Deciding to teach online: Communication,opportunities and challenges for educators in distance education

ABSTRACT

Adopting technology in support of educational programmes brings about self-evident changes and challenges both for students and educators (faculty members/facilitators), as well as for teaching and learning in distance education. The participatory culture of online learning and teaching demands new skills and competencies that pose challenges for existing teaching and learning pedagogies. The purpose of this literature review is to identify and exemplify facilitator roles in e-learning, to argue that there is a need for facilitators to undergo e-learning-related training, and to consider certain other challenges that result from using an online platform for teaching and learning. The results of the literature survey confirm that the roles of the educator change in a digital environment, while communication also enables him/her to maintain a degree of control over computer-mediated learning. It is argued that training in phases can enhance mentors' personal development and encourage positive attitudes towards accepting responsibilities in e-learning, while ensuring continued support and back-up for educators and novice facilitators.     

Teaching law in Scotland

ABSTRACT

The theory of threshold concepts has become a popular way to describe the difficulties students face when trying to grasp fundamental ideas in a discipline. In law authors have suggested a range of concepts as thresholds. However these suggestions conflict with each other, and have not emphasised the way in which students repeatedly encounter such thresholds. Using variation theory and the concept of knowledge capability this article suggests that the Threshold Capability Integrated Theoretical Framework may be a way to resolve those differences and to highlight the ongoing nature of liminality in becoming a professional. Students may grasp initial threshold concepts early in a degree or subject, develop the ability to manipulate and use them in a variety of settings towards the end of the degree, and develop a lifelong professional ability to use them in diverse settings after graduation. Law students, lawyers and indeed law teachers may be best seen as in a constant state of learning. The uncertainty that goes with that learning is to be embraced, and encouraged as part of the way we teach law.     

论行政体制改革过程中的学习型政府组织

学习型政府是对“生态政治”这一新的政治认识的价值思考。建立学习型政府组织是政府管理创新的核心内容 ,政府管理创新的关键或切入点是把政府建设成为一个学习型的组织 ,全方位革新政府的运行机制 ,提高政府在管理活动中的效率 ,体现政府的职能转变。对学习型组织理念进行历时性解释和共时性分析将有助于我们更深刻地认识和研究学习型政府组织。     

新建警察院校学风建设研究

学风是学校办学水平、办学品位的表现形式,是衡量教学质量和管理水平的重要指标。影响学风建设的因素主要包括人的因素、制度的因素、环境的因素、传统的因素等,加强学风建设需要立足于这四个主要因素展开有针对性的路径分析。     

Introduction: The OECD and Policy Transfer: Comparative Case Studies

Abstract

The six articles in this issue examine the role of the OECD in policy transfer. Two articles (Kudrle on international tax agreements, and Legrand and Vas on Australia’s vocational and educational training policy) conclude that the OECD has been influential, albeit in a grinding and lengthy way. Two others (Clifton on the OECD’s “enhanced engagement” policy with five G-20 countries, and Eccleston and Woodward on tax transparency) find the OECD’s influence either patchier or even dysfunctional. Carroll’s article provides a novel analysis of policy transfer through accession processes, while Alasuutari explores transfer in terms of a comparative analysis of policy rationalizations that refer to the OECD as a “standard.” A common theme of all six articles is the way in which policy transfer is driven by exogenous pressures and crises, and how international governmental organizations like the OECD exploit these pressures to protect and expand their global relevance.     

Finding the missing and unknown: Novel educational approaches to warming up cold cases

In recent years, students in police academies and higher education institutions around the world have worked together to analyse cold cases including long-term missing persons cases in collaboration with investigators and prosecutors. In 2020, three European organisations, the Police Expert Network on Missing Persons (PEN-MP), AMBER Alert Europe and Locate International, succeeded in connecting these educational organisations enabling them to work collectively on cases and conduct cold case analyses (CCA) across international borders. The International Cold Case Analysis Project (ICCAP) learning objectives were to 1) collect the necessary information about the victim, 2) reconstruct the crime, and 3) investigate trace control.In a learning objective-based evaluation using Computer-Assisted Web Interviewing, 76 participating students from the German and International ICCAP teams were asked to complete a pre- and post-review questionnaire to self-assess their personal competence development. Participants reported significant increases in competence in all evaluated areas, thus demonstrating that authentic and relevant collaborations can enrich the learning environment, promote the use of professional skills, and provide significant knowledge exchange opportunities between academia and industry.Drawing on case studies of cold case missing persons' investigations and unidentified found remains, this article shares how university academics, students and community volunteers can work together nationally and internationally to find out what has happened to missing people and how we can more effectively identify the previously unidentified. In so doing, we share the expertise required to progress these cold cases and provide recommendations to support other institutions and organisations in adopting this innovative approach.     

Hidden in plain sight? Irregularities on statutory forms and electoral fraud

The most common method of tabulating election results around the world is manually compiling paper forms at the local level. Recent election disputes in developing democracies, particularly in Africa, have centered on irregularities observed on these forms. However, scholars do not yet have a good understanding of the distribution of these irregularities, nor of their relationship to systematic fraud. In this paper, we theorize a catalog of irregularities that goes beyond simple vote tally editing. We use deep neural networks to identify these irregularities on forms from about 30,000 polling stations in Kenya’s 2013 presidential election. We find that although irregularities manifest differently in government and opposition strongholds, they do not correlate with election outcomes, and they are unaffected by the presence of electoral observers. Taken together, our findings suggest scholars of election integrity should pay greater attention to problems of benign human error and overtaxed bureaucrats.     

浅谈高职法律院校体育教学改革

高职法律院校体育教学改革,应采用文献资料研究调查及问卷调查等方法,对高职法律院校体育教育现状及教学内容、方法、组织形式和教学评价进行客观研究,并探索当前高职法律院校体育教育的不足和影响体育教学的相关因素。在此基础上,体育教学应以健康第一为指导思想,以育人为目标,以终身体育为主线,推进当前体育教学改革。     

The ‘Perils’ of an Identity Politics Approach to the Legal Recognition of Harm

In the past, and it still remains the case, people with learning difficulties who are victims of violence have been cast as being in need of protection rather than rights and justice. Such an approach belies an institutionalised perspective of harm that does not readily engage with criminal justice structures or solutions. At the same time, Sect. 146 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 gives the court the power to pass enhanced sentences where it can be proven that a crime was motivated by hostility towards someone because s/he is disabled. However, this provision may simply remain a symbolic pledge to equality that fails to tackle the complex and deep rooted causes of violence and oppression in modern society. The consequences of automatically turning to hate crime ‘solutions’ have yet to be explored. This article will draw from the ideas of a number of thinkers in the context of diverse activism to construct a bridge between current debates about how to theorise and tackle violence and oppression in the modern world and the campaigns fought by people with learning difficulties and their supporters. The hope is that this exercise will not only help people with learning difficulties to access the current debate but will further develop current thinking about how to understand and tackle violence in the modern world.

社会文化心态与外语的教与学

社会文化心态是指特定人群或个人在一定的社会文化形态中长期形成的对某些事物的心理反应和处置方法。而特定人群的某种特定心态,又是与其所处社会的民族文化模式、历史文化传统、个人的文化素养、心理素质以及社会的整体经济发展水平和对外文化经济交流程度等有着密切的联系。本文从东西方不同的社会文化心态入手,探讨了不同的社会文化心态对外语教学的影响,并提出了自己的看法。