University of Calgary Journal Hosting
Not a member yet
20552 research outputs found
Sort by
Large Online Courses: A Constraint on Instructor Presence and Higher-Level Thinking
Full text linkA growing body of literature claims instructor presence is crucial in an online course learning environment. In this paper, the authors contribute to this literature with empirical research related to instructor presence and how class size influences it. This study investigated whether class size was predictive of students’ ratings of instructor presence. The findings of this study suggest that in courses with higher-level skills as learning objectives, as the class size increased, students rated instructor presence lower. This result affirms existing research that explains courses that encompass constructivist skills or higher-level thinking benefit from the community of inquiry model. This model makes clear that instructor presence is imperative for effective student learning, and the implication of this directive is that class size needs to be adjusted (in many cases, it needs to be lowered) to provide a teaching and learning environment adequate for strong instructor presence. The ripple effect of this yields positive student satisfaction and student success online
Asking “How” and “Why” and “Under What Conditions” Questions: Using Critical Realism to Study Learning and Teaching
Full text linkResearch paradigms offer a way for scholars to design, communicate, and reflect on their research effectively. A paradigm encapsulates the researcher’s worldview, including the epistemology, ontology, and axiology of the research. Researchers are often initiated, whether explicitly or implicitly, into particular paradigms through graduate study. This can cause difficulties in the multidisciplinary landscape of SoTL where practitioners either have to learn a new domain and/or communicate to peers outside their discipline. Learning about common research paradigms can help address these challenges. Four commonly used paradigms that have been proposed as relevant for SoTL research are post-positivist, critical realist, interpretive, and transformative (including indigenous). This article describes the basic tenets of critical realism and discusses them in relation to SoTL research. It i) describes key concepts within critical realism, including a stratified reality and a focus on causal mechanisms and the relationship between structure and agency, ii) explains how critical realism can be applied to studying learning and what this means for choice of SoTL methodology and method, and iii) describes the key aspects of two published SoTL studies. The paper concludes by suggesting that critical realism can enhance the theoretical rigor, practical utility, and interdisciplinarity of SoTL research
Knowledge Surveys: An Effective and Robust Student Self-Assessment and Learning Tool
Full text linkKnowledge surveys (KS) are a student self-assessment tool consisting of an ability statement for each learning objective in a course. Students respond by rating their confidence in performing a specified skill. Pre-unit KS transparently communicate learning objectives, alert faculty to self-assessed knowledge and skills students possess as they enter a unit of instruction and support metacognitive learning through the unit’s lessons and activities. Post-unit KS allow comparison of student self-assessed learning with faculty assessments of student learning, providing feedback to support continued development of self-assessment skills, as well as metacognitive and self-regulated learning skills. This study synthesizes several semesters of KS implementation across six different engineering courses, taught by six instructors utilizing multiple assessment types (exams, technical writing, design projects) and delivery modes (in person, hybrid, online). Results indicate that student KS scores aligned with faculty assessments, and alignment improved with cycles of performance and feedback in a subset of courses with similar assessment types. Student feedback indicates value in KS as a learning guide and as a helpful addition to these courses for learning and self-assessment, with student quotes demonstrating positive student learning practices and evidence of metacognitive thinking. Faculty find KS easily manageable; they also appreciate how KS help maximize alignment within their courses and provide additional data to support student learning. Knowledge surveys are thus an effective, robust, and relatively easy-to-implement method to systematically incorporate a self-assessment component into a variety of courses
Between Sun Tzu, Clausewitz, and Stalin: A Synthetic character of Mao Zedong’s Military Thought
No full textIn modern literature on military thought of Mao Zedong, authors puts a lot of emphasis on its relationship with classical Chinese thought. Many focus on the influence of Sun Tzu, or Clausewitz. In this article I would like to focus mainly on influences of the Marxist thought, through which as I think the Chinese strategist interpreted the art of war. I will compare Mao Zedong\u27s views on the nature and ethics of war with the statements of Marxist classics on these issues. In this way, his theses, allegedly derived from classical Chinese philosophy, gain a wider context in which the influence of Stalinist vulgarization of Marxism on Mao\u27s philosophical reflections in relation to war is quite visible
On emulational equivalence of impartial games and the game Hackenforb
No full textWe introduce a variant of the game Hackenbush, called Hackenforb. It is a class of games, each of which is determined by two parameters: a given graph, and a given set of connected graphs (called forbidden graphs). The significance of this game within the realm of impartial combinatorial games is reflected in the fact that, as we show in this article, various known combinatorial games, such as Nim, Subtraction game, Notakto, Treblecross, Chomp, are emulationally equivalent to an instance of Hackenforb (an emulational equivalence of two games is a concept stronger than Grundy-equivalence, but weaker than the isomorphism between games\u27 structures; our belief is that this version of equivalence is what really captures the core of the intuitive perception of what it means for two games to be ``basically the same game"). At the end of our article, we show that Hackenforb is, unfortunately, not ``almighty," that is, we describe a game that is not emulationally equivalent to an instance of Hackenforb
Enumeration of parallelogram polycubes
No full textIn this paper, we give the Dirichlet generating function of parallelogram polycubes according to the volume and the width in terms of multivariate zeta functions. We also enumerate them according to the width, the length and the depth. All these results are generalized to polyhypercubes
Prospects for Further International Cooperation in the Central Arctic Ocean: Report of a Roundtable Conference at Tongji University, Shanghai
Full text link
‘Gay issues have come and it is worrying us’: Interrogating vulnerability, masculinities, and reproduction through queerphobic narratives among men in Accra, Ghana
Full text linkReproduction is tied to gendered social, economic, and political systems. Interrogating these connections is crucial for health policies and programmes that seek transformative change. Public health’s focus on biomedical vulnerabilities – how the body is susceptible to harm – is unable to capture the full and complex factors that contribute to reproductive inequities and injustices. Operationalising an understanding of vulnerability as a social process, this article examines how men conceptualise their own reproductive vulnerabilities and the implications this may have. This article draws on qualitative interviews with men, from a multi-method project on masculinities and sexual and reproductive health and rights in Accra, Ghana. Analysing men’s expressions of queerphobia through the lens of vulnerability, this article highlights the significant link between masculinities and reproduction. Masculinities are embedded in precarious, gendered economic systems and social and cultural institutions. Men’s experiences of the vulnerability of their masculinities in this context manifest as queerphobia and a (re)entrenchment of gendered norms around reproduction, which can perpetuate and exacerbate inequities and injustices. This article argues that using a more critical understanding of vulnerabilities makes visible the gendered systems and precarity that create key obstacles to reproductive health, rights, and justice
Disrupted rituals and relational ruptures: A decentred approach to integrated working in the English National Health Service
Full text linkThe implementation of Integrated Care Systems as statutory in the English National Health Service represented a significant shift away from service competition to service collaboration and ‘disrupted’ how services were organised and how different organisations interacted. Challenges of integrated working are well known, including differences in service organisation, funding, IT systems, and organisational cultures, and good communication with high levels of trust is essential for successful collaboration. The COVID-19 pandemic placed additional pressures on integrated working through the introduction of remote working for interactions traditionally performed face-to-face. Using the findings of two related qualitative studies conducted within integrated care systems, this paper combines a decentred theoretical approach with interaction ritual chain theory to understand how senior and front-line staff navigate the complexity of change and evolving relational dynamics. Service disruptions due to change can cause ruptures in relationships that, in turn, can give way to new traditions and modes of working. A focus on interaction rituals extends decentred theory by looking at the interactions that underpin the dilemmas and traditions during a service change. Working collaboratively through disruptions can strengthen social bonds through the re-alignment of the social order