Learning in Focus (Asynchronous Session)
Contradictions in Creativity and Copyright: Towards a New Definition of Originality View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Robert Greenstreet
Beyond architectural theory and style, many factors affect the final outcome of a building's layout and appearance. Finance, site considerations, climate and client preference all influence the design process, although it is the impact of law, the invisible web of regulation, constraint and requirement, that is perhaps the least evident yet the most significant. While law has been shown to be a major determinant is styles as varied as Georgian architecture and the American Art Deco skyscraper, recent developments in the courts have raised new issues affecting not just the final built form but the practice of architecture itself. This paper examines the inherent contradictions between the creative process that is fundamental to architecture and recent legislative enactments and pronouncements that were ostensibly created to protect that process yet can actually challenge its existence. Through its well meaning but flawed construction and enactment, coupled with inadequate interpretation and enforcement in the courts, existing legislation can actually inhibit the creative process and call into question the very meaning of originality in design. The paper explores these implications and concludes with an attempt to form a redefinition of the concept of orginality that serves both the strictures of copyright protection for designers while creating a clearer model of architectural originality that does not inhibit the creative exploration of new ideas.
Featured Analyzing the Impacts of a Pandemic on STEM Education: Teacher Leader Advocacy in the Time of COVID-19 View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Richard Velasco, Rebecca Hite
The onset of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic during the first quarter of 2020 has not only led to a catastrophic number of fatalities globally, but has also disrupted all aspects of daily life, including education systems worldwide. K-12 teacher advocacy is vital to ensure colleagues and students have adequate resources and access to equitable teaching and learning experiences. Describing the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education advocacy activities among ten K-12 STEM master teachers pre-pandemic and during the pandemic should illuminate some impacts of this systemic shock among STEM education advocates (teachers). This study applies the STEM Master Teacher framework of teacher-leadership development in policy advocacy as a lens from which to explore how K-12 STEM teachers participate in various types of advocacy-based leadership. From collected interview data and follow up questionnaires, phenomenography is employed to understand how these ten STEM teacher advocates conceptualize STEM education and their advocacy therein over time, exploring how advocacy priorities and/or activities have shifted as a result of COVID-19. The use of a phenomenographical methodology affords the opportunity to discover impacts of this disruption at two levels: through experiences shared by STEM teacher advocates (first-order perspective) and interpretations of their recounted experiences (second-order perspective), which is ascribed as ideal for interdisciplinary (e.g. STEM) education research. This research highlights key and critical areas where STEM education advocacy has ebbed and flowed as a result of systemic disruption, prognosticating both challenges and opportunities for K-12 STEM teacher advocates brought forth from this global crisis.
Implementing Social Equity Thinking into Engineering Senior Projects: Analysis of a Curriculum Project View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Patricia Backer, Laura Sullivan Green
In 2013, the California State University (CSU) system required that all degree programs, even those in engineering would be held to 120 total units. This mandate required that SJSU’s College of Engineering needed to rethink its courses to reduce to 120 units. The result of the restructuring has yielded a new two-course sequence intended to establish a relationship between the student's classroom experiences and engineering in the community, both in the U.S. and globally. Faculty in the engineering senior project classes then created GE activities linked to their specific major. The first engineering General Education (GE) course is focused on social justice and it is aligned with the first semester of the senior project course in the major. This paper discusses the impact of the social justice perspective upon students’ understanding of the relationship between engineering and society in the United States. We have selected student papers from the GE course and the student’s major course and completed a contextual analysis of the themes from the papers. We hope to determine whether students demonstrate a social justice perspective from this analysis.
The Social Potential of Cinema for English Teaching at Compulsory Secondary Education: Dealing with Bullying and Environmental Degradation through Cinema View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Estefanía Sánchez
The use of cinema in the English lessons has multiple pedagogic and linguistic benefits that help learners to improve their language level and, besides, to become better citizens (Berk, 2009; Bueno, 2009; Charlebois, 2008; Pisarenko, 2017; Stevenson, 2013; Stewart, 2006; Tomalin, 1986). These benefits are related to (i) linguistic advantages such as the practice of the language skills and the learning of grammar and vocabulary; (ii) cultural advantages as movies help students to understand both the foreign culture and their own community; and (iii) motivational advantages because the cinema-based approach encourages students to learn English thanks to the portrayal of real language, the development of creative and critical thinking skills, and the wide range of relevant issues that can be discussed through films, which is the benefit I focus on in this study. Multiple experts in the field have confirmed that, since films often depict relevant social matters such as racism and sexism, when exploited in the English classroom, high school students are exposed to alternative perspectives on such concerns and, therefore, they start reflecting more critically on the world they inhabit (Allan, 1985; Alwehaibi, 2015; Kaiser, 2006). By way of illustration, I will explain how English teachers can make use of cinema in order to deal with two crucial social issues: bullying, a problem which, unfortunately, has become increasingly frequent in the secondary school classroom; and environmental degradation, something which has become a worldwide crisis and which already has a noticeable impact on everyone’s daily life.
Approaches to Interventionary Research on Social Skills Development in Early Childhood: Promoting Prosocial Behavior in Singaporean Preschoolers View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Elizabeth Kim
Despite its benefits to emotional well-being and successful life outcomes across human development, prosocial development has been underexplored in the context of intervention in early childhood. This paper discusses how a comprehensive set of tasks incorporating theory of mind and empathy training was used to improve preschoolers social and emotional skills. Prosocial behavior of seventy four 3 to 6 year old Singaporean preschoolers were measured in the constructs of sharing, cooperation, leadership, group-sensitivity, and emotion knowledge before and after training sessions. Findings suggest that a comprehensive set of training tasks might be effective in modifying some aspects of preschoolers prosocial behavior, and may potentially inform curriculum in early childhood education settings.
Intergroup Dialogue within a Museum Context: Socially Just Engagement View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Rhianon Kohl, Andrew Blom, Jared Halter
This paper examines the ways in which implementing intergroup dialogue (IGD) in museums would build social justice and inclusion. Intergroup dialogue, a social justice based pedagogy, brings individuals from different identity groups together in intentionally structured learning environments. These learner centered spaces are focused on participants critically examining history and society to construct shared understanding about the ways in which social structures and institutions structure their lived experience. Museums, as cultural institutions, are part of the socialization process in the United States, and represent and (re)produce narratives that serve dominant identity groups and culture. IGD can offer ways for museums to reconcile these fallacies, build empathy and perspective taking, and be mindful of the power they hold to reinforce dominant social structures and knowledge generation. Museums can use IGD to engage individuals to explore the role that power and social group membership play in history and their lived experience. Through our examination of IGD and museums, we conclude that by implementing programs like IGD, which foster reflexivity, museums can take steps towards being inclusive and socially just.
Finding Ground - Experiencing Innovative Pedagogical Approaches to Enhance Resilience: Experiential Learning of Hawaiian Frescos in Creativity and Reflective Practice Workshops View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Bronwen Wade-Leeuwen, Kathryn McLachlan
The global pandemic, climate change and endemic social issues have exacerbated the growing disparity in human rights in Australia and the world. In this context, new ways of thinking, being and doing through innovative pedagogical approaches provoke risk taking and boundary breaking, emphasising the importance of creativity, reflective practices, and experiential learning approaches. Dispositions of curiosity, embodied processes, through a spirit of play, re-energise and re-new opportunities for growth. Cultivating a sense of collaboration, respecting wisdom and understanding, resonates and is reciprocated through inter-cultural understandings. Societal stressors are increasing the uncertainty and disruption being experienced, as people are urged to stay socially connected, while having to distance physically. The health and wellbeing of communities is challenged to sustain connection, social networks and belonging, as key characteristics of resilience, ie. people’s ability to adapt and respond to adversity. The creativity and reflective practice workshops support processes for recovery and re-generation through the development of resilience skills; self-efficacy, adaptability, and responsibility. Imagination and the ability to respond in challenging circumstances is supported through positive approaches to dealing with complex and traumatic issues. Our research reports workshop participants interaction in, and creation of Hawaiian ash fresco artefacts is grounded in theories of open heart and open mind to build capacity and enhance resilience. Through focusing on breathing techniques participants connect thought with mindful action, encouraging a shift from isolation and disunity, aiming to increase confidence and collective wellbeing. This innovative pedagogical approach has extensive application in diverse educational contexts.
Eight Disciplines to Identify Weaknesses in the Management System: Methodology to Improve the Workplace View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Iván Vázquez Cenil, Amado Francisco García Ruiz, Fernando Elí Ortiz-Hernández
The eight disciplines are a model usually used by engineers or other professionals to achieve quality; it is a tool that involves teamwork focused on the facts. The main principle of the methodology is to help the easy and accurate identification of the root cause of a problem to implement an efficient and permanent corrective action. The steps of the 8Ds methodology are 0) Preparations, the team will be made up of members of different specializations within the company, 1) Integrate the team, 2) Define the problem, 3) Apply and verify the preliminary containment measures, 4) Identify and verify the root cause (s), 5) Define and verify the definitive corrective actions, 6) Implement and monitor permanent corrective actions, 7) Avoid the repetition of the problem and 8) Recognize and congratulate the team. There are three main aspects that limited the use of the methodology. 1) Insufficient and shallow root cause investigation, intuitive conclusions without relying on facts, 2) The application of the 8D's in non-systematic random errors, and 3) Omission of the “motivation” factor. On the other hand, the success factors of the methodology are i) Applying the classification of problems by importance and urgency and ii) Monitoring motivation and evaluation indicators. The 8D's are not substitute for the quality system, their objective is to face the problems and discover the weaknesses in the management system that allowed the problem to take place in the first place.
