Virtual reality in theatre education and design practice - new developments and applications

The global use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) has already established new approaches to theatre education and research, shifting traditional methods of knowledge delivery towards a more visually enhanced experience, which is especially important for teaching scenography. In this paper, I examine the role of multimedia within the field of theatre studies, with particular focus on the theory and practice of theatre design and education. I discuss various IT applications that have transformed the way we experience, learn and co-create our cultural heritage. I explore a suite of rapidly developing communication and computer-visualization techniques that enable reciprocal exchange between students, theatre performances and artefacts. Eventually, I analyse novel technology-mediated teaching techniques that attempt to provide a new media platform for visually enhanced information transfer. My findings indicate that the recent developments in the personalization of knowledge delivery, and also in student-centred study and e-learning, necessitate the transformation of the learners from passive consumers of digital products to active and creative participants in the learning experience

Connecting student learning and classroom teaching through the variation framework

In a recent paper in The Harvard Educational Review, Graham Nuthall, has called attention to the lacking link between student learning and classroom teaching (2004). This lack is as evident in educational research as is in the minds of teachers. Lack in the first respect means that research does offer any theoretical tools for teachers for learning from their own experiences, hence lack in the first respect contributes to lack in the second respect. Accordingly, 'Teachers often feel that learning outcomes are unpredictable, mysterious and uncontrollable' (Kennedy, 1999 quoted by Nuthall, 2004 p 276). The aim of our presentation is to describe a framework, the variation framework from phenomenography, which we believe to be useful in connecting student learning and classroom teaching. By using it, researchers can learn about the nature of the relationship between the two, and teachers can learn from their own experiences about how their students' learning relates to their teaching. This can be done by telling apart what is critical in teaching for the students' learning, from what is not critical. First, however, we have to point out the kind of learning outcomes in relation to which features of teaching might be critical.postprintThe 12th Biennial Conference for Research on Learning and Instruction: Developing Potentials for Learning, Budapest, Hungary, 28 August-1 September 2007

Criminal Law: Customer’s Permanent Exclusion From Retail Store Due to Prior Shoplifting Arrests Held Enforceable Under Criminal Trespass Statute

In interpretive research, trustworthiness has developed to become an important alternative for measuring the value of research and its effects, as well as leading the way of providing for rigour in the research process. The article develops the argument that trustworthiness plays an important role in not only effecting change in a research project’s original setting, but also that trustworthy research contributes toward building a body of knowledge that can play an important role in societal change. An essential aspect in the development of this trustworthiness is its relationship to context. To deal with the multiplicity of meanings of context, we distinguish between contexts at different levels of the research project: the domains of the researcher, the collective, and the individual participant. Furthermore, we argue that depending on the primary purpose associated with the collective learning potential, critical potential, or performative potential of phenomenographic research, developing trustworthiness may take different forms and is related to aspects of pedagogical legitimacy, social legitimacy, and epistemological legitimacy. Trustworthiness in phenomenographic research is further analysed by distinguishing between the internal horizon – the constitution of trustworthiness as it takes place within the research project – and the external horizon, which points to the impact of the phenomenographic project in the world mediated by trustworthiness

Becoming a teacher: conceptual and practice development in the learning and skills sector

Drawing on a mixed-methods study of in-service learning and skills sector (LSS) trainees, comprising beginning- and end-of-year surveys and six longitudinal case studies together with literature on trainees’ development in the LSS, schools and higher education sectors, conceptual and practice development continua are proposed. Conceptions become more multi-dimensional and increasingly link teaching and learning whilst initial concern with the practicalities of teaching is followed by recognition of learners’ needs. Next, greater emphasis is placed on learner autonomy and catering for individuals’ needs and finally assessment and evaluation is used systematically to shape practice. The continua offer an understanding of the subtleties and complexities of trainee development allowing for different starting and end points and accommodating varied work contexts. I argue that this provides a more adequate basis for the development of initial teacher education (ITE) than the prescriptive approach embedded within recent LSS ITE policy reforms

Concentration inequalities for random fields via coupling

We present a new and simple approach to concentration inequalities for functions around their expectation with respect to non-product measures, i.e., for dependent random variables. Our method is based on coupling ideas and does not use information inequalities. When one has a uniform control on the coupling, this leads to exponential concentration inequalities. When such a uniform control is no more possible, this leads to polynomial or stretched-exponential concentration inequalities. Our abstract results apply to Gibbs random fields, in particular to the low-temperature Ising model which is a concrete example of non-uniformity of the coupling.Comment: New corrected version; 22 pages; 1 figure; New result added: stretched-exponential inequalit

Variation in education doctoral students’ conceptions of university teaching

The development of doctoral students as university teachers has received substantially less attention compared with their development as researchers, with a similar deficit extending to research on how they experience and understand university teaching. This article reports the results of a phenomenographic study of education doctoral students’ conceptions of teaching in higher education. Using samples from two education departments in England and Sweden, we conducted interviews to identify variation in doctoral students’ experiences of university teaching. Analysis of the transcripts produced six qualitatively different conceptions of teaching: doctoral students conceptualised university teaching as a means of (A) transmitting knowledge, (B) presenting contrasting concepts of education, (C) communicating and engaging with students, (D) enabling students to apply knowledge and skills, (E) enabling students to interpret and compare concepts of education, and (F) promoting personal, professional and societal development and change. While in broad agreement with previous studies on university teachers’ conceptions of teaching, the study offers a unique insight into how the subject of education is understood by doctoral students who teach. The findings also underline the need to introduce common frameworks of academic development for academics and doctoral students alike that prioritise ways of representing and engaging with the structure of the subject, rather than the acquisition of teaching skills

Giant Dielectric Permittivity and Magnetocapacitance in La\u3csub\u3e0.875\u3c/sub\u3eSr\u3csub\u3e0.125\u3c/sub\u3eMnO\u3csub\u3e3\u3c/sub\u3e Single Crystals

We report the observation of extremely high dielectric permittivity exceeding 109 and magnetocapacitance of the order of 104% in La0.875Sr0.125MnO3 single crystal. This phenomenon is observed below 270 K, and it exhibits a history dependence. These effects may be the consequence of strong competition and interplay among the charge, orbital, and spin degrees of freedom, resulting in nanoscale charge and spin dynamic inhomogeneities in the prepercolation regime of the phase segregation

Unveiling faculty conceptions of academic risk taking:a phenomenographic study

Among recent developments in the field of higher education is the emergence of New Public Management and of what has been labelled as ‘risk university’. The aim of this paper is to redress the lack of discussion over the role that risk taking plays in academic practice by exploring what faculty understand academic risk taking to be and how they enact this understanding in their tasks. Drawing on a phenomenographic perspective and semi-structured interviews with 20 faculty members from a high-profile UK university, we find that academic risk taking is experienced in four qualitatively different ways. Our results suggest that although academics engage in relatively similar endeavours, they exhibit various approaches to these endeavours due to their different conceptions of what constitutes academic risk taking. These findings have implications for the literature on identity construction and the debate over how the greater accountability of academic activity is affectively experienced

The nature of an object-oriented program:how do practitioners understand the nature of what they are creating?

Object-oriented programming is seen as a difficult skill to master. There is considerable debate about the most appropriate way to introduce novice programmers to object-oriented concepts. Is it possible to uncover what the critical aspects or features are that enhance the learning of object-oriented programming? Practitioners have differing understandings of the nature of an object-oriented program. Uncovering these different ways of understanding leads to agreater understanding of the critical aspects and their relationship tothe structure of the program produced. A phenomenographic studywas conducted to uncover practitioner understandings of the nature of an object-oriented program. The study identified five levels of understanding and three dimensions of variation within these levels. These levels and dimensions of variation provide a framework for fostering conceptual change with respect to the nature of an object-oriented program