Construction sector views on low carbon building materials Giesekam, Jannik; Barrett, John R.; Taylor, Peter
Building research and information : the international journal of research, development and demonstration,
05/2016, Volume:
44, Issue:
4
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
As is the case in a number of countries, the UK construction industry faces the challenge of expanding production whilst making ambitious greenhouse gas emission reductions. Embodied carbon ...constitutes a growing proportion of whole-life carbon emissions and accounts for a significant share of total UK emissions. A key mitigation strategy is increasing the use of alternative materials with lower embodied carbon. The economic, technical, practical and cultural barriers to the uptake of these alternatives are explored through a survey of construction professionals and interviews with industry leaders. Perceptions of high cost, ineffective allocation of responsibility, industry culture, and the poor availability of product and building-level carbon data and benchmarks constitute significant barriers. Opportunities to overcome these barriers include earlier engagement of professionals along the supply chain, effective use of whole-life costing, and changes to contract and tender documents. A mounting business case exists for addressing embodied carbon, but has yet to be effectively disseminated. In the meantime, the moral convictions of individual clients and practitioners have driven early progress. However, this research underscores the need for new regulatory drivers to complement changing attitudes if embodied carbon is to be established as a mainstream construction industry concern.
Much of the debate about that which comprises teachers' professional knowledge has been important in the academic literature but does not necessarily reflect the reality of how they think as they ...construct the knowledge that underpins their practice. Typically, teachers are not encouraged to spend time talking about teaching in ways that are theoretically robust, or to unpack their teaching in order to show others what they know, how and why. Because they are busy 'doing teaching' they are not commonly afforded opportunities to 'unpack' their practice to explore and articulate the reasoning underpinning what they do. This paper argues that the essence of teachers' professional knowledge is bound up in the teaching procedures they employ and that knowledge is accessible and demonstrable through the pedagogical reasoning that underpins their decision-making, actions and intents; all of which come to the fore when their pedagogical reasoning is examined. If teaching is to be more highly valued, it is important to more closely examine the nature of teachers' pedagogical reasoning as it offers a window into the complex and sophisticated knowledge of practice that influences what they do, how and why.
•Artefacts as analytical tools to study theory-practice linkages in teacher education.•Empirical examples of work required from educators to make linkages transparent.•Educators recontextualise ...practice-based artefacts to the higher education context.•Creating theory-practice linkages require creative work.•Linkages remain latent when artefacts are used as instrumental examples of practice.
Relatively little attention has been paid to how educators actively construct linkages between different forms of knowledge at the micro-level of educational activities in campus-based teacher education. The current article addresses this gap in existing literature by empirically examining how educators construct theory-practice linkages through the use of practice-based artefacts when teaching at campus. By employing analytical tools associated with a sociomaterial perspective, the article demonstrates the value of applying this perspective to examine the role specific artefacts can play in forging linkages between different forms of knowledge, and highlights the creative and constructive work required by educators for such linkages to be made transparent in a higher education context.
Consensus methods are used by healthcare professionals and educators within nursing education because of their presumed capacity to extract the profession's’ “collective knowledge” which is often ...considered tacit knowledge that is difficult to verbalize and to formalize. Since their emergence, consensus methods have been criticized and their rigour has been questioned. Our study focuses on the use of consensus methods in nursing education and seeks to explore how extensively consensus methods are used, the types of consensus methods employed, the purpose of the research and how standardized the application of the methods is.
A systematic approach was employed to identify articles reporting the use of consensus methods in nursing education. The search strategy included keyword search in five electronic databases Medline (Ovid), Embase (Ovid), AMED (Ovid), ERIC (Ovid) and CINAHL (EBSCO) for the period 2004–2014. We included articles published in English, French, German and Greek discussing the use of consensus methods in nursing education or in the context of identifying competencies.
A standardized extraction form was developed using an iterative process with results from the search. General descriptors such as type of journal, nursing speciality, type of educational issue addressed, method used, geographic scope were recorded. Features reflecting methodology such as number, selection and composition of panel participants, number of rounds, response rates, definition of consensus, and feedback were recorded.
1230 articles were screened resulting in 101 included studies. The Delphi was used in 88.2% of studies. Most were reported in nursing journals (63.4%). The most common purpose to use these methods was defining competencies, curriculum development and renewal, and assessment. Remarkably, both standardization and reporting of consensus methods was noted to be generally poor. Areas where the methodology appeared weak included: preparation of the initial questionnaire; the selection and description of participants; number of rounds and number of participants remaining after each round; formal feedback of group ratings; definitions of consensus and a priori definition of numbers of rounds; and modifications to the methodology.
The findings of this study are concerning if interpreted within the context of the structural critiques because our findings lend support to these critiques. If consensus methods should continue being used to inform best practices in nursing education, they must be rigorous in design.
This paper introduces a special issue which aims to address the challenges facing the 'deliberative' educational knowledge traditions of educational foundations, curriculum theory and Didaktik as a ...consequence of the rising tide of empiricism in educational research, the 'what works' agenda in global educational reform and internal fragmentation within the traditions themselves. By examining the potential for the reconfiguration or reconstruction of these traditions, we ask whether it is possible to reinvigorate a 'powerful' educational knowledge that could provide a meaningful basis for educators to conceptualize their practice, and a robust response to policies that seek to narrow educational activity to a focus solely on learning outcomes and technical efficiency.
Telehealth is viewed as a major strategy to address the increasing demand for care and a shrinking care professional population. However, most nurses are not trained or are insufficiently trained to ...use these technologies effectively. Therefore, the potential of telehealth fails to reach full utilization. A better understanding of nursing telehealth entrustable professional activities (NT-EPAs) and the required competencies can contribute to the development of nursing telehealth education.
In a four-round Delphi-study, a panel of experts discussed which NT-EPAs are relevant for nurses and which competencies nurses need to possess to execute these activities effectively. The 51 experts, including nurses, nursing faculty, clients and technicians all familiar with telehealth, were asked to select items from a list of 52 competencies based on the literature and on a previous study. Additionally, the panelists could add competencies based on their experience in practice. The threshold used for consensus was set at 80%.
Consensus was achieved on the importance of fourteen NT-EPAs, requiring one or more of the following core competencies; coaching skills, the ability to combine clinical experience with telehealth, communication skills, clinical knowledge, ethical awareness, and a supportive attitude. Each NT-EPA requires a specific set of competencies (at least ten). In total, 52 competencies were identified as essential in telehealth.
Many competencies for telehealth, including clinical knowledge and communication skills, are not novel competencies. They are fundamental to nursing care as a whole and therefore are also indispensable for telehealth. Additionally, the fourteen NT-EPAs appeared to require additional subject specific competencies, such as the ability to put patients at ease when they feel insecure about using technology. The NT-EPAs and related competencies presented in this study can be used by nursing schools that are considering including or expanding telehealth education in their curriculum.
•The study presents fourteen nursing telehealth activities to support patients.•Nurses need 32 ‘new’ telehealth specific competencies for the provision of telehealth.•The competencies discovered can strengthen the development of telehealth education.
To systematically summarize research employing serious games in nurse education, to examine their effectiveness, to provide recommendations and implementation strategies, and to suggest future ...directions for the development and application of serious games in nurse education.
A systematic review.
An online search of the CINAHL, Medline, PubMed, EMBASE, PsycINFO, SCOPUS, and Web of Science databases, and a manual search of the reference lists of selected studies or review articles published in English and Korean between 1990 and July 2020.
Review methods.
This systematic review was conducted in accordance with the Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions. Articles that employed a serious game approach in nurse education were included. Two authors independently screened and reviewed the articles and assessed the methodological quality using the Cochrane risk-of-bias tools.
A total of seven studies met the inclusion criteria: three randomized controlled trials and four quasi-experimental studies. Heterogeneity was found across all studies regarding the application of serious games, platforms, and gamification elements. Most of the studies evaluated the effectiveness of serious games using knowledge tests, while two studies evaluated skills performance. Two randomized controlled trials and two one group before and after studies reported that the use of serious games improved nursing students' and nurses' knowledge and performance.
This systematic review does not provide comprehensive insights into the effectiveness of serious games in nurse education. However, based on the evidence reviewed, we provide suggestions for developing and implementing serious games in nurse education to enhance students' knowledge and performance.
Zusammenfassung Das Ziel von Bildung für nachhaltige Entwicklung (BNE) ist, Lernende zu befähigen, an der Bewältigung der aktuellen Herausforderungen der Weltgesellschaft mitzuarbeiten. Diese Studie ...untersucht, über welche professionellen Handlungskompetenzen eine Lehrkraft verfügen muss, um qualitativ hochwertigen BNE-Unterricht durchführen zu können. Dazu wurde das COACTIV-Modell professioneller Handlungskompetenz von Lehrkräften (Baumert und Kunter 2011) mittels qualitativer Daten aus 20 Interviews mit Fachdidaktiker:innen und Lehrkräften für den Bereich BNE spezifiziert. Die Ergebnisse der Studie zeigen, dass die COACTIV-Kompetenzdimensionen (Professionswissen, Überzeugungen, Motivation, Selbstregulation) auf BNE übertragen werden können. Die Daten zeigen auch, dass die Modellkomponenten zum Teil weiter ausdifferenziert und im Hinblick auf BNE spezifischer definiert werden sollten: So ist etwa die Interdisziplinarität der BNE-bezogenen Unterrichtsinhalte ein relevanter Aspekt, der sich z. B. in der BNE-spezifischen Modellkomponente für fachdidaktisches Wissen über fächerübergreifende Unterrichtsgestaltung zeigt.
Abstract The goal of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) is to empower learners to participate in mastering the current challenges of global society. This study investigates what professional competences teachers need to have in order to implement high-quality ESD in school. To this end, the COACTIV model of teacher professional competence (Baumert und Kunter 2011) was specified for the field of ESD using qualitative data from 20 interviews with ESD researchers and teachers. The results of the study show that the COACTIV competence dimensions (professional knowledge, beliefs, motivation, self-regulation) can be applied to ESD. The data also show that some components of the model should be further differentiated and defined more specifically in terms of ESD: For example, the interdisciplinarity of the ESD-related contents is a central aspect of ESD, which is mirrored in the ESD-specific model component of pedagogical content knowledge regarding interdisciplinary teaching.
In professional military education (PME), wargames and field-training exercises are among the pedagogical tools used to teach students to be professional officers. It is generally accepted that ...wargames are important sources of insight - even if, as Peter Perla (2012, p. 157) points out, they are "not real." Notwithstanding the truism that there exists a gap between the game and reality, the wargame is a tool designed to provide the learner something to aid them in the real world. There are discussions in the literature concerning which aspects of the experience and practice of gameplaying are relevant to the player's understanding of the aspect of reality their game is about; here, Perla's discussion of the categorization of wargaming analysis is useful (2012, pp. 231-239), as is the report Wargame Pathologies (Weuve et al., 2004). While, with a few exceptions, the literature on wargaming does not engage with the fundamental epistemological questions of wargaming, there is a tendency to demarcate the relevance of wargaming for professional competence to specific aspects or domains of knowledge. In this article I argue that wargaming and field-training exercises in PME shape the future officer's understanding and professional practices in much more profound ways than commonly assumed. Starting from Wittgenstein's philosophy of language and his discussions of what learning means and how meaning arises, I will show that, as far as learning to become an officer is concerned, wargames and exercises are intrinsically educative: learning inevitably takes place, and this learning shapes, in fundamental ways, how the officer understands and responds to situations they might face as a professional practitioner. The article proceeds in three steps. First, the theoretical basis for the argument, a Wittgensteinian view of learning and of professional knowledge, is presented; second, the nature of wargames and exercises, and their nature as sources for knowledge, are discussed; and in the final section, the implications for our understanding of wargames and exercises in professional military education of the preceding two sections are suggested. Keywords: wargaming, professional military education, learning, professional knowledge, Wittgenstein
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