Teachers and Careers: The role of school teachers in delivering career and employability learning

Teach Firs

Enhanced Welding Operator Quality Performance Measurement: Work Experience-Integrated Bayesian Prior Determination

Measurement of operator quality performance has been challenging in the construction fabrication industry. Among various causes, the learning effect is a significant factor, which needs to be incorporated in achieving a reliable operator quality performance analysis. This research aims to enhance a previously developed operator quality performance measurement approach by incorporating the learning effect (i.e., work experience). To achieve this goal, the Plateau learning model is selected to quantitatively represent the relationship between quality performance and work experience through a beta-binomial regression approach. Based on this relationship, an informative prior determination approach, which incorporates operator work experience information, is developed to enhance the previous Bayesian-based operator quality performance measurement. Academically, this research provides a systematic approach to derive Bayesian informative priors through integrating multi-source information. Practically, the proposed approach reliably measures operator quality performance in fabrication quality control processes.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures, 2 tables, i3CE 201

Technical Assistance for Expanded Learning Opportunities in California

The After School Division (ASD) of the California Department of Education in collaboration with Public Profit, has released Technical Assistance for Expanded Learning Opportunities in California. This report shares high-level information about the availability of technical assistance (TA) by region, strategy, and links to Quality Standards for Expanded Learning. Regional Profiles provide at-a-glance information about providers in each of California's 11 regions.This report will help to inform the ongoing conversations about how to support high quality Expanded Learning Opportunities in California for all youth. California is a national leader in Expanded Learning, both for the breadth of its publicly funded Expanded Learning programs and for its growing focus on quality. THe ASD is further enhancing its supports for program quality through the System of Support, including fuding for TA. Understanding the current TA landscape enahnces the ASD's ability to make strategic investments to support Expanded Learning Opportunities

First Class in Learning -- First Class in Life: How Washington's Early Childhood Education Career and Wage Ladder Delivers First-Class Care

High-quality early learning cannot be achieved or sustained when the bonds between teacher and child are broken because teachers leave their jobs to gain higher paid employment in order to support their own families. But a report by the Economic Policy Institute estimates that 40% of Washington's child care center teachers earn less than 200% of the federal poverty level.Based on this knowledge, in 2005 the Washington state Legislature passed -- and the Governor signed -- the Early Childhood Education Career and Wage Ladder (Wage Ladder) into law. The Wage Ladder improves the quality of child care by enabling early learning teachers to earn better compensation, based on educational advancement and achievement, as well as experience and job responsibility.The Wage Ladder is the only early learning program in Washington found to create statistically significant improvements in the quality of care. The cost is about $250 per child per year, and represents a frugal, robust, and evidence-based intervention that has catalyzed high-quality child care in Washington.With the Wage Ladder, early learning educators gain economic security and professional education, just the ingredients needed for high-quality early education and care. If we value our children, we will value their teachers and caregivers, not less so, but especially so in this recession.A suspension of the Wage Ladder will jeopardize the professional and educational progress of over 800 early learning teachers across the state. These early learning teachers will lose critical supports necessary to sustain their participation in the early care and education field -- and the children in their care will suffer the consequences

Quality Assessment of Deep-Learning-Based Image Compression

Image compression standards rely on predictive coding, transform coding, quantization and entropy coding, in order to achieve high compression performance. Very recently, deep generative models have been used to optimize or replace some of these operations, with very promising results. However, so far no systematic and independent study of the coding performance of these algorithms has been carried out. In this paper, for the first time, we conduct a subjective evaluation of two recent deeplearning-based image compression algorithms, comparing them to JPEG 2000 and to the recent BPG image codec based on HEVC Intra. We found that compression approaches based on deep auto-encoders can achieve coding performance higher than JPEG 2000, and sometimes as good as BPG. We also show experimentally that the PSNR metric is to be avoided when evaluating the visual quality of deep-learning-based methods, as their artifacts have different characteristics from those of DCT or wavelet-based codecs. In particular, images compressed at low bitrate appear more natural than JPEG 2000 coded pictures, according to a no-reference naturalness measure. Our study indicates that deep generative models are likely to bring huge innovation into the video coding arena in the coming years

Building-in quality rather than assessing quality afterwards: a technological solution to ensuring computational accuracy in learning materials

[Abstract]: Quality encompasses a very broad range of ideas in learning materials, yet the accuracy of the content is often overlooked as a measure of quality. Various aspects of accuracy are briefly considered, and the issue of computational accuracy is then considered further. When learning materials are produced containing the results of mathematical computations, accuracy is essential: but how can the results of these computations be known to be correct? A solution is to embed the instructions for performing the calculations in the materials, and let the computer calculate the result and place it in the text. In this way, quality is built into the learning materials by design, not evaluated after the event. This is all accomplished using the ideas of literate programming, applied to the learning materials context. A small example demonstrates how remarkably easy the ideas are to apply in practice using the appropriate technology. Given that the technology is available and is easy to use, it would appear imperative that the approach discussed is adopted to improve quality in learning materials containing computational results

Improving the Quality of Learning Through Lesson Study

The quality of the learning process is inseparable from the ability of teachers as planners, implementers, facilitators, as well as an evaluator. As executor of teacher learning is spearheading that determines success or failure of the process undertaken. Therefore, it is important for teachers to constantly evaluate its performance in order to improve the quality of learning. One effort that can be implemented for improving the quality of learning is to implement Lesson Study. Lesson Study is an activity that can encourage the formation of a community of learning (learning society) are consistently and systematically carry out repairs themselves, both on individual and managerial level

Quality assurance and e‐learning: blue skies and pragmatism

This paper considers the role of quality assurance in e‐learning; reflecting on the conditions necessary for successful e‐learning. It reviews some of the current international work on quality assurance in this area and goes on to consider the ways in which the quality of a process or activity can be assessed—focusing on the use of benchmarking and specification of standards

OPEN-SOURCE IMPLEMENTATION FOR E-LEARNING SYSTEM IN INDONESIAN UNIVERSITIES

University and educational organizations have different strategies in deploying E-learning systems, one of which is the use of open-source e-learning systems. This research is designed to analyze the implementation of elearning system using open source in the Indonesian universities. The survey result shows that the majority of elearning system from public and private universities in Indonesia use open source which is integrated to the university portal. The integration is considered favorable as it generally improve the content quality of e-learning system. This survey shows that the most frequently used open system system in Indonesian university is moodle. The finding also indicates that the content of e-learning websites of the Indonesian Universities is relatively low in quality compared to world class universities e-learning website

The use of additional information in problem-oriented learning environments

Self-directed learning with authentic and complex problems (problem-oriented learning) requires that learners observe their own learning and use additional information when it is appropriate – e.g. hypertextual information in computer-supported learning environments. Research results indicate that learners in problem-oriented learning environments often have difficulties using additional information adequately, and that they should be supported. Two studies with a computer-supported problem-oriented learning environment in the domain of medicine analyzed the effects of strategy instruction on the use of additional information and the quality of the problem representation. In study 1, an expert model was used for strategy instruction. Two groups were compared: one group with strategy modeling and one group without. Strategy modeling influenced the frequency of looked-up hypertextual information, but did not influence the quality of learners' problem representations. This could be explained by difficulties in applying the general hypertext information to the problem. In study 2, the additional information was presented in a more contextualized way as graphical representation of the case and its relevant concepts. Again, two groups were compared: one with a strategy instruction text and one without. Strategy instruction texts supported an adequate use of this graphical information by learners and had an effect on the quality of their problem representations. These findings are discussed with respect to the design of additional help systems in problem-oriented learning environments