The characteristics of pedagogical development in the fields of science and technology

Particularly in STEM disciplines, targeted teacher training is often neglected. Maria Clavert argues why pedagogical development in technical fields should emphasise the academic dual identity of a teacher-researcher. Furthermore, her findings suggest training was most effective with academics who were already open to alternative pedagogical concepts and looking for ways to change their teaching practices. Teaching should become everybody’s business and the disciplinary pedagogical traditions should be exposed to critical evaluation

Les banquiers centraux dans la construction européenne : introduction

International audienceLes banquiers centraux semblent aujourd’hui solidement installés au cœur de notre monde contemporain. L’unification monétaire européenne à l’orée du XXIe siècle n’a pas correspondu pour les banques centrales à « une fin de l’histoire ». La création de la Banque centrale européenne (BCE) le 1er juin 1998 et la formation le 1er janvier 1999 du Système européen de banques centrales, en application du Traité de Maastricht, marquent sans aucun doute une étape importante dans le cours d’une évolution multiséculaire, commencée au début du XIXe siècle pour les plus anciennes des banques centrales en Europe, voire plus tôt encore comme dans le cas de la Banque d’Angleterre créée en 1694 ou encore de la Banque de Suède, la doyenne des banques centrales, fondée dès 1668. La longue histoire des banques nationales d’émission, comme on les appelle avant 1914, est inséparable de l’histoire de la construction des États-nation. La Banque de France, comme le rappelle Vincent Auriol en 1936 comme encore Georges Pompidou en 1970, devait être et demeurer « la Banque de la France »

L'apport du numérique aux sciences historiques: exemple d'une analyse computationnelle des archives Werner

International audienceLe comité Werner a publié en 1970 le premier rapport sur une Union économique et monétaire en Europe, près de 20 ans avant le comité Delors. Comment en faire l'histoire sans en lire humainement les sources? Au travers de cette petite provocation, l'auteur tente d'analyser les enjeux des méthodologies computationnelles de lecture distante appliquées aux sciences historiques

#WW1. Les commémorations du centenaire de la Première Guerre mondiale sur Twitter (avril-juillet 2014)

Il y a un siècle se déclenchait le premier conflit mondial. Cette année du centenaire fait place à de nombreuses commémorations, qui se déroulent alors que les derniers vétérans sont décédés. Anciens ennemis, France et Allemagne sont entrés dans un processus de réconciliation après la Seconde Guerre mondiale. Toutefois, les commémorations, dans l’ensemble, sont organisées sur une base nationale, ce qui reste en cohérence avec une guerre qui fut un conflit entre Nations, un aboutissement du processus de création des États-Nations du xixe siècle. À ce cadre national, qui a notamment bouleversé la carte politique européenne, correspond aussi un certain nombre de «dissymétries mémorielles», accentuées par la division entre vainqueurs et vaincus. Ces dissymétries mémorielles se sont exprimées dès 1919.En cette année du centenaire du déclenchement du premier conflit mondial, les commémorations se répercutent sur les réseaux sociaux. Cet article fait le point sur un projet en cours, qui consiste en la capture des tweets comprenant des hashtags reliés à cette commémoration, en commençant par #ww1, le plus largement utilisé. Parmi les questions que nous tenterons de poser, une en particulier sera traitée ici. Si l’historiographie a mis environ soixante-dix ans à devenir pour l’essentiel transnationale, les commémorations du centenaire ont-elles elles-aussi évolué vers un cadre plus transnational que national? Nous tenterons de décrire dans un premier temps notre méthodologie avant d’évoquer quelques résultats de l’exploitation du corpus issu de cette collecte

#ww1. Twitter, the Centenary of the First World War and the Historian

International audienceWhat is the on-line echo of the commemoration of the centenary of the 1st World War ? What is the behavior of Memorial/Heritage Institutions about the 1st World War on Twitter ? How do they pass information about the Centenary ? Is there an effect of the English predominance on Twitter about the Centenary on the way non-English twitter accounts are considering the 1st World War? Those questions are to be answered by a research project that is to be presented in this poster, which aims at harvesting tweets containing hashtags linked to the Centenary since April 2014

Developing as a teacher in the fields of science and technology

In universities, development as a teacher may be contradicted with developing as a researcher. Most previous studies have investigated pedagogical development merely as a result of pedagogical training and ignored the dual teacher-researcher identity. This study examines what kind of meaningful experiences are perceived to have triggered and influenced the process of developing as a teacher in the fields of science and technology. The data were gathered by interviewing 10 academics who had participated in a pedagogical training offered by a Finnish technical university between 1999 and 2009. Based on a narrative analysis utilizing dimensions of transformative learning, the results highlight the influence of the working environment and experiences, and imply that teacher development process in the fields of science and technology can be better understood in terms of becoming a teacher, rather than as a continual, conscious development process. The resulting teacher-researcher identity provides a basis for pedagogical development.Peer reviewe

Aalto University Design Factory in the eyes of its community

This report concerns Aalto University Design Factory (ADF), one of the spearhead projects and first physical manifestations of Aalto University. ADF aims to be a platform for integrative interdisciplinary education, research and industrial collaboration, as well as a catalyst for a culture of experimental and problem-based education to promote better learning outcomes. Since opening its doors in November 2008, ADF has strived to achieve these by providing a non-hierarchical, constantly developing collaboration environment for students, teachers, researchers and business practitioners across hierarchical, professional, and disciplinary boundaries. At the time of the study reported here, the ADF platform has existed for three years, making the time ripe for reflection on how the key principles and ideas behind ADF have manifested themselves. The report presents the findings from a series of interviews conducted in order to map the experiences and perceptions of the ADF environment held by its community members. Explicating these experiences and how the key principles and ideas behind ADF have manifested themselves benefits the development of the ADF both within Aalto and with international collaboration projects. The report is mainly based on the in-depth interviews of 51 ADF community members representing all of the different major, regular ADF community groups in terms of background and positions, supplemented by 177 interviews (screened for clear explicit references to ADF) conducted previously in other research projects and a week of observation of interaction initiations at the ADF Kafis, the café-office-kitchen of the ADF building. The interviews explored the experiences of the community members with an open-ended story-based format in order to remove any influence of the possible biases or presumptions of the interviewers. The analysis was based on grouping interview segments according to thematic similarity, resulting in descriptions of the experienced typical characteristics of interaction, action, support and personal work at the ADF, as well as in the perceived characteristics of the ADF entity itself. The results do not offer proof of whether these perceptions are accurate in an objective sense, but they reflect what the community members themselves perceive to be true. The results thus offer insight on what the users of the ADF value in the environment, why they have chosen to act on such a platform and what the costs and benefits have been for them. Interaction: ADF was perceived to offer great potential for collaboration, especially due to the physical proximity and diversity of its community members. The tight community was experienced as a home base, and integration to the community was described as crucial. Getting to know the staff members and actively participating in events lowered the threshold for further interaction, as did the warm and open atmosphere. However, finding the initial entrance to the community, as well as keeping up the community spirit and welcoming atmosphere were described as somewhat challenging issues. Action: Shared characteristics found in the actions pursued by ADF community groups were perceived to shape the ADF as a whole with informal activities and interaction perceived as crucial success factors promoting a fast pace of interaction and implementation, and open sharing within the community. The community members had in general been active in initiating development in their own work and in collaboration with others. Support: Nearly all interviews contained experiences of receiving either intangible, or concrete support from the ADF community members, especially members of the staff. Receiving support often taking the form of small acts of help and positive reactions, along with positive examples, had sparked enthusiasm and courage in interaction, development, and experimentation and seemed to be particularly significant for students. Personal work: Many of the experiences reported by the community members described the content and qualities of the interviewees’ individual work. Commonly shared features included perceiving one’s work as motivating, conductive to learning, and possessing a high degree of freedom, and undertaking development activities. For many ADF community members, spending time and working at the ADF had helped them in discovering and clarifying the role and goals they wanted to pursue in their careers through exposure to new situations and application opportunities. ADF entity: The experiences reported by the ADF community members related to the ADF entity itself could be roughly divided into three types: perceptions and effects of the ADF physical manifestation, perceptions and effects of the ADF structures, and the role and effects of the ADF within the Aalto University. ADF facilities were frequently noted to support and enable a wide range of activities, interaction, experimentation, and the work of students. Lack of bureaucracy and a high degree of flexibility were perceived as key ADF characteristics in enabling development, while as a downside, some negative experiences were described related to e.g. unclarities and lack of overall flow of information. The present results illustrate an abundance of pursued development activities and interaction at the ADF platform by its community members, although there clearly also remains untapped potential for creating and seizing such opportunities. Indeed, the results offer a glimpse on what has made the platform successful in the eyes of its utilizing community, as well as some insights into further developing the ADF and similar platforms. Especially three features seem pervasive across the different experiences and perceived aspects of the ADF platform: taking the smalls things into consideration in conveying a development-promoting message, creating a critical mass to sustain promoting development, and actualizing development collaboration potential