Creative and open software engineering practices and tools in maker community projects

Considering the differences in academic backgrounds and majors, diversity of faculty members’ perceptions, and complete shift to digital education, energy must be expended toward ensuring that the teaching practices of faculty members are innovative and distinctive by providing advanced methods and models for evaluation operations. Thus, this study aimed to assess a model for measuring perceptions of both the teaching profession and creative teaching practices among faculty members that explains the relationship between faculty members’ perceptions about teaching and their creative practices that was constructed to explain the nature of this relationship and enable the development of the faculty members’ academic and professional performance. Two instruments were developed in this study, and the study sample consisted of 250 faculty members. Structural equation modeling was used to assess the proposed model. The results of the modified construction model showed an improvement in the goodness of fit indicators, which points toward this being the best model for interpreting the study data. The developed assessment model and scales can be used as tools to measure faculty members’ perceptions and predict the improvement of their creative teaching practices as well as for their professional development during distance learning.

Higher education is considered the center of scientific and social progress, because it qualifies individuals to serve society in various fields of life. Therefore, the faculty member has become the main pillar in building future generations, so his energies should be blown to make his teaching practices innovative, distinctive and creative. This study aims to develop a scale of creative university teaching practices at King Faisal University, and to know the degree of reliance of faculty members on creative teaching practices. Furthermore, it aims to know the relationship between creative teaching practices and some personality variables. To achieve this, 50 items, distributed on four dimensions, were formulated and the construct validity of the scale was tested using the Rasch Model measurement. The study sample consisted of (150) respondents. The findings showed that the faculty members rely on creative teaching practices with a high degree in the whole scale. The findings also showed that there were statistically significant differences based on gender in favor of males, and there were no statistically significant differences based on faculty, academic rank and teaching experience. This study recommends conducting more research to find out the reasons for the different level of creative teaching practices between male and female faculty members, and determine their level of performance.

We conducted a qualitative study to understand user perceptions, acceptability and engagement with an interactive SMS reminder system designed to improve treatment adherence for patients with tuberculosis (TB). Patients received daily reminders and were asked to respond after taking their medication. Non-responsive patients were sent up to three reminders a day. We enrolled 30 patients with TB who had access to a mobile phone and observed their engagement with the system for a one-month period. We also conducted semi-structured interviews with 24 patients to understand their experience with the system. Most patients found the reminders helpful and encouraging. The average response rate over the study period was 57%. However, it fell from a mean response rate of 62% during the first ten days to 49% during the last ten days. Response rates were higher amongst females, participants with some schooling, and participants who had sent an SMS message the week prior to enrolment. Non-responsiveness was associated with a lack of access to the owner of the mobile phone, problems with the mobile phone itself and literacy. Our pilot study suggests that interactive SMS reminders are an acceptable and appreciated method of supporting patients with TB in taking their medication.

Background/Context There is a strong sense in education that creativity should be nurtured in classroom settings, yet there is little understanding of how effective and creative teachers function. Existing research has recognized that successful/creative people in any discipline use creative avocations to enhance their professional thinking. Root-Bernstein demonstrated a strong connection between the professional and personal-life creativity of highly accomplished scientists, which has been applied to other disciplines. Until now, however, this phenomenon has not been applied to exemplary teachers. This study focuses on a broader picture of how exceptional teachers use creativity in the classroom. Purpose/Objective This study documents the ways in which successful, award-winning teachers function creatively in their classrooms. It investigates their beliefs about creativity in teaching—what “creativity” means, and how skilled teachers instantiate it in classroom practices. Finally, this research examined the teachers’ personal creativity (in terms of creative pursuits, hobbies, and habits of mind) and the practical ways this translates into teaching. Research Design A qualitative research design was used for in-depth interviews with highly accomplished teachers. Detailed interview data was gathered from eight recent National Teacher of the Year award winners/finalists, to investigate creative classroom practices and beliefs about creativity among exceptional teachers across varied teaching contexts. Qualitative coding of phenomenological research described important themes arising from the creative practices and beliefs of the participant teachers. Findings Findings reveal how excellent teachers actively cultivate a creative mindset. Results show how excellent teachers are highly creative in their personal and professional lives, and that they actively transfer creative tendencies from their outside avocations/interests into their teaching practices. This study describes common themes in creative teaching, including intellectual risk taking, real-world learning approaches, and cross-disciplinary teaching practices. Conclusions/Recommendations Current U.S. educational policy, with its emphasis on high-stakes testing and scripted, “teacher-proof” curricula, have impeded creativity in teaching and learning. Based on the findings of this study, suggestions for curricula include the incorporation of teachers’ unique personal creative interests in lessons, along with infusion of the arts and music across varied disciplinary content. Teacher education programs and professional development courses should include a focus on both real-world, cross-disciplinary lesson planning, while administrators and policymakers should support opportunities for teachers to take creative and/or intellectual risks in their work.

Development of interactive systems and their user interfaces combines engineering and design, formal and informal development methods from different domains. Diverse models and tools can be used to support the developers’ work. In model-driven development, software systems are specified systematically using dedicated models for different aspects of the system. Yet, appropriate design of user interfaces is as important as functional correctness. This workshop provides a forum of multi-disciplinary discussion on how to integrate model-driven development with the often more informal methodologies used in user-centered design and engineering. Starting point of the discussion are the tools, models, methods and experiences of the workshop participants.KeywordsUser-interface engineeringinteraction designmodel-driven developmentuser-centered designmodels

This keynote discusses the opportunities and challenges of using Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) and Large Language Models (LLMs) as tools for developing interactive systems. We will look at different stages in the development lifecycle of interactive systems and assess the value of AI support. We explore how GenAI and LLMs can potentially speed-up the ideation, requirements elicitation, architecture development, prototyping, implementation, and testing of interactive systems. The talk will outline emerging practices, such as the use of prompts for code and system generation, to facilitate prototyping and accelerate implementation. We will outline fundamental challenges and suggest emerging research directions, and pose research questions. What will software development tools look like in the future? How can we efficiently use AI to develop interactive systems without compromising quality? We also speculate about the implications of these developments for researchers, practitioners, and society. We believe that it will massively accelerate the digital transformation. Interactive AI-based tools for systems and software development will become a major research direction.

This study explores the perceptions of four visual art teacher educators of what constitutes good visual art teaching in a Malaysian higher education setting. The aim of this study is to deepen our understanding of the characteristic features of good visual art teaching in a higher education setting. The study explores the beliefs, values, and life shaping factors that underpin and inform the teaching practice of these visual art teacher educators. What constitutes good visual teaching in higher education has intrigued and challenged those concerned with this sector for many decades and is subject to on-going inquiry and debate. Perspectives of what constitutes good visual art teaching practices are shaped by individual, social and cultural factors, including those pathways taken through visual art education and training. Consequently there is little consensus about what good visual art teaching really looks like. Whilst the characteristic features of good teaching in higher education have been the subject of recent inquiry, the literature concerning good visual art teaching in higher education is limited. This study aims to address this gap. This study adopts a qualitative case study approach and draws on the principles and practices of narrative inquiry. In this study, four visual art teacher educators who have different backgrounds and areas of specialisation from the Art Department of the 'University of Education Malaysia' were interviewed and observed. Each visual art teacher educator participated in a series of three interviews in order to interrogate their beliefs, values and experiences, and access their accounts of good visual art teaching. Observations of each visual art teacher educator's teaching served to triangulate the data generated through interview. In order to obtain a better understanding of the phenomenon, 12 student teachers consisting of six pre-service and six in-service final year student teachers from the same department were interviewed using individual and group interview. Narrative analysis and analysis of narrative techniques were employed in the examination of the data. From this analysis four narrative accounts of these visual art teacher educators' perception of good visual art teaching in a higher education setting were developed. Findings suggest that teaching is shaped by prior experiences as learners in school, community, and tertiary settings, and understandings of the professional teaching situation. For these participants the personal and professional are connected in their lives. This connection is illustrated through the distinctive ways that each visual art teacher educator approaches their teaching and the different beliefs and values they hold. For those participants whose education and/or current practice is studio-based, mastery of art skills and knowledge is of primary importance in good visual art teaching. For these participants good visual art teaching is a specialised area which requires specific knowledge and skills. For those participants whose education and/or current practice is theory based, good visual art teaching is not only about mastery of art skills and knowledge but also involves mastery of pedagogical content knowledge and practical knowledge. Despite these apparent differences in beliefs and practices, concern for pedagogical content knowledge is a feature of the work of all four participants. For all visual art teacher educator participants, lifelong learning through self-reflection, inquiry, peer reviewing, involvement in on-going professional development and continuing education is a hallmark of good visual art teaching. In addition all visual art teacher educator participants view good visual art teaching as a relational activity. This study provides us with insights into the complexity of good visual art teaching from the perspective of the visual art teacher educator. This study has developed ways to listen to visual art teacher educators' voices and to hear them in their own terms, to observe them, to enter their realities, and to see the world from their perspectives. This is deemed as important because in the Malaysian experience, more often than not, visual art teacher educators' teaching practice and their lives have been largely unexamined and taken for granted. The worldviews, stories, and teaching practices we enact are cultural constructions that have become part of the fabric of our everyday lives. Through this study an understanding of the beliefs, values and life-shaping factors that underpin and inform these visual art teacher educators' teaching practices provides us with new understandings of their work in Malaysian teacher education.

Integrated Process and Controller Design Software Tool – ProCACD

<b>Background:</b> The STEM education system has garnered significant interest due to its innovative approach in creating a multidisciplinary and integrated knowledge structure that connects science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, and allows students to apply scientific knowledge in a comprehensive and holistic manner. Consequently, evaluating the teaching methods of teachers in accordance with STEM standards is critical. This assessment should take into account various educational objectives, including cognitive, skill-based, and emotional aspects.<br /> <b>Purpose:</b> This study aimed to evaluate the creative teaching practices of mathematics teachers for gifted students according to STEM standards.<br /> <b>Method:</b> The study applied the descriptive analytical method and developed a rating scale for evaluating creative teaching practices based on STEM standards, verifying the psychometric properties in several ways. The study sample consisted of 64 teachers of mathematics for gifted students.<br /> <b>Results:</b> The results showed that the degree of application of creative teaching practices by the teachers of gifted students according to STEM standards was at the moderate level in three domains: planning, implementation, and assessment.<br /> <b>Conclusions: </b>Despite the importance of achieving integration for STEM, the actual teaching practices of teachers of the gifted according to these standards were generally average and did not reach acceptable and ambitious levels.

Many educators still lack a comprehensive understanding of how to apply Artificial Intelligence (AI) in designing adaptive, interactive, and learner-centered instructional modules. Limited digital literacy, insufficient hands-on training, and inadequate supporting infrastructure have hindered the optimal integration of AI into teaching practices. Consequently, teachers’ ability to leverage AI to enhance the quality of the teaching and learning process remains relatively low. This community engagement initiative aimed to improve senior high school (SMA/SMK) teachers’ understanding and skills in developing AI-based instructional modules. The program was implemented through an educational seminar and hands-on workshops using a participatory training approach. Data were collected through pre- and post-test questionnaires, participant interviews, and observations conducted during the training sessions. Data analysis combined descriptive quantitative and qualitative methods. A total of 30 teachers from various schools participated in the program. The implementation included theoretical sessions and practical training on the use of AI platforms for instructional module development. The results indicate that 85% of participants demonstrated a significant increase in their understanding of AI concepts, while 90% expressed readiness to integrate AI technology into their teaching practices. The findings suggest that AI-based workshops can effectively enhance teachers’ competencies. This initiative may serve as a foundation for designing more structured, practical, and needs-oriented professional development programs, and it offers a potential model for sustainable teacher professional development at institutional and governmental levels.

We contemplate paths between form and formlessness as a middle way between digital technology for mindfulness, and mindfulness without digital technology, thereby inviting alternative departure points with interactive systems. In doing so, we step into a contested yet potentially fertile arena to challenge the handling, analysis and reporting of the relationship between mindfulness and technology and the methods used to interrogate it. Through the documenting of the authors' own creative practices (video, photography, and gardening), material traces and written vignettes of our experiments are presented to stimulate resonances and evoke mindfulness with readers. We also question the form of conference papers to consider how we can best share formless states of being in discussing their relevance for design.

Nowadays social networking has permeated through every human activity including, of course, web engineering. As social networks develop, a wide variety of social networking applications appear, which attract a lot of new users. In the current paper, an interactive web engineering system for syndrome classification is developed. The system is implemented in the context of social networks, using pattern recognition algorithms based on unconventional computing. The classification algorithm used is Morphological Autoassociative Max Memories, which belongs to the associative approach of Pattern Recognition. Throughout the experimental phase, the proposed system is applied to help diagnose several syndromes. The core proposal of this article is a web system that features an innovative characteristic: it interacts with social media users, enabling potential patients to utilize this novel system as a valuable tool for remote diagnosis of syndromes. It is crucial to emphasize, as demonstrated in the experimental results section, that the proposed interactive system achieves a high true positive rate compared to other state-of-the-art models. Experimental results confirm that the proposed web engineering system can be a valuable tool for knowledge discovery and social networking between different profiles of people involved in syndrome classification.

With the in-depth advancement of quality-oriented education, the role of dance teaching in fostering students’ comprehensive qualities has become increasingly prominent. Based on Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences, this study focuses on exploring the collaborative cultivation mechanism of dance teaching on students’ kinesthetic intelligence and emotional cognitive abilities. By combining literature analysis with teaching practice, it systematically sorts out the inherent connection between dance movement training and emotional experience, and reveals the promoting effect of physical movement expression on psychological development such as emotional perception and self-cognition. The study constructs a three-dimensional teaching model including body perception training, emotion-guided teaching, and creative choreography practice, emphasizing the stimulation of students’ physical expression potential through situational creation and improvisational performance. Practice shows that this teaching model can effectively improve students’ physical coordination, sense of rhythm, and emotional expression ability, while also playing a positive role in cultivating students’ sense of teamwork and aesthetic literacy. The research provides a theoretical basis for innovating art education methods and has practical significance for promoting the all-round development of students. In the future, further exploration can be made on differentiated cultivation strategies for students of different age groups.

Your house is flooded by 'unseasonal' heavy rain. What do you learn from this experience? Do you shrug your shoulders and call your insurer? Or do you choose to learn about climate change, switch to renewable energy and lobby politicians? In this insightful book, John Blewitt explores the possibilities for developing a sustainable society through 'lifelong learning' � that is, learning that happens in everyday environments and activities as diverse as shopping, community, 'edutainment', information and communication technology, the internet, broadcasting, people's experience of place and space, green building, social networks and consumer culture. Drawing on a range of sociological, anthropological and educational studies as well as new research, The Ecology of Learning is ideal for educators, teachers, corporate trainers and consultants working to integrate environmental education, sustainability and innovation in non-traditional learning situations. The coverage is extensive, with an accessible but informed engagement with both theory and practice and a wide range of examples. Throughout, the voices, stories and experiences of many people are used to illustrate the ways people may reshape our understanding of learning and sustainability.

The long-term goal of the User Software Engineering (USE) project at the University of California, San Francisco, is to provide an integrated homogeneous programming environment for the design and development of interactive information systems. Realization of this goal involves the development of new software tools, their integration with existing tools, and the creation of an information system development methodology in which these tools are systematically used [1,2].The successful construction of interactive information systems requires the utilization of principles of user-centered design [3,4,5], combined with features traditionally associated with the separate areas of programming languages, operating systems, and data base management [6]. It has become increasingly clear that the key to being able to provide such a unified view lies in providing a unified view of data [7]. The potential benefits of such a unification are considerable, including:1) conceptual simplification of the system structure permitting, for example, joint design of data structures and data bases2) the elimination of duplication or inconsistencies among diverse software components3) the ability to achieve greater reliability in systems because of reduced dependence upon multiple software systems