Generic Skills Assessment Through Implementation of Group Based Learning to Understand SDGs

In this competitive world, it is important for students to acquire generic skills and its assessment in higher education is scarce. This study is an attempt to address the effect of group based learning on generic skills development and and also an approach to spread the knowledge of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Like generic skills, educating young students about SDGs has become crucial. A workshop was conducted for 3 days and a total of 12 students filled in the questionnaire for group and self assessment of generic skills for 10 selected generic skills after every workshop. The overall results indicated that the group based learning have positive impact on the development of generic skills. We found that all generic skills were more developed in group assessment than individual assessment. When the inter-relationship among the skills were assessed for individual ratings using network analysis, the results revealed that the effective team work was strongly associated with co-operativity (r2 =0.7529 p <0.001), communication (r2 =0.7146, p <0.001) and information sharing (r2 =0.7529 p <0.001). The significant finding of this study is the use of shared educational materials which helped the students to overcome the language barrier and be more interactive to achieve the given goal. Further, this study has explored the application of group based learning as an effective educational approach to introduce any designed studies (in this case, SDGs) for fostering the innovative human resources belonging to different educational backgrounds. Moreover, this study also emphasizes on the importance of teaching SDGs to the engineering students for their capacity building, so that they not only understand but also act to ensure that the goals are met for better future. Keywords: Engineering students, Generic skills, Group based learning, Self assessment, Group Assessment Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Implementation of design based learning for the development of SDGs educational games

Education on sustainable education (ESD) is gaining momentum to ensure that SDGs are met by 2030. The educational institutions have significant role in fostering ESD. However, there is lack of educational resources to be used for ESD. Particularly, teaching the concept of SDGs needs an attention grabbing and engaging approach and Design Based Learning (DBL) holds much potential. The main objective of this investigation was to describe the development of SDGs education resources i.e., SDGs educational games using DBL approach. Besides, the generic skills of the students during DBL were assessed during game development phase. The outputs of DBL were Bingo Mat game, Carrom board game and Sugoroku game. These games were validated for their effectiveness as resource for teaching and learning SDGs. The results revealed the positive impact on the generic skills of students through DBL during game development phase. Moreover, the response results of the players highlighted that carrom board game offered them the gaming experience while Bingo and Sugoroku offered them learning experience. Another important finding of this study is the need to teach SDGs from the younger age as the level of education had significantly impacted on their knowledge about SDGs. The results of this study will contribute to the domain of ESD by articulating an alternative pedagogy of integrating DBL with SDGs as invigorating educational resources and faculty development methodPeer Reviewe

Elastically constrained phase-separation dynamics competing with the charge process in the LiFePO4/FePO4 system

By using phase-field computer simulations, we have investigated the effects of the coherent strain due to the phase separation in the olivine-type LiFePO[4]. In this system, the coherent elastic-strain energy due to the lattice mismatch between LiFePO[4] and FePO[4] phases accompanied by insertion and extraction of Li ions is considered to play a crucial role in the phase separation kinetics during the charge/discharge process. The present phase-field micromechanics simulations reveal several significant features of the LiFePO[4]/FePO[4] system accompanying the coherent strain, such as the retardation of the phase separation, the charge rate dependence, the thermodynamic stability of coherent interfaces between dual phases, etc. Nucleation of the new phase is found to be fundamentally unlikely in terms of the elastic strain energy, except in the vicinity of the surface of the particles, and thus the phase separation would be dominated by the spinodal decomposition process. When the nucleus is present precedently, however, the phase separation can proceed in the mixture mode of the domino cascade and spinodal decomposition processes

Three-Dimensional Nanoelectrode by Metal Nanowire Nonwoven Clothes

Metal nanowire nonwoven cloth (MNNC) is a metal sheet that has resulted from intertwined metal nanowires 100 nm in diameter with several dozen micrometers of length. Thus, it is a new metallic material having both a flexibility of the metal sheet and a large specific surface area of the nanowires. As an application that utilizes these properties, we propose a high-cyclability electrode for Li storage batteries, in which an active material is deposited or coated on MNNC. The proposed electrode can work without any binders, conductive additives, and current collectors, which might largely improve a practical gravimetric energy density. Huge electrode surfaces provide efficient ion/electron transports, and sufficient interspaces between the respective nanowires accommodate large volume expansions of the active material. To demonstrate these advantages, we have fabricated a NiO-covered nickel nanowire nonwoven cloth (NNNC) by electroless deposition under a magnetic field and annealing in air. The adequately annealed NNNC was shown to be an excellent conversion-type electrode that exhibits a quite high cyclability, 500 mAh/g at 1 C after 300 cycles, compared to that of a composite electrode consisting of NiO nanoparticles. Thus, the present design concept will contribute to a game-changing technology in future lithium ion battery (LIB) electrodes