Volda University College

About: Volda University College is a education organization based out in Volda, Norway. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Life course approach & Norwegian. The organization has 118 authors who have published 285 publications receiving 3197 citations.

Understanding inclusive education: ideals and reality

Abstract: The key issue discussed in the article is the main challenges in developing inclusive education. Most European countries have acknowledged inclusive education as a means to secure equal educational rights for all persons. However, the definitions and implementations of inclusive education vary immensely. They are discussed in relation to a narrow and a broad definition of inclusive education, distinguishing between a horizontal and a vertical dimension of the concept. The article also goes into students’ learning outcomes in inclusive education as well as teacher competencies for inclusive pedagogy. No country has yet succeeded in constructing a school system that lives up to the ideals and intentions of inclusion, as defined by different international organizations. Placement seems to be the most frequent criterion of inclusive education, to avoid segregation. The quality of teaching and learning processes in inclusive education has lower priority.

Associative Mechanisms Allow for Social Learning and Cultural Transmission of String Pulling in an Insect

Abstract: Social insects make elaborate use of simple mechanisms to achieve seemingly complex behavior and may thus provide a unique resource to discover the basic cognitive elements required for culture, i.e., group-specific behaviors that spread from "innovators" to others in the group via social learning. We first explored whether bumblebees can learn a nonnatural object manipulation task by using string pulling to access a reward that was presented out of reach. Only a small minority "innovated" and solved the task spontaneously, but most bees were able to learn to pull a string when trained in a stepwise manner. In addition, naive bees learnt the task by observing a trained demonstrator from a distance. Learning the behavior relied on a combination of simple associative mechanisms and trial-and-error learning and did not require "insight": naive bees failed a "coiled-string experiment," in which they did not receive instant visual feedback of the target moving closer when tugging on the string. In cultural diffusion experiments, the skill spread rapidly from a single knowledgeable individual to the majority of a colony's foragers. We observed that there were several sequential sets ("generations") of learners, so that previously naive observers could first acquire the technique by interacting with skilled individuals and, subsequently, themselves become demonstrators for the next "generation" of learners, so that the longevity of the skill in the population could outlast the lives of informed foragers. This suggests that, so long as animals have a basic toolkit of associative and motor learning processes, the key ingredients for the cultural spread of unusual skills are already in place and do not require sophisticated cognition.

Student perceptions of classroom feedback

Abstract: Feedback to students has been identified as a key strategy in learning and teaching, but we know less about how feedback is understood by students. The purpose of this study is to gain more insight into lower secondary students’ perceptions of when and how they find classroom feedback useful. This article draws on data generated through individual interviews with 11 students representing four lower secondary schools (grades 8–10, aged 13–15) in Norway. Feedback types are identified from students’ perceptions, coded and indexed. A feedback typology is designed to provide a framework which can be used to reflect on useful classroom feedback based on lower secondary school students’ perceptions.