Get Talking: community participation and neighbourhood learning

Get Talking: community participation and neighbourhood learnin

Massive Multiplayer Online Games Communities: Lessons for Diversity in School Classrooms.

Computer gaming is often seen as a barrier to good performance at school. It is claimed that young people are becoming more obese, demonstrating poor psychological adjustment and developing addictions to video games (Kulman, 2015). However, by using a systems approach to the understanding of group dynamics, based the Hackman and Morris (1975) Input-Process-Output Model of Group Performance, it is possible to find that there are lessons in learner experience from computer games, particularly the Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs), such as World of Warcraft, which may be applied to schools. By examining the Macro, Meso and Micro Levels (Hackman and Morris, 1975) and the accompanying Environmental Factors (Chou, 2015) of these two different communities, it may be seen that there are positive aspects of computer gaming that might be helpful in managing today’s highly diverse school communities. Meso Level characteristics from MMO Games such as “self-organising” groups and Environmental Factors such as positive motivational drivers (e.g, empowering creativity and ownership) may be beneficial in developing a more learner-centred classroom. These characteristics could at least partially replace the “concocted” groups and negative loss avoidance motivational strategies that currently exist in European schools. This may go some way to developing classrooms in which diversity among students is respected rather than treated with contempt

Diversity: Social and Cognitive Consequences. An investigation into the reasons for and the impact of diversity in schools

National research report for the Erasmus+ project entitled: @MINDSET – Managing Social Relations in Schools (project number: 2014-1-UK01-KA200-001766). Funded in part by the European Commission

Inclusive Practice in Assessment and Feedback Workshop

This workshop shared the findings of an action research project that involved learners (past and present) at the Creative Communities Unit at Staffordshire University in developing new and more inclusive approaches to assessment and feedbac

Evaluation Report of the ArtCity Cultural Mapping Project

The ArtCity Cultural Mapping research project investigated components of the cultural environment in Stoke-on-Trent. The purpose was to provide information about arts venues, resources for local artists, and arts networks in the Stoke-on-Trent area. Designed to provide baseline information for the larger ArtCity project. The ArtCity project will explore the use of neglected buildings in the city to create venues for local artists and aims to encourage the retention of arts graduates in the local area. The aims of the project were to: • Train local artists in creative research techniques enabling co-production of the research agenda • Enable local artists to undertake research into the provision of arts activity in the local area and into the needs of local artists • Develop and implement an on-line survey to widen the reach of the research • Analyse the data provided by the artists/researchers and on-line survey • Provide the ArtCity Consortium with a report outlining the key findings of the research project. The ArtCity Consortium has received a grant from the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation to undertake a project focused on disused city buildings and the retention in the city of student graduates in the arts. The retention of graduates from local universities is a topic of great concern to the universities and the local authorities. According to Staffordshire University’s 2012Graduate Destinations Survey (Staffordshire University, 2012), 58% of respondents who are employed full-time work in the region, and 54% of respondents who are employed part-time work in the region. For these students, the top employers are educational institutions, local authorities, the NHS and the supermarkets. The ArtCity project is concerned with the retention of students with degrees in the arts, and these students are unlikely to be employed by the institutions mentioned above. Arts students who wish to practice their art form tend to be self-employed and only 2% of respondents are self-employed. Of these, only half work in the region. The ArtCity project recognises that, in order to retain arts graduates, the local area requires additional arts workspaces and studios, and further opportunities for collaboration between a wide varieties of practitioners

Developing the @MINDSET Conflict Prevention Programme in Schools.

This paper examines issues of conflict in schools by using a systems approach based on the Hackman and Morris (1975) Input-Process-Output Model of group performance and Granovetter’s multiple level perspective on macro, meso and micro group levels (1973). This analysis informs the understanding of a school as a community in order to further develop the diversity management programme for the @MINDSET Erasmus+ project. The @MINDSET Conflict Prevention Programme is based on the extensive work of Dunsebury et al (1997) on critical elements of conflict prevention in the classroom

Developing the @MINDSET Conflict Prevention Programme

The @MINDSET Conflict Prevention Programme is based on the creation of 7 key components to setting up a successful conflict prevention programme in schools. It was the result of qualitative research from the @MINDSET Intensive study Programme, which took place 7th-11th March 2016 @MINDSET is an Erasmus+ European funded project. The objective of the @MINDSET project is to actively support diversity management within education settings, by equipping teachers with the appropriate tools to deal with diversity issues, while better encouraging students to become active citizens and empathizing adults. The project identifies the most common types of diversity in the school environment and develop on one hand the tools for the teachers to better manage it within the classroom and the school in general. While on the other promotes the issue of diversity and what it entails within society for pupils and help them embrace it