It is argued that if we decide to keep a technology or practice if we get at least one positive result from it, we do not have to change anything at all. Even factory farming, and wars, have some positive results... Due to the complexity and all the "smart" devices and apps, we may have started to feel, think and connect less. However, we have definitely not lost these deep-rooted properties of our human nature. We only have to put the devices away, play a board game together, or go for a walk in nature, and our sense of direction returns almost immediately, literally and figuratively. Addiction to our modern substances is broad, but superficial. There is a way back, or rather forward. We have lost nothing, not even our judgment, we know that we should not believe in innovation, but in our own Inner Development
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An essay about magical thinking. 'Magical thinking' is commonly seen as negative, irrational, and problematic, but it can be a source of joy, too.
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Technological developments have a major impact on how we live, work and learn together. Several authors refer to a fourth revolution in which robots and other intelligent systems take over an increasing number of the current (routine) tasks carried out by humans (Brynjolfsson & McAfee, 2014; Est et al., 2015; Ford, 2016; Helbing, 2014; Ross, 2017; Schwab, 2016). The relationship between man and machine will change fundamentally as a result. We are already noticing this shift, most specifically in the workplace. E.g., in the field of health care, digitalisation and robotisation can empower patients and their families. Hospitals are primarily intended for clients with complex care needs. This has consequences for the tasks carried out by nurses, who become more of a ‘care director’ or ‘research nurse’. Hospitals approach this in different ways, resulting in considerable diversity as to how these roles are fulfilled. These changes, albeit diverse, can also be seen in the roles of accountants, police officers and financial advisers at banks (Biemans, Sjoer, Brouwer and Potting, 2017). The traditional occupational profiles no longer exist and the essence of these professions is shifting. This does not make such occupations less attractive, but requires different qualities. The demand for more highly educated professionals who can carry out complex tasks in a creative and interdisciplinary manner will increase (McKinsey, 2017). Also, other social developments, such as migration and greenification, prompt us to ask new questions, resulting in new paths towards identifying solutions.
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Efforts to create age-friendly cities progressively intersect with goals for environmental sustainability. The older people’s beliefs, behaviours and financial aspects regarding environmental sustainability in their lives are an understudied topic and not well understood. Therefore, a representative survey was conducted using the psychometrically sound and comprehensive SustainABLE-16 Questionnaire. A total of 388 respondents, who were community-dwelling older people in The Hague, filled out the survey completely. Overall, the mean scores on the SustainABLE-16 for finance- and environment-driven pro-environmental behaviours, beliefs and the financial position among older people were positive for all districts of The Hague. Using the outcomes of the survey, a total of six unique typologies were identified through a two-step process combining hierarchical and k-means cluster analyses. These six typologies are 1 the staunch non-believers, 2 the finance-driven non-believers, 3 the everyday individuals, 4 belief-driven people with limited financial resources, 5 believing non-responders, 6 the affluent and engaging people. These six typologies each require different approaches from policymakers. Sustainabilityrelated policies should ideally focus on groups with high scores for pro-environmental behaviours but who have shortcomings in knowledge how to improve one’s everyday lifestyle and groups who lack the necessary financial means to live a more sustainable life.
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In this article we focus upon a division between generalized schools of philosophical and ethical thought about culture and conservation. There is an ongoing debate playing out over conservation between those who believe conservation threatens community livelihoods and traditional practices, and those who believe conservation is essential to protect nonhuman species from the impact of human development and population growth. We argue for reconciliation between these schools of thought and a cooperative push toward the cultivation of an environmentally-focused perspective that embraces not only social and economic justice but also concern for non-human species. Our goal is to underline the ethics and tangible benefits that may result from combining the cultural data and knowledge of the social sciences with understanding of environmental science and conservation. We highlight instances in which social scientists overlook their own anthropocentric bias in relationship to ecological justice, or justice for all species, in favor of exclusive social justice among people. We focus on the polemical stances of this debate in order to emphasize the importance of a middle road of cooperation that acknowledges the rights of human and nonhuman species, alike. In conclusion, we present an alternative set of ethics and research activities for social scientists concerned with conservation and offer ideas on how to reconcile the conflicting interests of people and the environment. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2015.01.030 https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenkopnina/
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Abstract Educational escape rooms (EERs) are live-action, team-based games used to teach content-related and generic knowledge and skills. Instead of students just playing the EER, we believed that giving them the opportunity to create their own EERs would augment the learning efects of this teaching method. We report on the feasibility, evaluation, and lessons learned of our assignment on an opioid epidemic-based EER. This original teaching method appealed to most students, but the workload was evaluated to be too high. Our lessons learned include the need for sufcient (extrinsic) motivation, careful explanation of the assignment, and small group sizes.
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The online presence of organizations is long gone from being just a web page. Social media have enabled easy and inexpensive interaction between millions of individuals and communities. This has not gone unnoticed by cultural heritage institutes. The question is what all these social media activities bring. Even if an institute knows what it tries to achieve online, the metrics often consist of confusing accumulation of statistics, across several systems and reveal little about online user behaviour, engagement and satisfaction. In the research project Museum Compass a prototype of a social media monitor is developed, which will contain data of current and historic online activities on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Foursquare and Flickr of all registered Dutch museums. The first version of this monitor has been developed, and we believe that this is a good moment to discuss – mostly in a practical sense – our general approach and preliminary results.
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This research investigates to what extent lecturers at universities of applied sciences do regard differentiated rewards—intended to develop and/or display professionalism—to be fair, and to what extent, and in which form, do these stimulate their willingness to (further) professionalise and/or display professionalism. This was a case study research design, and a factorial survey measurement technique was used to collect data. We argue that lecturers believe it is fair that forms of differentiated rewards are used and applied in order to have them develop and/or display more professionalism. Especially the viewpoints/practices that relate to coordination, consultation, and consideration for personal circumstances have an influence on the justice perceived. This paper contributes to the HRM literature confirming that lecturers appreciate financial stimuli enhancing their professionalism; however, elements such as consultation, respect, coordination, and communication are appreciated even more. It appeals to HRM to design new practices which have more stimulating effect on personal and professional growth in subject-specific knowledge.
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Feedback is one of the most powerful tools teachers can use to enhance student learning. In 2006, the Dutch Inspectorate of Education concluded from classroom observations that it is difficult for Dutch teachers to give their students good feedback in order to stimulate students' learning process and developmental progress. Similar problems were revealed in other school levels and countries, for example in secondary education and in Finland. Giving feedback during active learning may be even more troublesome for teachers. During active learning, students are working in small groups on different learning goals and undertake different learning activities at the same time. They need to achieve task-related goals as well as to develop the meta-cognitive knowledge and skills that are needed for active learning. Yet, teachers often seem unable to provide the feedback that is needed and they do not know how to support the development of meta-cognitive knowledge and skills.Therefore, this research project focused on ways to improve primary school teachers' feedback giving practices during active learning. The central research question is: How can primary school teachers learn to give optimal feedback to pupils during active learning? To answer this question, five studies have been conducted. In the first study, knowledge regarding teachers' feedback practices was gathered. A category system was developed based on the literature and empirical data. A total of 1465 teacher-student interactions of 32 teachers who practiced active learning in the domain of environmental studies in the sixth, seventh or eighth grade of 13 Dutch primary schools were videotaped and assessed using this system. Results showed that about half of the teacher-student interactions contained feedback. This feedback was usually focused on the tasks that were being performed by the students and on the ways in which these tasks were processed. Only 5% of the feedback was explicitly related to a learning goal. In their feedback, the teachers were directing (rather than facilitating) the learning processes. During active learning, however, feedback on meta-cognition and social learning is important. Feedback should be explicitly related to learning goals. In practice, these kinds of feedback appear to be scarce. In the second study, the problems these 32 primary school teachers perceive and the beliefs they hold regarding the provision of feedback were investigated. A writing task and an interview were conducted. It appeared that teachers believed that conditional teacher skills, especially time management, hindered them most from giving good feedback. The most widely held belief was that 'feedback should be positive'. Teachers also believed that it is important to adopt a facilitative way of giving feedback, but they found this difficult to implement. Only some teachers believed goal-directedness and a focus on student meta-cognition were important during active learning and teachers did not perceive problems regarding these aspects. In the third study, a professional development program (PDP) was developed, implemented and evaluated. The goals and content of the PDP were based on a review of the literature regarding feedback and active learning and on the results of the preceding studies. The design of the PDP was based on the extant literature regarding the features which are considered to be important for PDPs, including structural features, goal setting and characteristics of the professional development activities that are part of the program. Effects of this PDP on 16 primary schoolteachers' knowledge, beliefs, perceived problems and classroom behavior were examined via observations, a writing task and a questionnaire prior and twice after the program was implemented. Results showed that several aspects of feedback during active learning were improved, both in the short and in the long term. For example, teachers learned to believe that feedback must be goal-directed and that learning goals need to be communicated to students. In the classrooms, teachers related their feedback more often explicitly to the learning goals. In the fourth study, the extent to which teachers attributed the success of the PDP to each of the purposefully implemented features of the PDP was examined. The 16 teachers that participated in the PDP completed a questionnaire and four focus group interviews were conducted. Results indicated that teachers value most features quite highly; all features contributed to teachers' professional development according to the teachers themselves. The qualitative data was used to illustrate and specify the theoretical knowledge regarding the features that appeared to be effective in PDP's. Finally, in the fifth study, the learning process of two of the participating teachers was described in detail. Written reflections, as well as videotaped reflections during the video interaction training meetings were analyzed and related to the effects of the PDP on both teachers' knowledge, beliefs, perceived problems and classroom behavior during te course of the PDP. By relating the learning processes of these two teachers to the literature regarding professional development, we aimed for a rich understanding of the impact of the PDP on teachers' professional development.
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