Karlsruhe University of Education

This poster presents a practical model for transatlantic collaboration in computer science education through a blended mobility program between Karlsruhe University of Education (Germany) and Northeastern Illinois University (USA). The program funded by the European Union (Erasmus+) combines virtual and physical mobility phases, enabling students to participate in collaborative courses such as Physical Computing and Cybersecurity without interrupting their home semester. We share insights from the program's first implementation cycle, including student feedback and preliminary data on learning outcomes. This model demonstrates how EU-US cooperation can effectively support practical, hands-on computer science courses in a blended learning environment. Our work highlights challenges and best practices for designing sustainable, international blended mobility programs in computer science teacher education, offering valuable implications for institutions seeking to foster global collaboration in computer science education.

Green cities can contribute to greater mental and physical well-being. In addition, many people enjoy being active outdoors (green exercise). As yet, no questionnaire jointly emphasises mental health, willingness to pay for sustainability, and the incentive of a green environment for physical exercise in cities. Therefore, I developed the new Green Cities Questionnaire (GCQ), comprising 18 items, and used it to survey the perceptions of 249 participants (130 female, 119 male, 0 diverse; aged 18 to 84). Then, I applied exploratory factor analyses where the three factors of mental health (MH; nine items), willingness-to-pay (WTP; five items), and green exercise (GE; four items) were extracted. Additional statistical analyses revealed that women reported higher values on the MH and GE factors than men. In particular, women and men reported a beneficial effect of green cities on mental health (higher ratings on MH than on GE and on WTP). However, there was no gender effect on WTP. From an urban-planning perspective, the two strongest implications are as follows: First, the GCQ facilitates measurement of the three key latent factors: MH, WTP, and GE. However, future validation studies with larger sample sizes and applications of the GCQ alongside additional similar and different recognised scales are necessary to establish convergent and discriminant validity. Second, mental health is reported to be much more important than WTP and GE. Hence, green initiatives, educational programs, and green city workshops should not only focus on expanding urban green spaces but also on providing appropriate relaxation areas to promote and foster psychological well-being and quality of life in green cities.

On 14 May 2025, three juvenile grass snakes, Natrix natrix (Linnaeus, 1758), were dissected from the stomach of a single rainbow trout, Oncorhynchus mykiss (Walbaum, 1792), caught in the Ammer River, Bavaria, Germany. That record completes the scarce evidence of reptiles as prey in salmonid diets and highlights the trophic plasticity of the introduced O. mykiss .

Conceptual understanding, particularly geometric conceptual understanding, is central to mathematics education. The development of conceptual understanding is a complex, non-linear process that begins in childhood and continues throughout life. The present study examines the conceptual understanding of the term “quadrilateral” by 306 participants including pre-service teachers and primary school children from grades 1 to 4. Participants were shown 18 shapes, some of which were quadrilaterals and others non-quadrilaterals, and were asked to identify the quadrilaterals. The results indicate that neither primary school children nor pre-service teachers have a sufficient understanding of the concept. While prototypical figures tended to be better recognized, the concave quadrilateral appeared to cause particular difficulties.

Dieser Unterrichtsvorschlag schafft für Schüler*innen in Klasse 10 Lerngelegenheiten, um durch die Analyse KI-generierter Texte Sprachbewusstheit auf Textebene aufzubauen. Er lässt sich damit dem Kompetenzbereich „Sprache und Sprachgebrauch untersuchen“ zuordnen. Unterstützt wird dies durch einen fächerübergreifenden Unterricht in Deutsch und in Englisch sowie durch den gezielten Einsatz KI-basierter großer Sprachmodelle. Diese generieren Texte, indem sie sprachliche Muster reproduzieren. Der vorliegende Unterrichtsvorschlag zeigt, wie textorientierte Wortschatzarbeit und Sprachmittlung KI-basiert erfolgen können. Gegenstand sind argumentative Textprozeduren.

This theoretical-conceptual contribution examines how learning contexts in social virtual reality (VR) can be theoretically conceptualised and how this theoretical framework can inform a methodological approach for their analysis. Social VR creates three-dimensional, immersive learning environments for multiple participants, thereby promoting a sense of presence and connectedness, which supports social aspects of learning. However, the immersive virtual spaces of social VR are still mostly treated as static backdrops; little consideration has been given to how their sociotechnologically produced spatial configurations create learning contexts. As a result, a distinctive feature of social VR remains insufficiently conceptualised: the sociotechnologically produced space, which only emerges through the inextricable entanglement of human and technological actors. In response to this conceptual gap, this article proposes the “Spatial Conceptualisation for Education in Virtual Reality” (EduSpace-VR), a conceptual framework that understands learning context manifested in the immersive virtual space, which is the situationally produced outcome of sociotechnological actor-networks. EduSpace-VR consists of a literature-based definition of learning context in social VR, a theoretical foundation that combines spatial sociology with actor-network-theory (ANT), a methodological perspective derived from these foundations, particularly in the form of videography, and exemplary analytical focal points intended to inspire future empirical studies. With this, EduSpace-VR contributes both an analytical lens and methodological strategy for making learning context visible in social VR, while also offering broader implications for researching technologically permeated learning spaces in an increasingly sociotechnological educational landscape. • Develops a conceptual framework for researching learning in social VR through the qualitative analysis of context. • Addresses undertheorisation of VR in educational research by transferring concepts from physical to virtual learning spaces. • Integrates of spatial sociology and actor-network-theory to grasp both the spatial and sociotechnological nature of social VR. • Presents a theoretically informed methodological approach for analysing learning contexts in social VR. • Provides a broader lens for analysing learning in sociotechnologically permeated educational settings.

Teachers are encouraged to consider relevant evidence from educational research to improve the quality of their instruction. This approach requires them to have a reasonably accurate idea of the effectiveness of educational interventions. Currently prevalent ways of communicating effect sizes, however, often lead to imprecise effect magnitude estimates. We aim to investigate how teachers estimate and perceive verbally and visually communicated effect sizes. For the pilot study, N = 20 English-speaking teachers were recruited on Prolific, and for the main study, N = 120 will be recruited. We employ a randomized 4 × 6 × 2 between–within-within-person experiment with the outcomes of interest being teachers' effect magnitude estimates and perceived relevance, informativeness, and difficulty. Across the conditions, teachers' effect magnitude estimates correlated strongly ( τ = 0.69) with true effect sizes and personified relevance correlated moderately ( τ = 0.41) with objective relevance. However, teachers were less accurate in the verbal than in the visual condition (Cohen's d = −0.52, 95 % CI = [−0.81, −0.23]). Conversely, they perceived verbally communicated Cohen's U 3 expressions as more informative (r rb = −0.27, 95 % CI = [−0.40, −0.13]), and less difficult (r rb = 0.31, 95 % CI = [0.17, 0.44]) to understand than visually communicated effect sizes. Communicating effect sizes can work verbally and visually. • Communicating effect sizes can work verbally and visually. • Teachers are more accurate when estimating visually communicated effect sizes. • Teachers perceive verbally expressed effect sizes to be more informative. • They can successfully distinguish between small and large effect sizes.

For practical superconducting quantum processors, orders of magnitude improvement in coherence is required, motivating efforts to optimize hardware design and explore new materials. Among the latter, the coherence of superconducting transmon qubits has been shown to improve by forming the qubit capacitor pads from α-tantalum, avoiding the metastable β-phase that forms when depositing tantalum at room temperature, and has been previously identified to be a source of microwave losses. In this work, we show lumped element resonators containing β-phase tantalum in the form of inclusions near the metal–substrate interface with internal quality factors (Qi) up to 5.0 ± 2.5×106 in the single photon regime. They perform at least as good as resonators with no sign of the β-phase in x-ray diffraction and thermal quasi-particle loss. Our results indicate that small concentrations of β-phase can be beneficial, enhancing critical magnetic fields and potentially, for improving coherence in tantalum-based superconducting circuits.