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Copyright of Studia Universitatis Babes-Bolyai, Psychologia-Paedagogia is the property of Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In the context of the pandemic generated by the COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2), the global education system is currently facing an unprecedented situation which has proven to be difficult to be managed - closing schools and identifying alternative on-line methods in order to continue the educational process. Therefore, teachers, students and parents have become actors playing new roles to which they have to adapt as well and fast as possible. Innovative solutions, good practices, teaching staff creativity and a receptive attitude are fully used and exploited. The way in which the lessons, the strategies and the instruments used in teaching, learning and assessment are developed has to relate to a series of variables: digital skills - competences of teachers and students, their attitude toward modern available technological means, ways for customizing the instructive process and learning conditions. The teachers have to turn students into trustworthy and responsible parties, as active partners in the process of their own formation. The proposed research aims to identify - from the psychological point of view - the perceived self-efficacy among teachers in relation to the use of mobile technology in education, in the context of working just from home. The sample of the research consisted on 125 teachers, having different ages and background in Science and Technology, who carry out educational activities both in urban and rural areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the actual context of massive technological development, the teacher training process - or even, the teacher self-training one - should be actually based on the acquisition of technical skills, mainly related to the use of Internet and multimedia resources, but also on the didactic skills focused on how to use those resources in order to make the teaching demarche more effective. Generally, in order to introduce ICT in the teaching process, the educators have to go through three distinguish stages of professional development: (a) acquiring the necessary technical skills and introducing ICT for projecting and operationalizing the lessons - even there is an amount of mistrust and fear concerning possible technical and pedagogical problems that may occur; (b) experiencing the ICT implementation in the projected lessons - where the teacher uses the technology to conduct the lessons and improves the teaching process; (c) assessing the ICT resources involved in the lessons or in the possible new ones - ready to be implemented -, and drawing related conclusions. ICT can contribute to shape the nowadays teacher's profile, bringing crucial added-values to the sets of following competencies: (a) communication; (b) information; (c) pedagogical design; (d) production. By introducing ICT in education, it will be clearly reduced the time consumption and repeatability of tasks, offering to teachers the possibility to spend more time on designing lessons in a new and competitive format, performing and evaluating the training process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nowadays, more and more people consider diversity as an opportunity and a strong resource which should be used appropriately as a basis for intercultural education seen as a key-factor, on the one hand for the stability of the society and its increased chances to be developed in a sustainable way, teaching us how to cohabit, and on the other hand for promoting equality, respect and openness towards communicating with others. In this respect, the actual school takes over and duplicates the socially validated practices that relate inclusively to the issues of interculturalism and discrimination, based on various criteria represented by gender, ethnicity, religion, level of development, social, cultural and economic status etc. Although there are education policies which obviously promote a series of principles concerning equal chances, irrespective of social origins, gender, age, ethnicity, religion etc., in reality, the education faces up - even nowadays - a series of segregationist and discriminatory practices. This paper aims to retrieve a part of primary and secondary teachers' opinions concerning the forms of discrimination which are present in schools and classes, but also their attitudes related to such discriminatory practices, being completed with several solutions for fighting and diminishing those undesirable behaviors. More, the results of the microresearch have in view to determine teachers to adopt a reflective attitude concerning sensitive issues related to the discriminatory practices still met in the Romanian schools. Additionally, some examples of good education practices on fighting and preventing of any type of discrimination are underlined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper illustrates the results obtained through the analyzing of the teachers' feed-back, expressed at the graduation moment of the accredited training program "Modern Approaches in Health Education", organized in the frame of the Erasmus+ project "Let's make it better! Raising the awareness of the triad nutritionhealth- food safety in school education", coordinated by Valahia University Targoviste, Romania. Two Modules and 8 related topics were designed, consisting in 18 hours of courses and 36 hours for practical training, in the format of face-to-face and on-line meetings. 67 trainees - from which 98,5% women - graduated the program dedicated to primary and secondary education. Three concepts were identified as the most important to be learned by students in school - Food Composition and Food Groups, Food Hygiene and Related Risks and Food Labelling -. On the other hand, New Food Products and the Impact of the Food Industry on the Environment were considered less important, despite the efforts and care concerning the environment protection, shown in the last years at the legislative and consumers' level throughout the world. Related to competencies, attitudes and values, the most important topics in order to be developed in school were: Awareness of the Relationship between Food and Health, Changing in the Food Consumption Manner and Personnel Hygiene. The Self-esteem related to the Physical Aspect and the Appetite Control were overwhelmingly considered less important (by more than 90% from respondents). Almost 95% from the interviewed teachers agreed that the presence of trainers (especially teachers) - through which the Education for Health is promoted - is vital. But a higher percent agreed that it is not enough to discuss about a specific topic related to the Education for Health, in order to change the students' behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Internet of Things (IoT) has a major potential and already started to improve the human life in all sectors: smart cities, smart environment, smart water, smart metering, security and emergency, retail, logistics, industrial control, agriculture, home automation, eHealth and education. For example, in the construction and housing sector, smart buildings may integrate IoT technologies to increase efficiency, security, and comfort for inhabitants. In industry, smart wristbands may automate clocking in and out to precisely record the amount of time spent at work. In smart cities, the IoT technologies may be used to monitor parking spaces availability in the city, to monitor sound in different city areas in real time, to create intelligent and weather adaptive lighting in street lights etc. In education, the IoT technologies represent a great opportunity for schools and may be used in various ways: to collect and use data to enhance the learning experience, to support the meeting of the learning goals, to improve the overall school operations etc. Since IoT field is expected to grow significantly in the next years, it is a must to prepare young generations for these changes. The article presents a survey undertaken with university students enrolled in technical specializations, concerning their perspective on different aspects related to IoT technologies, their knowledge and their willingness to learn about the topic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Studia Universitatis Babes-Bolyai, Psychologia-Paedagogia is the property of Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The actual EU Digital Agenda - as one of the seven pillars of the Europe 2020 Strategy - suggests to exploit in a better way the massive potential offered by ICTs, with the view to promote innovation, economic growth and progress. In this respect, it stipulates to consolidate the European citizens' ICT competences and skills, by improving the long-term implementation of both digital literacy and e-skills policies for the labour market. It is more than obvious that for the university students, ICT is playing an important role, enabling them to acquire the necessary competences and skills required in their studies and/or for the nowadays digital world, targeting also on helping them to be easily inserted in the labour market after finishing their studies. In this respect, in the frame of the Romanian Sectoral Operational Program for Human Resources Development 2007-2013, Valahia University Targoviste proposed the project entitled "EduWeb - New Competences Related to the Using of Multimedia, Web 2.0 and Virtual Instrumentation Applications - A Guarantee of University Degrees Quality", which tried to provide to students extensive learning opportunities and specific competences, by promoting new and innovative courses in the field of multimedia and Web 2.0 applications, answering to their needs related to introducing in the curricula more ICT based disciplines or updating the contents of the existed ones, with the view to include information and activities that exploit open-source multimedia technologies and Web 2.0 tools. The paper tries to analyse the extent to which ICTs in general, and multimedia and web 2.0 tools in particular, are perceived by the university students as reliable keys for their success, but also as appropriate factors for acquiring new competences and skills that make them to be prepared for the labour market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A healthy diet is the easiest way to protect the individual's health, having a series of benefits which starts from ensuring the whole needed palette of nutrients for the body and ends with relieving the symptoms of diseases, such as diabetes or hypertension. In this respect, it is important to train the children to eat healthy foods, the schools playing a very important role in the education and promotion of healthy eating among young students. One of the projects - coordinated by Valahia University Targoviste - that proposed training activities for teachers and learning activities for students, having as central target developing healthy and sustainable habits which must be acquired by young students related to healthy eating, is the Erasmus+ project entitled: "EduForHealth - Let's make it better! Raising the awareness of the triad nutrition - health - food safety in school education". In the frame of the abovementioned project, an accredited continuous professional development program was organized, being oriented on topics (learning units) concerning Food Science, divided so that - one the one hand - to provide to learners, regardless of their level of education, an extensive coverage of the area, and - on the other hand -, to fulfill the teachers' expectation and needs, as it was concluded during the first project activity focused on analyzing the curricula related to Nutrition, Health and Food Safety. The activities were designed from theoretical and practical point of view, having in mind that the experiential learning is meaningful, and, at the same time, there can be developed long time skills for the actors involved in the educational process. The paper underlines the results of a case study designed to identify the conditions that influenced the implementation of the learning units in the classroom, taking into account both educational levels: primary and secondary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is clearly anticipated that Nanotechnology plays an important role in the technological development of the actual period, introducing higher performance materials, intelligent systems and new methods of production, with significant impact for all the societal aspects. What is happening in the present can be considered as the beginning of a revolution based on the human ability to work on the same scale as nature. In this respect, secondary education has to consider the area of Nanoscience / Nanotechnology as a special chapter in the process of educating the young generation, taking into account that it involves a multidisciplinary natural Science education, providing concepts met also in Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Mathematics. This paper underlines some aspects of the non-formal activities carried out by the young students to know general concepts about nanomaterials and their industrial applications, together with the introduction of Responsible Research and Innovation dimensions. The activities were organized using the discovery-based learning method, so that students participated actively in debates, bringing arguments on their claims. The groups of students were also involved in investigating or solving community problems, introducing several solutions based on the exploitation of some typical nano-products. The problems were tried to be solved through group discussion, with proposals for alternative solutions, by motivating the choice of the final solution. All the illustrated activities were part of a special Unit dedicated to Industrial Applications of Nanomaterials, designed in the frame of the EU FP7 project entitled: "IRRESISTIBLE - Including Responsible Research and Innovation in Cutting Edge Science and Inquiry-based Science Education to Improve Teacher's Ability of Bridging Learning Environments". At the same time, the carried out activities contributed to the formation of conscious and responsible attitudes toward the importance of using certain properties of nanomaterials in various industrial applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the contemporary school, claimed itself as a stronger one and assumed as connected to the actual social realities in a great measure, the students' counseling process represent an important issue. In this sense, a particular component of the process is represented by the professional counseling or career counseling. Practically, it includes a set of activities designed and implemented in order to facilitate the choice of a profession, by raising the students' awareness on their competitiveness, objectified level of knowledge, interests, attitudes and professional skills, but also on their realistic reporting related to their future professions, labor market requirements and specific professional standards in the selected field. In this sense, the teachers should be concerned to identify and cultivate the students' interests for a particular professional field and present them in a realistic manner, the characteristics of the professions or careers which are subsumed to a specific area. The paper tried to identify the ways in which the Science teachers (Physics, Chemistry, Biology) are able to cultivate the students' interest for a research career, especially dedicated to the scientific area. In this respect, it was designed and monitored a Case Study, involving secondary school students as main actors, beneficiaries in fact of the activities proposed in the frame of the FP7 European project called IRRESISTIBLE. The study had the main objective to train the Science teachers with the view to promote formal, informal and non-formal learning activities, considering the introduction of Responsible Research and Innovation dimensions in those specific contexts. The obtained results let us to consider that a proper design and implementation of modern teaching approaches and interactive processes may guide the students on choosing a career in science research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]