Institutional embrace and the postmodern professional

The post-modern teacher is one that has been fashioned over the last 20 year. S/he belongs to a 'greedy institution' in which teachers embrace its values and reproduce them as well as adding value by contributing to a continuous reinvention of it. Their professional identity is now one that is isomorphic with the school, one in which status and professional expertise are bound up with the image of the institution in the glo-na-cal environment of global, national and local. Web sites proclaim the character of the school but also celebrate their local status while national league tables pin point their level of achievement locally and nationally. Their global responsibility is mirrored in their commitment to raising achievement for the labour market and the national economy. The post-modern professional teacher is now a total teacher taking on everything and anything that policy demands as well as their own interests and values, for example contrasting performative and creative pedagogies. The commitment of the postmodern professional has been gained through the development of team work and collaboration, the necessity to improve performative targets and the survival of their institution in a market orientated environment. Economic imperatives drive education policy and they now include creative and entrepreneurialist market approaches, team cultures and a discourse of performativity. The Total Teacher has to ensure the raising of achievement by reaching targets based on external testing, support the institution in maintaining its market position and status, use team strategies and develop creative learners. This paper examines the life of the total professional who plays a major role in the development of the embracing institution

The smartphone in the context of the classroom in the primary school and in the higher education

Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) are implementing unique changes in the most diverse fields nowadays. The smartphone, in particular, because of its technological convergence characteristics and because it is a tool that everyone owns and carries with them, it is an added value for the school and for the student that owns a personalized mobile resource. However, the school is resistant to its inclusion in education and there are contradictory studies: some reveal perverse effects on education, but others show their potentialities [1-3]. This fact shows the importance of teacher training in the selection of a methodology that responds to the inclusion of this tool in education. How to use the smartphone in education? It is a challenge that we intend to answer by showing the potential of this emerging technology in the process of teaching and learning with children from 6 to 9 years of age (primary school) and with adults of higher education (engineering course). In this study, the use of smartphones was observed in three classrooms of the primary school, involving about 60 children, and in higher education classes, involving about 50 students. We used a qualitative approach, case study. Data were collected from direct observers of the educational practices in the different contexts. For data analysis, we used description and data interpretation. The results show that teachers adopt a socio-constructivist methodology centring the student in the learning process: (1) in the use of the tool (technical domain), (2) in the accomplishment of the task, (3) in the reflection and argumentation of the results obtained, (4) knowledge sharing, (5) behaviour management, attitudes, task leadership and (6) self-criticism. It is also verified that they use the smartphone as a resource to motivate the student, stimulate concentration on the task, facilitate the understanding of content, encourage participation in the activity and promote interaction and sharing with others. In addition, the use of smartphones generates emotions and develops cross curricular skills in education as well as facilitating access to information, stimulates the creation of creative engineering projects that have satisfied students not only for the novelty, but also for finding that a pocket tool can perform interesting monitoring and remote control tasks. Thus, the results show that smartphones have a high potential in education, as they can promote an opportunity for methodological recreation and modernization, offer research potential, the development of new educational equipment and tools, new ways of consolidating and evaluating curricular content, development of other expressive abilities in the academic, social and personal life of an individual, as well as develop autonomy and stimulate the satisfaction of the students by returning to education the motivation of the student. It is also a clever way of educating this new generation by finding otherinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Modeling, Control, and Impact Analysis of The Next Generation Transportation System

This dissertation aims to develop a systematic tool designated for connected and autonomous vehicles, integrating the simulation of traffic dynamics, traffic control strategies, and impact analysis at the network level. The first part of the dissertation is devoted to the traffic flow modeling of connected vehicles. This task is the foundation step for transportation planning, optimized network design, efficient traffic control strategies, etc, of the next generation transportation system. Chapter 2 proposes a cell-based simulation approach to model the proactive driving behavior of connected vehicles. Firstly, a state variable of connected vehicle is introduced to track the trajectory of connected vehicles. Then the exit flow of cells containing connected vehicles is adjusted to simulate the proactive driving behavior, such that the traffic light is green when the connected vehicle arrives at the signalized intersection. Extensive numerical simulation results consistently show that the presence of connected vehicles contributes significantly to the smoothing of traffic flow and vehicular emission reductions in the network. Chapter 3 proposes an optimal estimation approach to calibrate connected vehicles\u27 car-following behavior in a mixed traffic environment. Particularly, the state-space system dynamics is captured by the simplified car-following model with disturbances, where the trajectory of non-connected vehicles are considered as unknown states and the trajectory of connected vehicles are considered as measurements with errors. Objective of the reformulation is to obtain an optimal estimation of states and model parameters simultaneously. It is shown that the customized state-space model is identifiable with the mild assumption that the disturbance covariance of the state update process is diagonal. Then a modified Expectation-Maximization (EM) algorithm based on Kalman smoother is developed to solve the optimal estimation problem. The second part of the dissertation is on traffic control strategies. This task drives the next generation transportation system to a better performance state in terms of safety, mobility, travel time saving, vehicular emission reduction, etc. Chapter 4 develops a novel reinforcement learning algorithm for the challenging coordinated signal control problem. Traffic signals are modeled as intelligent agents interacting with the stochastic traffic environment. The model is built on the framework of coordinated reinforcement learning. The Junction Tree Algorithm based reinforcement learning is proposed to obtain an exact inference of the best joint actions for all the coordinated intersections. The algorithm is implemented and tested with a network containing 18 signalized intersections from a microscopic traffic simulator. Chapter 5 develops a novel linear programming formulation for autonomous intersection control (LPAIC) accounting for traffic dynamics within a connected vehicle environment. Firstly, a lane based bi-level optimization model is introduced to propagate traffic flows in the network. Then the bi-level optimization model is transformed to the linear programming formulation by relaxing the nonlinear constraints with a set of linear inequalities. One special feature of the LPAIC formulation is that the entries of the constraint matrix has only values in {-1, 0, 1}. Moreover, it is proved that the constraint matrix is totally unimodular, the optimal solution exists and contains only integer values. Further, it shows that traffic flows from different lanes pass through the conflict points of the intersection safely and there are no holding flows in the solution. Three numerical case studies are conducted to demonstrate the properties and effectiveness of the LPAIC formulation to solve autonomous intersection control. The third part of the dissertation moves on to the impact analysis of connected vehicles and autonomous vehicles at the network level. This task assesses the positive and negative impacts of the system and provides guidance on transportation planning, traffic control, transportation budget spending, etc. In this part, the impact of different penetration rates of connected vehicle and autonomous vehicles is revealed on the network efficiency of a transportation system. Chapter 6 sets out to model an efficient and fair transportation system accounting for both departure time choice and route choice of a general multi OD network within a dynamic traffic assignment environment. Firstly, a bi-level optimization formulation is introduced based on the link-based traffic flow model. The upper level of the formulation minimizes the total system travel time, whereas the lower level captures traffic flow propagation and the user equilibrium constraint. Then the bi-level formulation is relaxed to a linear programming formulation that produces a lower bound of an efficient and fair system state. An efficient iterative algorithm is proposed to obtain the exact solution. It is shown that the number of iterations is bounded, and the output traffic flow solution is efficient and fair. Finally, two numerical cases (including a single OD network and a multi-OD network) are conducted to demonstrate the performance of the algorithm. The results consistently show that the travel time of different departure rates of the same OD pair are identical and the algorithm converges within two iterations across all test scenarios

The effectiveness of gamification to enhance students’ mastery on tenses viewed from students’ creativity

The advancement of ICT has resulted in the fast development of games industry by which teachers are creative to design the learning process and to utilize various kinds of gamifications. Gamification is a teaching method that uses game elements with the aim of motivating students to be directly involved in games and learning at the same time so that students get an interesting and enjoyable learning experience. Although many studies have been conducted related to the use gamification, the study on the use of gamification to improve tenses mastery regarded the students’ creativity is rarely found. This study was aimed to investigate whether: (1) gamification was more effective than conventional teaching method in enhancing tenses mastery of the second semester students of nursing diploma III; (2) the second semester students with high level of creativity had better tenses mastery than those with low level of creativity; and (3) there was an interaction effect between teaching methods and creativity on enhancing tenses mastery of the second semester students of nursing diploma III of faculty of health of Universitas Harapan Bangsa. The method which was employed in this research was an experimental research. The population of the research was the second semester students of nursing diploma III of faculty of health of Universitas Harapan Bangsa. Two classes were taken by using total sampling technique. The samples in this research were two classes; experimental class consisting of 30 students from 2A-1 and control class consisting of 30 students from 2A-2. The research instruments consisted of verbal creativity and tenses mastery test. The data were obtained from creativity and tenses mastery test. They were analysed in the terms of their frequency distribution, normality of the sample distribution, and the data homogeneity and then ANOVA test (Multifactor Analysis and Variance) and TUKEY test to test the research hypotheses. The result of the research findings leads to the conclusion that: (1) gamification is more effective than conventional teaching method to enhance tenses mastery of the second semester students; (2) the students having high creativity have better tenses mastery than those having low creativity; and (3) there is an interaction between teaching methods and creativity on enhancing tenses mastery

Critical Thinking and Client Centered Nursing Care

Critical and creative thinking skills are necessary for the new graduate and experienced nurses alike, if they are to respond to the rapidly changing health care system and deliver professional nursing care. Knowledge, generally speaking, is a resource not a constraint, but it becomes a constraint if it is not in the acceptable form. Consequently, knowledge alone is insufficient if the nurse clinician is unable to select the relevant information and defend its integration into client care. Skillful and perceptive nursing practice includes the ability to set and revise priorities for client care, manage actual and potential risks to individuals, and develop, evaluate and revise individualized plans of care. The focus in this thesis is on the application of critical and creative thinking (CCT) skills in nursing practice. There is a particular focus on activities and processes related to nursing care. Emphasis is placed on the use of knowledge in the acquisition and development of skills, and on problem solving. There is discussion of the ways in which nursing practice may be captured in writing. The relationship of CCT to nursing management is discussed and examples are offered. The CCT skills and strategies which are helpful in introducing the theory of modeling and role modeling to a nursing unit are presented. This theory focuses on the clients\u27 needs and a model of their world as a base for nursing intervention. Nurses exercise CCT skills when being conscious of the need to imaginatively put themselves in the place of the other in order to genuinely understand the client. This technique relates to stage six of Kohlberg\u27s moral stages of reasoning ...that of any rational individual recognizing the nature of morality or the fact that persons are ends in themselves and must be treated as such... (1976, 35). Critical thinking then, should not only help to make those in the nursing profession better thinkers, but also better human beings

A Random Walk: The Federal Circuit’s 2010 Government Contracts Decisions

This Article discusses the Federal Circuit\u27s 2010 government contracts cases. It begins with some perspective on, and empirical quantification of, the Federal Circuit’s level of specialization and evolving jurisprudence in the field of government contracts. It eventually turns to analysis of a hodge-podge of unrelated cases: three award controversies (or bid protests), a handful of post award performance disputes, a few selections from the ongoing behemoths of litigation in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims - Winstar and Spent Nuclear Fuel, and a potentially analogous implied warranty case. Overall, the article suggests that the Federal Circuit\u27s 2010 government contracts cases appear to lack significant volume, thematic coherence, or dramatic impact. It also reinforces the perception that the court does not, and does not desire to, embrace the unique nature of the federal government contract regime as an analytical premise or predicate. Rather, the court increasingly appears to prefer a more consistent, streamlined, simplified, or even formalistic approach to its highly varied docket