Search results for: reading training

Authors: Idha Novianti, Suci Nurhayati, Puryati, Elang Krisnadi

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Community service activities are activities of the academic community in practicing and cultivating science, knowledge, and technology to advance the general welfare and educate the nation's life as described in the Higher Education Law. Training activities on the use of GeoGebra software are an option because GeoGebra software is software that is easy to operate and complete in the presentation of graphic design. The training activity was held for 3 hours online via teams and 3 hours offline. Involving 15 junior high school mathematics teachers located around south Tangerang. As a result, all teachers were satisfied with the activity, and they had additional new knowledge and skills to teach mathematics in the topic of geometry and algebra. The existence of new knowledge made the participants increase their confidence in developing mathematical science for students at school.

Keywords: geogebra, Ms. teams, junior high school teacher, mathematics

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Authors: Jindong Gu, Matthias Schubert, Volker Tresp

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In many outlier detection tasks, only training data belonging to one class, i.e., the positive class, is available. The task is then to predict a new data point as belonging either to the positive class or to the negative class, in which case the data point is considered an outlier. For this task, we propose a novel corrupted Generative Adversarial Network (CorGAN). In the adversarial process of training CorGAN, the Generator generates outlier samples for the negative class, and the Discriminator is trained to distinguish the positive training data from the generated negative data. The proposed framework is evaluated using an image dataset and a real-world network intrusion dataset. Our outlier-detection method achieves state-of-the-art performance on both tasks.

Keywords: one-class classification, outlier detection, generative adversary networks, semi-supervised learning

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Authors: Muntanavadee Maytapattana

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The purposes of the study were to evaluate the effectiveness of the Parent Training Program for Obesity Reduction (PTPOR) on health behaviors of school-age children. An Ecological Systems Theory (EST) was approached the study and a randomized control trial was used in this study. Participants were school-age overweight or obese children and their parents. One hundred and one parent-child dyads were recruited and random assigned into the PTPOR (N=30), Educational Intervention or EI (N=32), and control group (N=39). The parents in the PTPOR group participated in five sessions including an educational session, a cooking session, aerobic exercise training, 2-time group discussion sessions, and 4-time telephoned counseling sessions. Repeated Measure ANCOVA was used to analyze data. The results presented that the outcomes of the PTPOR group were better than the EI and the control groups at 1st, 8th, and 32nd weeks after finishing the program such as child exercise behavior (F(2,97) = 3.98, p = .02) and child dietary behavior (F(2,97) = 9.42, p = .00). The results suggest that nurses and health care providers should utilize the PTPOR for child weight reduction and for the health promotion of a lifestyle among overweight and obese children.

Keywords: parent training program, obesity reduction, child health behaviors, school-age children

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Authors: Tamara Bastianello, Rachele Ferrari, Marinella Majorano

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The adoption of the syllabic approach in preschool programmes could support and reinforce meta-phonological awareness and literacy skills in children. The introduction of a meta-phonological intervention in preschool could facilitate the transition to primary school, especially for children with learning fragilities. In the present contribution, we want to investigate the efficacy of "Simo-syl" intervention in enhancing emergent literacy skills in children (especially for reading). Simo-syl is a 12 weeks multimedia programme developed for children to improve their language and communication skills and later literacy development in preschool. During the intervention, Simo-syl, an invented character, leads children in a series of meta-phonological games. Forty-six Italian preschool children (i.e., the Simo-syl group) participated in the programme; seventeen preschool children (i.e., the control group) did not participate in the intervention. Children in the two groups were between 4;10 and 5;9 years. They were assessed on their vocabulary, morpho-syntactical, meta-phonological, phonological, and phono-articulatory skills twice: 1) at the beginning of the last year of the preschool through standardised paper-based assessment tools and 2) one week after the intervention. All children in the Simo-syl group took part in the meta-phonological programme based on the syllabic approach. The intervention lasted 12 weeks (three activities per week; week 1: activities focused on syllable blending and spelling and a first approach to the written code; weeks 2-11: activities focused on syllables recognition; week 12: activities focused on vowels recognition). Very few children (Simo-syl group = 21, control group = 9) were tested again (post-test) one week after the intervention. Before starting the intervention programme, the Simo-syl and the control groups had similar meta-phonological, phonological, lexical skills (all ps > .05). One week after the intervention, a significant difference emerged between the two groups in their meta-phonological skills (syllable blending, p = .029; syllable spelling, p = .032), in their vowel recognition ability (p = .032) and their word reading skills (p = .05). An ANOVA confirmed the effect of the group membership on the developmental growth for the word reading task (F (1,28) = 6.83, p = .014, ηp2 = .196). Taking part in the Simo-syl intervention has a positive effect on the ability to read in preschool children.

Keywords: intervention programme, literacy skills, meta-phonological skills, syllabic approach

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Authors: P. Weerkamp Bartholomeus

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Autism treatment evaluation is crucial for monitoring the development of an intervention at an early stage. ‘ReAttach’ is a new intervention based on the principles of attachment and social cognitive training. Practical research suggests promising results on a variety of developmental areas. Five years after the first ReAttach sessions these findings can be extended with qualitative research by means of follow-up interviews. The potential impact of this treatment on daily life functioning and well-being of autistic persons becomes clear.

Keywords: autism, innovation, treatment, social cognitive training

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Authors: J. Chow

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In laboratory settings, this study measured and reported the effects of undergraduate students watching animated videos on learning microeconomics as compared with the effectiveness of reading written texts. The study described an experiment on learning microeconomics in higher education using two different types of learning materials. It reported the effectiveness on microeconomics learning of watching animated videos and reading written texts. Undergraduate students in the university were randomly assigned to either a ‘video group’ or a ‘text group’ in the experiment. Previously-validated multiple-choice questions on fundamental concepts of microeconomics were administered. Both groups showed improvement between the pre-test and post-test. The experience of learning using text and video materials was also assessed. After controlling the student characteristics variables, the analyses showed that both types of materials showed comparable level of perceived learning experience. The effect size and statistical significance of these results supported the hypothesis that animated video is an effective alternative to text materials as a learning tool for students. The findings suggest that such animated videos may support teaching microeconomics in higher education.

Keywords: animated videos for education, laboratory experiment, microeconomics education, undergraduate economics education

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Authors: Jonathan Sohn

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Deep neural networks (DNNs) have shown state-of-the-art performance for many applications, including computer vision, natural language processing, and speech recognition. Recently, adversarial attacks have been studied in the context of deep neural networks, which aim to alter the results of deep neural networks by modifying the inputs slightly. For example, an adversarial attack on a DNN used for object detection can cause the DNN to miss certain objects. As a result, the reliability of DNNs is undermined by their lack of robustness against adversarial attacks, raising concerns about their use in safety-critical applications such as autonomous driving. In this paper, we focus on studying the adversarial attacks and defenses on DNNs for image classification. There are two types of adversarial attacks studied which are fast gradient sign method (FGSM) attack and projected gradient descent (PGD) attack. A DNN forms decision boundaries that separate the input images into different categories. The adversarial attack slightly alters the image to move over the decision boundary, causing the DNN to misclassify the image. FGSM attack obtains the gradient with respect to the image and updates the image once based on the gradients to cross the decision boundary. PGD attack, instead of taking one big step, repeatedly modifies the input image with multiple small steps. There is also another type of attack called the target attack. This adversarial attack is designed to make the machine classify an image to a class chosen by the attacker. We can defend against adversarial attacks by incorporating adversarial examples in training. Specifically, instead of training the neural network with clean examples, we can explicitly let the neural network learn from the adversarial examples. In our experiments, the digit recognition accuracy on the MNIST dataset drops from 97.81% to 39.50% and 34.01% when the DNN is attacked by FGSM and PGD attacks, respectively. If we utilize FGSM training as a defense method, the classification accuracy greatly improves from 39.50% to 92.31% for FGSM attacks and from 34.01% to 75.63% for PGD attacks. To further improve the classification accuracy under adversarial attacks, we can also use a stronger PGD training method. PGD training improves the accuracy by 2.7% under FGSM attacks and 18.4% under PGD attacks over FGSM training. It is worth mentioning that both FGSM and PGD training do not affect the accuracy of clean images. In summary, we find that PGD attacks can greatly degrade the performance of DNNs, and PGD training is a very effective way to defend against such attacks. PGD attacks and defence are overall significantly more effective than FGSM methods.

Keywords: deep neural network, adversarial attack, adversarial defense, adversarial machine learning

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Authors: W. Staiano, S. Marcora

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Introduction: It has been proposed that acute negative effect of mental fatigue (MF) could potentially become a training stimulus for the brain (Brain endurance training (BET)) to adapt and improve its ability to attenuate MF states during sport competitions. Purpose: The aim of this study was to test the efficacy of 6 weeks of BET on cognitive and cycling tests in a group of well-trained subjects. We hypothesised that combination of BET and standard physical training (SPT) would increase cognitive capacity and cycling performance by reducing rating of perceived exertion (RPE) and increase resilience to fatigue more than SPT alone. Methods: In a randomized controlled trial design, 26 well trained participants, after a familiarization session, cycled to exhaustion (TTE) at 80% peak power output (PPO) and, after 90 min rest, at 65% PPO, before and after random allocation to a 6 week BET or active placebo control. Cognitive performance was measured using 30 min of STROOP coloured task performed before cycling performance. During the training, BET group performed a series of cognitive tasks for a total of 30 sessions (5 sessions per week) with duration increasing from 30 to 60 min per session. Placebo engaged in a breathing relaxation training. Both groups were monitored for physical training and were naïve to the purpose of the study. Physiological and perceptual parameters of heart rate, lactate (LA) and RPE were recorded during cycling performances, while subjective workload (NASA TLX scale) was measured during the training. Results: Group (BET vs. Placebo) x Test (Pre-test vs. Post-test) mixed model ANOVA’s revealed significant interaction for performance at 80% PPO (p = .038) or 65% PPO (p = .011). In both tests, groups improved their TTE performance; however, BET group improved significantly more compared to placebo. No significant differences were found for heart rate during the TTE cycling tests. LA did not change significantly at rest in both groups. However, at completion of 65% TTE, it was significantly higher (p = 0.043) in the placebo condition compared to BET. RPE measured at ISO-time in BET was significantly lower (80% PPO, p = 0.041; 65% PPO p= 0.021) compared to placebo. Cognitive results in the STROOP task showed that reaction time in both groups decreased at post-test. However, BET decreased significantly (p = 0.01) more compared to placebo despite no differences accuracy. During training sessions, participants in the BET showed, through NASA TLX questionnaires, constantly significantly higher (p < 0.01) mental demand rates compared to placebo. No significant differences were found for physical demand. Conclusion: The results of this study provide evidences that combining BET and SPT seems to be more effective than SPT alone in increasing cognitive and cycling performance in well trained endurance participants. The cognitive overload produced during the 6-week training of BET can induce a reduction in perception of effort at a specific power, and thus improving cycling performance. Moreover, it provides evidence that including neurocognitive interventions will benefit athletes by increasing their mental resilience, without affecting their physical training load and routine.

Keywords: cognitive training, perception of effort, endurance performance, neuro-performance

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Authors: Pema Choejey, David Murray, Chun Che Fung

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Bhutan is becoming increasingly dependent on Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs), especially the Internet for performing the daily activities of governments, businesses, and individuals. Consequently, information systems and networks are becoming more exposed and vulnerable to cybersecurity threats. This paper highlights the findings of the survey study carried out to understand the perceptions of cybersecurity implementation among government organizations in Bhutan. About 280 ICT personnel were surveyed about the effectiveness of cybersecurity implementation in their organizations. A questionnaire based on a 5 point Likert scale was used to assess the perceptions of respondents. The questions were asked on cybersecurity practices such as cybersecurity policies, awareness and training, and risk management. The survey results show that less than 50% of respondents believe that the cybersecurity implementation is effective: cybersecurity policy (40%), risk management (23%), training and awareness (28%), system development life cycle (34%); incident management (26%), and communications and operational management (40%). The findings suggest that many of the cybersecurity practices are inadequately implemented and therefore, there exist a gap in achieving a required cybersecurity posture. This study recommends government organizations to establish a comprehensive cybersecurity program with emphasis on cybersecurity policy, risk management, and awareness and training. In addition, the research study has practical implications to both government and private organizations for implementing and managing cybersecurity.

Keywords: awareness and training, cybersecurity policy, risk management, security risks

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Authors: Jui-Chen Huang, Shou-Hsiung Cheng

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This study examined their willingness to use telecare for people who have had experience falling in the last three months in Taiwan. This study adopted convenience sampling and a structural questionnaire to collect data. It was based on the definition and the constructs related to the Health Belief Model (HBM). HBM is comprised of seven constructs: perceived benefits (PBs), perceived disease threat (PDT), perceived barriers of taking action (PBTA), external cues to action (ECUE), internal cues to action (ICUE), attitude toward using (ATT), and behavioral intention to use (BI). This study adopted Fuzzy Neural Network (FNN) to put forward an effective method. It shows the dependence of ATT on PB, PDT, PBTA, ECUE, and ICUE. The training and testing data RMSE (root mean square error) are 0.028 and 0.166 in the FNN, respectively. The training and testing data RMSE are 0.828 and 0.578 in the regression model, respectively. On the other hand, as to the dependence of ATT on BI, as presented in the FNN, the training and testing data RMSE are 0.050 and 0.109, respectively. The training and testing data RMSE are 0.529 and 0.571 in the regression model, respectively. The results show that the FNN method is better than the regression analysis. It is an effective and viable good way.

Keywords: fall, fuzzy neural network, health belief model, telecare, willingness

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Authors: Csilla Marianna Szabó

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In Hungary, the society has changes a lot for the past 25 years, and these changes could be detected in educational situations as well. The number and the intensity of conflicts have been increased in most fields of life, as well as at schools. Teachers have difficulties to be able to handle school conflicts. What is more, the new net generation, generation Z has values and behavioural patterns different from those of the previous one, which might generate more serious conflicts at school, especially with teachers who were mainly socialising in a traditional teacher – student relationships. In Hungary, the bill CCIV, 2011 declared the foundation of Institutes of Teacher Training in higher education institutes. One of the tasks of the Institutes is to survey the competences and needs of teachers working in public education and to provide further trainings and services for them according to their needs and requirements. This job is supported by the Social Renewal Operative Programs 4.1.2.B. The Institute of Teacher Training at the College of Dunaújváros, Hungary carried out a questionnaire and surveyed the needs and the requirements of teachers working in the Central Transdanubian region. Based on the results, the professors of the Institute of Teacher Training decided to meet the requirements of teachers and launch short courses in spring 2015. One of the courses is going to focus on school conflict management through mediation. The aim of the pilot course is to provide conflict management techniques for teachers presenting different mediation techniques to them. The theoretical part of the course (5 hours) will enable participants to understand the main points and the advantages of mediation, while the practical part (10 hours) will involve teachers in role plays to learn how to cope with conflict situations applying mediation. We hope if conflicts could be reduced, it would influence school atmosphere in a positive way and the teaching – learning process could be more successful and effective.

Keywords: conflict resolution, generation Z, mediation, teacher training

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Authors: Katharine Pollock

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Feminist scholars assert that a defining aspect of feminist confessional literature is that it expresses both an individual and communal identity, one which is predicated on the commonly-shared aspects of female experience. Reading feminist confessional literature in this way accommodates a plurality of readerly experiences and textual interpretations. It affirms the individual whilst acknowledging those experiences which bind women together, and refuses traditional objective criticism. It invites readers to see themselves reflected in the text, and encourages them to share their own stories. Similarly, music which communicates women’s personal experience, fictive or not, expresses a dual identity. There is an inherent risk of imposing a confessional reading upon a musical or literary text. Understanding music as being multivocal in the same way as confessional literature negates this patriarchal tendency, and allows listeners to engage with both the subjective and collective aspects of a text. By hearing their own stories reflected in the music, listeners engage in an ongoing dialogic process in which female stories are prioritised. This refuses patriarchal silencing and ensures a diversity of female voices. To demonstrate the veracity of these claims, literary criticism is applied to Lily Allen’s music, and memoir My Thoughts Exactly.

Keywords: confession, female, feminist, literature, music

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Authors: Vinodd Nayak

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10th & 12th are the most crucial period in a student’s life. It is the time when he or she has to make vital career choices and get the relevant professional education. Unfortunately most students are not aware of the multitudes of career options available to them. This leads to affect our social fabric of the society with issues like unemployment, stress etc. We have planned a guidance program for the youth in Maharashtra state which has 4 components; creating awareness about different career options, proper guidance and motivation, counseling for parents, and information on financial aid for unemployed youth we are conducting skill development programs. Currently we are conducting programs under 4 categories Uneducated Youth: Skill Development programs for unemployed youth in construction field (Carpentry/Masoning/Wlder/Electrician/Tiling etc..) in association with L&T Construction Training Institute Educated Youth: Il&FS: Training and Job Placement in the field of Finance and Customer Service NIS Sparta: Training and Job Placement in the field of Sales and Marketing Apeejay Inst. of Hotel Management: Training and Job Placement in the field of hospitality industry Skill India: Training and Job Placement in the field of IT Results: The results were really overwhelming. We were able to cater to approx. 10,000 students a year and the list is growing. Earlier we were only catering to schools and colleges, now we have started receiving invitations from other community organizations to conduct such programs for their communities Implications for Social Work and Social Development practice: It is a high time that Social work organisations need to get into such work as this will enhance people to improve their financial condition. We always believed that it is better to teach a man to fish than feed him.

Keywords: youth education, career guidance, skill development, parental guidance

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Authors: Yair Bleiberg, Michael Werman

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Coordinate-based Multi-Layer Perceptrons (MLPs) are known to have difficulty reconstructing high frequencies of the training data. A common solution to this problem is Positional Encoding (PE), which has become quite popular. However, PE has drawbacks. It has high-frequency artifacts and adds another hyper hyperparameter, just like batch normalization and dropout do. We believe that under certain circumstances, PE is not necessary, and a smarter construction of the network architecture together with a smart training method is sufficient to achieve similar results. In this paper, we show that very simple MLPs can quite easily output a frequency when given input of the half-frequency and quarter-frequency. Using this, we design a network architecture in blocks, where the input to each block is the output of the two previous blocks along with the original input. We call this a Fibonacci Network. By training each block on the corresponding frequencies of the signal, we show that Fibonacci Networks can reconstruct arbitrarily high frequencies.

Keywords: neural networks, positional encoding, high frequency intepolation, fully connected

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Authors: Bakr M. Saeid

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Psychological flexibility is a basic ability that allows people to adapt to a changing, difficult world. TRIZ is a Theory of Solving Inventive Problems that has many applications in both science & technology and creativity development; this research aimed to investigate the impact of basic TRIZ training on psychological flexibility among university students. The research sample included (30) university students divided into two groups: experimental group (n=15) and control group (n=15). The Psychological Flexibility Questionnaire (PFQ) was conducted in the pre-test and post-test on the experimental and control group, as the study treatment was applied to the experimental group only. Data were analyzed statistically by the Mann-Whitney test and Wilcoxon z test; results showed the effectiveness of the TRIZ training program on the development of psychological flexibility and its five factors. Results were interpreted, recommendations were presented.

Keywords: psychological flexibility, TRIZ, positive perception of change, self as flexible and innovative, perception of reality

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Authors: Ira Slabodar

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Autonomous learning in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) refers to the use of target language, learner collaboration and students’ responsibility for their learning. Teachers play a vital role of mediators and facilitators in self-regulated method. Thus, their perception of self-guided practices dictates their implementation of this approach. While research has predominantly focused on inadequate administration of autonomous learning in school mostly due to lack of appropriate teacher training, this study examined whether novice teachers who were exposed to extensive autonomous practices were likely to implement this method in their teaching. Twelve novice teachers were interviewed to examine their perception of learner autonomy and their administration of this method. It was found that three-thirds of the respondents experienced a gap between familiarity with autonomous learning and a favorable attitude to this approach and their deficient integration of self-directed learning. Although learner-related and institution-oriented factors played a role in this gap, it was mostly caused by the respondents’ not being genuinely autonomous. This may be due to indirect exposure rather than explicit introduction of the learner autonomy approach. The insights of this research may assist curriculum designers and heads of teacher training programs to rethink course composition to guarantee the transfer of methodologies into EFL classes.

Keywords: learner autonomy, teacher training, english as a foreign language (efl), genuinely autonomous teachers, explicit instruction, self-determination theory

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Authors: Anna Moskaleva

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A prolific body of research in theoretical and experimental linguistics claims that a preference for conceptual or grammatical information in the process of agreement greatly depends on the type of agreement dependency. According to the agreement hierarchy, an anaphoric agreement is more sensitive to semantic or conceptual rather than grammatical information of an antecedent. Furthermore, a higher linear distance between a pronoun and its antecedent is assumed to trigger semantic agreement, yet the hierarchical distance is hardly examined in the research field, and the contribution of each distance factor is unclear. Apart from that, working memory volume is deemed to play a role in maintaining grammatical information during language comprehension. The aim of this study is to observe distance and working memory effects in resolution of anaphora with collective nominals (e.g., team) and to have a closer look at the interaction of the factors. Collective nominals in many languages can have a holistic or distributive meaning and can be addressed by a singular or a plural pronoun, respectively. We investigated linguistic factors of linear and rhetorical (hierarchical) distance and a more general factor of working memory volume in their ability to facilitate the interpretation of the number feature of a collective noun in Russian. An eye-tracking reading experiment on comprehension has been conducted where university students were presented with composed texts, including collective nouns and personal pronouns alluding to them. Different eye-tracking measures were calculated using statistical methods. The results have shown that a significant increase in reading time in the case of a singular pronoun was demonstrated when both distances were high, and no such effect was observed when just one of the distances was high. A decrease in reading time has been obtained with distance in the case of a plural pronoun. The working memory effect was not revealed in the experiment. The resonance of distance factors indicates that not only the linear distance but also the hierarchical distance is of great importance in interpreting pronouns. The experimental findings also suggest that, apart from the agreement hierarchy, the preference for conceptual or grammatical information correlates with the distance between a pronoun and its antecedent.

Keywords: collective nouns, agreement hierarchy, anaphora resolution, eye-tracking, language comprehension

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Authors: Barari Alireza, Seyed Hossein Alavi, Ghasemi Mohamad

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Objectives: VEGF and PDGF play central role in the processes of angiogenesis and vascular changes in most body tissues. The aim of the present study to determine effect of endurance training with ginseng on VEGF and PDGF levels is untrained female. Methods: Statistic society of this study was untraining male students of Azad University of Sari Branch in year of 2012-2013. Forty young untrained female (age 21.3 ± 0.90 year, height162.08±8.07cm , body weight 65.45± 7.6 kg and body mass index [BMI] 23.23 ± 2.64 kg/m2) were randomly divided into four groups: control(C), endurance(E), ginseng (G), endurance and ginseng (EG). Participants in training groups performed endurance training for 6 weeks and three sessions per week with 60-80% HRmax. Subjects perform endurance training and consumed ginseng for six weeks. Blood samples from the subjects before and after the test was performed. One wey ANOVA were used to test for differences between group and pair T-test were used for differences within groups. In all cases, P<0.05 was considered to be statistically significant. Results: A higher and significant Vo2 max was found in E and EG groups, while no change in other groups. BMI and Fat% were significantly decreased in EG group. No significant difference was found between and within groups in VEGF level. A higher and significant PDGF was only in endurance group, while there was significant reduction observed in G and EG groups. One-way ANOVA for PDGF showed significant difference between groups. Conclusion: The finding of the current study indicated that ginseng likely could through reducing of angiogenesis factors Such as VEGF and PDGF and reduced activity of tumor necrosis factor and inhibited inflammatory process.

Keywords: endurance, ginseng, VEGF, PDGF, untrained female

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Authors: Inkeri Jaaskelainen

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The aim of this study is to shed light on what is it like to study in apprenticeship training using intermediate (or even lower level) Finnish. The aim is to find out and describe these students' experiences and feelings while acquiring a profession in Finnish as it is important to understand how immigrant background adult learners learn and how their needs could be better taken into account. Many students choose apprenticeships and start vocational training while their language skills in Finnish are still very weak. At work, students should be able to simultaneously learn Finnish and do vocational studies in a noisy, demanding, and stressful environment. Learning and understanding new things is very challenging under these circumstances, and sometimes students get exhausted and experience a lot of stress - which makes learning even more difficult. Students are different from each other, and so are their ways to learn. Both duties at work and school assignments require reasonably good general language skills, and, especially at work, language skills are also a safety issue. The empirical target of this study is a group of students with an immigrant background who studied in various fields with intensive L2 support in 2016–2018 and who by now have completed a vocational upper secondary qualification. The interview material for this narrative study was collected from those who completed apprenticeship training in 2019–2020. The data collection methods used are a structured thematic interview, a questionnaire, and observational data. Interviewees with an immigrant background have an inconsistent cultural and educational background - some have completed an academic degree in their country of origin while others have learned to read and write only in Finland. The analysis of the material utilizes thematic analysis, which is used to examine learning and related experiences. Learning a language at work is very different from traditional classroom teaching. With evolving language skills, at an intermediate level at best, rushing and stressing makes it even more difficult to understand and increases the fear of failure. Constant noise, rapidly changing situations, and uncertainty undermine the learning and well-being of apprentices. According to preliminary results, apprenticeship training is well suited to the needs of an adult immigrant student. In apprenticeship training, students need a lot of support for learning and understanding a new communication and working culture. Stress can result in, e.g., fatigue, frustration, and difficulties in remembering and understanding. Apprenticeship training can be seen as a good path to working life. However, L2 support is a very important part of apprenticeship training, and it indeed helps students to believe that one day they will graduate and even get employed in their new country.

Keywords: apprenticeship training, vocational basic degree, Finnish learning, wee-being

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Authors: Yasser Y. Lenis, Daniela Garcia Gonzalez, Cristian Solarte Bacca, Diego F. Carrillo González, Amy Jo Montgomery, Dursun Barrios

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Introduction: Artificial insemination in bovines helps to promote genetic improvement and can positively impact the rural economy. The Colombian armed conflict has forced a large portion of the rural population to abandon their territory, affecting their education, family integration, and economics. Justification: The achievement of education in rural populations was one of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) made by the United Nations. During the last World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), it was concluded that most of the world’s poor, illiterate and undernourished population lives in rural areas; therefore, access to education is considered one of the most significant challenges for governments in countries with developing economies. Objectives: To study the effects of training in artificial insemination and rural management on the perception of knowledge and the level of knowledge in rural residents affected by the armed conflict in Nariño, Colombia. Methods: The perception of knowledge and the theoretical-practical knowledge of 63 rural residents were evaluated on the topics of bovine agribusiness management, artificial insemination, and genetic improvement through the application of three surveys. 1) evaluated the perceived level of knowledge each rural resident had about each topic using the Likert scale, 2) evaluated the theoretical knowledge before training, and 3) evaluated the theoretical knowledge upon completion of training. Results/discussion: Of the surveyed rural residents, 54% stated that they knew how business management improved the performance of their bovine agribusiness, 54% answered the pre-training knowledge test correctly, while 83% correctly answered the post-training knowledge test. Only 6% of surveyed residents perceived that they had prior knowledge of artificial insemination and reproductive anatomy topics. Before training, 35% of surveyed residents answered correctly on these topics, while upon completion of training, 65% answered correctly. Regarding genetic improvement, 11% of participating rural residents stated that they knew this subject. The correct answers on this topic went from 57% to 89% before and post-training. Conclusion: Rural extension programs contribute to closing knowledge gaps in relation to the use of reproductive biotechnologies and bovine management in rural areas affected by armed conflict.

Keywords: agribusiness, insemination, knowledge, reproduction

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Authors: Humberto Miranda, Haroldo G. Santana, Gabriel A. Paz, Vicente P. Lima, Jeffrey M. Willardson

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Foam rolling is a practice that has increased in popularity before and after strength training. The purpose of this study was to compare the acute effects of different foam rolling periods for the lower body muscles on subsequent performance (total repetitions and training volume), myoelectric activity and rating of perceived exertion in trained men. Fourteen trained men (26.2 ± 3.2 years, 178 ± 0.04 cm height, 82.2 ± 10 kg weight and body mass index 25.9 ± 3.3kg/m2) volunteered for this study. Four repetition maximum (4-RM) loads were determined for hexagonal bar deadlift and 45º angled leg press during test and retest sessions over two nonconsecutive days. Five experimental protocols were applied in a randomized design, which included: a traditional protocol (control)—a resistance training session without prior foam rolling; or resistance training sessions performed following one (P1), two (P2), three (P3), or four (P4) sets of 30 sec. foam rolling for the lower extremity musculature. Subjects were asked to roll over the medial and lateral aspects of each muscle group with as much pressure as possible. All foam rolling was completed at a cadence of 50 bpm. These procedures were performed on both sides unilaterally as described below. Quadriceps: between the apex of the patella and the ASIS; Hamstring: between the gluteal fold and popliteal fossa; Triceps surae: between popliteal fossa and calcaneus tendon. The resistance training consisted of five sets with 4-RM loads and two-minute rest intervals between sets, and a four-minute rest interval between the hexagonal bar deadlift and the 45º angled leg press. The number of repetitions completed, the myoelectric activity of vastus lateralis (VL), vastus medialis oblique (VMO), semitendinosus (SM) and medial gastrocnemius (GM) were recorded, as well as the rating of perceived exertion for each protocol. There were no differences between the protocols in the total repetitions for the hexagonal bar deadlift (Control - 16.2 ± 5.9; P1 - 16.9 ± 5.5; P2 - 19.2 ± 5.7; P3 - 19.4 ± 5.2; P4 - 17.2 ± 8.2) (p > 0.05) and 45º angled leg press (Control - 23.3 ± 9.7; P1 - 25.9 ± 9.5; P2 - 29.1 ± 13.8; P3 - 28.0 ± 11.7; P4 - 30.2 ± 11.2) exercises. Similar results between protocols were also noted for myoelectric activity (p > 0.05) and rating of perceived exertion (p > 0.05). Therefore, the results of the present study indicated no deleterious effects on performance, myoelectric activity and rating of perceived exertion responses during lower body resistance training.

Keywords: self myofascial release, foam rolling, electromyography, resistance training

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Authors: Carin Chuang, Kuan-Chou Chen

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An Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system is an integrated information system that supports the seamless integration of all the business processes of a company. Implementing an ERP system can increase efficiencies and decrease the costs while helping improve productivity. Many organizations including large, medium and small-sized companies have already adopted an ERP system for decades. Although ERP system can bring competitive advantages to organizations, the lack of proper training approach in ERP implementation is still a major concern. Organizations understand the importance of ERP training to adequately prepare managers and users. The low return on investment, however, for the ERP training makes the training difficult for knowledgeable workers to transfer what is learned in training to the jobs at workplace. Inadequate and inefficient ERP training limits the value realization and success of an ERP system. That is the need to call for a profound change and innovation for ERP training in both workplace at industry and the Information Systems (IS) education in academia. The innovated ERP training approach can improve the users’ knowledge in business processes and hands-on skills in mastering ERP system. It also can be instructed as educational material for IS students in universities. The purpose of the study is to examine the use of ERP simulation games via the ERPsim system to train the IS students in learning ERP implementation. The ERPsim is the business simulation game developed by ERPsim Lab at HEC Montréal, and the game is a real-life SAP (Systems Applications and Products) ERP system. The training uses the ERPsim system as the tool for the Internet-based simulation games and is designed as online student competitions during the class. The competitions involve student teams with the facilitation of instructor and put the students’ business skills to the test via intensive simulation games on a real-world SAP ERP system. The teams run the full business cycle of a manufacturing company while interacting with suppliers, vendors, and customers through sending and receiving orders, delivering products and completing the entire cash-to-cash cycle. To learn a range of business skills, student needs to adopt individual business role and make business decisions around the products and business processes. Based on the training experiences learned from rounds of business simulations, the findings show that learners have reduced risk in making mistakes that help learners build self-confidence in problem-solving. In addition, the learners’ reflections from their mistakes can speculate the root causes of the problems and further improve the efficiency of the training. ERP instructors teaching with the innovative approach report significant improvements in student evaluation, learner motivation, attendance, engagement as well as increased learner technology competency. The findings of the study can provide ERP instructors with guidelines to create an effective learning environment and can be transferred to a variety of other educational fields in which trainers are migrating towards a more active learning approach.

Keywords: business simulations, ERP implementation training, ERPsim, game-based learning, instructional strategy, training innovation

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Authors: Brittany E. Coff, Tommy K. K. Ngai, Laura A. S. MacDonald

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Many organizations in the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) sector provide education and training in order to increase the effectiveness of their WASH interventions. A key challenge for these organizations is measuring how well their education and training activities contribute to WASH improvements. It is crucial for implementers to understand the returns of their education and training activities so that they can improve and make better progress toward the desired outcomes. This paper presents information on CAWST’s development and piloting of the evaluation methodology. The Centre for Affordable Water and Sanitation Technology (CAWST) has developed a methodology for evaluating education and training activities, so that organizations can understand the effectiveness of their WASH activities and improve accordingly. CAWST developed this methodology through a series of research partnerships, followed by staged field pilots in Nepal, Peru, Ethiopia and Haiti. During the research partnerships, CAWST collaborated with universities in the UK and Canada to: review a range of available evaluation frameworks, investigate existing practices for evaluating education activities, and develop a draft methodology for evaluating education programs. The draft methodology was then piloted in three separate studies to evaluate CAWST’s, and CAWST’s partner’s, WASH education programs. Each of the pilot studies evaluated education programs in different locations, with different objectives, and at different times within the project cycles. The evaluations in Nepal and Peru were conducted in 2013 and investigated the outcomes and impacts of CAWST’s WASH education services in those countries over the past 5-10 years. In 2014, the methodology was applied to complete a rigorous evaluation of a 3-day WASH Awareness training program in Ethiopia, one year after the training had occurred. In 2015, the methodology was applied in Haiti to complete a rapid assessment of a Community Health Promotion program, which informed the development of an improved training program. After each pilot evaluation, the methodology was reviewed and improvements were made. A key concept within the methodology is that in order for training activities to lead to improved WASH practices at the community level, it is not enough for participants to acquire new knowledge and skills; they must also apply the new skills and influence the behavior of others following the training. The steps of the methodology include: development of a Theory of Change for the education program, application of the Kirkpatrick model to develop indicators, development of data collection tools, data collection, data analysis and interpretation, and use of the findings for improvement. The methodology was applied in different ways for each pilot and was found to be practical to apply and adapt to meet the needs of each case. It was useful in gathering specific information on the outcomes of the education and training activities, and in developing recommendations for program improvement. Based on the results of the pilot studies, CAWST is developing a set of support materials to enable other WASH implementers to apply the methodology. By using this methodology, more WASH organizations will be able to understand the outcomes and impacts of their training activities, leading to higher quality education programs and improved WASH outcomes.

Keywords: education and training, capacity building, evaluation, water and sanitation

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Authors: Esther Mafunda

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The present study interrogated the lecturer’s skills in supporting visually impaired students during the Covid-19 era at the University of Zimbabwe. It particularly assesses how the Covid-19 pandemic affected the learning experience of visually impaired students and which skills the lecturers possessed in order to assist the visually impaired students during online learning. Data was collected from lecturers and visually impaired students at the University of Zimbabwe Disability Resource Centre. Data was collected through the use of interviews and questionnaires. Using content analysis, it was established that visually impaired students faced challenges of lack of familiarity with the Moodle learning platform, marginalization, lack of professional training, and lack of training for parents and guardians. Lecturers faced challenges of lack of training, the curriculum, access, and technical know-how deficit. It was established that lecturers had to resort to social media platforms in order to assist visually impaired students. Visually impaired students also received assistance from their friends and family members. On the basis of the results of the research, it can be concluded that lecturers needed in-service training to be provided with the necessary skills and knowledge to teach students with visual impairments and provide quality education to students with visual impairments.

Keywords: visual impairment, disability, covid-19, inclusive learning

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Authors: Duduzile Dlamini-Boemah, Haretsebe Manwa, Lisebo Tseane-Gumbi

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The demands and expectations of twenty-first century tourists have changed, and they continue to have an impact on tour guiding in cultural and natural tourist attractions. The traditional communicative role of the tour guide as a mere presenter is not sufficient anymore; instead, there are expectations from the tourists of guides who provide effective interpretive guiding. It is always questionable if tour guides in South Africa are equipped with the skills for effective interpretation, yet limited research has been conducted to investigate the continuing professional education of tour guides in South Africa. Instead, much attention has been given to aspects of registration and certification of tour guides in South Africa. Concerns have been raised about tour guiding and have led to the development of a strategy by the Department of Tourism to professionalise tourists guiding that includes training. However, the necessity for tourism training in tour guiding in South Africa was raised as early as in the 1980s, the paper argues that there is a further need to emphasise continuing professional education in interpretive guiding in South Africa. In this study, continuing education and training are considered to involve the upgrading of the skills and knowledge of interpretation of those who are already working as tour guides at the cultural and natural attractions. The study is guided by the empowerment theory. The aim of this paper is to present issues of effective interpretive guiding and continuing professional education in interpretive guiding in South Africa. This study is based on the literature survey of secondary sources such as academic journal articles, government documents, and reports and books. The conclusions indicate that there is a need for training in interpretive delivery techniques in South Africa. The need for interpretive training in interpretive delivery techniques is attributed by the call to allow people to use indigenous knowledge, rather than formal education as a basis for becoming a field guide as well as affording the previously disadvantaged individuals to access training opportunities as tourist guides.

Keywords: continuing education, interpretive delivery skills, interpretive guiding, tour guide

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Authors: Min Gao

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In the past year, the advent of large language models (LLMs) has brought about a revolution in the language service industry, making it possible to efficiently produce more satisfactory and higher-quality translations. This is groundbreaking news for commercial companies involved in language services since much of a translator's work can now be completed by machines. However, it may be bad news for universities that provide translation training programs. They need to confront the challenges posed by AI in education by reconsidering issues such as the reform of traditional teaching methods, the translation ethics of students, and the new demands of the job market for their graduates. This article is an exploratory study of these issues based on the author's experiences in translation teaching. The research combines methods in the form of questionnaires and interviews. The findings include: (1) students may lose their motivation to learn in the AI era, but this can be compensated for by encouragement from the lecturer; (2) Translation ethics are not a serious problem in schools, considering the strict policies and regulations in place; (3) The role of translators has evolved in the new era, necessitating a reform of the traditional teaching methods.

Keywords: job market of translation, large language model, translation ethics, translation training

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Authors: Lauren Kathryn Stretch

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A study was conducted in the underprivileged setting of Nelson Mandela Bay, South Africa in order to monitor the progress of learners whose teachers receive training through the Early Inspiration Training Programme. Through tracking children’s growth & development, the effectiveness of the practitioner-training programme, which focuses on empowering women from underprivileged communities in South Africa, was analyzed. The aim was to identify impact & reach and to assess the effectiveness of this intervention programme through identifying impact on children’s growth and development. A Pre- and Post-Test was administered on about 850 young children in Pre-Grade R and Grade R classes in order to understand children’s ability level & the growth that would be evident as a result of effective teacher training. A pre-test evaluated the level of each child’s abilities, including physical-motor development, language, and speech development, cognitive development including visual perceptual skills, social-emotional development & play development. This was followed by a random selection of the classes of children into experimental and control groups. The experimental group’s teachers (practitioners) received 8-months of training & intervention, as well as mentorship & support. After the 8-month training programme, children from the experimental & control groups underwent post-assessment. The results indicate that the impact of effective practitioner training and enhancing a deep understanding of stimulation on young children, that this understanding is implemented in the classroom, highlighting the areas of growth & development in the children whose teachers received additional training & support, as compared to those who did not receive additional training. Monitoring & Evaluation systems not only track children’s ability levels, but also have a core focus on reporting systems, mentorship and providing ongoing support. As a result of the study, an Online Application (for Apple or Android Devices) was developed which is used to track children’s growth via age-appropriate assessments. The data is then statistically analysed to provide direction for relevant & impactful intervention. The App also focuses on effective reporting strategies, structures, and implementation to support organizations working with young children & maximize on outcomes.

Keywords: early childhood development, developmental child assessments, online application, monitoring and evaluating online

Procedia PDF Downloads 191

Authors: Palita Sooksamran, Katcharin Mahawong

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This research aims to offer the development of innovator teachers training curriculum to create instructional innovation according to active learning approach to enhance learning achievement. The research and development process is carried out in 3 steps: Step 1 The study of the needs necessary to develop a training curriculum: the inquiry was conducted by a sample of teachers in private schools in Phayao province that provide basic education at the level of education. Using a questionnaire of 176 people, the sample was defined using a table of random numbers and stratified samples, using the school as a random layer. Step 2 Training curriculum development: the tools used are developed training curriculum and curriculum assessments, with nine experts checking the appropriateness of the draft curriculum. The statistic used in data analysis is the average ( ) and standard deviation (S.D.) Step 3 study on effectiveness of training curriculum: one group pretest/posttest design applied in this study. The sample consisted of 35 teachers from private schools in Phayao province. The participants volunteered to attend on their own. The results of the research showed that: 1.The essential demand index needed with the list of essential needs in descending order is the choice and create of multimedia media, videos, application for learning management at the highest level ,Developed of multimedia, video and applications for learning management and selection of innovative learning management techniques and methods of solve the problem Learning , respectively. 2. The components of the training curriculum include principles, aims, scope of content, training activities, learning materials and resources, supervision evaluation. The scope of the curriculum consists of basic knowledge about learning management innovation, active learning, lesson plan design, learning materials and resources, learning measurement and evaluation, implementation of lesson plans into classroom and supervision and motoring. The results of the evaluation of quality of the draft training curriculum at the highest level. The Experts suggestion is that the purpose of the course should be used words that convey the results. 3. The effectiveness of training curriculum 1) Cognitive outcomes of the teachers in creating innovative learning management was at a high level of relative gain score. 2) The assessment results of learning management ability according to the active learning approach to enhance learning achievement by assessing from 2 education supervisor as a whole were very high , 3) Quality of innovation learning management based on active learning approach to enhance learning achievement of the teachers, 7 instructional Innovations were evaluated as outstanding works and 26 instructional Innovations passed the standard 4) Overall learning achievement of students who learned from 35 the sample teachers was at a high level of relative gain score 5) teachers' satisfaction towards the training curriculum was at the highest level.

Keywords: training curriculum, innovator teachers, active learning approach, learning achievement

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Authors: Rui Yin, Haojie Wang, Xun Li

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Recently, mainstream dense retrieval methods have obtained state-of-the-art results on some datasets and tasks. However, they require large amounts of training data, which is not available in most domains. The severe performance degradation of dense retrievers on new data domains has limited the use of dense retrieval methods to only a few domains with large training datasets. In this paper, we propose an unsupervised domain-adaptive approach based on query generation. First, a generative model is used to generate relevant queries for each passage in the target corpus, and then the generated queries are used for mining negative passages. Finally, the query-passage pairs are labeled with a cross-encoder and used to train a domain-adapted dense retriever. Experiments show that our approach is more robust than previous methods in target domains that require less unlabeled data.

Keywords: dense retrieval, query generation, unsupervised training, text retrieval

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Authors: Rosa Tiziana Bruno

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The connection between education and sustainability has been posited to have benefit for realizing a social development compatible with environmental protection. However, an educational paradigm based on the passage of information or on the fear of a catastrophe might not favor the acquisition of eco-identity. To build a sustainable world, it is necessary to "become people" in harmony with other human beings, being aware of belonging to the same human community that is part of the natural world. This can only be achieved within an authentic educating community and the most effective tools for building educating communities are reading literacy and storytelling. This paper is the report of a research-action carried out in this direction, in agreement with the sociology department of the University of Salerno, which involved four hundred children and their teachers in a path based on the combination of reading literacy, storytelling, autobiographical writing and outdoor education. The goal of the research was to create an authentic educational community within the school, capable to encourage the acquisition of an eco-identity by the pupils, that is, personal and relational growth in the full realization of the Self, in harmony with the social and natural environment, with a view to an authentic education for sustainability. To ensure reasonable validity and reliability of findings, the inquiry started with participant observation and a process of triangulation has been used including: semi-structured interview, socio-semiotic analysis of the conversation and time budget. Basically, a multiple independent sources of data was used to answer the questions. Observing the phenomenon through multiple "windows" helped to comparing data through a variety of lenses. All teachers had the experience of implementing a socio-didactic strategy called "Fiabadiario" and they had the possibility to use it with approaches that fit their students. The data being collected come from the very students and teachers who are engaged with this strategy. The educational path tested during the research has produced sustainable relationships and conflict resolution within the school system and between school and families, creating an authentic and sustainable learning community.

Keywords: educating community, education for sustainability, literature in education, social relations

Procedia PDF Downloads 117