Continuous changes in the real world implies the need of change in the curriculums of the students. Aspects such as leadership, team management, competitiveness, may be more important than the technical knowledge. On the other hand, new demands require a symbiotic relationship between business and university. In the article it presents an experience of a real integration project lead by professionals in the classroom. ; This research work has been partially funded by the University of Alicante, Generalitat Valenciana, Spanish Government and the European Commission through the projects, DIIM2.0 (PROMETEOII/2014/001) de la Generalitat Valenciana, TIN2015-65100-R, TIN2015-65136-C2-2-R del Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad y SAM (FP7-611312) de la Unión Europea.
PurposeMany employers struggle with how to have a disability disclosure discussion with their employees and job candidates. The primary purpose of this study was to identify issues relevant to disability disclosure discussions. In addition, we explored how simulations, as an educational tool, may help employers and managers.Design/methodology/approachSeven participants (four employers and three human resource professionals) took part in this study. We used a qualitative design that involved two focus group discussions to understand participants' experiences of building a simulation training scenario that focused on how to have a disability disclosure discussion. The simulation sessions were audio-recorded and analyzed using an open-coding thematic approach.FindingsFour main themes emerged from our analysis. Three themes focused on issues that participants identified as relevant to the disability disclosure process, including: (1) creating a comfortable and safe space for employees to disclose, (2) how to ask employees or job candidates about disability and (3) how to respond to employees disability disclosure. A fourth theme focused on how simulations could be relevant as an educational tool.Originality/valueDeveloping a simulation on disability disclosure discussions is a novel approach to educating employers and managers that has the potential to help enhance diversity and inclusion in the workplace. Further, the process that we followed can be used as a model for other researchers seeking to develop educational training scenarios on sensitive diversity and inclusion topics.
Rural and urban landscapes are primary targets for implementation of EU Baltic Sea Regional and Helsinki Commission (HELCOM) Baltic Sea action plan strategies concerning remedial and recycling operations. Sweden is one of the leaders in the world elaborating environmental engineering and sustainability progress. The international project entitled "Phytoremediation park for treatment and recreation at glassworks contaminated sites" (acronym PHYTECO) which gathered under the Tripple Helix concept researchers, municipality experts and businessmen from Sweden, Estonia, Latvia and Ukraine. The aim is to investigate the benefits of prospective environmentally friendly mining in contaminated with glass waste areas thus as the result having elaborated landscape quality, promoted beyond the zero waste ideas on recycling and driven phytoremediation technologies as future state-of-the-art landfill remedial technique. The ongoing project foresees cross-border collaboration on landscape policy and remediation strategy among Baltic Sea countries through share of knowledge and best practice among the involved partners. It intends the clean-up of rural landscapes damaged by old glassworks landfills located at Kingdom of Crystal, Sweden. The final goal is establishing a recreation park at the old Boda glassworks in Emmaboda town that may attract tourists for visiting this place. Hence large efforts are devoted to educational values which were targeted during field course in 2016 where international students of different levels from 25 countries participated. The course took place in Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Sweden with active participation of Ukrainian pedagogic forces. ; Rural and urban landscapes are primary targets for implementation of EU Baltic Sea Regional and Helsinki Commission (HELCOM) Baltic Sea action plan strategies concerning remedial and recycling operations. Sweden is one of the leaders in the world elaborating environmental engineering and sustainability progress. The international project entitled "Phytoremediation park for treatment and recreation at glassworks contaminated sites" (acronym PHYTECO) which gathered under the Tripple Helix concept researchers, municipality experts and businessmen from Sweden, Estonia, Latvia and Ukraine. The aim is to investigate the benefits of prospective environmentally friendly mining in contaminated with glass waste areas thus as the result having elaborated landscape quality, promoted beyond the zero waste ideas on recycling and driven phytoremediation technologies as future state-of-the-art landfill remedial technique. The ongoing project foresees cross-border collaboration on landscape policy and remediation strategy among Baltic Sea countries through share of knowledge and best practice among the involved partners. It intends the clean-up of rural landscapes damaged by old glassworks landfills located at Kingdom of Crystal, Sweden. The final goal is establishing a recreation park at the old Boda glassworks in Emmaboda town that may attract tourists for visiting this place. Hence large efforts are devoted to educational values which were targeted during field course in 2016 where international students of different levels from 25 countries participated. The course took place in Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Sweden with active participation of Ukrainian pedagogic forces.
PurposeIn the disaster mitigation community, one of the most important tasks is that of information transfer prior to, and following natural disasters. The purpose of this research project was to increase the understanding of key aspects (such as attractiveness and educational value) that influence the utility and effectiveness of educational media tools for home resilience during hurricanes.Design/methodology/approachA total of three types of educational media were developed – pulp board coasters, tri‐fold pamphlets, and a web hosted video. The contents of these media were developed based on data from federal agencies, as well as scholarly articles and technical reports to form an inclusive body of information. Several focus groups of homeowners and potential homeowners were held to evaluate participant's preference of these three media tools with regards to their usefulness for making homes safer during natural disasters, specifically during wind and wind‐driven rain events (e.g. hurricanes).FindingsAnalysis of the focus groups indicate that media use (based on disaster prevention home resilience practices) is highly dependent on the target audience or the stakeholder group (e.g. consumers look for different information content as compared to the builders). While all three media were indicated by the participants to have merit, the pamphlet was preferred aesthetically and was most likely to be used by homeowners. In addition, the study found that the usefulness of the tools depends on the ease of understanding and implementation of the best practices and ease of access to the tools (targeted location for each media).Research limitations/implicationsThe findings of the study have implications for the entire disaster educational community. Although the findings are mostly qualitative and the small sample used in the focus groups limits the generalize ability to the entire population of the USA, nevertheless, future educational information and tools used should follow easy to understand language, be illustrated with examples and pictures, and be placed at convenient locations for homeowners to access.Originality/valueBy understanding how to better reach homeowners with information on home resilience, information can be more effectively disseminated to the public which allows for efficient use of tools as well as funds.
Land transformation and degradation is the major driver of current species extinction, lately recognized as the sixth mass extinction. To address this threat innovative programs that combine both immediate remedies of land protection and comprehensive educational programs are soughed. This is My Earth (TiME) (http://this-is-my-earth.org) is a new voluntary NGO that was established to address these challenges. TiME uses crowd funding to save privately own lands in biodiversity hotspots, providing them protection. Membership fees are very affordable (as low as $1 a year) and 100% of all fees and donations are directed to fund land purchase and protection. TiME welcomes children to become members and use its website to vote for their preferred habitat to be conserved (following vetting by an international committee of experts), and thus offering them the power to decide for the organization where in the world it will purchase lands. Using the PBL [=Problem Based Learning] pedagogical approach we developed a workshop, based on the above inherited powers of the TiME approach, that empowers children to adopt a sense of critical thinking as they become activists for wildlife protection. We began by developing a lesson plan that includes a short presentation of the problem, group discussions about potential solutions, class debates regarding the optimal lands to be saved, and a class-wide democratic vote. Following this workshop we examined the level of awareness and attitude of the children towards activism and democratic position. We report here preliminary results as a preliminary database for developing an international TiME based lesson plan. Participants [N=80] revealed a democratic orientation regarding land reservations and expressed strong affinity for activism and further conservation activities. Responses to the Likert scale-based questions, indicate considerable support for involvement, with endorsement of five actions recommended in the questionnaire: writing letters to governmental authorities, signing petitions, participation in demonstrations, organizing demonstrations, and donations. Interestingly, donations received the highest support level, thus endorsing the TiME approach, while organizing a demonstration the lowest. It appears that the global habitat crisis presented to the students via the TiME platform triggers debate and critical thinking even beyond conservation to such topics as democracy and equity. The TiME website is emerging as an educational tool that offers a novel experience where teachers can harness curiosity and environmental engagement in the learning process about conservation issues. Educators use TiME to explain basic conservation concepts and involve classes in discussions about environmental decision-making and associated ethical dilemmas, prioritization of conservation efforts and practical ways to protect nature. ; peerReviewed
Entrepreneurial competences geared towards sustainable actions are necessary for the transition towards sustainability. Higher education institutions are dedicated to training students to acquire these competences, which entails equipping teachers with educational tools that facilitate students' learning to act for a sustainable future. This paper discusses educational tools for sustainable entrepreneurship, focusing on the competences they intend to train. We map a sample of 51 educational tools used to teach sustainable entrepreneurship in higher education. We then discuss the intended sustainable entrepreneurship competences that each tool seeks to impart and the underlying pedagogical traditions upon which these tools are built. Our mapping reveals that the educational tools in our sample are predominantly adapted from business administration and lack a specific focus on teaching entrepreneurship for sustainability. Additionally, alternative post-growth economic paradigms are notably absent in our sample of tools. Our exploration of each tool in terms of its intended competences and the underlying tradition contributes to the ongoing discourse on sustainable entrepreneurship education as a field that combines entrepreneurship education and education for sustainable development.
El presente trabajo pretende demostrar que, si entendemos que la principal finalidad de la educación es el establecimiento de la justicia social, el amor se nos presenta como una herramienta educativa indispensable. Si queremos generar en el aula un clima de convivencia y respeto que, a su vez, sea capaz de generar democracia fuera del aula, la formación que reciban los educadores y educadoras tendrá que estar encaminada a fomentar en ellos y ellas la capacidad de entrega amorosa hacia sus discípulos. No han sido pocos, a lo largo de la historia de la filosofía, los autores que han considerado el amor como una emoción imprescindible para el desarrollo del ser humano. Aquí, por falta de espacio, solo podremos exponer brevemente los planteamientos de Joaquín Xirau y de Humberto Maturana ; This work tries to demonstrate that, if we understand that the main purpose of education is the establishment of social justice, love is presented to us as an indispensable educational tool. If we want to generate in the classroom a climate of coexistence and respect that, in turn, is capable of generating democracy outside the classroom, the training received by educators will have to be aimed at fostering in them the capacity for loving devotion towards his disciples. There have been few, throughout the history of philosophy, the authors who have considered love as an essential emotion for the development of the human being. Here, for lack of space, we can only briefly expose the approaches of Joaquín Xirau and Humberto Maturana
Modern societies of the 21st century are immersed in a growing complexity that implies great development and opportunities, but also certain costs and difficulties. Different studies that evaluate and compare the quality of life of both adults and children in different dimensions indicate that economic development, wealth and GDP are not always accompanied by similar levels of well-being and happiness. For example, a country like the United States with impressive levels of wealth and technological development has one of the lowest wellbeing rates in developed countries. Europe is not exempt from these contradictions and the population suffers serious physical and mental health problems, as well as psychological and social maladjustment such as suicide, violence, or addictions that have a very negative impact on the well-being of our society. From this perspective, some countries have reacted by realizing that education in the 21st century must assume a double mission and educate both the head and the heart, the academic and intellectual side, but also the emotional and social side. In the United States, for example, one of the most active movements in this line of action is the CASEL organization that promotes Emotional and Social Learning in society ("Social and Emotional Learning" SEL; see www.CASEL.org). The SEL principles are proposed as an integrative framework to coordinate all the specific programmes that are applied under the assumption that most of the problems that affect people are caused by the same emotional and social risk factors. Therefore, the best way to prevent these specific problems would be through the practical development of emotional and social skills at the earliest age possible. That is, starting from childhood in school and continuing throughout the life cycle in both our personal and professional lives. SEL programmes are based on the concept of Emotional Intelligence developed by scientists Peter Salovey (Yale University) and John Mayer (University of New Hampshire) in 1990 and disseminated with great success by the popularizer Daniel Goleman in 1995. Specifically, influenced by the works of professors Peter Salovey and John Mayer, we have the scientific explanation to a fact that we all witness on a daily basis: being brilliant academically does not always imply that professional and personal success is achieved. The academic training of an engineer, for example, develops his intellectual, spatial and abstract capacity, but not his emotional and social skills. However, usually, this professional will have to work with other people as a team and for this he will need to master these skills in an effective way. For us, following the EI Model of Mayer and Salovey (1997), emotional intelligence is defined as: «Emotional intelligence involves the ability to perceive accurately, appraise, and express emotion; the ability to access and/or generate feelings when they facilitate thought; the ability to understand emotion and emotional knowledge; and the ability to regulate emotions to promote emotional and intellectual growth». In short, EI is specified in four basic skills: • Perception and emotional expression: ability to perceive emotions, as well as the ability to express them properly. • Emotional facilitation: ability to generate feelings and emotions that facilitate decision making and problem solving. • Emotional comprehension: ability to integrate what we feel into our emotional knowledge. 7 • Emotional regulation: capacity for acceptance and emotional regulation, that is, being open to positive and negative emotional states, to reflect on the information that accompanies them, as well as being able to modify both one's own emotions and those of other people. These abilities are linked to each other in such a way that for an adequate emotional regulation a good emotional understanding is necessary and, in turn, for an effective understanding we require an appropriate emotional perception. Research on EI worldwide has focused on three main lines of interest: • Construction of tools for the evaluation of Emotional Intelligence for adults, children and teenagers. • Analysis of the impact of Emotional Intelligence in different areas such as: physical and psychological health, drug use, adaptation to stressful situations, interpersonal functioning, behaviors of aggression and violence, or well-being and happiness. • Development of Emotional Intelligence improvement programmes for children, teenagers, and adults in different personal and professional contexts. However, one of the main priorities is that the education of emotions be rigorously included in the education system as a priority in Europe. Recent international studies show that EI improvement programmes in schools have long-term positive effects on psychological adjustment, social relationships, disruptive and violent behaviors, as well as on people's academic performance. In this process, emotional education also has to inevitably consider the improvement of the EI of adults who did not have the opportunity to receive it during their initial or professional training. 21st century scientific knowledge provides us with the necessary and most effective arguments and tools to educate the emotional and social skills, both in childhood and in adult life. Therefore, educating emotions in Europe is not a utopia for the future, but a reality that is already happening in many schools that needs to be extended to the adult and professional world through political and social will. Therefore, we are convinced that an explicit and rigorous development of the education of emotional and social aspects is the only way to create a developed and rich society, but above all a society with healthy and happy adults.
We present an exertion interface called the Interactive Slide (Soler, Ferrer, Parés, 2009), a large inflatable slide augmented with virtual reality technology that offers the possibility to children to move freely in a large and diverse spatial area. Diversity of motor skills actions that children do while playing were analyzed with observational methodology and sequential analysis through temporal pattern detection (T-patterns) to obtain behavior motor responses. The results reveal that the strategic virtual games of this Interactive Slide stimulate a large number of motor skills and a rich variability of them. Thus, in a pedagogical sense, it optimizes body movement in children while exergaming. ; Part of this project is funded by the grants from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation:/n"Method for the Control and Regulation of Physical Activity of Children through a Novel Platform for Full-body/nInteractive Experiences called the Interactive Slide" (CRAFTI), grant TIN2010-18268/n"Avances tecnológicos y metodológicos en la automatización de estudios observacionales en deporte", grant/nPSI2008-01179/nWe also gratefully acknowledge the support of the Catalan government Project (GRID) (2009 SGR829).
