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

Order out of chaos: Sense of coherence and the mediating role of coping resources in explaining mental health during COVID-19 in 7 countries

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic and the universal chaos created by it, this study explores the role of sense of coherence (Soc, Antonovsky, 1979) and how it enables coping with a stressful situation and staying well. SOC is a generalized orientation which allows one to perceive the world as comprehensible, manageable, and meaningful. In an attempt to understand 'how does the SOC work' we employed the salutogenic assumption that a strong SOC allows one to reach out in any given situation and find those resources appropriate to the specific stressor. Thus, we hypothesized that the positive impact of SOC on mental health outcomes would be mediated through coping resources that are particularly salient in times of crisis. One resource is related to the micro level (perceived family support) and the other concerns the macro level (trust in leaders and social-political institutions). Data collection was conducted in different countries during May-June 2020 via online platforms. The data included 7 samples of adult participants (age 18-90) from Israel (n ​= ​669), Italy (n ​= ​899), Spain (n ​= ​476), Germany (n ​= ​708), Austria (n ​= ​1026), Switzerland (n ​= ​147), and the U.S. (n ​= ​506). The questionnaires included standard tools (MHC-SF, SOC-13) as well as questionnaires of perceived family support and trust that were adapted to the pandemic context. As expected, SOC was associated with mental health in all the samples. Perceived family support and trust in leaders and social-political institutions mediated the relationships between SOC and mental health, controlling for age, gender, and level of financial risk. It appears that SOC has a universal meaning, not limited by cultural and situational characteristics. The discussion focuses on the theoretical, social, and political applications of the salutogenic model - and its core concept of SOC - in the context of coping with a global pandemic across different cultural contexts and countries

The geometry of flow: Advancing predictions of river geometry with multi-model machine learning

Hydraulic geometry parameters describing river hydrogeomorphic is important for flood forecasting. Although well-established, power-law hydraulic geometry curves have been widely used to understand riverine systems and mapping flooding inundation worldwide for the past 70 years, we have become increasingly aware of the limitations of these approaches. In the present study, we have moved beyond these traditional power-law relationships for river geometry, testing the ability of machine-learning models to provide improved predictions of river width and depth. For this work, we have used an unprecedentedly large river measurement dataset (HYDRoSWOT) as well as a suite of watershed predictor data to develop novel data-driven approaches to better estimate river geometries over the contiguous United States (CONUS). Our Random Forest, XGBoost, and neural network models out-performed the traditional, regionalized power law-based hydraulic geometry equations for both width and depth, providing R-squared values of as high as 0.75 for width and as high as 0.67 for depth, compared with R-squared values of 0.57 for width and 0.18 for depth from the regional hydraulic geometry equations. Our results also show diverse performance outcomes across stream orders and geographical regions for the different machine-learning models, demonstrating the value of using multi-model approaches to maximize the predictability of river geometry. The developed models have been used to create the newly publicly available STREAM-geo dataset, which provides river width, depth, width/depth ratio, and river and stream surface area (%RSSA) for nearly 2.7 million NHDPlus stream reaches across the rivers and streams across the contiguous US.Comment: 30 pages, 10 figure

Deformation of intrasalt beds recorded by magnetic fabrics

Funding Information Israel Science Foundation (ISF). Grant Number: 868/17 Israeli Government. Grant Number: 40706 Israel Science Foundation. Grant Number: 868/17Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Influence of sense of coherence on adolescents' self-perceived dental aesthetics:a cross-sectional study

Background Sense of coherence (SOC) is a psychosocial factor capable of influencing perception of health, improving one’s ability to manage life. It is the central construct of salutogenesis. SOC allows for identification and mobilization of resources to effectively manage or solve problems, promoting health and quality of life. Using Wilson-Cleary’s conceptual model we hypothesized that SOC might contribute to self-perception of dental aesthetics. The aim of this study was to investigate whether SOC levels were related to self-perception of dental aesthetics against assessed normative orthodontic treatment need among adolescents. Methods A cross-sectional study was conducted with 615 male and female adolescents aged 12 to 15 years. Data collection comprised socio-demographic and socio-economic characteristics, SOC (SOC 13), self-perceived dental aesthetics (Oral Aesthetic Subjective Impact Scale), and assessment of orthodontic treatment need (Dental Aesthetic Index). Statistical analysis involved Pearson’s chi-square test, Kruskal-Wallis test, Mann-Whitney test and multiple linear regression. Spearman’s correlation coefficient was calculated for the determination of the strength of correlations among the numerical variables. The level of significance was set at 5% (p < 0.05). Results 50.1% of the participants were classified as having a high SOC (≥ median). Overall, SOC was associated with self-perceived dental aesthetics (p = 0.048). In the adolescents with no orthodontic treatment need, those with a low SOC perceived their dental aesthetics more negatively than those with high levels of SOC. The multiple regression analysis demonstrated an inverse relationship between SOC and: 1) age (p = 0.007), SOC being higher in the younger age group; 2) self-perceived dental aesthetics (p = 0.001), a higher SOC being associated with those who had a positive dental self-perception. Conclusions SOC was associated with self-perceived dental aesthetics and adolescents with a high SOC were more likely to perceive their dental aesthetics more positively. SOC did not seem to influence self-perception of dental aesthetics in adolescents who were clinically assessed as having an orthodontic treatment need, however, in those where there was no orthodontic treatment need, a low SOC was associated with a negative self-perception of dental appearance

Knowledge Integration in the Digital Age: Trajectories, Opportunities and Future Directions

Researchers from around the world have shaped knowledge integration (KI), a framework that captures the processes learners use to build on their multiple ideas and refine their understanding. KI emerged 25 years ago from syntheses of experimental, longitudinal, and meta-analytic studies of learning and instruction. Advances in KI have resulted from partnerships that combine expertise in learning, instruction, classroom teaching, assessment, technology, and the disciplines. This structured poster session includes partnerships that have advanced design of instruction, assessment, professional development, learning technologies, and research methodologies. Participants report on new technologies, including games, to strengthen KI; instructional designs that take advantage of collaboration to support KI; and extensions of KI to integrate science with other disciplines. They summarize exciting results and identify promising opportunities for advancing STEM instruction to promote intentional, life-long learners in the digital age

A global network for operational flood risk reduction

Every year riverine flooding affects millions of people in developing countries, due to the large population exposure in the floodplains and the lack of adequate flood protection measures. Preparedness and monitoring are effective ways to reduce flood risk. State-of-the-art technologies relying on satellite remote sensing as well as numerical hydrological and weather predictions can detect and monitor severe flood events at a global scale. This paper describes the emerging role of the Global Flood Partnership (GFP), a global network of scientists, users, private and public organizations active in global flood risk management. Currently, a number of GFP member institutes regularly share results from their experimental products, developed to predict and monitor where and when flooding is taking place in near real-time. GFP flood products have already been used on several occasions by national environmental agencies and humanitarian organizations to support emergency operations and to reduce the overall socio-economic impacts of disasters. This paper describes a range of global flood products developed by GFP partners, and how these provide complementary information to support and improve current global flood risk management for large scale catastrophes. We also discuss existing challenges and ways forward to turn current experimental products into an integrated flood risk management platform to improve rapid access to flood information and increase resilience to flood events at global scale