Collaborative approaches to the management of e-learning (CAMEL)

A teaching and learning project funded by the Office of Learning, Enhancement, Access and Participation (LEAP) at the University of Greenwich.

Injury narrative text classification using factorization model

Narrative text is a useful way of identifying injury circumstances from the routine emergency department data collections. Automatically classifying narratives based on machine learning techniques is a promising technique, which can consequently reduce the tedious manual classification process. Existing works focus on using Naive Bayes which does not always offer the best performance. This paper proposes the Matrix Factorization approaches along with a learning enhancement process for this task. The results are compared with the performance of various other classification approaches. The impact on the classification results from the parameters setting during the classification of a medical text dataset is discussed. With the selection of right dimension k, Non Negative Matrix Factorization-model method achieves 10 CV accuracy of 0.93.

O processo avaliativo institucional de desempenho do sistema público municipal de Teresina-PI (2001 a 2005): entre a lógica da excelência e a lógica da aprendizagem

This work focalize the institutional and educational evaluation, aiming to investigate the Municipal System Institutional Evaluation Performance of Teresina City Piauí (2001-2005), and to reflect about Institutional System Performance and its contribution to compose a new learning evaluation practice. In this sense, classifies elements about the evaluation practice in two Elementary Education municipal public schools, involving Education Municipal Bureau technicians as managers, pedagogues, teachers and students. Based on the ethnographic studies principles in the educational area, the work employs investigative procedures like document analysis, interviews with groups and individuals and also participator s comments. Intending to comprehend the complexity produced by the institutional and education evaluation processes, the wok reveals the Institutional Evaluation legal and educational political basis and the several positions assumed by the Learning Evaluation, as a classification tool or as a learning enhancement. This work points, as results, to a evaluation culture bipolarity carried out by the Municipal Education System as a explicit control and regulation toll, related to the classification and learning in a interaction process that operates both in the pressure and the reflection, as a culture practice established between excellence of logic and learning. The evaluation history has been construct on the evaluation actions dialectics, joint simultaneously between the Institutional Evaluation Performance and the learning evaluation. The senses, meanings and actions bipolarity is a interaction process product sustained between the institutional evaluation, under the scholar ranking application, and the learning evaluation. In this relativity, the teacher evaluation practice is found, ruled by interesting, thoughts and actions on the school evaluation, allowing a higher security and support to the learning results. Grounded in the researched reality, its possible to say that the teacher s evaluation practice is diversified, with different characteristics, when it is done in the learning search and in the learning intention. In the first case, reflects, rearranges and constructs new actions that lead the student to produce learning. In the second, shows the will, the wish of learning, but is a weak action, producing a not really significant learning and development; as a result, remains the mark approach as a determinant in the student future. The work s hope is to contribute not just to rethink these two evaluations dimensions the institutional and the learning ones but also to organize the school and to improve the pedagogic process

The in vivo synaptic plasticity mechanism of EGb 761-induced enhancement of spatial learning and memory in aged rats

1 It has not been uniform to date that the Ginkgo biloba extracts enhance cognitive function in aged animals, and the mechanisms of action remain difficult to elucidate. In this study, the Morris water maze task and electrophysiological methods were used

Children’s Friendships and Learning in School: Cognitive Enhancement Through Social Interaction?

Background. Recent literature has identified that children's performance on cognitive (or problem-solving) tasks can be enhanced when undertaken as a joint activity among pairs of pupils. Performance on this ‘social’ activity will require quality relationships between pupils, leading some researchers to argue that friendships are characterized by these quality relationships and, therefore, that friendship grouping should be used more frequently within classrooms. Aims. Children's friendship grouping may appear to be a reasonable basis for cognitive development in classrooms, although there is only inconsistent evidence to support this argument. The inconsistency may be explained by the various bases for friendship, and how friendship is affected by cultural contexts of gender and schooling. This study questions whether classroom-based friendship pairings will perform consistently better on a cognitive task than acquaintance pairings, taking into account gender, age, and ability level of children. The study also explores the nature of school-based friendship described by young children. Sample. 72 children were paired to undertake science reasoning tasks (SRTs). Pairings represented friendship (versus acquaintance), sex (male and female pairings), ability (teacher-assessed high, medium, and low), and age (children in Years 1, 3, and 5 in a primary school). Method. A small-scale quasi-experimental design was used to assess (friendship- or acquaintance-based) paired performance on SRTs. Friendship pairs were later interviewed about qualities and activities that characterized their friendships. Results. Girls' friendship pairings were found to perform at the highest SRT levels and boys' friendship pairing performed at the lowest levels. Both boy and girl acquaintance pairings performed at mid-SRT levels. These findings were consistent across Year (in school) levels and ability levels. Interviews revealed that male and female friendship pairs were likely to participate in different types of activity, with girls being school-inclusive and boys being school-exclusive. Conclusion. Recommendations to use friendship as a basis for classroom grouping for cognitive tasks may facilitate performance of some pairings, but may also inhibit the performance of others. This is shown very clearly with regard to gender. Some of the difference in cognitive task performance may be explained by distinct, cultural (and social capital) orientations to friendship activities, with girls integrating school and educational considerations into friendship, and boys excluding school and educational considerations.

Engendering a culture of quality enhancement in teaching and learning: lessons learned

Enhancing the quality of learning and teaching in higher education has been on the English national agenda for more than a decade. The Government and funding organisations have enabled universities to focus on creating a culture of excellence in learning and teaching and continuing academic and professional development. This paper describes some of the strategies that have promoted a culture of quality teaching in higher education in England and how one organisation, the University of Westminster has implemented those strategies to engender a culture of quality enhancement and continuing professional development.

Cholinergic enhancement of perceptual learning : behavioral, physiological, and neuro-pharmacological study in the rat primary visual cortex

Les cortices sensoriels sont des régions cérébrales essentielles pour la perception. En particulier, le cortex visuel traite l’information visuelle en provenance de la rétine qui transite par le thalamus. Les neurones sont les unités fonctionnelles qui transforment l'information sensorielle en signaux électriques, la transfèrent vers le cortex et l'intègrent. Les neurones du cortex visuel sont spécialisés et analysent différents aspects des stimuli visuels. La force des connections entre les neurones peut être modulée par la persistance de l'activité pré-synaptique et induit une augmentation ou une diminution du signal post-synaptique à long terme. Ces modifications de la connectivité synaptique peuvent induire la réorganisation de la carte corticale, c’est à dire la représentation de ce stimulus et la puissance de son traitement cortical. Cette réorganisation est connue sous le nom de plasticité corticale. Elle est particulièrement active durant la période de développement, mais elle s’observe aussi chez l’adulte, par exemple durant l’apprentissage. Le neurotransmetteur acétylcholine (ACh) est impliqué dans de nombreuses fonctions cognitives telles que l’apprentissage ou l’attention et il est important pour la plasticité corticale. En particulier, les récepteurs nicotiniques et muscariniques du sous-type M1 et M2 sont les récepteurs cholinergiques impliqués dans l’induction de la plasticité corticale. L’objectif principal de la présente thèse est de déterminer les mécanismes de plasticité corticale induits par la stimulation du système cholinergique au niveau du télencéphale basal et de définir les effets sur l’amélioration de la perception sensorielle. Afin d’induire la plasticité corticale, j’ai jumelé des stimulations visuelles à des injections intracorticales d’agoniste cholinergique (carbachol) ou à une stimulation du télencéphale basal (neurones cholinergiques qui innervent le cortex visuel primaire). J'ai analysé les potentiels évoqués visuels (PEVs) dans le cortex visuel primaire des rats pendant 4 à 8 heures après le couplage. Afin de préciser l’action de l’ACh sur l’activité des PEVs dans V1, j’ai injecté individuellement l’antagoniste des récepteurs muscariniques, nicotiniques, α7 ou NMDA avant l’infusion de carbachol. La stimulation du système cholinergique jumelée avec une stimulation visuelle augmente l’amplitude des PEVs durant plus de 8h. Le blocage des récepteurs muscarinique, nicotinique et NMDA abolit complètement cette amélioration, tandis que l’inhibition des récepteurs α7 a induit une augmentation instantanée des PEVs. Ces résultats suggèrent que l'ACh facilite à long terme la réponse aux stimuli visuels et que cette facilitation implique les récepteurs nicotiniques, muscariniques et une interaction avec les récepteur NMDA dans le cortex visuel. Ces mécanismes sont semblables à la potentiation à long-terme, évènement physiologique lié à l’apprentissage. L’étape suivante était d’évaluer si l’effet de l’amplification cholinergique de l’entrée de l’information visuelle résultait non seulement en une modification de l’activité corticale mais aussi de la perception visuelle. J’ai donc mesuré l’amélioration de l’acuité visuelle de rats adultes éveillés exposés durant 10 minutes par jour pendant deux semaines à un stimulus visuel de type «réseau sinusoïdal» couplé à une stimulation électrique du télencéphale basal. L’acuité visuelle a été mesurée avant et après le couplage des stimulations visuelle et cholinergique à l’aide d’une tâche de discrimination visuelle. L’acuité visuelle du rat pour le stimulus d’entrainement a été augmentée après la période d’entrainement. L’augmentation de l’acuité visuelle n’a pas été observée lorsque la stimulation visuelle seule ou celle du télencéphale basal seul, ni lorsque les fibres cholinergiques ont été lésées avant la stimulation visuelle. Une augmentation à long terme de la réactivité corticale du cortex visuel primaire des neurones pyramidaux et des interneurones GABAergiques a été montrée par l’immunoréactivité au c-Fos. Ainsi, lorsque couplé à un entrainement visuel, le système cholinergique améliore les performances visuelles pour l’orientation et ce probablement par l’optimisation du processus d’attention et de plasticité corticale dans l’aire V1. Afin d’étudier les mécanismes pharmacologiques impliqués dans l’amélioration de la perception visuelle, j’ai comparé les PEVs avant et après le couplage de la stimulation visuelle/cholinergique en présence d’agonistes/antagonistes sélectifs. Les injections intracorticales des différents agents pharmacologiques pendant le couplage ont montré que les récepteurs nicotiniques et M1 muscariniques amplifient la réponse corticale tandis que les récepteurs M2 muscariniques inhibent les neurones GABAergiques induisant un effet excitateur. L’infusion d’antagoniste du GABA corrobore l’hypothèse que le système inhibiteur est essentiel pour induire la plasticité corticale. Ces résultats démontrent que l’entrainement visuel jumelé avec la stimulation cholinergique améliore la plasticité corticale et qu’elle est contrôlée par les récepteurs nicotinique et muscariniques M1 et M2. Mes résultats suggèrent que le système cholinergique est un système neuromodulateur qui peut améliorer la perception sensorielle lors d’un apprentissage perceptuel. Les mécanismes d’amélioration perceptuelle induits par l’acétylcholine sont liés aux processus d’attention, de potentialisation à long-terme et de modulation de la balance d’influx excitateur/inhibiteur. En particulier, le couplage de l’activité cholinergique avec une stimulation visuelle augmente le ratio de signal / bruit et ainsi la détection de cibles. L’augmentation de la concentration cholinergique corticale potentialise l’afférence thalamocorticale, ce qui facilite le traitement d’un nouveau stimulus et diminue la signalisation cortico-corticale minimisant ainsi la modulation latérale. Ceci est contrôlé par différents sous-types de récepteurs cholinergiques situés sur les neurones GABAergiques ou glutamatergiques des différentes couches corticales. La présente thèse montre qu’une stimulation électrique dans le télencéphale basal a un effet similaire à l’infusion d’agoniste cholinergique et qu’un couplage de stimulations visuelle et cholinergique induit la plasticité corticale. Ce jumelage répété de stimulations visuelle/cholinergique augmente la capacité de discrimination visuelle et améliore la perception. Cette amélioration est corrélée à une amplification de l’activité neuronale démontrée par immunocytochimie du c-Fos. L’immunocytochimie montre aussi une différence entre l’activité des neurones glutamatergiques et GABAergiques dans les différentes couches corticales. L’injection pharmacologique pendant la stimulation visuelle/cholinergique suggère que les récepteurs nicotiniques, muscariniques M1 peuvent amplifier la réponse excitatrice tandis que les récepteurs M2 contrôlent l’activation GABAergique. Ainsi, le système cholinergique activé au cours du processus visuel induit des mécanismes de plasticité corticale et peut ainsi améliorer la capacité perceptive. De meilleures connaissances sur ces actions ouvrent la possibilité d’accélérer la restauration des fonctions visuelles lors d’un déficit ou d’amplifier la fonction cognitive.

Media Education and Brazilian Educational Policies for the Enhancement of Learning

As media education concepts and practices have been disseminated and strengthened in European countries and Americas, the policies responsible for that expansion remain little known, particularly in countries where the achievements have been recently noted. That is the case for Brazil, where there have been new opportunities for media education, considered as a valuable resource to help accomplish goals of the educational system. This paper looks into the contribution of media education to the enhancement of teaching and learning in the context of innovations brought by recent policies of the Brazilian Ministry of Education. After educational reform programmes which brought the opportunity for emerging fields such as media education, we produced teaching material and conducted a series of workshops with students and teachers from state secondary schools. By reading and producing multimedia information about local public services available to young people, pupils learned about democracy, citizenship, civic engagement, media language, and identity. Lessons from our experiment are discussed against the backdrop of education policies being implemented to ameliorate harsh conditions resulting from the recent economic crisis. We suggest that media education can help by creating a learning environment in which the students become aware of the value of educational attainments.

Facial Nerve Image Enhancement from CBCT using Supervised Learning Technique

Facial nerve segmentation plays an important role in surgical planning of cochlear implantation. Clinically available CBCT images are used for surgical planning. However, its relatively low resolution renders the identification of the facial nerve difficult. In this work, we present a supervised learning approach to enhance facial nerve image information from CBCT. A supervised learning approach based on multi-output random forest was employed to learn the mapping between CBCT and micro-CT images. Evaluation was performed qualitatively and quantitatively by using the predicted image as input for a previously published dedicated facial nerve segmentation, and cochlear implantation surgical planning software, OtoPlan. Results show the potential of the proposed approach to improve facial nerve image quality as imaged by CBCT and to leverage its segmentation using OtoPlan.

Engaging employers as partners in work-based learning assessment:proposal for a quality enhancement framework

This paper seeks to advance research and practice related to the role of employers in all stages of the assessment process of work-based learning (WBL) within a tripartite relationship of higher education institution (HEI), student and employer. It proposes a research-informed quality enhancement framework to develop good practice in engaging employers as partners in assessment. The Enhancement Framework comprises three dimensions, each of which includes elements and questions generated by the experiences of WBL students, HEI staff and employers. The three dimensions of the Enhancement Framework are: 1. ‘premises of assessment’ encompassing issues of learning, inclusion, standards and value; 2. ‘practice’, encompassing stages of assessment made up of course design, assessment task, responsibilities, support, grading and feedback; 3. ‘communication of assessment’ with the emphasis on role clarity, language and pathways. With its prompt questions, the Enhancement Framework may be used as a capacity-building tool for promoting, sustaining, benchmarking and evaluating productive dialogue and critical reflection about assessment between WBL partners. The paper concludes by emphasising the need for professional development as well as policy and research development, so that assessment in WBL can more closely correspond to the potentially transformative nature of the learning experience.