764 research outputs found
Comparison of co-operation, interaction and school development in team teaching schools and schools where teachers teach alone
Tilgangur þessarar rannsóknar var að skoða hvort munur væri á samvinnu, samskiptum
og skólaþróun í bekkjarkennsluskólum og teymiskennsluskólum á grunnskólastigi. Með
bekkjarkennslu er átt við starfshætti þar sem hver kennari er með sinn bekk, námsgrein
eða námsgreinar og undirbýr kennslu einn og kennir einn. Í teymiskennsluskólum
eru tveir eða fleiri kennarar samábyrgir fyrir bekk eða námshópi að einhverju eða
öllu leyti og undirbúa kennslu og kenna saman. Rannsóknin byggðist á gögnum úr
spurningakönnunum meðal nemenda og starfsfólks í sex bekkjarkennsluskólum og níu
teymiskennsluskólum úr rannsókn á starfsháttum í grunnskólum sem gerð var 2009–
2013 (Gerður G. Óskarsdóttir, 2014). Rafrænir spurningalistar voru sendir starfsfólki
skólanna í fjórum áföngum skólaárið 2009–2010, en könnun meðal nemenda var gerð í
skólunum haustið 2010. Niðurstöður sýndu, eins og vænta mátti, að mun meiri áhersla
var lögð á samvinnu í teymiskennsluskólunum og hún var umfangsmeiri og nánari, en í
bekkjarkennsluskólunum. Fleiri kennarar í teymiskennsluskólunum áttu daglegt samstarf
og fleiri unnu saman hlið við hlið; kenndu með öðrum kennara eða kennurum í sama
kennslurými. Jafnframt voru fagleg tengsl teymiskennslukennara betri og þeir töldu sig
fá betri stuðning skólastjórnenda. Samskipti nemenda í teymiskennsluskólunum mældust
betri en samskipti nemenda í bekkjarkennsluskólunum, og átti það hvort tveggja við um
samskipti þeirra innbyrðis og við starfsfólk. Þá gáfu nemendur teymiskennsluskólanna
kennurum sínum betri einkunnir þegar þeir mátu viðhorf þeirra og viðmót í sinn garð,
til dæmis hvort kennarar sýndu skoðunum þeirra áhuga, leiðbeindu þeim og hvöttu þá.
Þróunarstarf var talsvert meira í teymiskennsluskólum en bekkjarkennsluskólum og
þar gekk betur að innleiða breytingar. Þá virtust starfshættir í teymiskennsluskólunum
lýðræðislegri en í bekkjarkennsluskólunum; kennarar fyrrnefndu skólanna komu meira
að ákvörðunum um starfsþróun og breytingastarf. Áríðandi virðist vera að halda áfram
rannsóknum á starfsháttum í teymiskennsluskólum og árangri þeirra.The purpose of this research was to compare cooperation, communication and school
development in team teaching schools versus schools in which teachers teach alone. In
team teaching schools two or more teachers are responsible for planning and operating
teaching to a larger group of students. The data for this research comes from a multi
method research project conducted in twenty Icelandic compulsory schools in 2009–2013
(Gerður G. Óskarsdóttir, 2014). Four electronic questionnaires were emailed to teachers and other academic school staff in the school year 2009–2010 with a response rate of
80–92%. The analysis presented in this article is based on answers from 15 of the schools,
omitting responses from schools in which both team teaching and teaching where teachers
taught alone was found. The findings reported here are based on responses from 590
teachers and other academic staff; 324 from the team teaching schools and 266 from
schools in which teachers teach alone.
An electronic questionnaire was administered to a sample of 2,119 students in grades
7–10 in 14 of the participating schools; that is, all of the 20 schools offering instruction
in these grades. The sample was randomly selected if there were three or more class
divisions in each year. However, all students participated in smaller schools. The response
rate was 86%. Three of the team teaching schools offered instruction in grades 7–10,
whereas all the schools where teachers teach alone offered teaching in these grades.
Answers were received from 402 students in the team teaching schools and 694 students
in the schools where teachers teach alone.
As could be expected, more emphasis was placed on cooperation in the team teaching
schools where it was both more extensive and closer. Furthermore, teachers in the team
teaching schools considered their professional collaboration better and staff discussions
more open and critical; thus they found it easier to express themselves to colleagues
compared to the teachers in schools where teachers worked alone. The staff in team
teaching schools also felt they received better support from the principals.
Relations between students and teachers can be considered good in the schools overall,
but were significantly better with principals and other staff in the team teaching schools.
Also of interest is the fact that the team teachers showed greater interest towards students’
opinions; they gave more praise and were better at helping students understand how they
could improve their work and learn more.
Finally, school development projects were more common in the team teaching schools and
the implementation of change was considered much smoother, as well as being more often
teacher-initiated. In contrast to teachers who teach alone, a higher number of teachers
in the team teaching schools claim that professional development is an effective part of
school work, that it is organized in cooperation with the staff, and that members of staff are
more actively engaged in decisions that have to do with changes within the school. Teamteaching
teachers also more commonly believe that both internal and external evaluation
measures are important for school development and improvement.
The authors discuss the implications of this research for school development and teacher
education in Iceland. For example, they point out that the findings are so conclusively in
favour of the team teaching approach that the focus is bound to shift toward making team
teaching the general rule, instead of the model in which each teacher faces a class alonePeer Reviewe
[Erythemogenic UV rays].
The UV-index is an international standard measurement of the strength of erythemogenic ultraviolet radiation. It is often published in the media and then refers to the highest expected UV radiation for that day. The highest UV-index value measured in Iceland is seven. Although this is similar to the maximum values from southern Scandinavia, the average UV-index is lower in Iceland compared to other Nordic countries. Around solar noon the UV index is roughly equivalent to the Standard Erythema Dose (SED). During a bright summer day in Iceland the number of Standard Erythema doses can go as high as 32, but is on average in June around twenty. The typical Icelander gets red after 4-6 SED and it is obvious that during solar noon it is easy to sunburn in Iceland if you stay outside without sun protection.Útfjólublár stuðull er alþjóðleg skilgreining sem segir til um styrk útfjólublárra geisla. Gildi hans er oft birt í fjölmiðlum og segir þá til um hæsta gildi sem búist er við þann daginn. Hæsta gildi sem mælst hefur á Íslandi er rúmlega sjö. Þrátt fyrir að þetta sé svipað og í Danmörku er útfjólublár stuðull þó að jafnaði lægri á Íslandi. Um hádegisbil er útfjólublár stuðull nánast jafn fjölda staðlaðra roðaskammta á klukkustund. Á heiðskírum íslenskum sumardegi hafa mælst allt að 32 staðlaðir roðaskammtar, en í júní er meðalgildið 20 á dag. Húð flestra Íslendinga roðnar við fjóra til sex staðlaða roðaskammta þannig að mjög stuttan tíma þarf til þess að húðin roðni ef verið er úti án þess að nota sólvörn, sérstaklega í kringum hádegið
A model for preferential concentration
The preferential concentration of inertial particles in a turbulent velocity field occurs when the particle and fluid time constants are commensurate. We propose a straightforward mathematical model for this phenomenon and use the model to study various scaling limits of interest and to study numerically the effect of interparticle collisions. The model comprises Stokes’ law for the particle motions, and a Gaussian random field for the velocity. The primary advantages of the model are its amenability to mathematical analysis in various interesting scaling limits and the speed at which numerical simulations can be performed. The scaling limits corroborate experimental evidence about the lack of preferential concentration for a large and small Stokes number and make new predictions about the possibility of preferential concentration at large times and lead to stochastic differential equations governing this phenomenon. The effect of collisions is found to be negligible for the most part, although in some cases they have an interesting antidiffusive effect
Do prosody transfer models transfer prosody?
Some recent models for Text-to-Speech synthesis aim to transfer the prosody of a reference utterance to the generated target synthetic speech. This is done by using a learned embedding of the reference utterance, which is used to condition speech generation. During training, the reference utterance is identical to the target utterance. Yet, during synthesis, these models are often used to transfer prosody from a reference that differs from the text or speaker being synthesized. To address this inconsistency, we propose to use a different, but prosodically-related, utterance during training too. We believe this should encourage the model to learn to transfer only those characteristics that the reference and target have in common. If prosody transfer methods do indeed transfer prosody they should be able to be trained in the way we propose. However, results show that a model trained under these conditions performs significantly worse than one trained using the target utterance as a reference. To explain this, we hypothesize that prosody transfer models do not learn a transferable representation of prosody, but rather a utterance-level representation which is highly dependent on both the reference speaker and reference text
Periodic Homogenization for Inertial Particles
We study the problem of homogenization for inertial particles moving in a
periodic velocity field, and subject to molecular diffusion. We show that,
under appropriate assumptions on the velocity field, the large scale, long time
behavior of the inertial particles is governed by an effective diffusion
equation for the position variable alone. To achieve this we use a formal
multiple scale expansion in the scale parameter. This expansion relies on the
hypo-ellipticity of the underlying diffusion. An expression for the diffusivity
tensor is found and various of its properties studied. In particular, an
expansion in terms of the non-dimensional particle relaxation time (the
Stokes number) is shown to co-incide with the known result for passive
(non-inertial) tracers in the singular limit . This requires the
solution of a singular perturbation problem, achieved by means of a formal
multiple scales expansion in Incompressible and potential fields are
studied, as well as fields which are neither, and theoretical findings are
supported by numerical simulations.Comment: 31 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in Physica D. Typos
corrected. One reference adde
Are the playoffs different from the regular season? A comparison of in-game statistics in Icelandic elite handball
There are many axioms in sport that are taken at face value. One of them is that the playoffs are somehow totally different from the regular season. The aim of this study was to test that axiom by comparing in-game statistics during the regular season and the playoffs in the semi-professional Icelandic elite men’s handball league. Data from 724 games (648 regular season games and 76 playoff games; 1448 data points) across five seasons were analysed using a two-level logistic regression analysis. The variables of interest were pace, fast breaks, legal stops, penalty throws given, 2-minute suspensions, and saves. The results indicated no meaningful differences in fast breaks, penalty throws given or number of saves, but did find signs of added intensity during the playoffs with a higher pace, more legal stops and more 2-minute suspensions. While the differences were not particularly large, they have the possibility of being practically meaningful and were in line with the axiom. Possible explanations were discussed but more research is needed to determine whether these findings are context- or sport-specific.publishedVersio
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