Exploiting newspaper articles to develop higher order thinking skills in secondary school English classes

The topic for this research was influenced by the discussions in the field of education on the topics of 21st century learning skills and the concept of a changed learning approach. The aim of this paper is to use authentic texts found in English newspapers with the purpose to teach higher order thinking skills to students at upper-secondary school level as part of English as a second language classes. So as to answer the research question on how newspaper articles could be implemented to teach and assess the acquisition of higher order thinking skills, a set of exemplary tasks are compiled and conclusions are drawn from both the studentsʼ answers and lesson observations. The study is organised into three chapters. The first chapter gives an overview of the researches of thinking and higher order thinking processes. The second chapter of this thesis looks upon the advantages and disadvantages of using newspaper articles as authentic material in language classes. This chapter also focuses on the issues of choosing suitable material as well as on the production of different tasks that could be designed and used in an English class. The third chapter includes an empirical case study conducted among my students from forms 10 and 11 at Rocca al Mare School. An introductory questionnaire was conducted to map the understanding of critical thinking as the highest of the thinking skills, as well as the studentsʼ attitude to the texts found in course books.http://www.ester.ee/record=b5147720*es

THE HORIZONS OF COGNITIVE PEDAGOGY

The article addresses the problems of cognitive theory and research relevant to understanding the mechanisms of the learning process. It is meant to define the concept of cognitive pedagogy and emphasise the need for a new genetic/socio/cultural/media perspective, which in turn requires new research tools and increased attention to research results in the field of neuroscience. The authors define and characterise cognitive areas of cognitive pedagogy. 

Boosting children's creativity through creative interactions with social robots

Creativity is an ability with psychological and developmental benefits. Creative levels are dynamic and oscillate throughout life, with a first major decline occurring at the age of 7 years old. However, creativity is an ability that can be nurtured if trained, with evidence suggesting an increase in this ability with the use of validated creativity training. Yet, creativity training for young children (aged between 6-9 years old) appears as scarce. Additionally, existing training interventions resemble test-like formats and lack of playful dynamics that could engage children in creative practices over time. This PhD project aimed at contributing to creativity stimulation in children by proposing to use social robots as intervention tools, thus adding playful and interactive dynamics to the training. Towards this goal, we conducted three studies in schools, summer camps, and museums for children, that contributed to the design, fabrication, and experimental testing of a robot whose purpose was to re-balance creative levels. Study 1 (n = 140) aimed at testing the effect of existing activities with robots in creativity and provided initial evidence of the positive potential of robots for creativity training. Study 2 (n = 134) aimed at including children as co-designers of the robot, ensuring the robot’s design meets children’s needs and requirements. Study 3 (n = 130) investigated the effectiveness of this robot as a tool for creativity training, showing the potential of robots as creativity intervention tools. In sum, this PhD showed that robots can have a positive effect on boosting the creativity of children. This places social robots as promising tools for psychological interventions.Criatividade é uma habilidade com benefícios no desenvolvimento saudável. Os níveis de criatividade são dinâmicos e oscilam durante a vida, sendo que o primeiro maior declínio acontece aos 7 anos de idade. No entanto, a criatividade é uma habilidade que pode ser nutrida se treinada e evidências sugerem um aumento desta habilidade com o uso de programas validados de criatividade. Ainda assim, os programas de criatividade para crianças pequenas (entre os 6-9 anos de idade) são escassos. Adicionalmente, estes programas adquirem o formato parecido ao de testes, faltando-lhes dinâmicas de brincadeira e interatividade que poderão motivar as crianças a envolverem-se em práticas criativas ao longo do tempo. O presente projeto de doutoramento procurou contribuir para a estimulação da criatividade em crianças propondo usar robôs sociais como ferramenta de intervenção, adicionando dinâmicas de brincadeira e interação ao treino. Assim, conduzimos três estudos em escolas, campos de férias, e museus para crianças que contribuíram para o desenho, fabricação, e teste experimental de um robô cujo objetivo é ser uma ferramenta que contribui para aumentar os níveis de criatividade. O Estudo 1 (n = 140) procurou testar o efeito de atividade já existentes com robôs na criatividade e mostrou o potencial positivo do uso de robôs para o treino criativo. O Estudo 2 (n = 134) incluiu crianças como co-designers do robô, assegurando que o desenho do robô correspondeu às necessidades das crianças. O Estudo 2 (n = 130) investigou a eficácia deste robô como ferramenta para a criatividade, demonstrando o seu potencial para o treino da criatividade. Em suma, o presente doutoramento mostrou que os robôs poderão ter um potencial criativo em atividades com crianças. Desta forma, os robôs sociais poderão ser ferramentas promissoras em intervenções na psicologia

Innovating Pedagogy 2017: Exploring new forms of teaching, learning and assessment, to guide educators and policy makers. Open University Innovation Report 6

This series of reports explores new forms of teaching, learning and assessment for an interactive world, to guide teachers and policy makers in productive innovation. This sixth report proposes ten innovations that are already in currency but have not yet had a profound influence on education. To produce it, a group of academics at the Institute of Educational Technology in The Open University collaborated with researchers from the Learning In a NetworKed Society (LINKS) Israeli Center of Research Excellence (I-CORE). Themes: • Big-data inquiry: thinking with data • Learners making science • Navigating post-truth societies • Immersive learning • Learning with internal values • Student-led analytics • Intergroup empathy • Humanistic knowledge-building communities • Open Textbooks • Spaced Learnin

Curiosity in Early Childhood: A Review of Literature

Family Relations and Child Developmen

Children's perception and interpretation of robots and robot behaviour

The world of robotics, like that of all technology is changing rapidly (Melson, et al., 2009). As part of an inter-disciplinary project investigating the emergence of artificial culture in robot societies, this study set out to examine children’s perception of robots and interpretation of robot behaviour. This thesis is situated in an interdisciplinary field of human–robot interactions, drawing on research from the disciplines of sociology and psychology as well as the fields of engineering and ethics. The study was divided into four phases: phase one involved children from two primary schools drawing a picture and writing a story about their robot. In phase two, children observed e-puck robots interacting. Children were asked questions regarding the function and purpose of the robots’ actions. Phase three entailed data collection at a public event: Manchester Science Festival. Three activities at the festival: ‘XRay Art Under Your Skin’, ‘Swarm Robots’ and ‘Build-a-Bugbot’ formed the focus of this phase. In the first activity, children were asked to draw the components of a robot and were then asked questions about their drawings. During the second exercise, children’s comments were noted as they watched e-puck robot demonstrations. In the third exercise, children were shown images and asked whether these images were a robot or a ‘no-bot’. They were then prompted to provide explanations for their answers. Phase 4 of the research involved children identifying patterns of behaviour amongst e-pucks. This phase of the project was undertaken as a pilot for the ‘open science’ approach to research to be used by the wider project within which this PhD was nested. Consistent with existing literature, children endowed robots with animate and inanimate characteristics holding multiple understandings of robots simultaneously. The notion of control appeared to be important in children’s conception of animacy. The results indicated children’s perceptions of the location of the locus of control plays an important role in whether they view robots as autonomous agents or controllable entities. The ways in which children perceive robots and robot behaviour, in particular the ways in which children give meaning to robots and robot behaviour will potentially come to characterise a particular generation. Therefore, research should not only concentrate on the impact of these technologies on children but should focus on capturing children’s perceptions and viewpoints to better understand the impact of the changing technological world on the lives of children

“I think I’ve had ideas since before I was born” working with reception children to challenge ‘school readiness’

Much attention has been drawn to the way we work with young children in the early years, particularly given the pressures to ‘ready’ children for a more formal curriculum in Year 1. Many conceptualisations of ‘school readiness’ emphasise children’s academic abilities, including the current Early Years Foundation Stage Framework (DfE, 2017), which describes the knowledge and skills considered important for children’s future success. The aim of this research was to use Reception children’s ideas to destabilise academic notions of ‘readiness’ and to capture moments of their everyday lives. The research, which brings together qualitative and post-qualitative approaches, was divided into two studies, in which I took different approaches to conceptualising children’s voice. In an ‘illuminative’ first study, drawing and talk-based mosaic methods (Clark and Moss, 2011) were used to capture the ideas of 64 Reception children in 4 schools, as they prepared for their transition to Year 1. For example, in one key activity, children were asked to draw and talk about their ‘perfect’ classroom. The drawings revealed that objects and ‘things’ appear to be important in children. The classroom drawings also prompted reflection from Reception teachers about children's 'school readiness'. I then draw upon a second 6-week study in which an after school ‘Ideas Club’ created a space offering open-ended play for three small groups (n=8-10) of Reception children. In the development of Study Two, ‘plugging into’ the field of post-structuralism (Jackson and Mazzei, 2013), and the work of Deleuze (and Guattari) in particular, was key to helping me consider how a slower, more indeterminate research space, and approach to ‘school readiness’, might look. During the analysis process I worked with moments of ‘wonder’ (MacLure, 2013) from Study One and Study Two to consider how Reception children’s ideas might make us think differently about ‘readiness’. Ideas from the fields of New Materiality and post-humanism emerged unexpectedly during analysis as a way of further problematising these understandings. The ‘findings’ from this research and the playful, open methodology applied have implications for how we perceive Reception children’s intelligence and abilities and the kinds of opportunities and experiences children need in the early years and beyond