Pedagogical Creativity as a Means of Inclusion in Primary School

This chapter presents some creative pedagogical strategies used during the distance or remote learning period due to the COVID-19 pandemic from March to May 2020. The chapter explores the use of coding in a transdisciplinary way. Strategies for online tools and their specific use both in remote and in face-to-face learning are presented. The role of hands-on learning as a process of learning-by-doing and how to involve pupils using the methods of a flipped classroom are also presented. The chapter concludes with the importance of games to keep the class group united and cohesive in order to develop a healthy sense of competitiveness and collaboration among the pupils.

Sustainable Learning Through Curriculum Integration and Responsive Teaching

One of the principal challenges the education system faces presently is the discrepancy between what is learnt in class and the reality outside class. Due to the constant changes and rapid transformation in the world today, most students are undoubtedly training for jobs that may not exist when they finally graduate. How can educators prepare students for such a diverse and dynamic world? What does it take to produce highly innovative graduates that creatively apply outside-the-box solutions (locally rooted and globally scalable) to the world's most pressing issues? This chapter recommends an approach to education that focuses on learning as a process that creates both lifelong and life-wide learners as opposed to rote learners whose success is dependent on their ability to regurgitate content. The chapter demonstrates how Davis College and Akilah promotes sustainable learning through integration and responsive teaching and how the faculty development process plays a key role in this.

Mice identify subgoal locations through an action-driven mapping process

Mammals instinctively explore and form mental maps of their spatial environments. Models of cognitive mapping in neuroscience mostly depict map-learning as a process of random or biased diffusion. In practice, however, animals explore spaces using structured, purposeful, sensory-guided actions. Here we test the hypothesis that executing specific exploratory actions is a key strategy for building a cognitive map. Previous work has shown that in arenas with obstacles and a shelter, mice spontaneously learn efficient multi-step escape routes by memorizing allocentric subgoal locations. We thus used threat-evoked escape to probe the relationship between ethological exploratory behavior and allocentric spatial memory. Using closed-loop neural manipulations to interrupt running movements during exploration, we found that blocking runs targeting an obstacle edge abolished subgoal learning. In contrast, blocking other movements while sparing edge-directed runs had no effect on memorizing subgoals. Finally, spatial analyses suggest that the decision to use a subgoal during escape takes into account the mouse's starting position relative to the layout of the environment. We conclude that mice use an action-driven learning process to identify subgoals and that these subgoals are then integrated into a map-based planning process. We suggest a conceptual framework for spatial learning that is compatible with the successor representation from reinforcement learning and sensorimotor enactivism from cognitive science.

Assessing Crisis Management Competencies: A Case Study of Pasir Gudang City Council

In this modern era of globalisation, the role of leaders and employees in handling crises and problems is very important. This study aims to gather as much understanding as possible through different perspectives.This study was conducted using qualitative methods involving eight informants in a number of in-depth interviews until data saturation has been reached. During the interview sessions, questions were asked based on the preparation of an interview protocol. Data analysis discovered four main themes related to crisis management competencies, namely “excellent work culture”, “dynamic thinking competency learning”, “efficient organisational production”, and “responsive governance development”.Overall, the data acquisition indicates that crisis management competencies give further understanding to employees on how to deal and handle upcoming crisis and to prepare it from happening in the future. At the same time, the management and employees need to implement organisational learning as a process to formulate strategies and improve the service quality to external parties such as customers and stakeholders.

IIoT/IoT and Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning as a Process Optimization driver under industry 4.0 model

The advance of digitalization in industry is making possible that connected products and processes help people, industrial plants and equipment to be more productive and efficient, and the results for operative processes should impact throughout the economy and the environment.Connected products and processes generate data that is being seen as a key source of competitive advantage, and the management and processing of that data is generating new challenges in the industrial environment.The article to be presented looks into the framework of the adoption of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning and its integration with IIoT or IoT under industry 4.0, or smart manufacturing framework. This work is focused on the discussion around Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning and IIoT/IoT as driver for Industrial Process optimization.The paper explore some related articles that were find relevant to start the discussion, and includes a bibliometric analysis of the key topics around Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning as a value added solution for process optimization under Industry 4.0 or Smart Manufacturing paradigm.The main findings are related to the importance that the subject has acquired since 2013 in terms of published articles, and the complexity of the approach of the issue proposed by this work in the industrial environment.

Cloud-Based Learning Management: An Effective Learning during Social Distancing

Teaching and learning as a process and concept is often researched through the viewpoint of graduate students as future educators in their respective fields. The aim of this study was to explore graduate students’ conceptions, experiences, and advice about teaching and learning as they embark on their journey as educators. Through purposive sampling, data were collected from students in the final year of their master’s program in education at a large university in Saudi Arabia. A qualitative content analysis of students’ written responses revealed three main themes: 1) definitions of teaching and learning were either teacher-led (predominant) or student-focused; 2) practical activities and assignments framed students’ memorable experiences; and, 3) updated, diverse methodologies including practical applications formed the main advice for educators. Student conceptions of teaching and learning, while predominantly teacher-led, illustrated elements of student-centered learning. An underlying trend throughout the data was an awareness and description of the ongoing transition from teacher-centered/led to student-centered classrooms in their higher education experiences. Implications of this study include reflection on teaching and student-centered learning as a concept and process in graduate-level education programs and faculty academic development and reconsideration of the traditional faculty-student relationship to a more cooperative and involved one, particularly at the graduate level. Received: 23 June 2021 / Accepted: 4 August 2021 / Published: 5 September 2021

A Novel Methodology for Measuring the Abstraction Capabilities of Image Recognition Algorithms

Creating a widely excepted model on the measure of intelligence became inevitable due to the existence of an abundance of different intelligent systems. Measuring intelligence would provide feedback for the developers and ultimately lead us to create better artificial systems. In the present paper, we show a solution where learning as a process is examined, aiming to detect pre-written solutions and separate them from the knowledge acquired by the system. In our approach, we examine image recognition software by executing different transformations on objects and detect if the software was resilient to it. A system with the required intelligence is supposed to become resilient to the transformation after experiencing it several times. The method is successfully tested on a simple neural network, which is not able to learn most of the transformations examined. The method can be applied to any image recognition software to test its abstraction capabilities.

Organizational Learning Under Institutional Complexity: Evidence from Township Clusters in China

ABSTRACT Drawing from conceptualizations of organizational learning and institutional complexity, we advance the understanding of how the coexistence of multiple institutional logics in a community influences firms’ learning. Viewing communities where firms and local governments coexist as clusters, our analysis of 354 firms in 39 township clusters in China shows that government logic negatively moderates the positive effect of community logic on organizational learning; however, social connections between the community and local governments mitigate this negative effect. Modeling the relationship between the two logics in this manner extends prior conceptualizations of interfirm learning as a process of isomorphic diffusion of social norms and advances understanding of the role of institutions in organizational learning. This study also offers new insights for theoretical conversations on the compatibility and incompatibility of multiple institutional logics by demonstrating when logic multiplicity leads to conflicts and when it maintains harmony.

Etienne and Beverly Wenger-Trayner (2020). Learning to Make a Difference. Value Creation in Social Learning Spaces, Cambridge University Press, ix + 279 pages

In their work, in their leisure time – yes, indeed in all walks of life – people interact with one another, have new experiences, come to know new things, and learn new things about their environment and the world they inhabit. But how? Philosophers, psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists, cognitive scientists, and many more have theorized this fundamental question and developed theories of learning. Thirty years ago, anthropology professor Jean Lave and cognitive scientist Etienne Wenger developed a social theory of learning that conceptualize learning as a process of situated cognition – legitimate peripheral participation – in communities of practice (Lave & Wenger 1991). This theory – and specifically the concept of communities of practice (CoP) that Etienne Wenger later explored in more detail (Wenger 1998) – have become an influential theoretical and analytical inspiration for researchers in education, organization studies, sociology, social-psychology, and the entire range of disciplines that are preoccupied with the study of social life and working life. (.....) Now, 30 years after the introduction of the theory, one of its proponents and found- ers, Etienne Wenger-Trayner, together with his spouse Beverly Wenger-Trayner, propose a new – and in their view – more encompassing social learning theory.