Integrating Service Learning (SL) activities into academic courses can offer a transformative experience for students. In the twofold perspective of countering the learning loss, determined by the ...pandemic, and promoting student empowerment, enhancing responsible learning and self-regulating skills, a Service Learning project was implemented. The project started with a sample of 38 students enrolled in the first year of the Master’s Degree in Primary Education at the University of Palermo. To monitor the performance of the SL project, to measure the civic-social competences, self-efficacy and trait anxiety of university students, it was decided to administer a pre and a post of the CUCOCSA Questionnaire. This contribution shows how students acquired reflective, relational and research skills as well as civic-social and metacognitive attitudes. PRA.S.S.I. Apprendere serve, servire insegna: un progetto di Service Learning. Integrare attività di Service Learning (SL) nei corsi accademici può offrire un’esperienza trasformativa per gli studenti. Nella duplice ottica di contrastare il learning loss, determinato dalla pandemia, e di promuovere lo student empowerment, valorizzando l’apprendimento responsabile e le competenze di autoregolazione, è stato realizzato un progetto di Service Learning. Il progetto è stato avviato con un campione di 38 studenti iscritti al primo anno del Corso di Laurea Magistrale in Scienze della Formazione Primaria dell’Università di Palermo. Per monitorare la performance del progetto di SL, per misurare le competenze civico-sociali, l’auto-efficacia e l’ansia di tratto degli studenti universitari, si è deciso di somministrare un pre e un post del Questionario CUCOCSA. In questo contributo si evidenzia come gli studenti hanno acquisito competenze riflessive, relazionali, di ricerca e atteggiamenti civico-sociali e metacognitivi.
School closures due to COVID-19 have brought significant disruptions to education. Service-learning interventions have offered significant opportunities to reduce and reverse the long-term negative ...effects and to empower the recovery process of pupils in difficulty. The study was carried out with 869 students enrolled in the Primary Education Sciences master’s degree course at the University of Palermo. The participants have been involved in the planning and implementation of targeted educational courses designed for the “fragile” pupils from 33 different schools in Palermo. The primary level pupils were provided with a total of 60,000 hours of recovery and learning enhancement activities in remote mode. Challenging teaching activities fostered cognitive and learning development of the pupils and responsibility in teaching educational research.
Il progetto Nessuno resta indietro: formazione alla ricerca didattica.
La chiusura delle scuole che ha provocato un incremento significativo della povertà educativa ha sollecitato l’opportunità di progettare interventi integrati di service learning per favorire il recupero e il potenziamento dei minori in difficoltà. 869 studenti del Corso di Laurea Magistrale in Scienze della Formazione Primaria dell’Università degli Studi di Palermo, sono stati coinvolti nella progettazione e nella realizzazione di percorsi didattici mirati, rivolti agli alunni “fragili” di 33 scuole palermitane. Complessivamente sono state erogate 60,000 ore in DAD di attività di recupero e di potenziamento dell’apprendimento di alunni della scuola primaria di Palermo. Le attività didattiche sfidanti hanno favorito la stimolazione cognitiva e lo sviluppo della motivazione per l’apprendimento degli alunni e la responsabilità nella formazione alla ricerca didattica.
Inclusive physical activity games at school can be useful for teachers dealing with students with disabilities. The use of inclusive strategies and games can be directly linked to teachers' ...self-efficacy and familiarity with the inclusive strategies, while it could be indirectly influenced by their attitude toward inclusion and, in a smaller part, by social desirability in their response. Moreover, teachers' responses could be different among the different school grades. Therefore, the aim of the current study is to investigate the role of attitude toward inclusion, social desirability, self-efficacy, and familiarity in the use of physical activity games at school in teachers from all school grades.
A sample of 1,583 schoolteachers was asked to fill out a questionnaire about their perceptions of governmental measures, self-efficacy, familiarity with inclusive strategies through physical activity, and two standardized questionnaires assessing attitudes toward inclusion and social desirability.
Teachers from primary school reported lower scores in attitude toward inclusion total score and dimensions, namely impact on teacher, impact on the environment, impact on the other children, and impact on the student with disability. Moreover, the path analysis model showed that the attitude toward inclusion indirectly influenced the use of inclusive strategy and had a small direct effect on familiarity with inclusive strategies and self-efficacy. Social desirability slightly influenced both familiarity and self-efficacy but not the use of inclusive strategies. Familiarity and self-efficacy had a direct effect on the use of inclusive physical activity games.
The results of the current study suggest that being familiar with and having a high self-efficacy in implementing inclusive strategies are well related to the use of inclusive strategies at school. In addition, more attention should be given to kindergarten and primary school teachers, who reported lower scores in the attitude toward inclusion and higher scores in social desirability.
The red palm weevil
is an invasive pest from southeastern Asia and Melanesia that has spread widely across the Middle East and the Mediterranean Basin over the last 30 years. Its endophagous larvae ...cause huge amounts of damage to several palm tree species from the Arecaceae family. Many of these palms are economically important for agricultural and ornamental purposes. Therefore, a lot of attention has recently been focused on studying this species with the aim of identifying sustainable and effective eradication strategies. Sterile insect techniques are biological control strategies that are currently being investigated for their potential to eradicate this pest in selected invasion areas. Mating system features (e.g., polyandry and related features) can affect the success and suitability of these approaches. The main goal of this research was to assess the performance of a previously developed microsatellite panel in terms of the paternity assignment of progeny from laboratory mating experiments. Using a simulation approach, we evaluated the reliability of the microsatellite markers in the paternity tests both in complex laboratory experiment scenarios and on the progeny of wild-caught gravid females to help future studies on the RPW mating system. As a case study of the simulation results, we performed two double-mating experiments, genotyped the progeny and estimated the P
values to compare to the expected progeny genotypes according to the crossing scheme of each experiment. The results of our simulations on laboratory experiments showed that it was possible to carry out paternity assignments for all progeny with reliable statistical confidence using our 13 microsatellites set. On the contrary the low genetic variability measured in red palm weevil populations in invaded areas made the resolution power of our loci too low to carry out paternity analyses on natural populations. Results of laboratory crossing were completely congruent with the expectations from the Mendelian laws.
Nuovo realismo e metodi di ricerca misti La Marca, Alessandra
Journal of educational, cultural and psychological studies (Online),
06/2014, Volume:
1, Issue:
9
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
New Realism and Mixed Research Methods «New Realism» has highlighted the limits of social constructivism and of so-called «weak thought» that risks producing nihilism. Some prejudices have recently ...been removed that prevented researchers and theorists from grasping the real core of educational facts in their concrete evidence. However, an opening to a metaphysical view would offer «new realism» further epistemological perspectives. In this sense, the contribution of critical realism might help to overcome the artificial antinomy between the active role of the knowing subject and the objective measurement of educational facts. With this «opening», scientific knowledge and current knowledge would no longer be seen as opposites because the latter would be considered as a deepening of the former, in a line of continuity. The experimental methods of research in the education field have recently made use of the philosophical reflections of realists to integrate the quantitative and qualitative approach to the study of education. New research designs, aimed at monitoring and observing educational processes, without «encaging» them, are mainly of a «mixed» kind.
School closures due to COVID-19 have brought significant disruptions to education. Service-learning interventions have offered significant opportunities to reduce and reverse the long-term negative ...effects and to empower the recovery process of pupils in difficulty. The study was carried out with 869 students enrolled in the Primary Education Sciences master’s degree course at the University of Palermo. The participants have been involved in the planning and implementation of targeted educational courses designed for the “fragile” pupils from 33 different schools in Palermo. The primary level pupils were provided with a total of 60,000 hours of recovery and learning enhancement activities in remote mode. Challenging teaching activities fostered cognitive and learning development of the pupils. The results reveal that the service-learning project led to the rediscovery of the beauty of inclusion, integration, and civic responsibility.
The Red Palm Weevil is an invasive pest causing huge damages by attacking several palm species of the family Arecaeae. One of the most important challenges of conservation biology for the near future ...is the management of biological invasions and their effects. In this study we used 454 pyrosequencing and in silico mining to identify novel microsatellite markers for investigating the reproductive biology and the invasion dynamics, crucial to plan the control strategies against the pest. We report 14 variable microsatellites out of 37 screened for levels of polymorphism. Allele number per locus ranged between 2 and 15 and Hₒ from 0.04 to 0.86.
The use of technology is an interesting device, which constitutes a useful self-training approach, related to an experience, from which to extract significant materials and traces of their personal ...learning. In Italy, Service Learning (SL) projects that use digital media in the university environment are still rare and therefore there are not many data and research results related to the introduction of SL in the training of future teachers. On the contrary, at the international level we find a vast scientific literature on SL and its applications, also in the academic field. Service e-Learning (Se-L) can in fact represent an essential approach for university education, which allows students to mobilize skills, putting into practice what they have acquired, and to improve their self-efficacy. Ability to check if your knowledge has an applicability, useful in a real-life situation, opportunity to develop digital skills and self-reflective on their actions. The contribution presents a training experience to the Service e-learning (4 meetings, for a total of 16 hours) realized in the academic year 2022/23, for the Project PRA.S.S.I. with a sample of 260 students enrolled in the first year of the Master of Science in Primary Education (LM-85bis) of the University of Palermo. In this experience we have chosen to give voice, consistency to the actions and methodological choices of university students who, through specific activities, were able to express the enormous potential of technology as a relevant tool to promote engagement and learning, factors linked in SL. It presents a laboratory path of Service e-learning that takes advantage of the potential of the MED, the referral to the internal and external resources of the person, to intercept, tune and strengthen its generating tension useful to itself and the community service. Technology, a source of strategic information in order to identify the progress of experience and skills, has thus been considered a training engine-effect for the construction of critical thinking and personal identity.
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