Search results for: English Language Teaching (ELT)

Authors: Asia Majeed

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The learning of mathematics in science, engineering and social science programs can be enhanced through practical problem-solving techniques. The instructors can design their lessons with some strategies to improve students’ educational needs and accomplishments in mathematics classrooms. The use of technology in class problem solving and application sessions can enhance deep understanding of mathematics among students. As mathematician, we believe in subject specific and content-driven teaching methods. Through technology the relationship between the physical problems and the mathematical models can be analyzed. This paper is about selective use of technology in mathematics classrooms and helpful to others mathematics instructors who wishes to improve their traditional teaching techniques to improve students’ attitude in learning mathematics. These techniques corpus can be used in teaching large mathematics classes in science, technology, engineering, and social science.

Keywords: attitude in learning mathematics, mathematics, non-mathematics undergraduate students, technology

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Authors: Mounia El Jaouhari, Mira Goral, Samir Diouny

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Introduction: Previous research has indicated that language impairments are recognized as a feature of many neurodegenerative disorders, including non-language-led dementia subtypes such as Alzheimer´s disease (AD). In this preliminary study, the focal aim is to quantify the semantic content of naming and connected speech samples of Moroccan patients diagnosed with AD using two tasks taken from the culturally adapted and validated Moroccan version of the Boston Diagnostic Aphasia Examination. Methods: Five individuals with AD and five neurologically healthy individuals matched for age, gender, and education will participate in the study. Participants with AD will be diagnosed on the basis of the Moroccan version of the Diagnostic and Statistial Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-4) screening test, the Moroccan version of the Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) test scores, and neuroimaging analyses. The participants will engage in two tasks taken from the MDAE-SF: 1) Picture description and 2) Naming. Expected findings: Consistent with previous studies conducted on English speaking AD patients, we expect to find significant word production and retrieval impairments in AD patients in all measures. Moreover, we expect to find category fluency impairments that further endorse semantic breakdown accounts. In sum, not only will the findings of the current study shed more light on the locus of word retrieval impairments noted in AD, but also reflect the nature of Arabic morphology. In addition, the error patterns are expected to be similar to those found in previous AD studies in other languages.

Keywords: alzheimer's disease, anomia, connected speech, semantic impairments, moroccan arabic

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Authors: Loreta Axhami

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Media literacy in the digital age emerges not only as a set of skills to generate true knowledge and information but also as a pedagogy methodology, as a kind of educational philosophy. In addition to such innovations as information integration and communication technologies, media infrastructures, and web usage in the educational system, media literacy enables the change in the learning methods, pedagogy, teaching programs, and school curriculum itself. In this framework, this study focuses on ICT's impact on teaching and learning methods and the degree they are reflected in the Albanian education system. The study is based on a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods of scientific research. Referring to the study findings, it results that student’s limited access to the internet in school, focus on the hardcopy textbooks and the role of the teacher as the only or main source of knowledge and information are some of the main factors contributing to the implementation of authoritarian pedagogical methods in the Albanian education system. In these circumstances, the implementation of media literacy is recommended as an apt educational process for the 21st century, which requires a reconceptualization of textbooks as well as the application of modern teaching and learning methods by integrating information and communication technologies.

Keywords: authoritarian pedagogic model, education system, ICT, media literacy

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Authors: Rikson Gultom

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Hate Speech and Abusive language on social media is difficult to detect, usually, it is detected after it becomes viral in cyberspace, of course, it is too late for prevention. An early detection system that has a fairly good accuracy is needed so that it can reduce conflicts that occur in society caused by postings on social media that attack individuals, groups, and governments in Indonesia. The purpose of this study is to find an early detection model on Twitter social media using machine learning that has high accuracy from several machine learning methods studied. In this study, the support vector machine (SVM), Naïve Bayes (NB), and Random Forest Decision Tree (RFDT) methods were compared with the Support Vector machine with genetic algorithm (SVM-GA), Nave Bayes with genetic algorithm (NB-GA), and Random Forest Decision Tree with Genetic Algorithm (RFDT-GA). The study produced a comparison table for the accuracy of the hate speech and abusive language detection model, and presented it in the form of a graph of the accuracy of the six algorithms developed based on the Indonesian-language Twitter dataset, and concluded the best model with the highest accuracy.

Keywords: abusive language, hate speech, machine learning, optimization, social media

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Authors: Iran Kalbasi, Foroozandeh Zardashti

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Dialectology is a branch of social linguistics that studies systematic language variations. Dialects are the branches of a unique language that have structural, morphological and phonetic differences with each other. In Iran, these dialects and language variations themselves have a lot of cultural loads, and studying them have linguistic and cultural importance. In this study, phonetic structure of two Iranian dialects, Bakhtiyari Lori of Masjedsoleyman and Shushtari in Khuzestan Province of Iran have been surveyed. Its statistical community includes twenty speakers of two dialects. The theoretic bases of this research is based on structuralism. Its data have been collected by interviewing the questionnaire that consist of 3000 words, 410 sentences and 110 complex and simple verbs. These datas are analysed and described synchronically. Then, the phonetic characteristics of these two dialects and standard Persian have been compared. Therefore, we can say that in phonetic level of these two dialects and standard Persian, there are clearly differences.

Keywords: standard language, dialectology, bakhtiyari lori dialect of Masjedsoleyman, Shushtari dialect, vowel, consonant

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Authors: Abdul Rofiq Badril Rizal M. Z.

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Reading becomes one of the most important skills in teaching and learning English. The purpose of this research was to improve the students' active participation, and reading comprehension achievement by using Know, Want to Know, Learned (KWL) strategy. The research design was Classroom Action Research. The area and participants of this research were chosen by using purposive method. The data were collected by observation, a reading comprehension test, interview, and documentation. The results showed that there was significant improvement in Cycle 1 to Cycle 2 of the research. In cycle 1, the students’ active participation increased 49.77% from 28% to 77.77. In addition, in cycle 2, the students’ active participation also increased by 14.17% from 77.77% to 81.94%. The students’ reading comprehension achievement also increased by 52.14% from 25% to 77.14% in Cycle 1 and increased by 5.71% from 77.14% to 82.85% in cycle 2. It indicated that using Know, Want to Know, Learned (KWL) strategy could enhance the Seventh C grade students’ descriptive text reading comprehension achievement, and active participation.

Keywords: active participation, reading comprehension, classroom action research, Indonesian folktales

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Authors: Chithra A. V., Somoshree Datta, Sandeep Nithyanandan

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Sign Language Recognition (SLR) is the process of interpreting and translating sign language into spoken or written language using technological systems. It involves recognizing hand gestures, facial expressions, and body movements that makeup sign language communication. The primary goal of SLR is to facilitate communication between hearing- and speech-impaired communities and those who do not understand sign language. Due to the increased awareness and greater recognition of the rights and needs of the hearing- and speech-impaired community, sign language recognition has gained significant importance over the past 10 years. Technological advancements in the fields of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning have made it more practical and feasible to create accurate SLR systems. This paper presents a distinct approach to SLR by framing it as a video classification problem using Deep Learning (DL), whereby a combination of Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) and Recurrent Neural Networks (RNNs) has been used. This research targets the integration of sign language recognition into healthcare settings, aiming to improve communication between medical professionals and patients with hearing impairments. The spatial features from each video frame are extracted using a CNN, which captures essential elements such as hand shapes, movements, and facial expressions. These features are then fed into an RNN network that learns the temporal dependencies and patterns inherent in sign language sequences. The INCLUDE dataset has been enhanced with more videos from the healthcare domain and the model is evaluated on the same. Our model achieves 91% accuracy, representing state-of-the-art performance in this domain. The results highlight the effectiveness of treating SLR as a video classification task with the CNN-RNN architecture. This approach not only improves recognition accuracy but also offers a scalable solution for real-time SLR applications, significantly advancing the field of accessible communication technologies.

Keywords: sign language recognition, deep learning, convolution neural network, recurrent neural network

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Authors: Miao Sabrina Wang

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This paper examines the impact of grammatical differences on simultaneous interpreting from English into Mandarin Chinese by drawing upon an empirical study of professional and student interpreters. The research focuses on the effects of three grammatical categories including passives, adverbial components and noun phrases on simultaneous interpreting. For each category, interpretations of instances in which the grammatical structures are the same across the two languages are compared with interpretations of instances in which the grammatical structures differ across the two languages in terms of content accuracy and delivery appropriateness. The results indicate that grammatical differences have a significant impact on the interpreting performance of both professionals and students.

Keywords: content accuracy, delivery appropriateness, grammatical differences, simultaneous interpreting

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Authors: Bok Check Meng, Goh Ying Soon

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Giving additional learning materials such as Chinese fantasy novel to non-native learners can be strenuous. Instructors have to understand the underpinning theories about cognitive theory for new word instruction. This paper discusses the underpinning theories. Relevant literature reviews are given. There are basically five major areas of cognitive related theories mentioned in this article. These include motivational learning theory, Affective theory of learning, Cognitive psychology theory, Vocabulary acquisition theory and Bloom’s cognitive levels theory. A theoretical framework has been constructed. Thus, this will give a hand in ensuring non-native learners might gain positive outcomes in the instruction process. Instructors who are interested in teaching new word from Chinese fantasy novel in specific to support additional learning might be able to get insights from this article.

Keywords: Chinese fantasy novel, new word teaching, non-native learners, cognitive theory, bloom

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Authors: Aabha Chaubey, Bani Bhattacharya

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Evaluation of the quality of teaching in engineering education in India needs to be conducted on a continuous basis to achieve the best teaching quality in technical education. Quality teaching is an influential factor in technical education which impacts largely on learning outcomes of the students. Present study is not exclusively theory-driven, but it draws on various specific concepts and constructs in the domain of technical education. These include teaching and learning in higher education, teacher effectiveness, and teacher evaluation and performance management in higher education. Student Evaluation of Education Quality (SEEQ) was proposed as one of the evaluation instruments of the quality teaching in engineering education. SEEQ is one of the popular and standard instrument widely utilized all over the world and bears the validity and reliability in educational world. The present study was designed to evaluate the teaching quality through SEEQ in the context of technical education in India, including its validity and reliability based on the collected data. The multiple dimensionality of SEEQ that is present in every teaching and learning process made it quite suitable to collect the feedback of students regarding the quality of instructions and instructor. The SEEQ comprises of 9 original constructs i.e.; learning value, teacher enthusiasm, organization, group interaction, and individual rapport, breadth of coverage, assessment, assignments and overall rating of particular course and instructor with total of 33 items. In the present study, a total of 350 samples comprising first year undergraduate students from Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur (IIT, Kharagpur, India) were included for the evaluation of the importance of SEEQ. They belonged to four different courses of different streams of engineering studies. The above studies depicted the validity and reliability of SEEQ was based upon the collected data. This further needs Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and Analysis of Moment structure (AMOS) for various scaled instrument like SEEQ Cronbach’s alpha which are associated with SPSS for the examination of the internal consistency. The evaluation of the effectiveness of SEEQ in CFA is implemented on the basis of fit indices such as CMIN/df, CFI, GFI, AGFI and RMSEA readings. The major findings of this study showed the fitness indices such as ChiSq = 993.664,df = 390,ChiSq/df = 2.548,GFI = 0.782,AGFI = 0.736,CFI = 0.848,RMSEA = 0.062,TLI = 0.945,RMR = 0.029,PCLOSE = 0.006. The final analysis of the fit indices presented positive construct validity and stability, on the other hand a higher reliability was also depicted which indicated towards internal consistency. Thus, the study suggests the effectivity of SEEQ as the indicator of the quality evaluation instrument in teaching-learning process in engineering education in India. Therefore, it is expected that with the continuation of this research in engineering education there remains a possibility towards the betterment of the quality of the technical education in India. It is also expected that this study will provide an empirical and theoretical logic towards locating a construct or factor related to teaching, which has the greatest impact on teaching and learning process in a particular course or stream in engineering education.

Keywords: confirmatory factor analysis, engineering education, SEEQ, teaching and learning process

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Authors: Hanan Eltayeb, Reem Al Refaie

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To be able to connect and relate to shows spoken in a foreign language, advanced learners must understand not only linguistics inferences but also cultural, metacognitive, and pragmatic connotations in colloquial Egyptian TV series. These connotations are needed to both understand the different facets of the dramas put before them, and they’re also consistently grown and formulated through watching these shows. The inferences have become a staple in the Egyptian colloquial culture over the years, making their way into day-to-day conversations as Egyptians use them to speak, relate, joke, and connect with each other, without having known one another from previous times. As for advanced learners, they need to understand these inferences not only to watch these shows, but also to be able to converse with Egyptians on a level that surpasses the formal, or standard. When faced with some of the somewhat recent shows on the Egyptian screens, learners faced challenges in understanding pragmatics, cultural, and religious background of the target language and consequently not able to interact effectively with a native speaker in real-life situations. This study aims to enhance the linguistic and cultural proficiency of learners through studying two genres of TV Colloquial Egyptian series. Study samples derived from two recent comedian and social Egyptian series ('The Seventh Neighbor' سابع جار, and 'Nelly and Sherihan' نيللي و شريهان). When learners watch such series, they are usually faced with a problem understanding inferences that have to do with social, religious, and political events that are addressed in the series. Using discourse analysis of the sematic, semantic, pragmatic, cultural, and linguistic characteristics of the target language, some major deductions were highlighted and repeated, showing a pattern in both. The research paper concludes that there are many sets of lingual and para-lingual phrases, idioms, and proverbs to be acquired and used effectively by teaching these series. The strategies adopted in the study can be applied to different types of media, like movies, TV shows, and even cartoons, to enhance student proficiency.

Keywords: Egyptian series, culture, linguistic competence, pragmatics, semantics, social

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Authors: Charlotte Brenner

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Teachers’ beleifs about inclusion are foundational to their implementation of inclusive teaching practices. Utilizing a longitudinal design and multiple case study methodology, this study investigates how teacher candidates’ instructional and practicum experiences shape their beliefs about inclusion in one teacher education program located in western Canada (N=20). Interview questions were developed through the lens of self-determinaiton theory and theory about teachers’ beleifs and inclusion. Preliminary thematic ananysis indicates that a 36-hour course focused on diversity and inclusion supports teacher candiates to deepen their understandings of: the need for inclusion in classrooms and strategies to promote inclusion. Furthermore, teacher candiates identified course components that fostered their developing understandings of inclusion. Future data will examine the stability of teacher candidates’ beliefs about inclusion and their implementation of inclusive teaching strategies throughout their practicum experiences.

Keywords: teacher candidates, inclusion, teacher education programs, beliefs

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Authors: K. V. F. Fatokun, P. A. Eniayeju

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This study concerns the effects of concept mapping-guided discovery integrated teaching approach on the learning style and achievement of chemistry students. The sample comprised 162 senior secondary school (SS 2) students drawn from two science schools in Nasarawa State which have equivalent mean scores of 9.68 and 9.49 in their pre-test. Five instruments were developed and validated while the sixth was purely adopted by the investigator for the study, Four null hypotheses were tested at α = 0.05 level of significance. Chi square analysis showed that there is a significant shift in students’ learning style from accommodating and diverging to converging and assimilating when exposed to concept mapping- guided discovery approach. Also t-test and ANOVA that those in experimental group achieve and retain content learnt better. Results of the Scheffe’s test for multiple comparisons showed that boys in the experimental group performed better than girls. It is therefore concluded that the concept mapping-guided discovery integrated approach should be used in secondary schools to successfully teach electrochemistry. It is strongly recommended that chemistry teachers should be encouraged to adopt this method for teaching difficult concepts.

Keywords: integrated teaching approach, concept mapping-guided discovery, achievement, retention, learning styles and interest

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Authors: Jonathan H. Westover, Jacque P. Westover, Maureen S. Andrade

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Though learning theories vary in complexity and usefulness, a thorough understanding of foundational learning theories is a necessity in today’s educational environment. Additionally, learning theories lead to approaches in instruction that can affect student motivation and learning. The combination of a learning theory and elements to enhance student motivation can create a learning context where the student can thrive in their educational pursuits. This paper will provide an overview of three main learning theories: (1) Behavioral Theory, (2) Cognitive Theory, and (3) Constructivist Theory and explore their connection to elements of student learning motivation. Finally, we apply these learning theories and elements of student motivation to the following two context: (1) The FastStart Program at the Community College of Denver, and (2) An Online Academic English Language Course. We discussed potential of the program and course to have success in increasing student success outcomes.

Keywords: learning theory, student motivation, inclusive pedagogy, developmental education

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Authors: Nelomi Anandagoda, Leanne J. Eveson

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During the COVID-19 pandemic, the surge in in-patient admissions across the medical directorate of a district general hospital necessitated the implementation of an incident rota. Conscious of the impact on training and professional development, the idea of developing a virtual teaching programme was conceived. The programme initially aimed to provide junior doctors, specialist nurses, pharmacists, and allied healthcare professionals from medical specialties and those re-deployed from other specialties (e.g., ophthalmology, GP, surgery, psychiatry) the knowledge and skills to manage the deteriorating patient with COVID-19. The programme was later developed to incorporate the general internal medicine curriculum. To facilitate continuing medical education whilst maintaining social distancing during this period, a virtual platform was used to deliver teaching to junior doctors across two large district general hospitals and two community hospitals. Teaching sessions were recorded and uploaded to a common platform, providing a resource for participants to catch up on and re-watch teaching sessions, making strides towards reducing discrimination against the professional development of less than full-time trainees. Thus, creating a learning environment, which is inclusive and accessible to adult learners in a self-directed manner. The negative impact of the pandemic on the well-being of healthcare professionals is well documented. To support the multi-disciplinary team, the virtual teaching programme evolved to included sessions on well-being, resilience, and work-life balance. Providing teaching for learners across the multi-disciplinary team (MDT) has been an eye-opening experience. By challenging the concept that learners should only be taught within their own peer groups, the authors have fostered a greater appreciation of the strengths of the MDT and showcased the immense wealth of expertise available within the trust. The inclusive nature of the teaching and the ease of joining a virtual teaching session has facilitated the dissemination of knowledge across the MDT, thus improving patient care on the frontline. The weekly teaching programme has been running for over eight months, with ongoing engagement, interest, and participation. As described above, the teaching programme has evolved to accommodate the needs of its learners. It has received excellent feedback with an appreciation of its inclusive, multi-disciplinary, and holistic nature. The COVID-19 pandemic provided a catalyst to rapidly develop novel methods of working and training and widened access/exposure to the virtual technologies available to large organisations. By merging pedagogical expertise and technology, the authors have created an effective online learning environment. Although the authors do not propose to replace face-to-face teaching altogether, this model of virtual multidisciplinary team, cross-site teaching has proven to be a great leveler. It has made high-quality teaching accessible to learners of different confidence levels, grades, specialties, and working patterns.

Keywords: cross-site, cross-speciality, inter-disciplinary, multidisciplinary, virtual teaching

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Authors: Stefan Ninković

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The main purpose of this paper is to examine the different theoretical approaches and relevant empirical evidence and thus, recognize some of the most pressing challenges faced by school leaders. This paper starts from the fact that the new mission of the school is characterized by the need for stronger coordination among students' academic, social and emotional learning. In this sense, school leaders need to focus their commitment, vision and leadership on the issues of students' attitudes, language, cultural and social background, and sexual orientation. More specifically, they should know what a good teaching is for student’s at-risk, students whose first language is not dominant in school, those who’s learning styles are not in accordance with usual teaching styles, or who are stigmatized. There is a rather wide consensus around the fact that the traditionally popular concept of instructional leadership of the school principal is no longer sufficient. However, in a number of "pro-leadership" circles, including certain groups of academic researchers, consultants and practitioners, there is an established tendency of attributing school principal an extraordinary influence towards school achievements. On the other hand, the situation in which all employees in the school are leaders is a utopia par excellence. Although leadership obviously can be efficiently distributed across the school, there are few findings that speak about sources of this distribution and factors making it sustainable. Another idea that is not particularly new, but has only recently gained in importance is related to the fact that the collective capacity of the school is an important resource that often remains under-cultivated. To understand the nature and power of collaborative school cultures, it is necessary to know that these operate in a way that they make their all collective members' tacit knowledge explicit. In this sense, the question is how leaders in schools can shape collaborative culture and create social capital in the school. Pressure exerted on schools to systematically collect and use the data has been accompanied by the need for school leaders to develop new competencies. The role of school leaders is critical in the process of assessing what data are needed and for what purpose. Different types of data are important: test results, data on student’s absenteeism, satisfaction with school, teacher motivation, etc. One of the most important tasks of school leaders are data-driven decision making as well as ensuring transparency of the decision-making process. Finally, the question arises whether the existing models of school leadership are compatible with the current social and economic trends. It is necessary to examine whether and under what conditions schools are in need for forms of leadership that are different from those that currently prevail. Closely related to this issue is also to analyze the adequacy of different approaches to leadership development in the school.

Keywords: educational changes, leaders, leadership, school

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Authors: Siham Boulaknadel

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Every culture has its share of a rich history of storytelling in oral, visual, and textual form. The Amazigh language, as many languages, has its own which has entertained and informed across centuries and cultures, and its instructional potential continues to serve teachers. According to many researchers, listening to stories draws attention to the sounds of language and helps children develop sensitivity to the way language works. Stories including repetitive phrases, unique words, and enticing description encourage students to join in actively to repeat, chant, sing, or even retell the story. This kind of practice is important to language learners’ oral language development, which is believed to correlate completely with student’s academic success. Today, with the advent of multimedia, digital storytelling for instance can be a practical and powerful learning tool. It has the potential in transforming traditional learning into a world of unlimited imaginary environment. This paper reports on a research project on development of multimedia Storytelling Website using traditional Amazigh oral narratives called “tell me a story”. It is a didactic tool created for the learning of good moral values in an interactive multimedia environment combining on-screen text, graphics and audio in an enticing environment and enabling the positive values of stories to be projected. This Website developed in this study is based on various pedagogical approaches and learning theories deemed suitable for children age 8 to 9 year-old. The design and development of Website was based on a well-researched conceptual framework enabling users to: (1) re-play and share the stories in schools or at home, and (2) access the Website anytime and anywhere. Furthermore, the system stores the students work and activities over the system, allowing parents or teachers to monitor students’ works, and provide online feedback. The Website contains following main feature modules: Storytelling incorporates a variety of media such as audio, text and graphics in presenting the stories. It introduces the children to various kinds of traditional Amazigh oral narratives. The focus of this module is to project the positive values and images of stories using digital storytelling technique. Besides development good moral sense in children using projected positive images and moral values, it also allows children to practice their comprehending and listening skills. Reading module is developed based on multimedia material approach which offers the potential for addressing the challenges of reading instruction. This module is able to stimulate children and develop reading practice indirectly due to the tutoring strategies of scaffolding, self-explanation and hyperlinks offered in this module. Word Enhancement assists the children in understanding the story and appreciating the good moral values more efficiently. The difficult words or vocabularies are attached to present the explanation, which makes the children understand the vocabulary better. In conclusion, we believe that the interactive multimedia storytelling reveals an interesting and exciting tool for learning Amazigh. We plan to address some learning issues, in particularly the uses of activities to test and evaluate the children on their overall understanding of story and words presented in the learning modules.

Keywords: Amazigh language, e-learning, storytelling, language teaching

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Authors: Arturo Tobias Calizon Jr.

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The study investigated the practices in critical reflection being employed in teaching and learning mathematics in public and private schools for students to achieve perspective transformation in psychological, convictional and behavioral dimensions. There were 1,969 senior high school and college student-respondents selected at random from 33 schools. Process reflection is most commonly practiced in both public and private schools. Convictional dimension of perspective transformation is most frequently achieved. There is no significant difference in practices of process reflection between senior high school and college students. However, there is a significant difference in perspective transformation in behavioral dimension achieved by students from public and private schools. Also, there are significant differences in psychological, convictional and behavioral dimensions of perspective transformation achieved by senior high school and college students. There is a high and significant relationship between critical reflection practices and perspective transformation of students. The researcher concludes that there are teaching strategies that facilitate critical thinking, and there are learning activities that alter perspective of students about mathematics as an abstract field. The researcher further concludes that consistent use of appropriate teaching and learning activities could bring about perspective transformation in students with success.

Keywords: critical reflection, perspective transformation, process reflection, convictional dimension, teaching and learning mathematics

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Authors: Fazl E. Ahad, Shi Dongyan, Anees Ur Rehman

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Plates are one of the most important structural components used in many industries like aerospace, marine and various other engineering fields and thus motivate designers and engineers to study the vibrational characteristics of these structures. This paper is a review of existing literature on vibration analysis of plates. Focus has been kept on prominent studies related to isotropic plates based on Mindlin plate theory; however few citations on orthotropic plates and higher order shear deformation theories have also been included. All citations are in English language. This review is aimed to provide contemporarily relevant survey of papers on vibrational characteristics of thick plates and will be useful for scientists, designers and researchers to locate important and relevant literature/research quickly.

Keywords: mindlin plates, vibrations, arbitrary boundary conditions, mode shapes, natural frequency

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Authors: Jay-R. Hosana Leonidas, Jayson A. Lucilo

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The K-12 Curriculum in the Philippines shed light to mathematics education as it recognizes the use of smartphones/mobile phones as appropriate tools necessary in teaching mathematics. However, there were limited pieces of evidence on the use of these devices in teaching and learning process. This descriptive study developed lessons integrating the use of mobile phone applications with basis on low-level competencies of students in Precalculus and determined its effects on students’ conceptual understanding, procedural skills, and attitudes towards Precalculus. Employing Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) scheme in the study, lessons developed were conducted among Grade 11 Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) students at Central Bicol State University of Agriculture for the academic year 2018-2019. This study found that there is a significant difference between the competency levels of students along conceptual understanding and procedural skills prior to and after the conduct of lessons developed. Also, it disclosed that the use of mobile phone applications had positive effects on students’ attitudes towards Precalculus. Thus, the use of mobile phone applications in teaching Precalculus can enrich students’ understanding of concepts and procedural skills (solving and graphing skills) and can increase students’ motivation, self-confidence, and enjoyment in dealing with Precalculus.

Keywords: bring your own device, mathematics education, mobile phone applications, senior high school

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Authors: Subodh Chandra Shakya, Rajendra Sapkota, Aakash Tamang, Shushant Pudasaini, Sujan Adhikari, Sajjan Adhikari

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Lots of efforts have been made in order to measure the semantic similarity between the text corpora in the documents. Techniques have been evolved to measure the similarity of two documents. One such state-of-art technique in the field of Natural Language Processing (NLP) is word to vector models, which converts the words into their word-embedding and measures the similarity between the vectors. We found this to be quite useful for the task of resume ranking. So, this research paper is the implementation of the word2vec model along with other Natural Language Processing techniques in order to rank the resumes for the particular job description so as to automate the process of hiring. The research paper proposes the system and the findings that were made during the process of building the system.

Keywords: chunking, document similarity, information extraction, natural language processing, word2vec, word embedding

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Authors: Yufen Qin

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Topic-to-Essay generation is a challenging task in Natural language processing, which aims to generate novel, diverse, and topic-related text based on user input. Previous research has overlooked the generation of articles under the constraints of event elements, resulting in issues such as incomplete event elements and logical inconsistencies in the generated results. To fill this gap, this paper proposes an event-constrained approach for a topic-to-essay generation that enforces the completeness of event elements during the generation process. Additionally, a language model is employed to verify the logical consistency of the generated results. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed model achieves a better BLEU-2 score and performs better than the baseline in terms of subjective evaluation on a real dataset, indicating its capability to generate higher-quality topic-related text.

Keywords: event element, language model, natural language processing, topic-to-essay generation.

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Authors: Nesengani Elelwani Clinton

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This paper presents reflective learning as an opportunity commonly available and used for food waste learning in a food processing company in the transition to sustainable and just food systems. In addressing how employees learn about food waste during food processing, the opportunities available for food waste learning were investigated. Reflective learning appeared to be the most used approach to learning about food waste. In the case of food waste learning, reflective learning was a response after employees wasted a substantial amount of food, where process controllers and team leaders would highlight the issue to employees who wasted food and explain how food waste could be reduced. This showed that learning about food waste is not proactive, and there continues to be a lack of structured learning around food waste. Several challenges were highlighted around reflective learning about food waste. Some of the challenges included understanding the language, lack of interest from employees, set times to reach production targets, and working pressures. These challenges were reported to be hindering factors in understanding food waste learning, which is not structured. A need was identified for proactive learning through structured methods. This is because it was discovered that in the plant, where food processing activities happen, the signage and posters that are there are directly related to other sustainability issues such as food safety and health. This indicated that there are low levels of awareness about food waste. Therefore, this paper argues that food waste learning should be proactive. The proactive learning approach should include structured learning materials around food waste during food processing. In the structuring of the learning materials, individual trainers should be multilingual. This will make it possible for those who do not understand English to understand in their own language. And lastly, there should be signage and posters in the food processing plant around food waste. This will bring more awareness around food waste, and employees' behaviour can be influenced by the posters and signage in the food processing plant. Thus, will enable a transition to a just and sustainable food system.

Keywords: sustainable and just food systems, food waste, food waste learning, reflective learning approach

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Authors: Helene Jacobson Pettersson, Linda Lill

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Demographic changes and globalization in society provide new opportunities for social work and social work education in Sweden. There has been an ambition to include these aspects into the Swedish social work education. However, the Swedish welfare state standard continued to be as affectionate as invisible starting point in discussions about people’s way of life and social problems. The aim of this study is to explore content given to ethnic relations in social work in the social work education in Sweden. Our standpoint is that the subject can be understood both from individual and structural levels, it changes over time, varies in different steering documents and differs from the perspectives of teachers and students. Our question is what content is given to ethnic relations in social work by the teachers in their strategies and teaching material. The study brings together research in the interface between education science, social work and research of international migration and ethnic relations. The presented narratives are from longer interviews with a total of 17 university teachers who teach in social work program at four different universities in Sweden. The universities have in different ways a curriculum that involves the theme of ethnic relations in social work, and the interviewed teachers are teaching and grading social workers on specific courses related to ethnic relations at undergraduate and graduate levels. Overall assesses these 17 teachers a large number of students during a semester. The questions were concerned on how the teachers handle ethnic relations in education in social work. The particular focus during the interviews has been the teacher's understanding of the documented learning objectives and content of literature and how this has implications for their teaching. What emerges is the teachers' own stories about the educational work and how they relate to the content of teaching, as well as the teaching strategies they use to promote the theme of ethnic relations in social work education. The analysis of this kind of pedagogy is that the teaching ends up at an individual level with a particular focus on the professional encounter with individuals. We can see the shortage of a critical analysis of the construction of social problems. The conclusion is that individual circumstance precedes theoretical perspective on social problems related to migration, transnational relations, globalization and social. This result has problematic implications from the perspective of sustainability in terms of ethnic diversity and integration in society. Thus these aspects have most relevance for social workers’ professional acting in social support and empowerment related activities, in supporting the social status and human rights and equality for immigrants.

Keywords: ethnic relations in Swedish social work education, teaching content, teaching strategies, educating for change, human rights and equality

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Authors: Mariam Shalaby, Kayla Krause, Raisha Ismail, Daniel George

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Introduction: The Pennsylvania State College of Medicine Refugee Initiative is a student-run organization that works with eleven Syrian and Congolese refugee families. Since 2016, it has used grant funding to make weekly produce purchases at a local market, provide tutoring services, and develop trusting relationships. This case study explains how the Refugee Initiative shifted focus to face new challenges due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Methodology: When refugees who had previously attained stability found themselves unable to pay the bills, the organization shifted focus from food security to direct assistance such as applying for unemployment compensation since many had recently lost jobs. When refugee families additionally struggled to access hygiene supplies, funding was redirected to purchase them. Funds were also raised from the community to provide financial relief from unpaid rent and bills. Findings: Systemic challenges were encountered in navigating federal/state unemployment and social welfare systems, and there was a conspicuous absence of affordable, language-accessible assistance that could help refugees. Finally, as struggling public schools failed to maintain adequate English as a Second Language (ESL) education, the group’s tutoring services were hindered by social distancing and inconsistent access to distance-learning platforms. Conclusion: Ultimately, the pandemic highlighted that a charity-based arrangement is helpful but not sustainable, and challenges persist for refugee families. Based on the Refugee Initiative's experiences over the past year of the COVID-19 pandemic, several needs must be addressed to aid refugee families at this time, including: increased access to affordable and language-accessible social services, educational resources, and simpler options for grant-based financial assistance. Interventions to increase these resources will aid refugee families in need in Central Pennsylvania and internationally

Keywords: COVID-19, health, pandemic, refugees

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Authors: Z. Abram, V. Nadasan, J. Balint, J. L. Ferencz

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Introduction: Online smoking prevention programs became popular in the last time. In order to extend the use of such programs, existing applications can be adapted and translated in the native languages of the target groups. It is the first time that in Romania such a software was implemented. Our goal was to provide a computer-aided intervention with attractive content targeting high school students who are familiar with information and communication technology. Material and methods: ASPIRA is the Romanian/Hungarian adapted version of a smoking prevention program created in USA. Prior to apply the questionnaire and ASPIRA online program which contains five modules that include tests, videos and interactive games, the program was tested in some IT laboratories on a group of schoolchildren and students. The pilot study questionnaires were completed considering the opinions of young people and the functionality of the software. Results: Above 90% of participants reported a good or very good impression about the ASPIRA program. Only a small minority found that the program included some parts which were too long or reported the existence of any technical problems regarding the functionality of the software. 76% of the participants had little or very little difficulty in understanding the messages presented by the English speaking characters. Only 7.5% of the participants thought that the program included content that was not appropriate for the local culture. Conclusions: The vast majority of students reported favorite impressions about ASPIRA online program. High school students and boys were more critical. Language and cultural barriers did not have the potential to reduce in a significant manner the effectiveness of the tested program.

Keywords: smoking prevention, ASPIRA online program, youth opinions, language/cultural barriers

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Authors: Robert Michael, Kayla Tobin, William Foster, Rachel Fairchild

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The COVID-19 pandemic has caused significant disruptions in education, particularly in the teaching of health and physical education (HPE). This study examined a cohort of teachers that experienced being a preservice and first-year teacher during various stages of the pandemic. Qualitative data collection was conducted by interviewing six teachers from different schools in the Eastern U.S. over a series of structured interviews. Thematic analysis was employed to analyze the data. The pandemic significantly impacted the way HPE was taught as schools shifted to virtual and hybrid models. Findings revealed five major themes: (a) You want me to teach HOW?, (b) PE without equipment and six feet apart, (c) Behind the Scenes, (d) They’re back…I became a behavior management guru, and (e) The Pandemic Crater. Overall, this study highlights the significant challenges faced by preservice and first-year teachers in teaching physical education during the pandemic and underscores the need for ongoing support and resources to help them adapt and succeed in these challenging circumstances.

Keywords: teacher education, preservice teachers, first year teachers, health and physical education

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Authors: Carol Howells, Edwin Parks

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This paper explores the existing and evolving constitutional arrangements within the United Kingdom and within the wider international context of the EU. It considers the nature of an ‘English’ constitution and internal colonialism that underpins it. The debates over the UK’s exit from the EU have been many however the constitutional position of the devolved nations (Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales) is little understood or explored. Their constitutional position has been touched upon in academic debate (but not widely) and is only now beginning to receive attention. The paper considers the constitutional role of the legislatures within the UK; the UK Parliament Bill for exiting the European Union and provides a commentary on the Brexit process in relation to constitutional arrangements within the UK and EU. Questions arise over the constitutional framework and, whether, having delegated competencies, the UK Parliament can now legislate in relation to delegated competencies without the consent. The Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly are a permanent and a fixed feature of the UK’s constitution, but their position is set within the traditional concept of the ‘English’ constitution. The current situation is opaque and complex and raises significant constitutional questions. In relation to exit from the EU two of the nations did not vote in favour of Brexit and the third is in receipt of an inequitable funding settlement. Questions arise as to whether the work of modernising the UK’s constitution over the past twenty years in recognising the Nations and governments within those nations is now being unpicked and whether the piecemeal and unequal process of devolution and new constitutional arrangements hold weight. Questions of democratic legitimacy arise throughout. An advisory referendum (where no definition of the EU was provided) in which two of the four nations voted to leave the EU and two voted to remain has led the UK Government negotiating a wholesale exit from the EU based on ‘English’ constitutional law principles. Previous constitutional referendums in relation to devolution within the UK have been treated differently. Within the EU questions are being raised in relation to the focus on member states. The goals of the EU mention member countries and its purpose is seen as being to promote greater social, political and economic harmony among the nations of Europe. The emphasis on member states is proving challenging and has led flawed processes. Scrutiny of legislative proposals, historical developments, and social commentary reveal distinct national identities within the UK. Analysis of the debate, legislation and case law surrounding the exiting process from the EU reveal a muddled picture of a constitution in crisis and significant challenges to principles underpinning the rule of law. Suggestions are made for future reforms and a move towards new constitutional arrangements beyond the current ‘English’ constitution.

Keywords: English, constitution, parliament, devolved

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Authors: Reynante E. Autida, Maria Ana T. Quimbo

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The chemistry education curriculum provides an excellent avenue where students learn the principles and concepts in chemistry and at the same time, as a central science, better understand related fields. However, the teaching approach used by teachers affects student learning. Cased-based teaching (CBT) is one of the various forms of inductive method. The teacher starts with specifics then proceeds to the general principles. The students’ role in inductive learning shifts from being passive in the traditional approach to being active in learning. In this paper, the effects of Small-Group Case-Based Teaching (SGCBT) on college chemistry students’ achievement, critical thinking, and attitude toward chemistry including the relationships between each of these variables were determined. A quasi-experimental counterbalanced design with pre-post control group was used to determine the effects of SGCBT on Engineering students of four intact classes (two treatment groups and two control groups) in one of the State Universities in Mindanao. The independent variables are the type of teaching approach (SGCBT versus pure lecture-discussion teaching or PLDT) while the dependent variables are chemistry achievement (exam scores) and scores in critical thinking and chemistry attitude. Both Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) and t-tests (within and between groups and gain scores) were used to compare the effects of SGCBT versus PLDT on students’ chemistry achievement, critical thinking, and attitude toward chemistry, while Pearson product-moment correlation coefficients were calculated to determine the relationships between each of the variables. Results show that the use of SGCBT fosters positive attitude toward chemistry and provides some indications as well on improved chemistry achievement of students compared with PLDT. Meanwhile, the effects of PLDT and SGCBT on critical thinking are comparable. Furthermore, correlational analysis and focus group interviews indicate that the use of SGCBT not only supports development of positive attitude towards chemistry but also improves chemistry achievement of students. Implications are provided in view of the recent findings on SGCBT and topics for further research are presented as well.

Keywords: case-based teaching, small-group learning, chemistry cases, chemistry achievement, critical thinking, chemistry attitude

Procedia PDF Downloads 297

Authors: Salwa Enneifer

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The research is intended to investigate Tunisian students’ own perception of the difficulties they encounter in the writing task. To achieve this objective, a questionnaire was administered to students enrolled in the ‘Faculty of Letters Arts and Humanities’ in Kairouan, in Tunisia. Students were classified into three groups: first-, second-, and third-year students. The researcher used 120 questionnaires filled in by the students as data for this study; moreover, 30 students participated in a semi-structured interview to complete the data. The questionnaire results revealed that Tunisian EFL students faced spelling and grammar difficulties. ANOVA also revealed that the first-year students did not recognise that Arabic and English greatly differ in their respective punctuation systems. The second-year class, however, was fully aware of this difference. Additionally, the interview shed light on other aspects or different difficulties experienced by students in writing: a cruel ‘lack of vocabulary’, Arabic language interference, the organisation of the essay and especially the academic essay, and difficulty with writing an argumentative essay.

Keywords: difficulties, writing, Tunisian, EFL students

Procedia PDF Downloads 241