a valuable place to work

CEM

Deliberation Online: An Impediment Against Fundamentalism Offline?

The opposition between fundamentalism and deliberative democracy is basic to the argument of this article. In the following we shall take our point of departure in a procedural understanding of fundamentalism that enables us to see how different substantive values might turn out to be fundamentalist. Any form of communication that obstructs possible change of preferences might be fundamentalist. The decisive criterion is thus not to point out particular forms of communication as fundamentalist or deliberative per se; the decisive criterion is how the communication works. Based on our procedural understanding of fundamentalism we move on to argue in favour of a value pluralism that is basic to deliberative democracy. This pluralism is then contrasted to both fundamentalism and relativism. In order to establish value pluralism there is a need for judgment of particular norms and values – as opposed to merely understanding of the differences. Hence, it is argued that value pluralism requires substantive judgment of the differences. The arguments partly draw upon Jürgen Habermas’ idea of unconstrained discourse and Charles Taylor’s discussion of politics of recognition, along with Immanuel Kant’s concept of reflective judgment, or enlarged thought, in his third critique. In order to make legitimate judgments of particular norms and values we need to judge from the perspective of everyone else. The latter part of the article discusses how online contexts of communication contribute to global communication and deliberative democracy. Online polling, blogs and storytelling are forms of communication that may, under certain circumstances, make substantial contributions. James Fishkin’s idea of deliberative polling online and Robert Cavalier’s PICOLA project are discussed. In concluding it is argued that the virtual realities that are available online might be even more important than the democratic procedures per se in realising more enlarged thought and global democracy worldwide. Hence, global communication online might, under certain circumstances, work as an impediment against fundamentalist knowledge offline

Learning to learn, bolt-on, or integrated? Analysis of student feedback from a pilot with learning to learn integrated into first-year engineering mathematics

Learning to learn is one of the generic skills that are important to becoming an engineer. One outcome of the education is to be prepared for a role as an engineer with lifelong learning. In this paper, I convey experiences gained from two different approaches when implementing “learning to learn” into engineering math courses. The first approach, learning to learn was added to a mathematical course as a “bolton” approach in two initial pilots. A second approach was to include learning to learn in the course. In this approach, I wanted to utilize feedback cycles and provide information on learning to learn “as needed”. Interviews of students and experiences from the pilots have been analyzed using thematic analysis. Two different experiences were described by the students in the two classes that were included in the pilot. In one group, the smallest of the two pilot classes, not a single student dropped out in the remaining three-year of the study program. The program had a major impact. The other group, the biggest class, was more resistive. In the second approach, I wanted to utilize the role of a mathematics teacher. Here I could use the authority and the relation as a math teacher. However, introducing learning to learn as a teacher conflicted with the role as a teacher. Here I discuss key findings from four focus group interviews, in addition to my experience as a teacher, that can help to plan future course design when learning to learn is included

Vodafone Hungary business project: a valuable place to work

CEM

“It’s not like it’s popular science we are doing” - Popular science, motivation, calculations, and conceptual understanding among physics and engineering students

This paper discusses the role popular science and science dissemination texts can have in learning physics in higher education for physics students and technical physics engineering students. In a mixed-methods study, students' attitudes, experienced motivation, and learning is mapped through a quantitative survey (N=155) and two qualitative surveys with in-depth interviews, one with six master level students and one with four 1st year students. The interview data shed light on two aspects of popular science's role in learning physics. Students report that reading popular science is highly motivating, but they do not have the perception of having learned physics from it. This converges with a division between calculations and conceptual understanding among the students. The paper then questions whether this gap could be closed or made smaller with greater emphasis on conceptual understanding in physics classes