How to tell a constructivist science teacher: An interview protocol to diagnose a constructivist teacher

2001As a research paradigm, constructivism offers accounts of the epistemology of science, inspires science education curriculum reform programs, underpins major research programs in science education, and is also the foundation of many science-teacher training programs where constructivist teaching methods are widely advocated. Underlying all versions of constructivism are the philosophical constructs of epistemological commitments and ontological beliefs. Specifically, educational constructivism can be divided into individual, radical, and social constructivism depending on the unique ontological, epistemological, and pedagogical commitments for each version. In this article, we present an interview protocol with which researchers can elicit the philosophical foundations (i.e., ontological beliefs and epistemological commitments) that preservice teachers gave to support of their developing notions of several versions of educational constructivism through in-depth interviews. By providing researchers and educators with our interview protocol and methods, we intend to show one way of revealing an individuals often implicitly held philosophical beliefs and commitments. For each ontological and epistemological beliefs subcategory, a detailed definition along with two to three exemplary quotes taken from the interview transcripts from a previous research is also provided. The development of a system of categories for identifying constructivist ideas (i.e., ontological, epistemological, and pedagogical profiles), and its use in tracing of the development of preservice teachers beliefs changes throughout their university coursework, has the potential to contribute to a better understanding of how preservice teachers learn to teach. Accordingly, this interview protocol will be a valuable theoretical and analytical framework in describing the relationship between a teachers beliefs about nature of knowledge (or reality) and his or her conceptions of science teaching and learning. This understanding can lead to a restructuring of the science teacher education program's methods courses

Designing a Serious Game: Teaching Developers to Embed Privacy into Software Systems

Software applications continue to challenge user privacy when users interact with them. Privacy practices (e.g. Data Minimisation (DM), Privacy by Design (PbD) or General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)) and related "privacy engineering" methodologies exist and provide clear instructions for developers to implement privacy into software systems they develop that preserve user privacy. However, those practices and methodologies are not yet a common practice in the software development community. There has been no previous research focused on developing "educational" interventions such as serious games to enhance software developers' coding behaviour. Therefore, this research proposes a game design framework as an educational tool for software developers to improve (secure) coding behaviour, so they can develop privacy-preserving software applications that people can use. The elements of the proposed framework were incorporated into a gaming application scenario that enhances the software developers' coding behaviour through their motivation. The proposed work not only enables the development of privacy-preserving software systems but also helping the software development community to put privacy guidelines and engineering methodologies into practice.Comment:

Acute Distal Vertebral Artery Occlusion in Patients with Asymmetrical Vertebral Artery Geometry: Role of Black-Blood-Enhanced MR Imaging

Background: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the diagnostic value of contrast enhancement in a unilateral distal vertebral artery (VA) using black blood (BB)-enhanced magnetic resonance (MR) imaging in patients with acute neurological symptoms and asymmetrical VA geometry. Methods: From January 2020 to August 2021, we retrospectively analyzed BB-contrast-enhanced MR imaging and MR angiography (MRA) findings in stroke patients visiting the emergency room for an evaluation of acute neurological symptoms. We classified four patterns according to asymmetrical VA geometry using MRA and contrast enhancement using BB-enhanced MR imaging: type 1 = enhanced VA + no visualization of VA, type 2 = enhanced VA + hypoplastic VA, type 3 = non-enhanced VA + hypoplastic VA, or type 4 = non-enhanced VA + no visualization of VA. Results: In total, 288 patients (type 1 = 65, type 2 = 17, type 3 = 130, type 4 = 76) were enrolled in this study. Of these patients, 82 (28.5%) showed contrast enhancement of a unilateral distal VA on BB-enhanced MR imaging, and 51 (17.8%) had positive findings on diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) in the ipsilateral medulla, pons, or posterior inferior cerebellar artery (PICA) territory. The contrast enhancement of a unilateral distal VA using BB-enhanced MR imaging demonstrated a significantly higher prevalence in patients with acute infarction on DWI (50.0% vs. 4.9%, p < 0.001). Conclusions: The contrast enhancement of a unilateral distal VA on BB-enhanced MR imaging is associated with acute infarction of the medulla, pons, or PICA territory and suggests acute occlusion of a distal VA