Aprendizaje Servicio Universitario: creando empleo a partir de la emprendeduría social

La Universidad debe erigirse como motor de la sociedad civil y abordar con decisión los desafíos sociales contemporáneos, como es la situación de paro en España. La metodología del Aprendizaje Servicio Universitario permite integrar un aprendizaje basado en la realidad con el servicio a la comunidad concretizando la responsabilidad social de la Universidad. El artículo presenta el proyecto interfacultativo EcoSPORTech desarrollado en la Universidad de Vic cuya finalidad ha sido la creación de empleo juvenil desde la emprendeduría social. La política de comunicación ha sido clave en este proyecto.

Social sensing for psychology: Automated interpersonal behavior assessment

In this article, we show how the use of state-of-the-art methods in computer science based on machine perception and learning allows the unobtrusive capture and automated analysis of interpersonal behavior in real time (social sensing). Given the high ecological validity of the behavioral sensing, the ease of behavioral-cue extraction for large groups over long observation periods in the field, the possibility of investigating completely new research questions, and the ability to provide people with immediate feedback on behavior, social sensing will fundamentally impact psychology.

La praxis reflexiva: un reto para la educación social

La educación social en sus diversas acepciones (profesión, práctica educativa y estudios universitarios) ha experimentado unos importantes cambios en los últimos años. De una actividad centrada en la solución de problemas concretos dentro de un ámbito específico, se ha ido avanzando hacia la necesidad de estar capacitado para el trabajo en entornos complejos y difusos. El ejercicio de la actividad en estos entornos requiere de un posicionamiento estratégico, de una visión global más allá de un manejo de recetas cerradas y de una perspectiva ética que trascienda el simple cumplimiento de instrucciones. Por ello, capacitar al profesional para el diseño y la aplicación de las acciones socioeducativas es una temática que requiere la integración de multiplicidad de competencias para que cada intervención sea una respuesta que se adapte a la situación, a las capacidades y al contexto de la persona atendida. En el periodo de formación universitaria, el practicum es un espacio de aprendizaje privilegiado donde se ponen en juego todos los conocimientos adquiridos y sirve de trampolín para empezar a ejercer la profesión en un contexto real pero seguro, que más adelante será el escenario cotidiano de la acción profesional

Best practice report on policy learning infrastructures in innovative labour market policies

This report synthesizes the findings of 11 country reports on policy learning in labour market and social policies that were conducted as part of WP5 of the INSPIRES project, which is funded by the 7th Framework Program of the EU-Commission. Notably, this report puts forward objectives of policy learning, discusses tools, processes and institutions of policy learning and presents the impacts of various tools and structures of the policy learning infrastructure for the actual policy learning process. The report defines three objectives of policy learning: evaluation and assessment of policy effectiveness, vision building and planning, and consensus building. In the 11 countries under consideration, the tools and processes of the policy learning, infrastructure can be classified into three broad groups: public bodies, expert councils, and parties, interest groups and the private sector. Finally, we develop four recommendations for policy learning: Firstly, learning processes should keep the balance between centralisation and plurality. Secondly, learning processes should be kept stable beyond the usual political business cycles. Thirdly, policy learning tools and infrastructures should be sufficiently independent from political influence or bias. Fourth, Policy learning tools and infrastructures should balance out mere effectiveness, evaluation and vision building.

Social Cognition and Behavior in Relationship Context

Social information processing (SIP; Crick & Dodge, 1994) and social-cognitive learning theories have been often used to understand children’s problem behaviors, such as aggression. According to these theories, children’s thinking guides their subsequent behaviors. Although most of us agree that social behavior and underlying thought processes are context-dependent, personality and social development researchers have usually engaged in searching for stable patterns of dispositions and behaviors, ignoring (or treating as error) the variance across different situations and relationship types. This, however, can result in erroneous conclusions and question the interpretation of previous findings. Four studies were conducted to explore the influence of relationship context on children’s social-cognitive evaluations and behavior. Samples were fourth to sixth graders from Estonia and Finland. Social cognitions were assessed by presenting children with hypothetical vignettes where the previously identified relationship partner’s behavior had a negative consequence for the child (Studies I, II, and IV), followed by questions measuring different social-cognitive processes (e.g., hostile attributions, behavioral strategies, outcome expectations and self-efficacy beliefs for aggression). In addition, in Studies II and IV, children provided information about their behavior within a specific relationship context. In Study III, an affective priming paradigm was employed where participants were presented with a short display of photographs of children’s liked and disliked classmates, and unknown peers. The results of this thesis suggest that children’s thinking and behavior are largely influenced by the affective valence of the relationship. Moreover, cognitions guide behavior within the relationship. The current findings offer a fruitful avenue for studying the heterogeneity of peer interactions.

La persistente influencia del origen social sobre la desigualdad de resultados. Una aproximación multinivel a partir de PISA 2009

La persistencia del factor del origen social como determinante de los rendimientos académicos ha sido monitorizada a partir de los años sesenta. Los datos de la encuesta PISA que evalúa han corroborado que el factor determinante del contexto socioeconómico de origen a la hora de explicar la desigualdad de resultados y rendimientos (Duru-Bellat, 2004; Gorard, 2004; Ferrer, 2006). Dupriez y Dumay (2004) concluyen que la desigualdad de resultados está más determinada por la composición social de las escuelas que no por sus mecanismos organizativos y pedagógicos. El artículo examina las diferencias de resultados de aprendizaje en matemáticas entre centros y dentro de los centros en los países de la OCDE y se centra sobre algunos factores que son clave a la hora de explicar estas diferencias. El aprendizaje en matemáticas es analizado a través de un modelo de regresión multinivel.

Learning journalistic opinion genres using CLIL methodology

The Faculty of Business and Communication recently started an internationalization process that, in two year’s time, will allow all undergraduate students (studying Journalism, Audiovisual Communication, Advertising and Public Relations, Business and Marketing) to take 25% of their subjects in English using CLIL methodology. Currently, Journalism is the degree course with the greatest percentage of CLIL subjects, for example Current Affairs Workshop, a subject dedicated to analyzing current news using opinion genres. Moreover, because of the lack of other subjects offered in English, ERASMUS students have to take some journalism subjects in order to complete their international passport, and one of the classes they choose is the Current Affairs Workshop. The aim of this paper is to explore how CLIL methodology can be useful for learning journalistic opinion genres (chat-shows, discussions and debates) in a subject where Catalan Communication students –with different levels of English- share their knowledge with European students of other social disciplines. Students work in multidisciplinary groups in which they develop real radio and TV programs, adopting all the roles (moderator, technician, producer and participants), analyzing daily newspapers and other sources to create content, based on current affairs. This paper is based on the participant observation of the lecturers of the subject, who have designed different activities related to journalistic genres, where students can develop their skills according to the role they play in every assignment. Examples of successful lessons will be given, in addition to the results of the course: both positive and negative. Although the objective of the course is to examine professional routines related to opinion genres, and students are not directly graded on their level of English, the Catalan students come to appreciate how they finally overcome their fear of working in a foreign language. This is a basic result of their experience.

El desarrollo personal y profesional mediante el aprendizaje reflexivo : una experiencia en el grado de Educación Social

In the last years, an increase of the interest to develop educational practices in higher education, based on the approach of the reflective learning, is observed. Nevertheless, we scarcely find in our context researches or experiences that allow knowing students’ perceptions about this teaching and learning approach. We have developed an experience in the bachelor of Social Education at the University of Girona with the aim to contribute to the personal and professional development of future social educators in their initial training, using reflective learning methodology. In this article we present an evaluation of the experience based on students’ perceptions. They assessed the usefulness they think the module has for their training, the methodology and the activities. This evaluation has been carried out through in-depth interviews to 17 students who participated in the module in 2010-11 academic year. The results show that students assess positively the experience, either its general usefulness or the methodology of reflective learning, although they acknowledge some difficulties to carry out such a process which involves a high degree of introspection and a difficulty to set the boundaries in the narration of personal questions. The study also shows some challenges related on the need, but also the difficulty, to include personal and professional development as a powerful axis in the higher education curriculum, as well as elements linked to reflective learning assessment

Student Journalism 2.0 : Testing Models for Participatory Learning in the Digital Age

Many educators and educational institutions have yet to integrate web-based practices into their classrooms and curricula. As a result, it can be difficult to prototype and evaluate approaches to transforming classrooms from static endpoints to dynamic, content-creating nodes in the online information ecosystem. But many scholastic journalism programs have already embraced the capabilities of the Internet for virtual collaboration, dissemination, and reader participation. Because of this, scholastic journalism can act as a test-bed for integrating web-based sharing and collaboration practices into classrooms. Student Journalism 2.0 was a research project to integrate open copyright licenses into two scholastic journalism programs, to document outcomes, and to identify recommendations and remaining challenges for similar integrations. Video and audio recordings of two participating high school journalism programs informed the research. In describing the steps of our integration process, we note some important legal, technical, and social challenges. Legal worries such as uncertainty over copyright ownership could lead districts and administrators to disallow open licensing of student work. Publication platforms among journalism classrooms are far from standardized, making any integration of new technologies and practices difficult to achieve at scale. And teachers and students face challenges re-conceptualizing the role their class work can play online.

La cualificación profesional en educación social. El papel del Prácticum

Peer-reviewed

Learning 2.0 : concepts and experiences

E-learning arises in all educative contexts and levels with the use of information and communication technologies and massive access to internet connected computers. On the other hand, the fast development of social networking tools and web 2.0 technologies are producing an evolution of e-learning towards what is called a learning 2.0 paradigm. In this short paper weshall present the main technologies and pedagogical issues related to that new way of learning and how we can use them to improve the acquisition of competences and new knowledge.

eLab, a Personal Learning Environment for the Green Open Innovation Platform

Open Innovation is a relatively new concept which involves a change of paradigm in the R+D+i processes of companies whose aim is to create new technologies or new processes. If to this change, we add the need for innovation in the new green and sustainability economy, and we set out to create a collaborative platform with a learning space where this can happen, we will be facing an overwhelming challenge which requires the application of intelligent programming technologies and languages at the service of education.The aim of the Green IDI (Green Open Innovation) ¿ Economic development and job creation vector in SMEs, based on the environment and sustainability project is to create a platform where companies and individual researchers can perform open innovation processes in the field of sustainability and the environment.The Green IDI (Green Open Innovation) project is funded under the program INNPACTO by the Ministry of Science and Innovation of Spain and is being developed through a consortium formed by the following institutions: GRUPO ICA; COMPARTIA; GRUPO INTERCOM; CETAQUA and the Instituto de Investigación en Inteligencia Artificial (IIIA) from Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC). Also the consortium include FUNDACIÓ PRIVADA BARCELONA DIGITAL; PIMEC and UNIVERSITAT OBERTA DE CATALUNYA (UOC).Sustainability and positive action for the environment are considered the principle vector of economic development for companies. As Nicolás Scoli says (2007) ¿in short, preventing unnecessary consumption and the efficient consumption of resources means producing greater wealth with less. Both effects lead to reduced pollution linked to production and consumption¿.The Spanish Sustainable Development Strategy (EEDS) plan defends consumption and sustainable production linked to social and economic development by adhering to the commitment not to endanger ecosystems and abolishing the idea that economic growth is directly proportional to the deterioration of the environment.Uniting the Open Innovation and New Green Economy concepts leads to the "Green Open Innovation¿ Platform creation project.This article analyses the concept of open innovation and defines the importance of the new green and sustainable economy. Lastly, it proposes the creation of eLab. The eLab is defined as an Open Green Innovation Platform personal and collaborative education space which is fed by the interactions of users and which enables innovation processes based on new green economy concepts to be carried out.The creation of a personal learning environment such as eLab on the Green Open Innovation Platform meets the need to offer a collaborative space where platform users can improve their skills regarding the environment and sustainability based on collaborative synergies through Information and Communication Technologies.

Reflective Learning in Higher Education: A Comparative Analysis

A descriptive, exploratory study is presented based on a questionnaire regarding the following aspects of reflective learning: a) self-knowledge, b) relating experience to knowledge, c) self-reflection, and d) self-regulation of the learning processes. The questionnaire was completed by students studying four different degree courses (social education, environmental sciences, nursing, and psychology). Specifically, the objectives of a self-reported reflective learning questionnaire are: i) to determine students’ appraisal of reflective learning methodology with regard to their reflective learning processes, ii) to obtain evidence of the main difficulties encountered by students in integrating reflective learning methodologies into their reflective learning processes, and iii) to collect students’ perceptions regarding the main contributions of the reflective learning processes they have experienced

Learning in later life: participation in formal, non-formal and informal activities in a nationally representative Spanish sample

This article examines the participation of Spanish older people in formal, non-formal and informal learning activities and presents a profile of participants in each kind of learning activity. We used data from a nationally representative sample of Spanish people between 60 and 75 years old (n = 4,703). The data were extracted from the 2007 Encuesta sobre la Participación de la Población Adulta en Actividades de Aprendizaje (EADA, Survey on Adult Population Involvement in Learning Activities). Overall, only 22.8 % of the sample participated in a learning activity. However, there was wide variation in the participation rates for the different types of activity. Informal activities were far more common than formal ones. Multivariate logistic regression indicated that education level and involvement in social and cultural activities were associated with likelihood of participating, regardless of the type of learning activity. When these variables were taken into account, age did not predict decreasing participation, at least in non-formal and informal activities. Implications for further research, future trends and policies to promote older adult education are discussed.

Efficiency and Equity in Learning Communities and schools

Traditionally, school efficiency has been measured as a function of educational production. In the last two decades, however, studies in the economics of education have indicated that more is required to improve school efficiency: researchers must explore how significant changes in school organization affect the performance of at-risk students. In this paper we introduce Henry Levin’s adoption of the X-efficiency approach to education and we describe the efficient and cost-effective characteristics of one Learning Communities Project School that significantly improved its student outcomes and enrollment numbersand reduced its absenteeism rate to zero. The organizational change that facilitatedthese improvements defined specific issues to address. Students’ school success became the focus of the school project, which also offered specific incentives, selected teachers, involved parents and community members in decisions, and used the most efficient technologies and methods. This case analysis reveals new two elements—family training and community involvement—that were not explicit parts of Levin’s adaptation. The case of the Antonio Machado Public School should attract the attention of both social scientists and policy makers