How can I produce a digital video artefact to facilitate greater understanding among youth workers of their own learning-to-learn competence?

In Ireland, youth work is delivered largely in marginalised communities and through non-formal and informal learning methods. Youth workers operate in small isolated organisations without many of the resources and structures to improve practice that is afforded to larger formal educational establishments. Fundamental to youth work practice is the ability to identify and construct learning experiences for young people in non-traditional learning environments. It is therefore necessary for youth workers to develop a clear understanding of their own learning capacity in order to facilitate learning experiences for young people. In the course of this research, I attempted to use technology to enhance and support the awareness among youth workers of their own learning capacity by creating a digital video artifact that explores the concept – learning-to-learn. This study presents my understanding of the learning-to-learn competence as, I sought to improve my practice as a youth service manager and youth work trainer. This study was conducted using an action research approach. I designed and evaluated the digital media artifact – “Lenny’s Quest” in collaboration with staff and trainer colleagues in the course of two cycles of action research, and my research was critiqued and validated throughout this process

Identity development through study abroad experiences: Storied accounts

This study investigated three Japanese L2 learners who joined a government-funded, short-term study abroad program in the USA during their first year of college. Four years after the program, we interviewed the learners about their overseas experiences. We also asked what they had done during their university years after the program. We then analyzed their accounts to explore participants’ linguistic and personal growth during and after the program. Their stories offered important insights into what short-term study abroad programs should provide: critical experiences that participants embrace through meeting and communicating with new people in L2s for the purpose of mutual understanding. When participants perceived their experiences to be successful and valuable and felt a desire to become a more efficient L2 user, they took actions to improve their L2 skills in relation to other life goals after returning home. Furthermore, their L2 identities are likely interwoven with their current and aspiring personal identities. As such, their stories are self-development trajectories and evidence of L2-learning-mediated personal growth through social interaction. We propose that short-term study programs: (a) avoid an exclusive focus on L2 learning on-site, (b) include ample opportunities of meaningful social interaction, and (c) target first-year students.

Beyond the Model Rules: The Place of Examples in Legal Ethics

The Model Rules of Professional Conduct defined the agenda for the post- Watergate renaissance in legal ethics. While there had been some form of codified precepts for American lawyers since at least 1908, Watergate inspired a desire to clean up a disgraced profession. The American Bar Association (ABA) promulgated the Model Rules; law schools instituted mandatory courses; and scholars debated and analyzed the new Model Rules. The organized bar devoted much time and attention to developing these guidelines. The mainstream media covered both the bar\u27s original efforts and the subsequent adoption of the Model Rules by particular jurisdictions. Today, forty-three American jurisdictions have adopted ethics guidelines based closely on the Model Rules

Predicting language learners' grades in the L1, L2, L3 and L4: the effect of some psychological and sociocognitive variables

This study of 89 Flemish high-school students' grades for L1 (Dutch), L2 (French), L3 (English) and L4 (German) investigates the effects of three higher-level personality dimensions (psychoticism, extraversion, neuroticism), one lower-level personality dimension (foreign language anxiety) and sociobiographical variables (gender, social class) on the participants' language grades. Analyses of variance revealed no significant effects of the higher-level personality dimensions on grades. Participants with high levels of foreign language anxiety obtained significantly lower grades in the L2 and L3. Gender and social class had no effect. Strong positive correlations between grades in the different languages could point to an underlying sociocognitive dimension. The implications of these findings are discussed

Identity performance in a TESOL classroom

Udostępnienie publikacji Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego finansowane w ramach projektu „Doskonałość naukowa kluczem do doskonałości kształcenia”. Projekt realizowany jest ze środków Europejskiego Funduszu Społecznego w ramach Programu Operacyjnego Wiedza Edukacja Rozwój; nr umowy: POWER.03.05.00-00-Z092/17-00

The development of the professionalism of adult educators: a biographical and learning perspective

To investigate the development of the professionalism of adult educators, we compare individuals’ narratives of their professional work at different times in their biographies. Using data from a qualitative longitudinal study, the paper includes two case studies through which we show phases of learning in the development of professionalism. We reconstruct forms and meanings of learning in this process. The study allows insights into differences in professional learning during the life course and the influence of institutional and social context in the development of professionalism. (DIPF/orig.

The Beck Initiative : training school-based mental health staff in cognitive therapy

A growing literature supports cognitive therapy (CT) as an efficacious treatment for youth struggling with emotional or behavioral problems. Recently, work in this area has extended the dissemination of CT to school-based settings. The current study has two aims: 1) to examine the development of therapists’ knowledge and skills in CT, an evidence-based approach to promoting student well-being, and 2) to examine patterns of narrative feedback provided to therapists participating in the program. As expected, school therapists trained in CT demonstrated significant gains in their knowledge of CT theory and in their demonstration of CT skills, with the majority of therapists surpassing the accepted threshold of competency in CT. In addition, an examination of feedback content suggested that narrative feedback provided to therapists most frequently consisted of positive feedback and instructions for future sessions. Suggestions for future research regarding dissemination of CT are discussed in light of increasing broad access to evidence based practices.peer-reviewe

Fictional Persuasion and the Nature of Belief

Psychological studies on fictional persuasion demonstrate that being engaged with fiction systematically affects our beliefs about the real world, in ways that seem insensitive to the truth. This threatens to undermine the widely accepted view that beliefs are essentially regulated in ways that tend to ensure their truth, and may tempt various non-doxastic interpretations of the belief-seeming attitudes we form as a result of engaging with fiction. I evaluate this threat, and argue that it is benign. Even if the relevant attitudes are best seen as genuine beliefs, as I think they often are, their lack of appropriate sensitivity to the truth does not undermine the essential tie between belief and truth. To this end, I shall consider what I take to be the three most plausible models of the cognitive mechanisms underlying fictional persuasion, and argue that on none of these models does fictional persuasion undermine the essential truth-tie