‘Please leave your mobile phone on’ : Social educational networking in a social society : Encouraging in-class engagement at QUT across physical and virtual learning environments

Though stadium style seating in large lecture theatres may suggest otherwise, effective teaching and learning is a not a spectator sport. A challenge in creating effective learning environments in both physical and virtual spaces is to provide optimal opportunity for student engagement in active learning. Queensland University of Technology (QUT) has developed the Open Web Lecture (OWL), a new web-based student response application, which seamlessly integrates a virtual learning environment within the physical learning space. The result is a blended learning experience; a fluid collaboration between academic and students connected to OWL via the University’s Wi-Fi using their own laptop or mobile web device. QUT is currently piloting the OWL application to encourage student engagement. OWL offers opportunities for participants to: • Post comments and questions • Reply to comments
 • "Like" comments
 • Poll students and review data • Review archived sessions. Many of these features instinctively appeal to student users of social networking media, yet avail the academic of control within the University network. Student privacy is respected through a system of preserving peer-peer anonymity, a functionality that seeks to address a traditional reluctance to speak up in large classes. The pilot is establishing OWL as an opportunity for engaging students in active learning opportunities by enabling • virtual learning in physical spaces for large group lectures, seminar groups, workshops and conferences • live collaborative technology connecting students and the academic via the wireless network using their own laptop or mobile device • an non- intimidating environment in which to ask questions • promotion of a sense of community • instant feedback • problem based learning. The student and academic response to OWL has been overwhelmingly positive, crediting OWL as an easy to use application, which creates effective learning opportunities though interactivity and immediate feedback. This poster and accompanying online presentation of the technology will demonstrate how OWL offers new possibilities for active learning in physical spaces by: • providing increased opportunity for student engagement • supporting a range of learners and learning activities • fostering blended learning experiences. The presentation will feature visual displays of the technology, its various interfaces and feedback including clips from interviews with students and academics participating in the early stages of the pilot.

Choosing social-educational professions in post-soviet countries: international comparison

The motivation functions as the most important and decisive factor in choosing the profession Therefore it has an especially remarkable role in the further professional activity of a social-educational worker to raise one's qualification and progress as a specialist. The issue of the professional motivation for choosing social-educational work-studies is becoming increasingly important in post-soviet countries, where the institution of social worker is new and the social exclusion is so widely expressed. The issue of the professional aptitude of students is also important in various professional fields, however in social-educational professions it's importance is exceptional. The profession of social-educational work is based on competences that are constantly expanding and becoming more and more complex.

The social, educational and religious state of the manufacturing districts; with statistical returns of the means of education and religious instruction in the manufacturing districts of Yorkshire, Lancashire and Cheshire; in two letters to the Right Hon. Sir Robt. Peel, bart., with an appendix containing a letter to the Right Hon. Lord Wharncliffe, on Sir Jas. Graham's factory education bill; also the objections to the amended bill.

Includes tables.

Progress & the Scientific Worker, Scientific, Social, Educational, Industrial

Mode of access: Internet.

As relações entre as medidas de habilidades sociais do professor do ensino fundamental II e seu desempenho social em sala de aula

O conceito atual de um comportamento socialmente habilidoso deve incluir capacidade de o indivíduo obter satisfação pessoal e, ao mesmo tempo, de desenvolver e manter relacionamentos mutuamente benéficos e sustentadores. No âmbito da educação, identifica-se uma crescente preocupação de pais, diretores de escolas e professores com o desenvolvimento interpessoal dos alunos, com o propósito de reduzir conflitos, aumentar a qualidade das relações entre os alunos e facilitar a aprendizagem. Neste sentido, é necessário que o professor se dedique a desenvolver as próprias habilidades interpessoais para que seja capaz de facilitar o desenvolvimento social e intelectual do aluno. Diante dessas constatações, torna-se relevante identificar que habilidades sociais do professor estão mais relacionadas com o seu desempenho social em sala de aula. Tais constatações fundamentaram esse estudo que avaliou os níveis de habilidades sociais de professores, assim como o desempenho social destes em sala de aula. Participaram da pesquisa oito professoras e dois professores do Ensino Fundamental II (do 6 ao 9 Ano), do Instituto Nossa Senhora Auxiliadora, no Rio de Janeiro. Suas idades variavam entre 24 e 50 anos. Participaram também 198 adolescentes, 100 do sexo masculino e 98 do sexo feminino. Suas idades variavam entre 11 e 15 anos. O desempenho social dos professores em sala de aula foi avaliado pelos próprios professores e pelos alunos, através do Questionário do Desempenho Social do Professor (QDSP). Os professores também responderam ao Inventário de Habilidades Sociais (IHS) e ao Inventário de Empatia (IE). Os resultados das medidas de auto-relato apontaram níveis de assertividade e de empatia acima da média na maioria dos professores dessa amostra, especialmente nos fatores relacionados a: auto-afirmação com risco; conversação e desenvoltura social; auto-exposição a desconhecidos e a situações novas; autocontrole da agressividade; tomada de perspectiva; flexibilidade; altruísmo e sensibilidade afetiva. As medidas de desempenho social dos professores foram satisfatórias, tanto a partir da perspectiva do professor quanto dos alunos. Entretanto, a auto-avaliação dos professores mostraram-se mais favoráveis do que a avaliação feita pelos alunos. Além disso, com base na avaliação dos alunos, apenas quatro professores apresentaram desempenho social assertivo e empático de forma equilibrada. Tais resultados indicam a necessidade de se desenvolver programas de treinamento em habilidades sociais educativas.

Serviço social e assistência social: cidadania e projeto ético-político

Pós-graduação em Serviço Social - FCHS

Novas perspectivas no trabalho do agente educacional na educação da criança: uma visão bio-psico-social

Pós-graduação em Serviço Social - FCHS

Dos sujeitos e lugares da punição: da passagem do/a jovem perigoso/a para o/a jovem em perigo: um estudo das dimensões do dispositivo da gestão dos riscos e de controle social da juventude

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Competencias en educación: Ideas para el diseño curricular desde la deliberación práctica y crítica, basada en el desarrollo humano y la transformación social

Los sistemas educativos, en América Latina y en el mundo entero, están siendo llamados a dar respuesta a las exigencias de profesionales altamente formados, que respondan a los conocimientos y habilidades emergentes exigidas por los avances científicos y tecnológicos. Ante esas peticiones de la realidad económica y productiva, las competencias se han convertido en el estandarte para que los sistemas educativos planteen sus propuestas curriculares. En estas se manifiesta la ampliación de los contenidos al aprender funciones o tareas con base en adaptaciones de otros contextos, desde la experticia y sin estudios profundos de la realidad de las fuentes curriculares. En este artículo se plantea la importancia de considerar que un proyecto educativo basado en competencias profesionales se debe visualizar como un proceso de formación de la persona, de manera integral. En el análisis de esa proposición se discute el abordaje de las competencias desde la educación, el cual ha pretendido relacionar la teoría y la práctica, acercando los contenidos académicos al hacer en un puesto de trabajo, en divergencia con la necesidad de razonar las competencias en educación como el medio para integrar el conocimiento y la experiencia. No se trata solo de resolver tareas específicas en un futuro puesto de trabajo, sino también de la búsqueda de soluciones de los problemas en los diferentes ámbitos de la vida. Para el logro de esa visión integradora de la educación, se proponen algunas ideas para diseñar proyectos curriculares por competencias desde la tradición práctica deliberativa y crítica, con una concepción curricular humanista y de transformación social.

Perceiving and pursuing novelty : a grounded theory of adolescent creativity

Creativity plays an increasingly important role in our personal, social, educational, and community lives. For adolescents, creativity can enable self-expression, be a means of pushing boundaries, and assist learning, achievement, and completion of everyday tasks. Moreover, adolescents who demonstrate creativity can potentially enhance their capacity to face unknown future challenges, address mounting social and ecological issues in our global society, and improve their career opportunities and contribution to the economy. For these reasons, creativity is an essential capacity for young people in their present and future, and is highlighted as a priority in current educational policy nationally and internationally. Despite growing recognition of creativity’s importance and attention to creativity in research, the creative experience from the perspectives of the creators themselves and the creativity of adolescents are neglected fields of study. Hence, this research investigated adolescents’ self-reported experiences of creativity to improve understandings of their creative processes and manifestations, and how these can be supported or inhibited. Although some aspects of creativity have been extensively researched, there were no comprehensive, multidisciplinary theoretical frameworks of adolescent creativity to provide a foundation for this study. Therefore, a grounded theory methodology was adopted for the purpose of constructing a new theory to describe and explain adolescents’ creativity in a range of domains. The study’s constructivist-interpretivist perspective viewed the data and findings as interpretations of adolescents’ creative experiences, co-constructed by the participants and the researcher. The research was conducted in two academically selective high schools in Australia: one arts school, and one science, mathematics, and technology school. Twenty adolescent participants (10 from each school) were selected using theoretical sampling. Data were collected via focus groups, individual interviews, an online discussion forum, and email communications. Grounded theory methods informed a process of concurrent data collection and analysis; each iteration of analysis informed subsequent data collection. Findings portray creativity as it was perceived and experienced by participants, presented in a Grounded Theory of Adolescent Creativity. The Grounded Theory of Adolescent Creativity comprises a core category, Perceiving and Pursuing Novelty: Not the Norm, which linked all findings in the study. This core category explains how creativity involved adolescents perceiving stimuli and experiences differently, approaching tasks or life unconventionally, and pursuing novel ideas to create outcomes that are not the norm when compared with outcomes by peers. Elaboration of the core category is provided by the major categories of findings. That is, adolescent creativity entailed utilising a network of Sub-Processes of Creativity, using strategies for Managing Constraints and Challenges, and drawing on different Approaches to Creativity – adaptation, transfer, synthesis, and genesis – to apply the sub-processes and produce creative outcomes. Potentially, there were Effects of Creativity on Creators and Audiences, depending on the adolescent and the task. Three Types of Creativity were identified as the manifestations of the creative process: creative personal expression, creative boundary pushing, and creative task achievement. Interactions among adolescents’ dispositions and environments were influential in their creativity. Patterns and variations of these interactions revealed a framework of four Contexts for Creativity that offered different levels of support for creativity: high creative disposition–supportive environment; high creative disposition–inhibiting environment; low creative disposition–supportive environment; and low creative disposition–inhibiting environment. These contexts represent dimensional ranges of how dispositions and environments supported or inhibited creativity, and reveal that the optimal context for creativity differed depending on the adolescent, task, domain, and environment. This study makes four main contributions, which have methodological and theoretical implications for researchers, as well as practical implications for adolescents, parents, teachers, policy and curriculum developers, and other interested stakeholders who aim to foster the creativity of adolescents. First, this study contributes methodologically through its constructivist-interpretivist grounded theory methodology combining the grounded theory approaches of Corbin and Strauss (2008) and Charmaz (2006). Innovative data collection was also demonstrated through integration of data from online and face-to-face interactions with adolescents, within the grounded theory design. These methodological contributions have broad applicability to researchers examining complex constructs and processes, and with populations who integrate multimedia as a natural form of communication. Second, applicable to creativity in diverse domains, the Grounded Theory of Adolescent Creativity supports a hybrid view of creativity as both domain-general and domain-specific. A third major contribution was identification of a new form of creativity, educational creativity (ed-c), which categorises creativity for learning or achievement within the constraints of formal educational contexts. These theoretical contributions inform further research about creativity in different domains or multidisciplinary areas, and with populations engaged in formal education. However, the key contribution of this research is that it presents an original Theory and Model of Adolescent Creativity to explain the complex, multifaceted phenomenon of adolescents’ creative experiences.

Factors associated with common mental disorders during the transition to adulthood : do emerging adults and ‘early starters’ differ? Findings from an Australian birth cohort study

Background: Despite increasing diversity in pathways to adulthood, choices available to young people are influenced by environmental, familial and individual factors, namely access to socioeconomic resources, family support and mental and physical health status. Young people from families with higher socioeconomic position (SEP) are more likely to pursue tertiary education and delay entry to adulthood, whereas those from low socioeconomic backgrounds are less likely to attain higher education or training, and more likely to partner and become parents early. The first group are commonly termed ‘emerging adults’ and the latter group ‘early starters’. Mental health disorders during this transition can seriously disrupt psychological, social and academic development as well as employment prospects. Depression, anxiety and most substance use disorders have early onset during adolescence and early adulthood with approximately three quarters of lifetime psychiatric disorders having emerged by 24 years of age. Aims: This thesis aimed to explore the relationships between mental health, sociodemographic factors and family functioning during the transition to adulthood. Four areas were investigated: 1) The key differences between emerging adults and ‘early starters’, were examined and focused on a series of social, economic, and demographic factors as well as DSM-IV diagnoses; 2) Methodological issues associated with the measurement of depression and anxiety in young adults were explored by comparing a quantitative measure of symptoms of anxiety and depression (Achenbach’s YSR and YASR internalising scales) with DSM-IV diagnosed depression and anxiety. 3) The association between family SEP and DSM-IV depression and anxiety was examined in relation to the different pathways to adulthood. 4) Finally, the association between pregnancy loss, abortion and miscarriage, and DSM-IV diagnoses of common psychiatric disorders was assessed in young women who reported early parenting, experiencing a pregnancy loss, or who had never been pregnant. Methods: Data were taken from the Mater University Study of Pregnancy (MUSP), a large birth cohort started in 1981 in Brisbane, Australia. 7223 mothers and their children were assessed five times, at 6 months, 5, 14 and 21 years after birth. Over 3700 young adults, aged 18 to 23 years, were interviewed at the 21-year phase. Respondents completed an extensive series of self-reported questionnaires and a computerised structured psychiatric interview. Three outcomes were assessed at the 21-year phase. Mental health disorders diagnosed by a computerised structured psychiatric interview (CIDI-Auto), the prevalence of DSM-IV depression, anxiety and substance use disorders within the previous 12-month, during the transition (between ages of 18 and 23 years) or lifetime were examined. The primary outcome “current stage in the transition to adulthood” was developed using a measure conceptually constructed from the literature. The measure was based on important demographic markers, and these defined four independent groups: emerging adults (single with no children and living with parents), and three categories of ‘early starter’, singles (with no children or partner, living independently), those with a partner (married or cohabitating but without children) and parents. Early pregnancy loss was assessed using a measure that also defined four independent groups and was based on pregnancy outcomes in the young women This categorised the young women into those who were never pregnant, women who gave birth to a live child, and women who reported some form of pregnancy loss, either an abortion or a spontaneous miscarriage. A series of analyses were undertaken to test the study aims. Potential confounding and mediating factors were prospectively measured between the child’s birth and the 21-year phase. Binomial and multinomial logistic regression was used to estimate the risk of relevant outcomes, and the associations were reported as odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (95%CI). Key findings: The thesis makes a number of important contributions to our understanding of the transition to adulthood, particularly in relation to the mental health consequences associated with different pathways. Firstly, findings from the thesis clearly showed that young people who parented or partnered early fared worse across most of the economic and social factors as well as the common mental disorders when compared to emerging adults. That is, young people who became early parents were also more likely to experience recent anxiety (OR=2.0, 95%CI 1.5-2.8) and depression (OR=1.7, 95%CI 1.1-2.7) than were emerging adults after taking into account a range of confounding factors. Singles and those partnering early also had higher rates of lifetime anxiety and depression than emerging adults. Young people who partnered early, but were without children, had decreased odds of recent depression; this may be due to the protective effect of early marriage against depression. It was also found that young people who form families early had an increased risk of cigarette smoking (parents OR=3.7, 95%CI 2.9-4.8) compared to emerging adults, but not heavy alcohol (parents OR=0.4, 95%CI 0.3-0.6) or recent illicit drug use. The high rates of cigarette smoking and tobacco use disorders in ‘early starters’ were explained by common risk factors related to early adversity and lower SEP. Having a child and early marriage may well function as a ‘turning point’ for some young people, it is not clear whether this is due to a conscious decision to disengage from a previous ‘substance using’ lifestyle or simply that they no longer have the time to devote to such activities because of child caring. In relation to the methodological issues associated with assessing common mental disorders in young adults, it was found that although the Achenbach empirical internalising scales successfully predicted both later DSM-IV depression (YSR OR=2.3, 95%CI 1.7-3.1) and concurrently diagnosed depression (YASR OR=6.9, 95%CI 5.0- 9.5) and anxiety (YASR OR=5.1, 95%CI 3.8- 6.7), the scales discriminated poorly between young people with or without DSM-IV diagnosed mood disorder. Sensitivity values (the proportion of true positives) for the internalising scales were surprisingly low. Only a third of young people with current DSM-IV depression (range for each of the scales was between 34% to 42%) were correctly identified as cases by the YASR internalising scales, and only a quarter with current anxiety disorder (range of 23% to 31%) were correctly identified. Also, use of the DSM-oriented scales increased sensitivity only marginally (for depression between 2-8%, and anxiety between 2-6%) above the standard Achenbach scales. This is despite the fact that the DSM-oriented scales were originally developed to overcome the poor prediction of DSM-IV diagnoses by the Achenbach scales. The internalising scales, both standard and DSM-oriented, were much more effective at identifying young people with comorbid depression and anxiety, with OR’s 10.1 to 21.7 depending on the internalising scale used. SEP is an important predictor of both an early transition to adulthood and the experience of anxiety during that time Family income during adolescence was a strong predictor of early parenting and partnering before age 24 but not early independent living. Compared to families in the upper quintile, young people from families with low income were nearly twice as likely to live with a partner and four times more likely to become parents (OR ranged from 2.6 to 4.0). This association remained after adjusting for current employment and education level. Children raised in low income families were 30% more likely to have an anxiety disorder (OR=1.3, 95%CI 0.9-1.9), but not depression, as young adults when compared to children from wealthier families. Emerging adults and ‘early starters’ from low income families did not differ in their likelihood of having a later anxiety disorder. Young women reporting a pregnancy loss had nearly three times the odds of experiencing a lifetime illicit drug disorder (excluding cannabis) [abortion OR=3.6, 95%CI 2.0-6.7 and miscarriage OR=2.6, 95%CI 1.2-5.4]. Abortion was associated with alcohol use disorder (OR=2.1, 95%CI 1.3- 3.5) and 12-month depression (OR=1.9, 95%CI 1.1- 3.1). These finding suggest that the association identified by Fergusson et al between abortion and later psychiatric disorders in young women may be due to pregnancy loss and not to abortion, per se. Conclusion: Findings from this thesis support the view that young people who parent or partner early have a greater burden of depression and anxiety when compared to emerging adults. As well, young women experiencing pregnancy loss, from either abortion or miscarriage, are more likely to experience depression and anxiety than are those who give birth to a live infant or who have never been pregnant. Depression, anxiety and substance use disorders often go unrecognised and untreated in young people; this is especially true in young people from lower SEP. Early identification of these common mental health disorders is important, as depression and anxiety experienced during the transition to adulthood have been found to seriously disrupt an individual’s social, educational and economic prospects in later life.

Let the children (and young people) play-where, how, why?

This paper reports on current research work with children and young people on the importance of public and private space for good health, wellbeing, social, educational and developmental outcomes. In many urban locations in Australia and elsewhere, public space is under attack from developers and attempts by authorities to control public space (Watson 2006). Private space in the home and garden-backyard is also under attack from development densification and trends towards bigger houses on smaller plots of land where gardens disappear altogether or a postage stamp remains (Gleeson and Sipe 2006). At the same time public policy advocates the benefits of outdoor exercise, set alongside fears about using public space exacerbated by notions of ‘stranger danger’ and control measures such as child and youth ‘curfews’. In this increasingly complex context, it is important to discover what children and young people value and need most in using private (home) and public space. In conjunction with the University of Otago, New Zealand, children and young people are consulted to discover how they use public space in parks and shopping centres and home space and the issues encountered and their proposals for improvement, to better inform policy debate, planning and formulation (ARACY 2009).

The effects of sleep restriction on executive inhibitory control and affect in young adults

Purpose: Young adults regularly experience restricted sleep due to a range of social, educational and vocational commitments. Evidence suggests that extended periods of sleep deprivation negatively impact affective and inhibitory control mechanisms leading to behavioural consequences such as increased emotional reactivity and impulsive behaviour. It is less clear whether acute periods of restricted sleep produce the same behavioural consequences. Methods: Nineteen young adults (m = 8, f = 12) with habitual late bed-time (after 22:30 h) and wake-time (after 06:30 h) completed a range of objective and subjective measures assessing sleepiness (Psychomotor Vigilance Task, Karolinska Sleepiness Scale), inhibitory control (Emotional Go/No-go Task and a Balloon Analog Risk Task) and affect (Positive and Negative Affective Schedule). Testing was counterbalanced across participants, and occurred on two occasions once following restricted sleep and once following habitual sleep one week apart. Results: Compared to habitual sleep, sleep restriction produced significantly slower performance on the Psychomotor Vigilance Task, and higher subjective ratings of sleepiness on the Karolinska Sleepiness Scale. Sleep restriction also caused a significant decrease in positive affect, but no change in negative affect on the Affective Schedule. Inhibitory control efficiency was significantly differentiated, with participants showing an increase in risk taking on the Balloon Analog Risk Task, but there was no evidence of increased reactivity to negative stimuli on the Emotional Go/No-go task. Conclusions: Results suggest that even acute periods of sleep loss may cause deficits in affective experiences and increase impulsive and potentially high risk behaviour in young adults.

Populational reasoning

This section focuses on systems of reasoning that imagine youth as a unified whole, one that can be researched, talked about, planned for, and managed. Even research that focuses on individuals or specific contexts depends on and reproduces ideas of youth as an identifiable population. This section interrogates the rules and scaffolding of discourses that construct the social spaces in which we problematize and study youth in society. This introduction will set the agenda by addressing four elements of this process: the first addresses the rise of some of the crucial elements of contemporary governance, the instrument and practices through which the notion of the population was able to take shape. The second examines the rise of the personage of “the child,” and how new forms of governance not only utilized this new identity for the purposes of ongoing social management, but also organized its differentiation into a growing array of new social and administrative categories. The third specifically addresses “youth,” examining its various predecessors as targets for moral concern, as well as some of the recent cultural triggers for its formation. Finally, there is an assessment of the contemporary governance of populations of youth, based as it is around its twin existence as a governmental object, a target for an almost endless array of social, educational, legal, and psychological concerns and interventions, but also as an identity, a set of practices of the self.

Os jovens e o tempo em Cabo Verde: subjetividades em transformação

A dissertação procurou debruçar-se sobre as condições de vida dos jovens, no contexto das relações de sexualidade, de gênero e de exclusão, face às aceleradas transformações sociais, educacionais, econômicas e políticas em Cabo Verde. A abordagem busca, a partir das informações disponíveis em estudos, das histórias ficcionadas em literatura, em memórias e experiências coletivizáveis, assim como nas efetuações e afetações inscritas na nossa trajetória individual/coletiva, dar visibilidade aos diferentes operadores categóricos que servem à preparação de um "futuro melhor para todos", procurando elucidar os regimes de poder que definem as formas a partir das quais vários problemas são reafirmados. São problemas cujas reconfigurações, hoje, são transcritas numa lista de comportamentos inadequados - muitos dos quais tidos por gravosos - que se transformam em formas comuns de se referir aos jovens. Pretendeu-se assim, na linha de pensadores como Michel Foucault, Felix Guattari e Gilles Deleuze, criar condições para desvencilhar-se das amarras que impedem que se comece a pensar sobre as condições que possibilitam aos jovens serem efetivamente protagonistas de si, protagonistas dos processos que conduzem à procura de soluções para os desafiantes problemas que pesam sobre eles.