they tend to exhibit positive affective and behavioural tendencies towards EA. Based on this, the study proposes that language planners and for that matter, Arab states should adopt a vibrant ‘status planning’, whereby fuṣḥā is properly recognized and widely used in official and state institutions and functions.

Musical and Language Proficiency of Students Majoring in Singing

The aim of our study is to give an overview about language and musical skills of students in musical traning courses and we try to outline the effects of the sociocultural background in these fields. We would like to show the main patterns of language proficiency (the number of langugages they speak and levels of the language skills) and we also analyse the efficiency of language learning. The institutional language courses and the practices of interpretation in the original language will be analysed as well. Our questionnare was used in this analysis in the spring of 2017. Students from six higher educational institutions were the respondents. The number of the respondents was 90 and from the answers a database was created with the help of SPSS 19 Programme. Percents, means and chi-square statistics were used. We have verified our hypothesis which refers to the effects of students’ sociocultural background because these variables (parental education, economic capital, type of the settlement) have formed the chances and forms of the music learning (e.g. the starting date of learning music) and language skills. If we analyse the patterns of the language proficiency the central position of the English is obvious, but this pattern is not in line with the expectations of singing in the original language because the main body of vocal literature is composed in Italian, French, Russian and German. In our opinion this gap should be covered by the institutions as well and these requirements should be incorporated in the curricula.