Animated learning experiences
A PUPIL-INSPIRED animation, A Classroom Tale, is providing a pupil-friendly format to discuss how young people’s learning experiences can be improved. Previous consultation in Northern Ireland with 200 pupils (aged 12-15) had identified ten pupil-generated principles of what most helped them to learn and feel comfortable about being assessed in schools. For example, knowing what to do in any task or homework, getting detailed comments and a mark from the teacher, and not being made to feel embarrassed about work. In this project over 100 pupils in four pilot schools contributed their ideas, images and stories to A Classroom
Tale based on their view of helpful and unhelpful learning. Evaluation of the animation by pupils, policymakers and teachers has been largely positive. Over 80 per cent of pupils saw the film as relevant to their experience as learners and 95 per cent of pupils identified with the main messages of the film. n
i Contact Professor Ruth Leitch,
Queen’s University Belfast Email
r.leitch@qub.ac.uk Telephone 0289 0975949 Web
www.cpal2.org ESRC Grant Number RES-189-25-0351
The sleep benefits for memory
NEW EVIDENCE HELPS explain why poor sleep has negative effects on memory. In a study of sleep, dreaming and memory consolidation, researchers examined participants’ dream content to discover what memories the brain was consolidating during sleep. Based on the relationship of the content of dream to waking-life events, researchers conclude there is a seven- day period across which memories are consolidated, with most processing occurring one and five to seven days after events. Consistent good sleep may be needed to consolidate memory. Students, shift-workers, new parents and others subject to sleep debt may find this research highly relevant, says researcher Professor Mark Blagrove. “Teenagers or students studying for exams might improve their learning and exam performance if they understood the importance of
sleep to memory. Indeed, society as a whole could benefit if people improved their sleep quality and were hence able to learn more effectively. “There is a large number of people
with mood disorders, either of anxiety or of depression, who may benefit from co-investigator Professor Matt Walker’s work on the connection between sleep quality and mood disorders”, says Professor Blagrove. Mood disorders and nightmares may result if emotional memory processing does not occur during sleep. Health professionals should be prioritising sleep in both prevention and intervention work, the researchers conclude. n
i Contact Professor Mark Blagrove,
Swansea University Email
m.t.blagrove@swansea.ac.uk Telephone 01792 295586 ESRC Grant Number RES-000-22-4561
DIGITAL INEQUALITY By combining the Oxford Internet Survey (OxIS) with the census and several special- purpose datasets, researchers aim to produce the first detailed geographic estimates of internet use in Britain. There are major geographic inequalities in internet access and use in Britain: For example, internet use in Scotland is 20 percentage points below the East Midlands. This project will investigate the geography of internet use and non-use.
ESRC grant number ES/K00283X/1
ECONOMIC MOBILITY How mobile is UK society? Researchers aim to bring significant new insights to measuring how mobile UK society is today. The project will develop a picture of lifetime economic mobility in the UK and document the extent of biases that arise from estimates of mobility driven by using data at a single age. Greater understanding of intergenerational mobility will be of great benefit to policymakers. ESRC grant number ES/K005804/1
FORCED LABOUR A project on asylum seekers and refugees’ experiences of forced labour produced the first conclusive evidence of forced labour among migrants in the UK asylum system. This follow-on Knowledge Exchange Platform project will work with nine partner organisations involved in asylum-labour issues and develop strategies for tackling forced labour among refugees and asylum seekers. ESRC grant number ES/K005413/1
SUMMER 2011 SOCIETY NOW 9 AUTUMN 2013
IN BRIEF
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