CESC 2017

3rd International Conference on Communication and Education in Knowledge Society Collective Capacity Building 9–10 November 2017 West University of Timisoara, Romania

Book of Abstracts

ISBN - 978-973-125-675-7

Organizers

West University of Timişoara Faculty of Sociology and Psychology Department of Educational Sciences

Faculty of Political Sciences, Philosophy and Communication Department of Philosophy and Communication

Partners

Romanian Institute for Adult Education Institute for Social and Political Research Centre for Research in Philosophical Historiography and Imaginary Philosophy Timis County School Inspectorate The Cultural House of Timisoara City

ORGANIZING COMMITEE

AL GHAZI Loredana, Lecturer, West University, Timisoara, Romania BARBU Oana, Lecturer, West University, Timisoara, Romania BERSAN Otilia, Lecturer, West University, Timisoara, Romania BORCA Claudia, Lecturer, West University, Timisoara, Romania CENTEA BORCHESCU Denisa, Romanian Institute for Adult Education, Timisoara, Romania CHERMELEU Adia, Associate Professor, West University, Timisoara, Romania CLITAN Gheorghe, Professor, West University, Timisoara, Romania CRAȘOVAN Mariana, Associate Professor, West University, Timisoara, Romania LOBONŢ Florin, Associate Professor, West University, Timisoara, Romania LUȘTREA Anca, Associate Professor, West University, Timisoara, Romania HURDUZEU Nicolae, Lecturer, West University, Timisoara, Romania GROSSECK Gabriela, Associate Professor, West University, Timisoara, Romania MALIȚA Laura, Lecturer, West University, Timisoara, Romania MESAROȘ Claudiu, Associate Professor, West University, Timisoara, Romania MICLE Maria, Lecturer, West University, Timisoara, Romania NEGOMIREANU Simona, Romanian Institute for Adult Education, Timisoara, Romania PREDESCU Sorin, Lecturer, West University, Timisoara, Romania SAVA Simona, Professor, West University, Timisoara, Romania TURȘIE Corina, Lecturer, West University, Timisoara, Romania TUTUNARU Ramona, Assistant Professor, West University, Timisoara, Romania

HARAȘNIUC Cristian, student, West University, Timisoara, Romania IGNEA Alina, student, West University, Timisoara, Romania TOTH Silvia, student, West University, Timisoara, Romania URSOI Alina, student, West University, Timisoara, Romania VÎLCEANU Tudor, student, West University, Timisoara, Romania

SCIENTIFIC COMMITEE

ALBULESCU Ion, Professor, Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania ARNOLD Rolf, Professor, Universität Kaiserslautern BARAT HAJDU Ágnes, Professor, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary BARBU Oana, Lecturer, West University, Timisoara, Romania BASILI Carla, Senior Researcher, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Rome, Italy BOFFO Vanna, Professor, Universita Degli Studii Firenze, Italy BORCA Claudia, Lecturer, West University, Timisoara, Romania BOUSTANY Joumana, Associate Professor, Paris Descartes University, France BRATOSIN Ștefan, Professor, University of Montpellier 3, France CLITAN Gheorghe, Professor, West University, Timisoara, Romania CRAȘOVAN Mariana, Associate Professor, West University, Timisoara, Romania CREȚU Carmen, Professor, “Al. I. Cuza” University, Iași, Romania DÂRJAN Ioana, Lecturer, West University, Timisoara, Romania DUMITRU Ion, Professor, West University, Timisoara, Romania FARTUȘNIC Ciprian, Director, Institutul de Științe ale Educației, Romania FEDERIGHI Paolo, Professor, Universita Degli Studii Firenze, Italy GRAVANI Maria, Open University of Cyprus ION Georgeta, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain ISAC Maria Magdalena, University of Groningen, Holland LAHOUIJ Mohamed Anouar, Dr.-ATER, University of Angers, France LOBONŢ Florin, Associate Professor, West University, Timisoara, Romania LUȘTREA Anca, Lecturer, West University, Timisoara, Romania MALIȚA Laura, Lecturer, West University, Timisoara, Romania MASLO Irina, University of Latvia, Latvia MAYO Peter, Professor, University of Malta MESAROȘ Claudiu, Associate Professor, West University, Timisoara, Romania MICLE Maria, Lecturer, West University, Timisoara, Romania MILANA Marcela, Associate professor, University of Verona. MITESCU MANEA Mihaela, Associate Professor, National University of Arts, Iaşi, Romania Iași, Romania MOMANU Mariana, Associate Professor, “Al. I. Cuza” University, Iasi, Romania NUISSL Ekkehard, Professor, German Institute for Adult Education, Bonn OANCEA Alis, Professor, University of Oxford, Great Britain PARNES Jakub, University of Lodz, Poland PĂUN Emil, Professor, University of Bucharest PETROVA Tamara, Lecturer, West University, Timisoara, Romania POPOVIC Katarina, University of Belgrade, Serbia PREDESCU Mihai, Associate Professor, West University, Timisoara, Romania SAVA Simona, Professor, West University, Timisoara, Romania SHAH S.Y., Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India SLOWEY Maria, Professor, Dublin City University SPARIOSU Laura, Associate Professor, University of Novi Sad, Serbia STAN Cristian, Professor, Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania STASSELOVÁ Silvia, President of the Slovak Librarians and Libraries Association, Bratislava, Slovakia TÓTH János, Professor, University of Szeged, Hungary TUDOR Mihaela Alexandra, Professor, University of Montpellier 3, France TÜSKE Lásló, Director, National Library, Budapest, Hungary ULRICH Cătălina, Professor, University of Bucharest ZARIFIS Georgios, Professor, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece

CONTENTS PLENARY SESSIONS Science, Truth, Democracy. A Troubled Marriage? Mircea Dumitru ...... 10 Technology and Teaching Art in (Instant) Knowledge (Based) Society: Challenges and Problems. Rozmeri Basic ...... 18 Educația în societatea cunoașterii: provocări și reconfigurări. Emil Păun ...... 18 What if knowledge (re)creation overpowers knowledge transfer? Can the philosophy-based communities of enquiry save the planet? Florin Lobonț...... 19 Nudging generation Y towards sustainability oriented education. Liliana Donath, Monica Boldea, Ana- Maria Popa...... 20 Collaboration for collective capacity building in initial teacher education (ITE). Irina Maslo ...... 22 Collective capacity building as asset for learning communities. Simona Sava ...... 23 Cultural Education – Educational Culture. Ekkehard Nuissl ...... 25 The message in education. The content – shape relationship. Laurenţiu Şoitu ...... 25

SECTIONS Applied philosophy and the methodology of philosophical studies ...... 27 Re-conceptualizing Global Issues and the Philosophy of Michael Oakeshott. Andrew Keltner, Michael Oakeshott, Thomas Sowell, G. W. F. Hegel, John Locke, Jeremy Bentham, Karl Marx, Hannah Arendt ...... 27 Marcus Aurelius and the motivation for philosophical life. Claudiu Mesaroș ...... 28 Plato's attitude towards suicide. Armand Alexandru Voinov ...... 28 Philosophy with children: from experiment to practice. Ionuţ Mladin ...... 29 Project Based Learning and Phenomenology for Teaching Philosophy. Darius Borovic ...... 29 The philosophy of health education. Health is not accidental: it needs philosophical and theological approaches too. Aurora Carmen Barbat ...... 30 Philosophical counseling- an alternative tool for rehabilitation and reintegration of offenders. Tătaru Marian ...... 32 Is Education an Industry? Syed Zafar Abbas...... 33 Co-production in Services Constructs, as Philosophical Concepts for Innovation in Education and Educational Management. Alexandru Jivan, Maria Barabas ...... 34 Curriculum design –systemo-holistic paradigm. Mihai Stanciu ...... 34 Authenticity and innovation in Romanian early education and care. Emil Lazăr ...... 36 Good Practices in Building Collective Capacity in Education. Case-study: the Project „Meeting of Generations in Oral History. Simona Adam ...... 36 Be pro heritage, be active! Cultural heritage and education for active citizenship. Onițiu Atalia, Balaci Mariana, Muscalu Bogdan ...... 38 Work & travel program - a method of training and integrating young people for their adult life. Gabriel- Mugurel Dragomir, Stroe Iuliana ...... 38

Education and Social Inclusion ...... 40 Social Inclusion & Education. Sayed Murtaza Hussain ...... 40 Social Context and Curriculum Development. Gianina Prodan ...... 40 Social inclusion through sustainable education in the European Union. Ramona Birău ...... 41 Infringements of Freedom of Expression in Knowledge Society. Ionuț Suciu ...... 43 The need for new approaches within the criminal justice system. Mihaela Tomiță ...... 44 Advantages and disadvantages of inclusive education from the perspective of teachers and parents. Dănuț – Sorin Bălăuță, Florina-Luiza Vlaicu ...... 45 Implementation of Mentorship in Turkish Ministry of National Education. Esra Turhan ...... 46 The sociological implications of discriminatory behavior towards Roma children in education due to poverty and social exclusion. Ramona Birău ...... 46

Policy, Image and Governance ...... 48 Distorting the message of religious symbols in electoral posters of political campaigns. Gheorghe Clitan, Oana Barbu-Kleitsch ...... 48 How do Romanian users communicate online? An emphasis on politics. Andra Androniciuc ...... Error! Bookmark not defined. Corporative Governance al European level. Diana Moșneanu ...... 49 Active citizenship on social media during February 2017 Romanian protests. Simona Bader ...... 50 Active reading / active readers: in print & in on-line. Maria Micle ...... 51 Advertising and social action: on brand activism. Iulia Grad ...... 52 Branding the managers. From self-knowledge to personal branding. Bianca Dramnescu...... 53

Didactică aplicată...... 55 Comunicarea didactică, componentă evolutivă și atemporală a procesului de învățământ. Ramona Tutunaru ...... 55 Elemente de predare integrată a orelor de rugby tag în vederea eficientizării activității didactice. Mirela Scorțescu, Laura Rusu, Bogdan Bradu, Mihaela Șora ...... 56 The use of caricatures in teaching history classes. Nicolae Hurduzeu ...... 56 What if knowledge (re)creation overpowers knowledge transfer? Can the philosophy-based communities of enquiry save the planet? Florin Lobonț...... 57 Metode interactive utilizate în învățământul preșcolar - exemple de bună practică. Magda Iustina Larisa, Orian Elena, Deaconescu Sorina ...... 59

Activitate didactică în contexte formale şi non-formale ...... 60 Comunicarea eficientă. Ionel Narita ...... 60 Educația nonformală și rolul ei în construirea și consolidarea capacităților colective. Elena Danciu .. 61 Inteligenţele multiple în activitatea educativă. Luminiţa Tomuţa ...... 62 Evaluarea formativă imediată şi feedback-ul ca ingrediente ale învăţării eficiente şi durabile. Otilia Sanda Bersan, Ion Dumitru ...... 63

Higher education teaching and research ...... 65 A Comparative Analysis of the Concepts and Theories of Collective Capacity Building and Consciousness/Awareness Raising through Teaching and Learning. Eva Thun ...... 65 The image of an educational institution. Anamaria Filimon-Benea ...... 66 Reaching millennials: a brief proposal for promoting university programs to young millennials. Corina Sîrb ...... 67 The subjective wellbeing and the general health in college students. Ioana Dârjan, Loredana Al Ghazi, Anca Luştrea, Mariana Craşovan ...... 68 Towards project-work assessment for ESP class in higher education. Irina Bocianu...... 68 Developing (new) language skills through student mobility - the impact of an Erasmus+ experience. Cristina Cojocaru ...... 69 Innovative Academic Course on Integrative Interventions for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders Loredana Al Ghazi, Anca Luştrea, Claudia Borca ...... 70 Students’ Views on Feedback in Writing, Collaboration & Emotional Intelligence. Milena Kampusa .... 71 Effecting Factors of Attitudes of Student Teachers towards Measurement and Assessment Course. Çiğdem Suzan, Çardak ...... 72 Critical aspects in the building of professional and transversal skills in the university environment for students in the field of social work. Loredana Marcela Trancă ...... 74

New technologies for Communication and Education ...... 74 Digital media education as lever for bridging the gaps of Romanian education system. Laura Malita, Gabriela Grosseck, Simona Sava, Gheorghe Clitan...... 74 Are we open educators? Carmen Holotescu, Gabriela Grosseck, Ramona Bran ...... 75 Students and teachers in the digital society to debate - importance of innovation in the classroom management. Nicoleta Duţă ...... 76 Power Point presentations controlled by personal Smartphone used in educational processes. Cornelia- Victoria Anghel Drigarin ...... 76 Building Bridges for Teaching and Interacting with Emoji Generation. Laura Malita, Gabriela Grosseck ...... 77 An Alternative or Complementary Learning Approach: Digital Game Based Learning. Hasan Güler, Yunus Şahinkayasi, Hamide Şahinkayasi ...... 78 Learning English with MOOCs. Ramona Bran, Gabriela Grosseck ...... 79 Teaching Journalism in the Age of Fake News. Adina Baya ...... 80 Opinions of pre-school teachers on using technology in self-care skills education. Hasan Güler, Yunus Şahinkayasi, Hamide Şahinkayasi ...... 81 A Multi-case Analysis of Teachers’ Cognition about and Use of Digital Technology for Literacy Instruction. Saiful Izwan Bin Zainal ...... 82

Psychology of education and varia ...... 83 A Servicity Approach on the Teaching System, using Boosel's principles. Alexandru Jivan ...... 83 Adapting and Validating a Subjecting Wellbeing Scale on Romanian Population. Anca Luştrea, Mihai Predescu, Loredana AlGhazi...... 84 Dialogue and Intellectual Exchange within the Group. Formative Aspects. Lavinia Nitulescu, Alina Visan ...... 84 Developing intellectual capital in the knowledge society. The RESPECT integrated educational model applied in the higher economic education. Mirela Minica ...... 85 The dynamic relationship between perceived school safety and just-for-fun online harassment. Dana Balas Timar, Edgar Demeter, Alina Roman, Sonia Ignat ...... 86 The didactic game – an educational method for the intellectual development of preschoolers. Alina Constantin, Andrade Bichescu ...... 86 Pedagogical causes of school failure. Cristina Ispas ...... 87 Arabic Language Education In Bangladesh. Mohammad Golamur Rahman ...... 87

PLENARY SESSIONS Science, Truth, Democracy. A Troubled Marriage? Mircea Dumitru University of Bucharest [email protected]

We have been told lately that we are about to get into a time period which is less and less concerned with truth and facts. From amongst several tags that are meant to dub our epoch one may choose “post-truth”, “alternative facts”, “demise of objective truth”. Frankly, to me all these are symptoms of an irrational fear of knowledge, a kind of epistemic irresponsibility which gets more and more pervasive in our society. This cultural divide which opens up in front of us feeds a moral feeling very aptly phrased by someone who said that “in a time of universal deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act”. Here there are several issues of utmost concern for all of us who are involved in research and teaching: How are we going to frame the conceptual scheme of the relationships between science, truth, and democracy? What is the role that science plays in a democratic society? Is the standard, traditional values of the objective scientific knowledge compatible with the political values of reasonableness which are supposed to be the norms for democratic political trade-offs? Could the latter norms for democratic transactions ground the ethos of our claims of objective knowledge which should be subjected to the close scrutiny of facts? How is it possible and feasible to integrate scientific knowledge and the values that give the real bite of that knowledge with democratic values? What is the role that experts and their evidence-based expertise are playing in a context in which the rhetoric of the public discourse emphasizes in an obsessive manner the concept that everybody - be it an expert or a layperson - is entitled to an equal right to voice his or her opinions or beliefs, regardless of whether or not he/she complies with the epistemic norms of rationality and of scientific reasoning? How is the contemporary scientific establishment defending the epistemic authority of scientific knowledge against the noise of voicing indiscriminate opinions? Have we already reached that critical stage of a methodological anarchism which Paul K. Feyerabend triumphantly encapsulated into the dictum “Anything Goes”? How dangerous is this critical condition of a fast growing public mistrust in the authority of science, of the truths of facts, and of the objective and impersonal rules of the empirical methods of science? It’s obvious that all those questions raise very difficult and disturbing issues. And they are symptoms for there existing some serious causes of what I wouldn’t be shy to call a cultural malaise. Here is an incomplete list of those causes: the continuous erosion, which up to a certain point is legitimate, of a triumphant scientistic vision, which in its heyday made the illusory promise that science is a panacea, a remedy for all our social and political troubles; a simple minded and shallow conception about scientific knowledge, which is on the wrong track committing itself to the view that science could be run in a perfect and purified axiological neutrality; a skeptical if not downright eliminativist conception about our not being able to carry out a fertile and intelligible dialogue or even controversy about the values we share and cherish; but in the same time a shallow and caricatural understanding of the mechanics and the processes of democracy, construed as a kind of soft anarchy; and then again a superficial understanding of the dynamics and progress of science and of its cultural and historic background against which the institutions which create and validate scientific knowledge have emerged and of the complex role that science in general plays in our contemporary society. Science is based on evidence that is intersubjectively tested, thereby being acknowledged and accepted by the community, which is inevitably elitist, of men and women who produce knowledge. Science works with the classic epistemological distinction between episteme and doxa, whereas political negotiation and transactions or the speech acts which support our political options emphasize the freedom to express opinions, without insisting upon providing pieces of evidence, justifications or upon making use of methods which are conducive to truth. Some people, especially those who remain faithful to the goals and ideals of science, will say that science is the apex of the conceptual, technical, and methodological achievements of our species. From the XVII-the century onwards, the mathematized sciences of nature uncovered essential truths about the world, and helped create that frame of mind in which one can substitute truths of facts for superstitions and prejudices. All this triggered social and political conditions for more and more people being more educated, more healthy, living longer and more decent lives, and being more rational and humane. Of course, the biomedical sciences have had their fair share in articulating and speeding up this very complex social and scientific process. The seminal role that science is expected to play has remained unchanged so far: it should continue the evolution sketched above; it is supposed to engage in free, objective, and dispassionate research, resisting any attempt to distort the facts motivated by a dubious or unjustified moral, political or religious agenda. Of course, today, in agreement with the morals that one can extract from the new philosophy of science, which is informed by a sociological and an historical perspective which presents the institution of science in a more concrete and credible way, endorsing the values and the ideals of science does not boil down anymore to keeping away science from axiology, and to insisting that research should be free of any moral constraint whatsoever. Quite contrary, they should insist on finding out facts and truths, and they should stay away from using immoral methods which upset human rights and dignity and also the rights of those nonhuman animals whom they interfere with in labs and in some other contexts of our life. On the other hand, our political, moral, and religious beliefs should not distort either the way we frame and articulate our scientific projects or the assessment of the evidence in favor of the conclusions drawn from the scientific research. One should not censor the questions and the problems raised in the process of research through the ideals or through the fears or the prejudices which are prevalent at any given time in our society. And we should not be complacent accepting uncritically everything that is convenient and conventional among our peers especially when those widespread beliefs are severely undermined by lack of strong compelling evidence and reasons. The Kantian imperative “Sapere Aude!” has the same force now as it has had since Kant pronounced it at the dawn of the European Enlinghtment. (One should dare using his or her own mind!) A complete formation of our students, as members who enjoy the full spectrum of rights and obligations in the society, is achieved not only through their training as specialists but also through the development of their critical thinking and attitude, through their constant struggle to get out from their intellectual and moral infancy and to emancipate themselves from a state of tutelage, as Kant himself put it. Deep down, at the very roots of things, we know that from the lesson of modernity, the epistemic values of truth, scientific honesty and deontology are intrinsically intertwined with the moral values of the public good and with the righteousness of our attitudes and deeds. Genuine knowledge does not occur in an ethical vacuum, since the Truth and the Good/Right are two facets of the same human condition: The Truth is for knowledge what the Good / Right is for action. The Truth is the norm of knowledge in the same way as the Right is the norm of action. One cannot turn the back to the truth and pretend, nevertheless, that one can achieve the social and political good. What I’ve sketched so far is an image of science. There are people who think differently about science. They see another image or model of science. They believe that the image sketched by me before is just a philosophical myth, which shows nothing else than the vested interests of those who hold the political and the epistemic power of a society and strive to inculcate the idea of a completely value-free and value-neutral scientific knowledge. The aim of this myth is not only that of dignifying what is eminent in science but also, more important, that of marginalizing and of debilitating alternative points of view, which are upheld by those who defy and contest the power. Every decision that people make in what concerns what should be object of scientific research, what should receive financing or institutional support etc. should also strictly observe a set of value norms and judgements. These minimalists or even nihilists of the objective view of science are contesting or even rejecting the legitimacy of the objective concept of “evidence” or “proof”, which pertain to the hard core of the realist conception about truth and science. They tend to relativize the outcome of scientific research, claiming that the so-called “scientific conclusions” are always filtered through moral, political, and religious values and convictions, lacking therefore any serious claim to universality and objectivity in the strong sense of those concepts. Moreover, according to the same subjectivist and relativist interpretation of science, the whole idea that science delivers truths about nature is another ingredient of the same Platonician myth of the universal objectivity of science as a natural kind and as an enterprise which undercover brute facts and “carve the world at its joints” (as Platon said it). What are we going to get out of this relativist image of science? For sure, one rough idea, which is argued for by people like Th. Kuhn, P. K. Feyerabed and the like, is that science is like any other human group (team) activity - be it social and/or political: the scientific establishment is a very efficient and powerful propaganda machine, which serves the interests, not always obscure, of the elites and which imposes upon the underprivileged and the marginalized the views, doctrines and wishes of the powerful. From this vantage point, science works through mechanisms and institutions which are pretty similar to the political and religious institutions which always enforce and reinforce their political and symbolic social control over the oppressed and marginalized masses. I can’t help making here a sort of ironical remark about this seemingly neo-Marxist critique of science. The dogmatic Marxism-Stalinism supported very much a kind of scientism and positivism. The Marxist dogmatists are worshiping science and they think that whatever is not amenable to the methods and solutions of science is not only worthless but also dangerous politicalwise or socialwise. Science pertains to the essence of the Good, and even the building of a socialist-communist class-free society has to be a centralized and planned scientific process theoretically motivated by high political ideals called, how else! scientific-socialism. What is kind of ironic is that this brand of neo-Marxism that is involved in the characterization of science above is criticizing the very objectivist image of science itself, in other words the image that the orthodox Marxism was worshiping some fifty - sixty years ago. But, after all, what did contribute to the advent of this grotesque constructivist and relativist image of science? To begin with, of course, the serious drawbacks of this ideology which has no real argumentative merits. In addition to that, however, and this is more serious, we’ve got here a weird situation in which a legitimate and successful criticism against positivism and logical empiricism, and specifically against the would-be axiologic neutrality advocated for many years by most positivists, from the vantage point of a philosophy of science informed by the new history and sociology of science, turned itself ungroundly into a demolition of the objectivity of scientific contents and truths. It’s obvious that in philosophy positivism is extinct today, and in the humanities in general, with the notable exception of law. But the ravages of this kind of Marxist ideology have eroded massively the intellectual authority that science has deservedly enjoyed and undermined its theoretic credentials in the name of an egalitarian and populist conception according to which all beliefs freely expressed have an equal epistemic dignity and value, in a sort of generalized conversation, from which the normative structure of the society is supposed to emerge in a democratic way. But then, is it the case that the steady and catastrophic erosion of the intellectual and epistemic prestige of science is something intimately connected to the way democracy is organized and works in contemporary society? Should it also be the case that the values of the democracy get in the way of the values and the logic of the development of expert knowledge? Are we witnessing an irreducible and ineluctable paradox and an unsolvable antinomy between the objective truth of scientific knowledge, on the one hand, and the plurality of reasonable beliefs that are of the essence of a democratic way of structuring the social and political values of a society, on the other hand? What we’ve got so far are two conflicting images of the role and the value of scientific knowledge in our society. I believe that both sets of views are equally wrong and inadequate, but I am inclined to say that the latter image proved to be by far more pernicious than the former due to its ideological, and more generally, political consequences. Since we reached this point, it is very natural and useful to make my own position crystal clear. I am not an obscurantist or a negationist in what concerns the social importance and the overwhelming benefits that we all have from the science and technology. Contrarywise, in my capacity as logician and analytic philosopher, educated in the spirit of science, I appreciate very much the beauty and the exactitude of scientific knowledge, of its explanations and forecast, and I am amazed and enchanted by the progress of sciences and of their applications. Even more to this point, my deep belief is that science constitutes an essential dimension of our European cultural identity, along the Greek philosophy, and historically, Christian religion. The objective and impartial search for the truth and for the ultimate essence of reality began many centuries ago in Ancient Greece, when science and philosophy were intertwined. This is why I think that embracing scientism, which leads to the cultivation of science to the exclusion of all the other major components of culture which pursue the knowledge and the understanding of human values, of subjectivity, feelings, emotions and artistic taste, so, again, embracing scientism would be a very bad cultural decision. And since one of the roots of scientism is this epistemic dream and aspiration of an ultimate objective and impersonal explanation of whatever is apparent and observable, which seems not to leave any room for human values, subjectivity, emotions and artistic taste, then finding out a way of unifying those two worlds, that of science and that of human subjectivity, emotions and values, is yet a grandiose philosophical project, very likely the most important one on the agenda for the 21st century. Many contemporary philosophers are addressing this vexing issue: how can one make room, in a justified or grounded manner, to the human subjectivity within the framework of the objective, and impersonal scientific outlook about the world? The answer is not obvious, since the force and the success of science seem to depend on measurement, objective observation, and experiment, which all seem to require the abandon of any serious work and understanding of human values and subjectivity. I am strongly convinced that until we can get together in a unified conception the objective and the subjective we cannot claim that we have a full understanding of the Universe and of ourselves, as distinct individuals with an exceptional ontological status, within that Universe. Consequently, until then, we won’t have a complete understanding of the science either in this world in which we live. So, why is scientism a deeply flawed conception about science and also about its role and relationships with the other spheres of the human creation? Roughly, because there is no scientific substitute for a full-fledged moral education that we can only get through the humanities and the social sciences; and also because the speculative and theoretic dimensions of studying the humanities and the social sciences cannot be exhausted and substituted either by a study which is exclusively centered on positivistic values or on postmodern deconstructivism which turns the grand narratives of philosophy and humanities into fictions, phantasies, or sheer ideologies. Is there an alternative view to those two wanting conceptions? Here it is a sketch of a project which is work in progress. There is a metaphysical and an epistemological aspect which lies in the background of this project. It has to do with our species being constantly involved in normative or value judgements in each and every aspect of their lives. The American philosopher Philip Kitcher very aptly called this “the ethical project” of human beings. Building knowledge is part of the project. To strike for a balance between science and democracy one needs to figure out the nature and the role of both epistemic norms (truth, reason, adequacy to the facts) and moral norms (the good, the right, the virtues). This process of valuing different political and social contexts stems from human practices which go way back and were key factors for our ancestors’ involvement in this ethical project which consolidated the structure of their society. This is a never-ending project which unfolds with each and every generation. Being a political species and our living together and doing things together being a sine quibusnon for our social being, all these required a capacity for altruism in our ancestors. “… To live together in this way, they required a capacity for psychological altruism. That is, they had to be able, on occasion, to respond positively to the perceived wishes and intentions of those around them, to recognize what another band member was attempting to do, and to modify their own plans so as to help the other realize a goal. Despite the perennial popularity of conceiving animals (including human beings) as inevitably egotistic, there is strong evidence for attributing an altruistic capacity of this kind (Goodall, 1988; De Waal 1996; Kitcher 2011a).”1

1Ph. Kitcher, Science in a Democratic Society, Prometheus Books, 2011, Kindle edition, p. 40. The main goal of ethical norms and rules from this perspective is to enforce altruism and to consolidate the moral responsibility of individuals and of the groups which they belong to. Therefore, the ethical project has an evolutionary value and it has to do with our survival as a society. Those practices are distilled and articulated through the requirements or the canon of the public reason, which, in its turn, via the action of a kind of virtuous circle, acts as a validating instance of those social practices themselves. The whole dialectics which is going on here raises an extremely controvertible issue: is there any substantial role for the layperson to play in the process of science validation and certification? To this question one may answer in different ways. We can answer negatively, of course. But that will make extremely difficult to get a compatibility solution to the issue of the relationship between democracy and science. Then, one may answer in the affirmative. And this solution comes in degrees. Ideally, the affirmative answer should not end up in an irresponsible and epistemophobic kind of relativism. The radical affirmative answer is one of the kind famously put forward - others would say infamously - by philosopher Paul K. Feyerabend.He claims that one should introduce democratic mechanisms into the very processes of science certification. In his own words: “… it would not only be foolish but downright irresponsible to accept the judgment of scientists and physicians without further examination. If the matter is important, either to a small group or to society as a whole, then this judgment must be subjected to the most painstaking scrutiny. Duly elected committees of laymen must examine whether the theory of evolution is really as well established as biologists want us to believe, whether being established in their sense settles the matter, and whether it should replace other views in schools.”2 It’s obvious that this radical solution won’t do it. It cannot work either a de jure solution or a de facto solution. And it is quite natural that when scientists, scholars, and philosophers of science emphasize the importance of scientific research being done in an autonomous way, their fear the worst from this kind of “methodological anarchism” advocated by Feyerabend. Their anxiety to the “mob rule” is motivated by their reasonable reaction against the “Anything Goes!” of Paul Feyerabend. This is why I find very comforting what Ph. Kitcher says in this regard: “Many people, especially scientists, react to a plea for democracy with alarm. Part of the fear stems from suspicions that democratization, even in the guise of well-ordered science, will submit research to the tyranny of ignorance. It is worth repeating that well-ordered science is deliberately designed to overcome this problem, that it imposes stringent cognitive conditions, and that it assigns an important role to the authority of experts. Moreover, scientific autonomy, like that of other agents, covers many spheres of activity, and it is important to understand just which of these might be threatened. Very likely, the image of the autonomous scientist is a residue of the original commitment to private activity, embodied in the ‘gentlemen’s club’ of the early modern period, no longer apt when Science has become central to the public knowledge system …”3 This is, indeed, a more balanced view. The idea of a well-ordered science (which is Ph. Kitcher’s contribution to this debate) seems more appealing. The advancement of science depends on constant good epistemic and methodological decisions. And it goes without

2Paul K. Feyerabend, Science in a Free Society, Verso Books, 1978, p. 96. 3 Ph. Kitcher, op. cit., p. 118. saying that the experts are the most important and effective decision-makers. To this, Kitcher has the following to say: “These important characteristics of responsible decision making, both in balancing our own lives and in joint activities with those about whom we care, are reflected more precisely in the conditions of mutual engagement …, and those conditions yield my ideal of well-ordered science. A society practicing scientific inquiry is well ordered just in case it assigns priorities to lines of investigations through discussions whose conclusions are those that would be reached through deliberation under mutual engagement and which expose the grounds such deliberation would present. The society is likely yo contain many different views about how the course of inquiry should now proceed; some, maybe most, of these perspectives may be sadly handicapped by ignorance of the state of the various sciences. Given the cognitive requirements on mutual engagement, that must be corrected. So we should suppose that, in an ideal deliberation, representatives of the various points of view come together and, at the first phase of the discussion, gain a clear sense of what has so far been accomplished and of what possibilities it opens up for new investigation. (…) At the end of this explanatory period, all the participants in the deliberation have been tutored (…) The assessment of consequences … will sometimes require judgments about the likely outcomes of pursuing various investigations. Here they will need the testimony of expert witness. (…) Conversation may end in one of three states. The best outcome is for deliberators to reach a plan all perceive as best. (…) Second best is for each person to specify a set of plans he considers acceptable, and for the intersection of these sets to be nonempty. If there is a unique plan in the intersection, it is chosen; if more than one plan is acceptable to everyone, the choice is made through majority vote. The third option occurs when there is no plan acceptable to all and when the choice is made by majority vote. That is a last resort for expressing the collective will.”4 There are many interesting ideas packed in this long quotation which speak for themselves, and which also deserve a close scrutiny. I’ll make very few comments. One idea is that when making decisions one has to keep in mind the actual contingent configurations of science and the needs of the people as they are defined and acknowledged by public reasoning and argumentation. There is a sort of path-dependence theory, kind of, involved here (similar to what we have in political science)! The history of the context is an essential part of the complex mechanism which will causally determine the outcomes of our decision making. What are then the big landmarks and the meta-constraints for this rational and historic process? Here it is a reasonable proposal, which is rather modest in not being too metaphysically loaded, but rather realist and practical. One may find a defense of this proposal in Hilary Putnam’s essay“Capabilities and Two Ethical Theories”5, which, according to the way the author sees these facts, articulates a Deweyan position. The Deweyan response combines two crucial components for a balanced relation between science, with its truths uncovered by the experts, and democracy, with its rule-governed processes of decision making and majority vote taking: democracy and fallibilism. Democracy recommends this attitude as far as the use of certain argumentative practices in building up overlapping consensual majorities is concerned: one should strike for

4 Ph. Kitcher, op. cit., pp. 113-114. 5 H. Putnam, “Capabilities and Two Ethical Theories”, în H. Putan, Philosophy in an Age of Science, Harvard University Press, 2012, pp. 299-311. arguments which are convincing for substantial majorities, such that, one can hope, the procedure will eventually produce “overlapping consensus”. Therefore, one way to go is to set up institutional mechanisms in which experts - i.e., academics, scientific researchers -, in concert with stakeholders - i. e., NGOs members, policy makers a.s.o. - would act in a manner which is similar to a voting procedure for public policy matters. However, when it comes to very abstruse scientific matters, one wouldn’t expect that all the people who are concerned and involved would take a real vote. Nevertheless, “if their policy recommendation is to be acceptable, they must be arrived at by informed discussion that respects ‘discourse ethics’ and that tries to understand and make explicit the concerns of all affected. (…) But it is not to be expected that the result will usually be unanimous agreement, among the experts any more than among the voters.”6 Does this application of a voting procedure mean that necessarily the weighted overlapping consensus that scholars and policy makers “arrived at by informed dicussion” is the right one? It’s kind of obvious that this cannot be the case. And here one needs the second Deweyan component which brings into focus the empiric content of the scientific concepts, ideas, theories a.s.o. This is the fallibilist stance. Here it is a sketch of this crucial stance.

Fallibilism: “A Deweyan pragmatist does not propose necessary and sufficient conditions for ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, ‘reasonable’, ‘well-being’, or any other important value concept. What Deweyans possess is the ‘democratic faith’ that if we discuss things in a democratic manner, if we inquire carefully, if we test our proposals in an experimental spirit, and if we discuss the proposals and their tests thoroughly, then even if our conclusions will not always be right, not always justified, not always even reasonable – we are only human, after all – still, we will be right, we will be justified, and we will be reasonable more often than if we relied on any foundational philosophical theory, and certainly more often than if we relied on any dogma or any method fixed in advance of inquiry and held immune from revision in the course of inquiry. In sum, what Winston Churchill said about democracy applies to inquiry as well: fallibilistic democratic experimentalism is the worst approach to decision making in the public sphere that has ever been devised – except for those others that have been tried from time to time.”7 So, to wrap up the whole discussion. How are we going to balance the relationships between science, truth, and democracy? How could we make this complex, and, on occasions, quarrelsome machinery work in a smooth way? Well, as I suggested, what we’ve got here is a kind of “troubled” marriage, and in such a marriage, we all know too well from our practical wisdom and realist spirit, it is worth pursuing reasonable compromises. More often than not, we know not only that it is worth fighting for such a cause but one can even get eventually the desired result. And in those public reasonings and debates we need a lot of patience, mutual recognition, and trust. And it doesn’t hurt a bit of love, as well! Which, of course, in our case here is “love of wisdom”, that is philosophy!

References

Paul K. Feyerabend, Science in a Free Society, Verso Books, 1978. Philip Kitcher, Science in a Democratic Society, Prometheus Books, 2011, Kindle edition.

6 H. Putnam, op. cit., p. 310. 7 H. Putnam, op. cit., p. 311. Hilary Putnam, “Capabilities and Two Ethical Theories”, in Hilary Putam, Philosophy in an Age of Science, Harvard University Press, 2012.

Technology and Teaching Art in (Instant) Knowledge (Based) Society: Challenges and Problems Rozmeri Basic, Associate Dean and Professor, The University of Oklahoma, USA [email protected]

In an increasingly digital world and technologically advanced professionals, there is an ongoing pursuit in higher education institutions across the globe to teach students how to achieve professional and financial security. It is not an easy task, and it is even more complicated issue for the fine arts and art history majors. Seasoned, predominately tenured professors who are traditionally trained to lecture only, are becoming burden for budget- thin universities; their students are struggling with inability to just listen and take notes and therefore seeking classes that offer "fun learning with gadgets only." This paper addresses several problems facing both parties inside the classrooms and issues regarding curricula challenges and methods of teaching visual arts. It has given speculations on several frequently discussed questions during faculty meetings: Is it true that the future world will seek only professionals capable of using technology for finding immediate answers without having to keep any information in their memory?(What about power shortages or loss of battery?) Is it a conventional teaching method where students use pen to take notes really passé? (No student can spell anymore). Do we need original works of art at all? (It is expensive anyway). Perhaps, 3D printers can produce everything, mimicking even the smallest stroke texture of Vincent Van Gogh or Leonardo da Vinci? (Fabrication labs are hit, easy to use, and it is possible to create many copies of original in different media). With selected survey charts and literature review based on information from The Chronicle of Higher Education is the author's hope to perhaps offer the solution to resolving a standoff inside the classroom space in order to successfully combine technology with the human interaction Keywords: Fine Arts, Curricula, Teaching, Technology

Educația în societatea cunoașterii: provocări și reconfigurări Emil Păun Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c.University of Bucharest [email protected]

"Colonizarea digitala" constituie una dintre caracteristicile majore ale societatii cunoasterii si ea reprezinta un fenomen inexorabil care produce si va produce mereu schimbari in toate planurile societatii, inclusiv in domeniul educatiei. Se impune, de aceea, sa studiem cu atentie provocarile cu care este confruntata educatia, care sunt reconfigurarile si solutiile pe care trebuie sa le adoptam.Acest fapt ne obliga sa ne punem intrebari si sa gasim respunsuri referitoare la consecintele fenomenelor amintite. Cum sa gestionam amplificare, largirea si diversificarea accesului la informatii produs de noile tehnologii de comunicare, in plan social general si in spatiul educational, in special? Care sunt riscurile acestui fenomen privind coeziunea si solidaritatea sociale, care sunt implicatiile sale asupra identitatii si cetateniei, asupra relatiei dintre generatii? In ce masura este afectata legitimarea cultural-umanista a educatiei si cum trebuie sa actioneze scoala pentru a preveni deculturalizarea educatiei?

What if knowledge (re)creation overpowers knowledge transfer? Can the philosophy-based communities of enquiry save the planet? Florin Lobonț PhD, Associate Professor Department of Philosophy and Communication Sciences, West University of Timisoara [email protected]

As it stands today, the dominant mindset of the modern world development seems to adjust too slowly, and too contradictorily to the challenges that threaten the safety of future generations. Arguably, the acceleration and harmonization of changes in policies and actions need deeper and much more widely shared changes in attitudes - epistemic and psychological - which only education can ensure. Taking into account the breakthrough work of Bandura, Harasim and especially Lipman in the field of social learning and the ways it was expanded to other fields and subjects, the article will attempt to demonstrate the capacity philosophically-based communities of enquiry’s (CoE) capacity of bridging the gap between learning, research and practice by actively engaging the people concerned with a given issue. Its argument will be built upon elements from theories of communities of practice (Lave, Wenger); social learning theories (Bandura); and innovative knowledge communities (Engeström, Bereiter), such as the focus on social (group inter-subjective) competences growth and knowledge creation rather than knowledge transfer. Furthermore, it will incorporate elements from the theories of online communities (Harasim); practical enquiry (Dewey); computer-mediated cognitive presence/critical communities of enquiry (Garrison, Anderson, and Archer); and social constructivist learning (Knowles), that view learning as stemming from making experience-based knowledge explicit and focuses on reflection on members’ knowledge-in-action. In full consensus with the cutting-edge theoretical and methodological achievements in the field of CoE, this article will show how, already from the stage of a group’s CoE potential exploration, the participants can be stimulated, under qualified guidance, to gradually become interactive producers of knowledge about the substance of their own knowledge and about themselves as members of their learning groups. As such, it will aim to illustrate and reinforce the most innovative tenets professed at the state-of-the-art level of CoE research, mainly: 1) The critical communities of enquiry represent the hallmark of higher education (Garrison, Archer); 2) A CoE represents the essential context for the 21st century higher-order learning (Anderson, Kanuka); 3) Due to their profound dialogic critique and internalising reconstruction of knowledge, communities of enquiry contribute essentially to the enhancement of intercultural sensitivity (Spiteri, McCall); 4) The communities of enquiry can engage most thoroughly, effectively and at the deepest inter-subjective level, the available IT communication resources (Parsell, Duke- Yonge, Wilson, Bradshaw). 5) When provided with a virtual dimension, the communities of enquiry make the most of the available information and communication technology resourcesin teaching and team research; 6) They also overcome a number of otherwise daunting challenges Internet-based tools have for instructors, students and young research teams; 7) It is possible to create ICT (information and communication technology)-sustained communities of enquiry across networks of schools, that are able to engage with research to inform school improvement. Our view is that CoEs, by the deep changes they gradually bring about in the epistemic and psychological attitudes of their members, can contribute essentially to the creation of mindsets that view the crucial matters of the contemporary world (environment, technology, equality, justice, tolerance, civility, charity, rights, duties, and many others) in an entirely new way, sustained by autonomous, critical, innovative and problem-solving oriented thinking shared at the level of entire generations.

Nudging generation Y towards sustainability oriented education Liliana Donath, Monica Boldea, Ana-Maria Popa Professor, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration West University of Timisoara [email protected]

Education, worldwide, is going through major transformations induced by students’ expectations, communication tools, the dynamic of the labour market, the shift towards unprecedented skills and competences. Under these circumstances, generation Y is probably the most affected by the incoming changes being required to swiftly adjust to the new trends. The generation born after 1980, at large, presents its own characteristics that tend to differ from the generations that were educated prior to this stage. Generation Y is likely to possess values on co-operation, compliance and, respectively, the atmosphere of the workplace. A sound organizational culture based on value, on appropriate recognition and on rewards, on learning opportunities and exposure to business in the modern environment will hook the attention and nurture the enthusiasm of this segment of the workforce. For this to happen, organizations must be able to deviate from traditional human resource practices and be open to offer personalized operational freedom. Important to note would be the fact that Gen Y considers flexi time and telecommuting as key elements associated with today's work life. This particular segment would not accept that their work should dominate or take up their entire lives, thus actively engaging with social media and platforms like Twitter and Facebook. So, no wonder that so many companies nowadays are rushing to use social networks to maximize the potential, the creativity, the talent and the experience of their workforce, at all levels and locations. Having recently been developed the social software allows what has never been possible - a large number of people around the world to work together and contribute productively to the full range of expertise. Using the internet has made it possible for groups of people to work together more easily from geographically different locations and take advantage of talent whenever it is available. Generation Y (or the millennial) faces a full-fledged globalization which shapes all area of life including education. Policy makers, academics, educators are put in a position, not only to meet the challenges of unprecedented circumstances, but, also, to come up with a new set of teaching and learning methods. The paper stresses the importance of sustainability oriented education that shapes all areas of modern societies (economic, social and environmental). Therefore the new generations must be equipped with knowledge, competences and skills to act in a sustainability oriented world. The hypothesis of the study is that investments in educational systems induce a transfer effect on the labour market enhancing wellbeing. Consequently, modern education governance means the involvement of all stakeholders, i.e. academics/teachers, students, businesses. Under the new public management paradigm, education is put under pressure to adopt a new performance driven management approach that would answer the needs of all the stakeholders. The study looks at this topic through the lenses of sustainability and to what extent it can contribute to fill-in the gap between the efficiency of the employed resources and the outcome of the teaching and research processes. It is based on the latest experiences in the field, concluding that the inclusion of the sustainability concept in higher education governance and teaching is able to give a better insight concerning the effectiveness of the entire education process. Education policy tools widely range from administrative, mandatory ones to leverage oriented tools. Since the first set of instruments has proved to be ineffective and inconsistent with the characteristics and expectations of the millennial generation, a nudging approach is more appropriate to raise awareness of the new sustainability paradigm in education. From its point of view, the purpose of the political system is to set target on allocation of public resources in order to solve group conflicts concerned with this process. However, education policies can be easily connected with very resourceful area of behavioural economics, with abundant information and diverse positions regarding policy-makers view and actions. The concept of nudging also introduces the idea of libertarian paternalism, a way in which the government acts like a choice architect influencing in a non-disruptive way, people’s decision making process, for their own good and better lives. The effort of the authors is to show how individuals end up making bad decisions in asymmetric information situations, or incomplete information possession. They also try to underline the cognitive biases that can be over-come by public authorities’ intervention provided that policies consider the effectiveness of the educational output (i.e. endowing the labour market with the competences required to ensure equilibrium). The present study is a desktop research relying on the available statistical data on sustainability oriented education in modern society. It concludes that a set of policy lessons may be recommended that would bridge the generation gap by using nudging techniques, rather than enforced measures, in promoting the new paradigm of sustainability oriented education. Keywords: education, sustainability, nudge, generation Y.

Collaboration for collective capacity building in initial teacher education (ITE) Irina Maslo Professor, University of Latvia [email protected]

The need of building the collective capacity in and for the digital knowledge society is a new challenge worldwide. This is evident through the discussions inside the ASEM Education and Research Hub for Lifelong Learning (ASEM LLL Hub). This official network for university cooperation in Lifelong Learning strengthened the Asia and Europe collective international research capacity. Such challenges as formative assessment in e-studies; workplace learning; professionalization of adult educators; core competences and implicants for educational policies were comparatively analysed in different research networks as separate problems. Nowadays, the demand on strengthening the collective international capacity, that is built as a response to a complexity of these problems, becomes increasingly more significant. The shift from content to learning outcome paradigm, from teaching of individuals to creation of the workforce collaborative leaning activities, from knowledge control to formative assessment of competences is seen as complex, manifold problems of educational reforms today in diverse transversal social-cultural contexts of higher education practice, a special in initial teacher education. The aim of the paper is to present to the international audience the implicants of the case study on good practice of initial pedagogical education solves the above listed complex problems through cooperation and collaboration as means for building the collective capacity. The selected case is grounded on the idea of pedagogy of collaboration, developed by a group of Russian novel teachers, among them. Sh.A. Amonashvili, C.Lysenkova, L.A and B.P Nikitiny, V.F.Shatalov and others, in the second half of the 20th century. Most of the authors of this idea had more than 25 years working experiences at a school. All of them created original theoretic-empirical educational systems. The initiators of their cooperation became the editors of the "Teacher's newspaper" Ch.F. Matveyev and publicist S.L Soloveichik. The stem of this pedagogical concept is collaboration as idea, purpose and means of education where the interrelationships give new incentives to involve learners themselves in joint work and creative interaction of the teacher and students, aimed at mastering the collaborative activities which inspire them with confidence that they will overcome difficulties and achieve success. This idea is not odd in Latvian pedagogical thought and worldwide. Inspired from this idea, doctoral studies for the first five novel teachers were offered at the end of 1980ies at the University of Latvia, initiated by the director of the Institute of Psychology and Pedagogy professor A. Spona. The author of this paper, as one of them, developed the concept of personalized multidimensional pedagogical process in 1991- 1995, as the process of intensive dialogical interaction of the students and teachers for diverse learning, communication and collaboration purposes (implemented as a holistic constructive system in higher education (HE) and in school practice at the national level). Continually, the doctoral theses of E. Maslo (now Danish associated professor), Z. Rubene and I.Tilla in 2003, Sh.Akopova and R.Hahele in 2005, L.Ose in 2007 and others, developed through the doctoral students’ collaboration in the extended international cooperation space (scientific space of Germany and Spain), resulted in creation of new pedagogical knowledge on learning, communication and collaboration as synergy referring to the new phenomenon of collective capacity building. This new knowledge was implemented in 2007 - 2014 in master studies on Educational treatment of diversity. In 2017 the master programme "Educational treatment of diversity” was selected by European Commission as one of the 15 good practice cases to prepare teachers for equal treatment of diversity in the classroom. In selected case the cooperation means a consolidation of individuals and institutions (at academic and administrative universities levels) in acting groups aimed to enrich one-unit output (in our case the Joint programme) strengthen the 4 Universities (Spain, Germany, Czech Republic and Latvia) consortium, led by National Distances University (UNED), to involve the collective capacity. In turn, collaboration means learning outcomes orientated personalized learning as communication and collaboration process aimed at the collective capacity building for active participation and creative mastering of the self-organised collaborative team activities through pedagogical leadership of interactive self-directed communication and formative assessment in digital environment. So then, cooperation and collaboration are the different important means for building the collective capacity in education. This case study forced the preparation of the teachers for diversity, helped to consolidate existing knowledge across Europe and beyond, and to gather new evidence on how student teachers are prepared for diversity in the classroom. Among others success factors of this programme, the effective cooperation between the universities as co-creators of this programme on one hand, as quality of the collaboration of programme students and professors – on the other hand, were evident. This case of cooperation and collaboration for collective capacity building will be discussed in the paper, exploring the implicants for the initial pedagogical education, practice and policy making. Keywords: cooperation, collaboration, collective capacity building, good practice, case study.

Collective capacity building as asset for learning communities Simona Sava Professor, West University of Timisoara [email protected]

”Collective capacity building” (CCB) at community level, form the beginning of its conceptualization, addressed the community capability to prove an open and effective governance, able to establish mechanisms which involve all relevant stakeholders in formulating and implementing plans and strategies that ensure social cohesion and human capital. As conceptualized about 20 years ago (Garlik1999, OECD 1999, UN 1999, Harbor 2008, McGinty 2002, Seddon, 1999, Healey 2008, Harris, 2011), the main idea behind CCB is to: (a) Strengthening peoples' capacity to achieve sustainable livelihoods, ensuring the well-being and the quality of life, the needed infrastructure and facilities for easy access to education, health, culture etc.; (b) A cross-sectoral multidisciplinary approach to planning and implementation, touching the economic, environmental, cultural, social etc. dimensions; (c) Emphasis on organizational and technological change and innovation, with focus on fostering network building, on enabling the organizations and institutions to proactively identify problems and formulate solutions; (d) Emphasis on the need to build social capital (i.e. voluntary forms of social regulation) through experimentation and learning (McGinty, 2002). The conceptualization of the CCB at community level is very much driven by theories like Social exclusion theory (Pearson), human capital theory and new public management theory, the whole effort being about building the community capability to ensure inclusive and quality education and services for all, in order to increase social cohesion, and the sustainable development. This idea is driving the whole movement and recent development about learning communities, learning cities, learning regions and learning societies, most of them coordinated by the UNESCO, as the embedded learning in all attempts, strategies, efforts for community development is seen as key force for sustainable development. The movement towards building learning communities is very much turned into the efforts and conceptualizations towards building learning cities, as by 2050 70% of the population will live in cities (UN 2014), and cities are seen as a main community ensuring sustainable development. As stated in the Beijing Declaration on Building Learning Cities (UNESCO, 2013), and reiterated in the Mexico City Statement on Sustainable Learning Cities (2015), and in the Cork declaration (2017), the learning cities and all learning communities have the potential of contributing to empowering individuals to reach their full potential, enhance social cohesion, solidarity and equity, enhancing economic development and cultural prosperity, promoting sustainable development, promoting inclusive learning in all educational contexts, revitalizing learning in families and communities, in and for the workplaces, boost health and well-being, and protect the environment, enhancing the overall quality of life. All these desiderata are part of the SDG4 (”Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all”), and of the vision about Education 2030, 2040, as the learning cities and communities are seen as connected, sustainable, healthy, green, entrepreneurial, equitable and resilient. Different good practices, tools and instruments, guidelines, have been developed, mainly under the coordination of the UNESCO-UIL Institute in Hamburg, acting as clearing-house which collect and share all experiences around the globe of cities part of the Global Learning City Network. The paper will try to map some of the main conceptualizations and achievements, with the attempt to highlight the ways such visions can become realities, and all the resources and capabilities of a community are successfully brought together, for ensuring its sustainable development. What are building blocks for such a successful attempt, how it can be driven the process of capacity building, meaning assisting organizations, individuals, networks, structures in developing information, skills, processes to perform the complex tasks of needed actions towards achieving the vision of being learning community are some of the aspects analyzed, with the view of capitalizing on the existing resources and know-how, to ensure a sustainable development.

Cultural Education – Educational Culture Ekkehard NUISSL Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Technischen Universität Kaiserslautern [email protected] Culture is a significant part and background of all education – this is known not only since the “cultural turn” some years ago. But what does it mean: Learning and educating culture? This speech deals with the acquirement of culture as basic element of individual identity, acquirement not mainly in organized teaching – learning – settings, but in all kind of informal learning during the lifelong process of enculturation. Touched are the relations between nature and culture, between individuum and society and between learning and acquiring. The main message is to link organized and informal learning towards a higher level of educational culture.

The message in education. The content – shape relationship Laurenţiu Şoitu PhD Professor Emeritus Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, Iași [email protected]

Any communication implies a commitment which is, in fact, a relationship. This means that no message is limited to one piece of information, but it generates a behaviour. The process is defined by Gregory Bateson as including two operations expressed by the Index and the Degree of any communication. If under the aspect of index, any message delivers a piece of information, then this is synonym, in the human communication, with the term content. The content may be defined as everything that is said. From this point of view, it is not important if the information is real, false, valid and so on. The degree is the way the emitter wants the other to understand his message. It is the element that will generate the relationship between partners. Only the message between people becomes, compulsorily, content and relationship. Numerous examples prove the presence of discrepancies that appear in communication when the reports between the two levels – content and relationship – are not correlated, or do not have a „healthy” functioning. Although the discrepancy happens at the relationship level, at the meta-communication level, the way in which communicating communication takes place is relevant: the tone, the accents, the nonverbal language, the moment, the context. These aspects will be emphasized through the analysis of the message in education. The goal is its’ improvement. Keywords: message, content, relationship, index, degree, communicating communication.

SECTIONS 1. Applied philosophy and the methodology of philosophical studies

Re-conceptualizing Global Issues and the Philosophy of Michael Oakeshott Andrew Keltner Michael Oakeshott, Thomas Sowell, G. W. F. Hegel, John Locke, Jeremy Bentham, Karl Marx, Hannah Arendt West University of Timisoara [email protected]

Michael Oakeshott is generally considered to be a conservative philosopher and political theorist. However, this definition does more harm than good in describing the knowledge Oakeshott developed, closing him off from interpretation and practical use. What this paper intends to do is: (1) open the story and knowledge of Michael Oakeshott; (2) describe in detail how his form of “conservatism” can be used in public discourse about some of the most pressing issues of the day; and (3) demonstrate the issues in political discourse by understanding how this form of conservatism can fit wholly in a liberal world. Firstly, Michael Oakeshott, designed his interpretation of the world based largely on principles of Hegel and Spinoza, as well as other philosophers such as Wittgenstein, Hobbes, and Arendt. His aim was to understand the use of rational thought in practical judgement. These ideas are best expressed in his works Experience and its Modes, Rationalism in Politics, and his magnum opus On Human Conduct. Moreover, these writings would challenge such authors as Locke, Bentham, and Marx. Secondly, what his works will allow us insight to are new understandings of conservative thought in modern times, in which Lockean liberalism, Bentham's utilitarianism, and Marxism all have strategic places among the social and economic dialogue. With supporting works by political theorists and philosophers such as Thomas Sowell, Hannah Arendt, and Camille Paglia, we will see how certain liberal attitudes confirm themselves in this distinct form of conservative interpretation presented by Oakeshott. Finally, what these two previous sections provide for us is a view of what idea(l)s are in need of a new perspective and where there can and cannot be reconstruction of such ideas. This is to open the dialogue of practical use on both common and global issues, such as immigration, racism, feminism, LGBT rights, military intervention, bioethics, global trade, etc. This is not a criticism of one form of thought in the name of another, but an exercise in merging great ideas with each other. Keywords: Michael Oakeshott; Conservatism; Liberalism; Collective Capacity Building (CPB); Public Discourse.

Marcus Aurelius and the motivation for philosophical life Claudiu Mesaroș Associate professor, West University of Timisoara [email protected]

Marcus Aurelius is one of the important stoic thinkers of antiquity who inspired contemporary practical philosophers in developing philosophical counselling techniques. Starting with Pierre Hadot, who dedicated a special book to Marcus Aurelius in order to explore the stoic philosophy as spiritual exercise or universal proposal for living one's life, others discovered in the Meditations a notebook of a practical philosophical life as well. We will study Marcus Aurelius's idea of exercise as started by Pierre Hadot and achieve further systematization on his arghuments for studying and practicing philosophy, following the possible trace of a protrepticus-like project. Keywords: Marcus Aurelius, spiritual exercises, protrepticus, stoicism.

Plato's attitude towards suicide Armand Alexandru Voinov West University of Timisoara, Romania [email protected]

Although Plato does not have any dialogue especially dedicated to the problem of suicide, some of his works are treating this subject. This paper tries to identify Plato’s attitude towards suicide in other dialogues than in Laws (where the cases of permitted and unpermitted suicides are stated explicitly and very easy to identify) and to propose a point of view from which this attitude is consistent in itself and with the Platonic thoughts as they appear in his opera, including the Laws. In the Socratic dialogues, such as Crito, the attitude regarding the problem of suicide isn’t enounced explicitly and is treated together with other subjects. In Crito, the attitudes towards suicide can be found correlated with the problem of legality. By debating Socrate’s opportunity of escaping the prison, Plato’s Crito suggests that Socrates is trying to kill himself by refusing to evade the prison and his gesture is to be considered disgraceful. The outcome of the dialogue is that although one can think of Socrates refusal to escape the death sentence as a suicidal act, one must not see his gesture as a disgraceful one because Socrates is acting according to the law and the law is considered a source of goodness. In this case (1), the suicides ordered by the state are morally acceptable. In the first part of Phaedo the problem of suicide is treated more explicitly than in Crito, and, this time, is correlated with some religious problem. Plato’s Socrates states that, according to a secret doctrine, it is totally forbidden for someone to commit suicide. The reason behind this interdiction is the fact that our souls belong to the Gods. Our souls are trapped inside the body like in a prison from which we don’t have the right to evade by our own. It is the duty of the death seeker to wait for the proper context which is, in fact, a divine intervention. So the second case (2) of permitted suicide is the case in which at least one God express its approval by intervention. In Laws, Plato states that the corpse of the suicider must be punished. There are 3 exceptions from punishment: (3) when one’s mind is corrupted and cannot be salvaged, (4) when someone suffers an extreme and unavoidable misfortune, (5) when someone suffers from an extreme and irremediable shame. The other cases of suicide are coming from laziness or cowardice and because the Gods can’t stand laziness and cowardice their corpses must be punished. In this paper, I argue for the fact that cases (1), (3), (4), (5) are cases allowed by the law and the case (2) is allowed by the Gods. The cases (1), (3), (4), (5) are cases in which Gods expressed their approval in one way or another and, so, they all subscribe to the second case (2). Having this kind of hierarchy, there isn’t any contradiction between the laws and the will of Gods. The hierarchy of cases of permitted suicides cannot be found explicitly stated in some particular dialogue but some emblematic parts of Platonic texts, such as the ending of the Apology or the ending of Phaedo, sustain the point of view proposed by this paper. This study used and it is mainly based on the Platonic text: Apology, Crito, Phaedo and Laws and it is inspired by Elise's P. Garrison article `ATTITUDES TOWARD SUICIDE IN ANCIENT GREECE` in which there are mentioned the cases from Laws and Michael’s Cholbi internet article in which we can found, in addition to the previous article, the case stated in Phadeo. Keywords: Plato, Suicide, Crito, Phaedo, Laws.

Philosophy with children: from experiment to practice Ionuţ Mladin West University of Timisoara [email protected]

Philosophy with children is an applicable branch of philosophy in the educational system. There are some controversies about this discipline, namely: if we can talk about cognitive development of children to be involved in activities based on philosophical instruments and techniques, or whether this new discipline meets the pedagogical criteria used in schools. We believe that philosophy with children is a discipline that develops children's cognitive abilities in order to better understand the contents of other disciplines and, by stimulating creativity, reflection, has a contribution in shaping personality in their formation as human beings. The story as a stimulus, the formulation of questions, the discussion of concepts, the freedom of expression, are some of the methodological aspects of the discipline. To support these ideas, we will refer to the experience that we have gained through the experimental implementation of philosophy with children in several schools in Timisoara. In teaching P4C lessons we have used SAPERE methodology. Keywords: Philosophy with children, lesson, methodology, pedagogy, education.

Project Based Learning and Phenomenology for Teaching Philosophy Darius Borovic Teacher Training Department, West University of Timisoara [email protected]

This paper deals with the introduction of the project method inspired by John Dewey and Kilpatrick for teaching philosophy. Building upon Dewey’s ideas I view the project goal as the student’s response to a problem that brings us outside the classroom to the real world. The project goal is not learning. Learning is the teacher’s objective, enunciated in the lesson plan and the curriculum. The project goal is the concrete action in order to solve real world problems. Learning is related to the student’s action at ontological level according to the project goal. It is the result of the reflection on the actions carried out on ontological level and the psychical phenomena (perception, impressions, emotions and feelings) that is correlated to them. Learning emerges during the implementation of the project and is highlighted by specific reflection activities facilitated by the teacher – discussions, student journals, and essays. Building on organized learning experiences from the interaction with the real world the project leads us to the presupposition of non-formal implicit or explicit curriculum. In other words, the project method is a non formal teaching methodology. The moment the students start using the project method, a non formal curriculum emerges. The project method implies an interactive, non-formal teaching methodology based on student cooperation and the dialog between teacher and students. During this process the students have complete freedom of choice and action. In social studies and citizenship education applying the project method is quit simple, since we can rebuild a social reality in classroom or interact with social phenomena in the „real” world. Using the methodology in teaching philosophy opence huge problems in the beginning: what is reality for teaching philosophy? Is there real philosophical experience that we can integrate that can become a part of student’s learning? This study will show that we may have an affirmative answer to the above questions. I will also show the steps that are necessary for teaching philosophy by use of the Dewey based project method and discuss the inherent limits of this methodology. Keywords: Project learning phenomenology teaching philosophy

The philosophy of health education. Health is not accidental: it needs philosophical and theological approaches too Aurora Carmen Barbat West University of Timisoara [email protected] This study attempts to underline the relationship between natural sciences and humanities when analyzing the complexity of the health concept. Using German literature of the last two decades, as well as nowadays academicals ethical journals, the study concludes that keeping high standards in education for health remains a delicate balance between the ethical/moral own responsibility and the societal ambivalence. Education has to be, above all, a non- theoretical phenomenon, since it’s has to do with the observe of culture and the ability of orientation, which is placed into the life-world and not into the frame of a theoretical world. We live in an academical world of specialists/experts. And this fact does nor mirror the world but rather reflected its divided parts. Actually the specialist knows more and more about less and less. It seems to be that the “old” ideal of unified knowledge loses again its power and creativity. And as a paradox, the richer our information and knowledge are, the poorer become our ability to orient ourselves. Regarding natural sciences, we have to make sure that they cannot be restricted to the empirical research, but they have to connect the rationality way of knowledge with the moral/ethical form of it. In this natural way, natural sciences will not only enlightened rationality, but also relate it with the human core, with its other nature, the invisible one, which transcend empirical knowledge. Despite that economy and research are global, education has to find its place beyond its disciplinary boundaries. Maybe the useful examples here are health and environment? Great achievements need not only specialized knowledge from various areas but close contact with other pluridisciplinar specialists: Gottlob Ferge was a mathematician and philosopher, Max Weber a sociologists and historian, Max Delbrück a biologist and a physicist. Many psychotherapists in the catholic world have degrees in both psychology and theology, elite medical doctors are trained in psychology and high standard social workers have a complementary degree in psychology or applied theology. When speaking about the WHO definition of health, the first three principles are: “1. Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. 2. The enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health is one of the fundamental rights of every human being without distinction of race, religion, political belief, economic or social condition. 3. The health of all peoples is fundamental to the attainment of peace and security and is dependent on the fullest co- operation of individuals and States.” BUT, as the transdiciplinar scientists show, health consists in a tremendous individual struggle in order to acquire new and new balances. Or in other terms, health is a habitus, and not a status. Our corporeal dynamic structure with its still unknown processes leads to the fact that each moment, within us, a lot of new cells are born whereas other die. In every second we are confronted with millions and millions of bacteria and viruses, whereas our immune system recognises them as non-self and constantly destroy them. More than that, each of us possess ca. 10 dangerous genetically mutations but nevertheless our epigenetically processes inactivate them properly. And even our bodily structures do make mistakes, they will be repaired by an integral immune system. Consequently, we can preserve our health during the life cycles. In a certain sense, the immune system represents the so called soul of the organism, influenced by the big data of our ca. 35.000 genes. But if the genetically influences are from many years well accepted, the direct demonstrated influence of our life style and human relationships of our revealed big data is relative new and is explained by the psycho-neuro-immunology in the terms of information: Information as health’ keynote can realize a symphony of relations: within our self (as individum or person), between person and his ambient, and when needed, between person and therapist. Many centuries ago, a catholic priest and a Dominican brother, Thomas von Aquinas (1225 –1274) use to express his philosophical conviction regarding the dialogue between soul and body in his well know statement: Anima forma corporis (The soul forms the body). Actually, after almost 8 centuries, the natural science can prove that information is the key that decide the physiological processes: a splendid concordance between Aquinas’ thought and the scientific knowledge about how (in)formation influence the (epi)genetical mechanisms, according to the intimate psychological life and ambiental factors. Thus anima(in)forma corporis seems to be not a happy vocabulary construct, but a scientifically fact. We can concluded that the market preference of the Zeitgeist (spirit of the time) for a divided self has to stop if we really want to restore clarity in teaching the idea of (health) concept in its comprehensive and universal meaning. The future of research and academicals learning are transdisciplinarity and the early integrative dialog of disciplines. The task of good universities is to make more explicit connections between disciplines, as well as connections between practice of science, research and scholars. If we won’t achieve this, the crisis of confidence in which we are – whether deservedly or undeservedly - will continue. Keywords : health, education, transdisciplinarity, integrative approaches of disciplines.

Philosophical counseling- an alternative tool for rehabilitation and reintegration of offenders Tătaru Marian West University of Timisoara, Romania [email protected]

The aim of this article is to argue that philosophical counseling should be considered an alternative instrument in the process of rehabilitation and reintegration of the offenders. Usually, the design of the programs used in correctional facilities for helping (in the perspective of the life outside the prison) the inmates or the offenders which are on probation are based mainly on training the life skills competency, with the presupposition that these will be enough for the offenders in their future struggle for reintegration in the society. This is partially correct because several studies showed that these kind of programs are not entirely efficient with respect the intention of lowering the rate of recidivism. I think that the cause of the lack of effectiveness of these programs is the fact that they are not targeting properly the needs of the offenders in their pursuit of a life without crimes. As an alternative, the binomial of the rehabilitation and reintegration programs for offenders should try to use the method of philosophical counseling which aims to develop the critical thinking abilities of the inmates and to give them a glimpse of the dimension of the moral responsibility of their past deeds. According to the American philosophical counselor, with a significant experience in tackling the issues raised by inmates in the perspective of the life after prison, Vaughana Feary: To be morally responsible offenders need to develop competencies required for making rational moral decisions. Therefore, the programs designed to help offenders for the life outside of the correctional facilities should include at least couple of session of philosophical counseling with the declared purpose of developing their critical thinking abilities which are required to make moral responsible decision. Often we are biased by the idea that inmates are fully aware of their crimes, that they are completely responsible in the moment when they are committing the crimes which them the outlaws. I am afraid to say that often we are not seeing the forest due the trees. Most of the offenders did not acquire during their development as adults the competency for making the correct decision. In this case, the philosophical counseling could be a chance for them to address all the hindrances of their life. In the following page I will show you how the philosophical counseling method could be used in the process of rehabilitation and reintegration of the offenders and how this from of counseling could also be of value for institutional capacity building with respect of penitentiary system from Romania. I shall simply use the term “rehabilitation” to refer to any programs or techniques used in the process of promoting or restoring competencies necessary for leading a minimally successful life outside an institution; an offender is properly regarded as “rehabilitated” if there is evidence that he or she has such competencies. (Vaughana Feary, Philosophical Therapy in Correctional Facilities, p.22) Keywords: philosophical counseling, rehabilitation, offenders, critical thinking.

Is Education an Industry? Syed Zafar Abbas Associate Professor, Aliz Educational Institutions, Paksitan [email protected]

Almost in the world, business professionals entered in the field of Education. They made it Industry especially in Pakistan. That's why the Education level has gone down and not only badly damaged the educational system but they are destroying the future of the coming generations. They are not pay any heed to it but just busy in earning money. Most of the Institutions are now issuing degrees without attending classes. So this is dire need to handle and crush it with iron hands. Professional Businessmen: In spite of coming the professional teachers in this field, professional businessmen have entered in, they are making money but have no concern with education. I have observed that most of them have Industries and other businesses. This kind of aptitude is not only damaging the Education but destroying it rapidly. Big Investments: Government Institutions are not as much luxurious as the private Institutions are. They give out class facilities and unconsciously creating a wide gulf between have and have not. The poor but intelligent students are mostly away from these benefits. And it is conscious effort to bring up rich class and keep back and deprive the poor students. For this they invest huge amounts to attract the Rich Class to their Institutions. Without any aim of promoting education: There is no aim behind the promotion of education because after investing huge amounts in this industry, owners only dream is to earn profits not the promotion of education. They are unable to produce geniuses in the society on the contrary they are helping to produce a deprived class that is becoming thieves, dacoits, street criminals and terrorists. Lack of educational competition: The competition that is being observed to construct lavish buildings and huge fee structures. There is competition but not in education but in how to earn maximum output? They are making people believe that they are their real benefactors and are sincerely endeavoring in shaping up the futures of the students. Conclusion: If we do not take it seriously, we should be ready to face devastating results in the near future. There will be no use crying over spilt milk. We shall be unable to accuse anyone; we shall just repent over the loss and destruction of our coming generations. Keywords: Professional Businessmen, Big Investments, Without any aim of promoting education. Lack of educational competition, Conclusion.

Co-production in Services Constructs, as Philosophical Concepts for Innovation in Education and Educational Management Alexandru Jivan, Maria Barabas West University of Timisoara, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration [email protected]

The paper aims at building certain main structural concepts for the co-production processes in services, with specific application to the educational correlation between teachers and pupils. Education is structurally analyzed as a co-production process, resulting in organizing its main philosophical concepts, constructs that are useful for improving the correlative educational processes and, thus, the educational management. The research uses certain data analyses that bring improvement to the developed concepts and practical applying too. The main results consist in developing the conceptual and applied knowledge concerning the educational system and the general service theory, also revealing interesting conclusions with special reference to the Romanian teaching system. Keywords: co-production, service, education.

Curriculum design –systemo-holistic paradigm Mihai Stanciu Professor,USAMV Iasi [email protected]

The curriculum concept in the educational context was first used by professor Petrus Ramus (1515-1572) in his work Professio Regia (1576). The meaning in the educational field was changed during the second half of the 16th century: the term appears for the first time in the documents located in the Leiden University (1582) and the Glasgow University (1633). The term was consecrated mainly due to the American pedagogy during the first half of the 20th century: John Dewey (1902), John Franklin Bobbitt (1918), Ralph W. Tyler (1949) and Hilda Taba (1962). The contemporary literature shows us a new conceptualization of the curriculum concept (Pinar, 2004) (Jonnaert, 2015). The curriculum concept is "the Gordian knot", an essential engine for the conception and the execution, the evaluation and the adjustment of the educational systems.” (Jonnaert, 2015) Our communication presents three curricular development models (Lunenburg, F., 2011) and proposes its own systemic-holistic vision of the curriculum design. Lunenburg summarized three models of curricular development (Hilda Taba, 1962; Gerald Weinstein and Mario Fantini, 1970; Elliot Eisner, 1991). In his vision, the model is a pattern for action. The models presented are inductive models and characterise themselved through the fact that they are non-linear and descriptive. Hilde Taba’s model includes an organization and relationships among five interactive elements: objectives, contents, learning experiences, teaching strategies and evaluation measures - so that they could represent a teaching - learning system (Lunenburg, F., 2011). Another innovative element is the emphasis of the external factors (the local community; the school policies; the particular features of a certain school; the teachers’ own style, the particular features of the pupils and students), that have effects upon the internal components (op. cit.). The humanistic model (Weinstein and Fantini, 1970) corelate the socio-psychological factors with cognition such that the students can face up to the problems and preoccupations (concerns). The first step of the model lies in the identification of the students’ particularities (age, level of training, common ethnical and cultural features). The second step (Concerns) takes into view the students’ needs and interests, their self image. Upon this foundation it is achieved a diagnosis of the instructing strategies which would correspond with the needs and interests of the students. The fourth step (organising the ideas) lies in the selection of the themes and subjects in accordance with the students’ needs and interests. The content is organised around three major principals which Weinstein and Fantini call vehicles (content vehicle): the life experiences of the persons taking up the class, the attitudes and feelings of the persons taking up the class and the social context in which they live. The learnings skills take into consideration the competences of the students for learning how to learn. The teaching strategies (Teaching procedures) of the professors must develop the learning competences of the students, to insure the achievement of the contents-vehicle and to lead to the organisation of the ideas. As a last step, the professor evaluates the results of the curriculum (the cognitive and affective objects). Elliott Eisner (1991) offers a systemic and dimensional view of curriculum that combines behavioral principles with aesthetic components to form a curriculum planning model. Eisner indicated that if America is going to have the kind of schools it needs, it will need to pursue five dimensions: (a) intentional, (b) structural, (c) curriculum, (d) pedagogical, and (e) evaluative (Lunenburg, 2011 a). R. Tyler (1918), L. D'Hainaut (1981), Ge. Vaideanu and S. Rassekh (1987), J. P. Miller (1988), V. Landsheere (1992) have in view the multitude of components of the educational processes, their articulation in terms of achieving the aims of education. The theory of the curriculum – outlined in a paper published by UNESCO – "take into account the educational process, the events that happen in the classroom," it pays particular attention to learning and enhancement of interaction between the components of this process: objectives, contents, learning methods, assessment methods and techniques "( Vaideanu and Rassekh, 1987). John P. Miller published The Holistic Curriculum in 1988 and founded the Holistic Education Review. This approach takes into account the individual’s training not only intellectually, but also emotionally, socially, physically, aesthetically and spiritually, to enable the educated to face the global economy. The systemic-holistic approach to curriculum has several advantages: it allows a holistic picture of the educational process, makes possible the deep knowledge of system functionality and on this basis, its transformation, allows an analysis of theoretical and practical-driven achievement of the system reform, is a management tool for rational and creative teaching-learning and assessment, provides a control of variables, especially the independent ones, which do not depend on others (e.g. quality of training) helps the trainer to design and implement the lesson (seen as a reflection in the micro of the macro-system, we talk about a curriculum type design) etc (Stanciu M., 1999). Keywords: curriculum concept; new conceptualization of the curriculum; curriculum design; the systemic-holistic paradigm of curriculum.

Authenticity and innovation in Romanian early education and care Emil Lazăr Lecturer, Craiova University,Teacher Training Department [email protected]

This paper is intended as an attempt to equally surprise both the notions of the conceptual apparatus and the historicity of early education from the Romanian perspective. This conceptual approach, respects and relates itself, to the European and worldwide pedagogical concepts, the way they are understood and promoted in the light of educational policies. The historical perspective aimed at the pedagogical and educational approach, from the Romanian point of view, is synchronous and diachronic, continuing the implicit testings’ of „the new education”, an attempt to radiography this field/domain. Apparently, the authenticity and the innovation are synonyms, and conceptual, they are consonant. But the Romanian reality in the field of early education, may be and it is, authentic and innovating: authentic, based on the specific of educational policies, innovating, by the development and emergence of this segment of educational responsibility in Romania. Therefore, Romania offers and constitutes an example of good practice. Keywords: Early education, conceptual approach, the formal structure of the education system, curriculum areas.

Good Practices in Building Collective Capacity in Education. Case- study: the Project „Meeting of Generations in Oral History Simona Adam Ph.D. Lecturer, Teacher Training Department, West University of Timisoara [email protected]

This paper is the outcome of a successful collaboration between high-school teachers and members of academic staff from the West University of Timisoara on one hand, and NGOs and public educational institutions from Timisoara on the other hand. It is an example of a good practice that builds collective capacity in the field of education, connecting institutions and people who are driven not only by the same research or teaching interests, but also by a genuine valorisation of communication and collaboration. The starting point of this research is the project „Meeting of Generations in Oral History”, coordinated by the history teacher Simona Hochmuth. The project is carried out through “Agora Unit” Cultural Association at it is financed by Hanns Seidel Foundation, Romania. The first edition of this project took place in the school year 2015-2016 and involved 56 participants, including 40 students belonging to the following high-schools from Timisoara: J. L. Calderon High-School, Food Industry Technological High-School, C.D. Loga College, Banatean National College, King Ferdinand College and I.C. Bratianu College. The second edition (2016-2017) included 40 students coming from Nikolaus Lenau Theoretical Hich- School, F.S. Nitty Economic Hich-School, „I. Vidu” National College of Art, Logos High-School and G. Moisil High-School. Each hich-school team was accompanied by a teacher. A third edition of the project is going to start in November 2017. The aim of this project is to get the participants acquainted with the topic of Oral History, which is an interdisciplinary research that blends together psychological, sociological, historical and anthropological approaches. Oral history produces new evidence in the traditional historical research, “giving the floor” to larger groups of people that used to be overlooked before. It is a theory of history that advances the idea that regular or marginalized people do too have a history that is worth writing about. The purpose of historical writings is thus enriched, and history changes its social message to become more democratic. The use of oral evidence removes the barriers between historical writers and their readers, between the education institutions and the world outside. The participants in this project attended workshops in which researchers from the West University of Timisoara (Simona Adam, Smaranda Vultur, Nicoleta Musat) trained them in the interviewing techniques and explained them the uses of Oral History research. On the following months, the students had to take and Oral history interview on a topic chosen by them. The interviews were transcribed and published in two books under the coordination of Simona Hochmuth. The follow-up of the project was undertaken by Simona Adam, using a qualitative research methodology based on focus-group interviews. Four focus groups were held (two with students that had participated in the implementation of the project in 2015-2016, and other two with the participants in the implementation of 2016-2017). The focus groups were held between February - March 2017, and included a total of 24 participants. This paper details the research methodology and presents the research results. The main conclusion which relies from the qualitative analysis of the focus-groups is that the project “Meeting of Generations in Oral History”, coordinated by Simona Hochmuth, not only that it has attained its objectives, but also managed to motivate students in the long run for such researches. On the other hand, the students involved in this project not only that have enriched their knowledge of recent history, but also acquired methodological and scientific skills that would be useful to them in future: they learned to conduct an interview, to draw up interview guidelines to research on a number of topics, and to apply theoretical knowledge in practice. They developed their collaboration and teamwork skills and interacted with students from other colleges in Timişoara. But we strongly believe that one of the most important achievements of this project is the fact that it facilitated inter-generation dialogue. Teenage is, by definition, the age when the conflict between generations is stronger than ever, when young people tend to deny everything that relates to the past and challenge all truth spoken by older generations, and when they focus exclusively on the present and the future, and refuse to look into the past. This project became, indeed, a “meeting of generations”, as it has managed to build a strong bridge between teenagers and older generations. Keywords: Oral History, collaboration, non-formal education.

Be pro heritage, be active! Cultural heritage and education for active citizenship Onițiu Atalia, Balaci Mariana, Muscalu Bogdan West University of Timisoara, Romania [email protected]

Cultural heritage, either we consider its material, or its symbolic meaning, plays a very significant part in the affirmation of one’s cultural identity. The preservation of cultural heritage, especially due to the deterioration from the recent years (caused by industrialization, pollution, globalization) is a very important issue for cultural policies. The World Conference for Cultural Policies (MONDIACULT, Mexico City, 1982) has strengthened the importance of active citizenship in protection, preservation and capitalization of cultural heritage. During the last few years, important steps have been made also in our country, in order to involve, and thus educate pupils for an active involvement in local heritage care. Museums, different cultural institutions, but also schools, have promoted different activities, in order to cultivate volunteering and a pro-active attitude towards preservation and promotion of cultural heritage. In our paper we aim to present some examples of actions and activities that have taken place already, involving pupils from different schools in Timisoara, focusing upon the impact and implications of these actions for the education of young people. Their positive feedback and their willingness for further implication, also the results of their active implication for the local heritage underline the significance of these actions and the important role played by education in shaping youngsters active attitude towards heritage care. Keywords: heritage, education, active citizenship, curriculum, pupils.

Work & travel program - a method of training and integrating young people for their adult life Gabriel-Mugurel Dragomir, Stroe Iuliana PhD, Associate professor, Bachelor’s degree University of Timisoara, [email protected]

This paper presents the experience of young Romanians who have gone to work with the Work & Travel program and their personal and professional benefits. In this regard, we questioned 145 students who participated in this program to capture the following aspects: the advantages and disadvantages of this program; the problems encountered by young people who have left and the added value of this experience in their lives. Approximately 70% of the students enrolled in the study declared that they have enrolled in the Work & Travel program to live the American dream, driven by curiosity, by their desire to be financially independent or just to improve their English. More than 50% of the respondents mentioned that the program's benefits are: the gained experience; the development of integration and socialization capacities in the cultural, professional and social environment; the possibility to travel and visit new places; the amount of money earned and their personal development. Regarding the disadvantages of the program, 70% of the respondents mentioned that the program had no disadvantage. The remaining 30% believe that the main disadvantages of this program are the long distance from home, the possible misunderstandings with the employer, and the possible health problems that may arise during the program. The added values of the program are: a better understanding of the American culture, improving the English language, traveling possibility and also the recovery of their financial investment. Keywords: Work & Travel, forming, integration, added value.

2. Education and Social Inclusion

Social Inclusion & Education Sayed Murtaza Hussain Pakistan International Human Rights Organization [email protected]

The key question addressed in this article is social inclusion, as an opposite concept of social exclusion. The author provides a historical of social inclusion/exclusion terminology. Further, some of the principles of social inclusion are presented. A brief review of the literature provides key views and theories of social inclusion. In particular, the author brings to attention that the included/excluded dualism apparent in the writings of social inclusion and exclusion cannot be taken at face value. In line with global debate on social inclusion and exclusion, the author brings the way this debate has now pervaded both the official and development policy discourse in Pakistan. Social inclusion is considered as one of the priorities of the current government, with poverty reduction as its main focus, which will be ensured not only through economic development. In the end, the article focuses on the role of education as a very important and useful tool for ensuring social inclusion. Social inclusion through education, in particular through vocational education, considered by the author as the only way towards sustainable development of Pakistani society. A socially inclusive society is defined as one where all people feel valued, their differences are respected, and their basic needs are met so they can live in dignity. A socially inclusive society is a society where all people are recognized and accepted and have a sense of belonging. Social inclusion is seen to be defined in relation to social exclusion. Some analysts have argued that both inclusion and exclusion are inseparable side of the same coin. Social exclusion is the process of being shut out from the social, economic, political and cultural systems which contribute to the integration of a person into the community. Social inclusion, community inclusion, social connectedness, normalization, social integration, social citizenship -all these are terms that relate to the importance of the links between the individual members of our society and the role of each person as a member of this group. Keywords: social-inclusion; inclusive-education; vocational-education.

Social Context and Curriculum Development Prodan Gianina

“Eftimie Murgu” University of Reşiţa, Romania [email protected]

Schools are part of society and exist for society. Schools, through their teaching of the curriculum, can shape and mould society and society in turn can impact the curriculum. Education systems are closely tied to the institutional network of society. A curriculum should be able to prepare students for the present and the future society. In other words, a curriculum should address the wants and needs of learners by responding to social conditions locally, nationally and globally. This paper discusses the context of curriculum development in West Region of Romania by considering one of the major factors that influence the curriculum development process: the social context. Knowing the social influences of curriculum is crucial in making decisions about what should be included in the curriculum and eventually what happens in the classroom. Specifically, we will attempt to answer the following questions: What are some of the demands of society with regards to curriculum? How have the needs of society been considered when developing curriculum? Society is increasingly becoming diverse, especially in urban areas. The challenge confronting educators is developing curriculum that is responsive to students’ diverse social values and at the same time capable of creating a national identity based on core values and practices. It may be necessary to have different programmes, different pedagogical approaches, flexible curriculum and even varied educational environments to address the needs of all students. Keywords: curriculum development, social context, educational programmes.

Social inclusion through sustainable education in the European Union Ramona Birău Ph.D Student, University of Craiova, Faculty of Social Sciences Craiova, Romania [email protected]

The main purpose of this paper is to investigate complex issues regarding social inclusion through sustainable inclusive education in the European Union. The possibility of social integration of vulnerable and marginalized communities is fundamental for a healthy society. Social inclusion aims to ensure that human rights are respected in a society regardless of their origin or other specific features, as well as to combat discrimination and social exclusion. In other words, every human being, regardless of personal limitations or native deficiencies, deserves to be treated as a member of the social community to which he belongs. As a basic conceptual approach, social inclusion is intended to respect human rights by combating practices of social exclusion. Social inclusion is a multidimensional phenomenon which has implications in various areas such as: social protection, employment, education, health, housing, financial services, security, justice, public administration, culture, transport, information and communication. The concept of social inclusion reaches numerous meanings, but the main objective converges in the same direction. Social inclusion enables all people to participate equally in society by reducing the degree of exclusion, regardless of its form of manifestation. In this respect, promoting social inclusion is an integrated approach of high current relevance. UNESCO has provided a comprehensive definition of social inclusion, ie: “rights to housing, education, clean water and health care emphasize the role of local authorities as a welfare provider and social provision as a duty which lies within city halls and councils”. Social inclusion policies are very important in every areas of implementation taking into account the negative consequences of discrimination and social exclusion. For instance, a gender-equal society is an inclusive society where everyone was able to participate equally in social activities without discrimination between men and women. Birău (2017) argued that employment discrimination involves issues related to workplace harassment and bullying. Moreover, an inclusive education is primarily an education for diversity. Inclusive education is beyond anything, a challenge for changing and attenuating mentalities, attitudes, prejudices, stereotyping toward stigmatized groups. An inclusive education is focused on the idea of acceptance and tolerance of physical, intellectual, economic, financial, social, cultural, racial, ethnical diversity. Inclusive education differs significantly from traditional education. Children with disabilities require different pedagogical techniques and inclusive education is a viable alternative to conventional education. Moreover, UNICEF suggested that: “Making social protection more child-sensitive has the potential to benefit not only children, but also their families, their communities and national development as a whole”. Sunardi, et al. (2011) investigated the Implementation of Inclusive education for students with special needs in Indonesia considering the fact that Indonesian government has adopted a progressive policy to implement inclusive education. DJK and Balakrishnan (2012) discussed relevant aspects regarding inclusive education for students with intellectual disability. Official statistics provided by Eurostat revealed that participation in lifelong learning increased by 27.4 % between 2003 and 2014, but the weight of early school dropout from education and training has fallen steadily since 2003, reaching 11.1 % in 2014. Taking into account that the purpose of this research article is to investigate social inclusion through sustainable inclusive education in the European Union, it's necessary a complex approach to the geographic context. The European Union includes 28 member countries, ie Austria, Italy, Belgium, Latvia, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Croatia, Luxembourg, Cyprus, Malta, Czech Republic, Netherlands, Denmark, Poland, Estonia, Portugal, Finland, Romania, France, Slovakia, Germany, Slovenia, Greece, Spain, Hungary, Sweden, Ireland and United Kingdom (Brexit process). According to Eurostat, between 2005 and 2013, 2.7 million people were released from the burden of the risk of poverty or social exclusion in the EU-27, while in 2012, the number of people at risk of poverty or social exclusion in the EU-28 peaked at more than 124 million people. Consequently, to ensure the social rights of marginalized categories requires concerted efforts based on improving legal framework and implementation social protection programmes. Inclusive education represents an innovative approach to the educational system. In other words, inclusive education implies that every child has access to knowledge and all children learn together despite the existence or absence of disabilities so there are no differences between the children in the class. Inclusive education emphasizes the use of all learning procedures by promoting the idea of flexibility in the teaching and learning process. In addition, inclusive education does not adhere to the concepts of segregation in school so children with disabilities and special needs are not marginalized to learn in separate classes or even separate schools. Keywords: inclusive education, social inclusion, discrimination, European Union.

Infringements of Freedom of Expression in Knowledge Society Ionuț Suciu PhD - Associate Assistant, West University of Timisoara [email protected]

In a society continuously developing in terms of knowledge and information, freedom of expression and a free mass-media should be guaranteed by any modern democracy. It is an essential element guaranteed by the Constitution. However, the line that separates the law from reality is very thin. This study analyses the infringements that stay between journalists and the freedom of expression. The study uses cases reported in mass media especially in the last year. There were journalists aggressed, threatened, insulted or censored. There was pressure on the journalists that came from the highest level. In February 2017, during the protest against “Ordonanţa 13”, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Carmen Dan, presented a list of public persons, among which there were journalists, who, according to her, would have been involved in supporting the protests, by promoting them, calling up people in the street and contributing to aggravation of a tensed situation. Politicians, public persons, local or national authorities were only some of those who physically or mentally attacked journalists or their equipment. In January 2016, Marian Vanghelie has threatened a journalist from Romania TV right in front of Police in Snagov; in the autumn of the same year, Costin Ştucan, from the newspaper Gazeta Sporturilor, was threatened by a group of Dinamo Bucharest supporters in the moment when he was doing his job at a football match, in the sector reserved to mass-media, so he had to leave and do his job outside the stadium. Three months later, TVR and Digi24 journalists were shoved by the mayor from Grădinari, Olt county, when they came to make a video report about an afterschool that was working without autorization. The mayor took away a reporter’s personal telephone, and some local people started to throw different objects in the journalists’ cars. In November 2016, reporters from TVR and Gazeta Sporturilor, who were investigating the abuses of Malaxa hospital’s manager, Florin Secureanu, were thrown away from the hospital’s courtyard by the institution’s bodyguards, although they were on public domain. The same year, another journalist from Gazeta Sporturilor, Victor Vrânceanu, received repeated messages from a person who was pretending to be part of a group of Dinamo Bucureşti fans and who threatened that he was going to be „a soft mode Charlie Hebdo”. All those, after the journalist had written about an uneasy subject about four players from Dinamo. However, not only the fans proved themselves to be dangerous for sport journalists, but also athletes or coaches. In March 2016, Ionel Ganea, at that time coach of FC Voluntari repeatedly insulted and threatened Alina Iosub, from Look TV. Intimidations or attempts to censor the journalists were more often in the past years. There were many cases, among which, we have chosen some of the best known. In July 2014, Cristi Citre, journalist at Digi24 TV station was dismissed after publishing on his facebook account a comment in which he was criticizing the prime-minister Victor Ponta. The journalist explained at that time that, after his post, he was called by the TV station’s editor in chief, who transmitted him that he overreacted and they could not collaborate any longer. A similar case happened in November 2016, when an online editor from hotnews.ro was dismissed after posting a depreciator message against Victor Ponta, on the official facebook page of the website. The leadership of the newspaper delimited from the message, publicly affirming that it was “horrible” and “unacceptable”, apologized to Victor Ponta and to the website’s readers and dismissed Victor Ponta. At the beggining of this year, Ramona Ursu, coordinator of the correspondents of Adevărul newspaper quit her job and published on her facebook account the fact that the editor-in- chief told her that the manager of the newspaper put pressure on him because of her critical articles about Victor Ponta and Sebastian Ghiţă. But the political pressures showed up also at other levels. The general elections were the environment for developing different strategies of banning journalists. For example, PNL representatives asked a reporter from Casa Jurnalistului to see and approve a final video report about one of the party’s candidates, before being published. After the investigations made by the journalists of Gazeta Sporturilor concerning the corruption in the medical system, there were journalists who claimed that medical companies tried to buy their silence. Dorin Chioţea, at that time anchor at Realitatea TV said that he was asked to work for a PR company in the benefit of Hexi Pharma, a company that was in the center of the journalist investigations. The same journalist was dismissed by the end of the year, after praising of his personal facebook page a transmission of a rival TV station, Antena 3. To conclude, impartiality and objectivity are two attributes not that easy to attain as a journalist even in the era of information and knowledge. Freedom of expression is guaranteed on the paper, but in reality there are many ways it is infringed and it will take a long time until our society will learn to accept and respect that this is not a privilege of a journalist, but a human right. Keywords: freedom of expression, mass-media, threats against journalists, violence against press.

The need for new approaches within the criminal justice system Mihaela Tomiță Professor, West University of Timișoara [email protected]

Today, the arena of justice is troubled by numerous problems and contradictions, often centered on severe sanctions, to the detriment of the success of the finality of the act of justice. Thus, custodial punishment becomes unproductive, and this explains why a large number of offenders will return to prison. The new strategies show that the community itself is responsible for providing viable rehabilitation solutions for offenders, not because it is right, but because real social reintegration significantly reduces the risk of relapse, which means nothing else but a safer community. The community does not owe this support to the offender, but to itself. Keeping communities safe can not be the exclusive responsibility of law enforcement institutions, and the success of reintegration requires collaboration and coordination between government and non - governmental agencies and institutions, and the community as a whole in order to meet educational, housing, employment and health needs of persons with criminal behavior. The agencies and staff thus specialize their services, with sets of expertise and skills in order to meet the needs of those they supervise. Achieving the balance between the needs of the offender, community security and, implicitly, the protection of victims, give expression to the concept of community resilience by balancing risk and protection factors for the welfare of its members. In our paper, we will underline that the sanctioning of offenders has the intended purpose, the social rehabilitation and reinsertion of the offenders and thus the reduction of the recidivism risk and in this respect, building a safety community reclaim to rethink a number of concepts such as re- socialization, re-education and social reintegration of offenders. Keywords: safety community, criminal justice system, offenders, community resilience.

Advantages and disadvantages of inclusive education from the perspective of teachers and parents Drd. Dănuț-Sorin Bălăuță, Drd. Florina-Luiza Vlaicu West University of Timișoara [email protected]

School integration can be difficult to achieve in a system that relies on competition. People with disabilities have the same rights as other citizens, thus, in order to facilitate social inclusion (access to the labor market, access to information, access to healthcare) access to education is needed for all individuals. Special education tends to highlight what the individual cannot do, yet the ultimate goal is satisfying the "special needs" of the individual. In Romania, for achieving integrated education, it is necessary to change the attitudes of society towards people with disabilities, a higher number of teachers with specialized psycho-pedagogical training, improving the conditions of education, adjusting to the needs of the students. School inclusion can have many beneficial effects, both for children with special educational needs and for others, with positive effects that can extend to adulthood, as long as there is the necessary administrative support, tolerance and willingness of those involved to make a real effort. This research aims to analyze the various perceptions and attitudes regarding inclusive education of teachers and parents. The focus is on identifying stereotypes and prejudices that people have, when it comes to an inclusive classroom. Also, the study documents the real experiences that the respondents had with children with special educational needs. The sample consists of 10 professionals from primary school and 30 parents. The age group of the research participants varies between 23-55 years old. Regarding gender, 8 professionals are female and 2 males. From the parents group, 20 are female and 10 are male. The study shows convergence between the opinions of teachers and parents on aspects regarding on preparation of the teachers regarding this issue, relation to social acceptance and educational performances. The rationale of the research started from the reality that inclusive education is still an issue that is rejected by teachers, school leader, parents of children without special educational needs, by the same persons that should actually be supporting the fundamental right of the child to quality education. Keywords: special education, inclusive education, disabilities.

Implementation Of Mentorship In Turkish Ministry Of National Education Esra Turhan Assistant Prof. Dr., Anadolu University, Faculty of Education, Turkey [email protected]

Mentoring is to support and encourage people to manage their own learning in order that they can maximise their potential, develop their skills and improve their performance. A successful mentoring relationship move through four stages. Initiation stage; mentor and mentee start their relationship, cultivation stage; mentor tell his/her experiences to mentee, transformation stage; needs become fulfilled and objectives are met, and seperation or re- definition stage; the mentor and mentee close their relationship and redefine their relationship. In Turkey, beginning teachers’ lack of teaching experience has been a continuous argument. While studying in university, candidate teachers who didn’t gain sufficient teaching experience had some problems after they were appointed as an intern teacher. In his/her school, manager assigned an experienced teacher for guiding the intern teacher. Their branch may not have been the same. To solve these problems Ministry of National Education started a new mentoring implementation for beginning teachers who are appointed in February, 2016. After this implementation, intern teachers are defined as candidate teachers and they have to pass candidate teacher process in a city and a school they choose before they start to teach in their own school. During this process, an experienced teacher who is the same branch with candidate teacher, guide them. This study aims to reveal the problems both mentor and mentee lived during the process, the benefits of the implementation and how it can be more effective. Datas were collected by interviewing both the mentors and candidate teachers working in Uşak. According to results, candidate teachers generally benefit from the system. Mentors also have positive thoughts on the system. There were also deficiencies (non-payment for mentors, excess of documents) during the process. The length of the process is controversial among participants. The mentoring system was repealed in a short time however the results were positive. The system should be continued to solve the problem of the beginning teachers' lack of experience Keywords: Mentoring, Cantidate Teacher, Intern Teacher.

The sociological implications of discriminatory behavior towards Roma children in education due to poverty and social exclusion Ramona Birău PhD student, University of Craiova, Faculty of Social Sciences, Craiova [email protected]

The main purpose of this research article is to investigate relevant aspects regarding the sociological implications of discriminatory behavior towards Roma children in education due to poverty and social exclusion. Early childhood education is very important for the development of the child, but often Roma children are deprived of this fundamental right. Naturally, there is a direct causal link between the parental education level and the level of poverty and social exclusion of their children. Roma community is one of the poorest and marginalized communities in Europe. In other words, the risk of poverty and social exclusion depends directly on the level of education of the parents, and implicitly on their income. Social inequality is associated with increased risk of poverty and social exclusion. Roma children are more vulnerable to the risk of poverty and social exclusion considering the fact that Roma community is one of the most deprived communities. Roma children are exposed to high risks such as of sexual abuse, human trafficking and prostitution. D’Arcy and Brodie (2015) investigated relevant aspects about Roma children in Bulgaria concerning patterns of risk and effective protection in relation to child sexual exploitation, suggesting that the “socio-economic disadvantage experienced by the Roma community has particular implications for the safety and well-being of children”. The United Nations based on a report on early childhood education revealed the fact that an estimated 50 percent of Roma children fail to complete primary education despite all the significant efforts to improve the level of education among Roma ethnic minority. Moreover, according to the Early Childhood Care and Education Regional Report - Europe and North America, which will be presented and discussed at the first World Conference on Early Childhood Care and Education (Moscow, 27-29 September 2010), “among all the European populations, the Roma are at greatest risk of being poor, uneducated and unemployed.” According to the UNESCO and Council of Europe final report “Towards quality education for Roma children: transition from early childhood to primary education” (Paris, 10th - 11th September 2007) there are significant deficiencies regarding the assimilation of the educational process by the Roma community, but the common major objective of this expert meeting was to contribute to the inclusion of Roma children in basic education through improving their access to early childhood educational opportunities and their transition to quality primary education. Discrimination is a negative social phenomenon with devastating effects on its victims especially in the context of an environment such as the educational system. Official statistics highlight the significant percentage of the dropout rate of Roma children. Moreover, Roma female children are also affected by sexual discrimination. The supremacy of men in most areas including education is obvious and undisputed. However, even if the idea of equal rights between men and women is strongly promoted sexual discrimination is not an isolated or harmless phenomenon. Moreover, sexual discrimination is insidious and affects human dignity. Female masculinity is a direct effect of sexual discrimination, but far from being a viable solution. The level of development of a country also has consequences on discriminatory behavior towards Roma female children in education. Participation and social inclusion in society are essential for a healthy development of a child. In the Roma universe, men predominate and dominate as set forth in their unwritten laws hundreds of years ago. Vulnerable, discriminated and marginalized children are mainly affected by lack of access to equal education. Roma community occupies a vulnerable position in terms of access to the educational system taking into account the illiteracy rate, the premature school dropout or the absorption on the labor market. Moreover, the access to quality education is an essential tool in combating poverty and social exclusion. High unemployment rates among Roma communities, as well as social assisted status contribute to increasing school dropout among Roma children. Keywords: poverty, social exclusion, discrimination, Roma children, sexual discrimination. 3. Policy, Image and Governance

Distorting the message of religious symbols in electoral posters of political campaigns Prof. Dr. Gheorghe CLITAN, Lect. Dr. Oana BARBU-KLEITSCH West University of Timisoara, Romania [email protected]

Secularisation theory states that our society is becoming more and more rational and scientific; hence it is distancing itself more and more from a community based on religious beliefs, symbols and religious values. In this context, Hibbard (2010), Stark and Lannaccone (1994), Stark and McCann (1993), and others underline that secularisation is falsely credited with the so-called "defeat" of religious influence. To the contrary, they argue that religion is facing a maybe undesired upturn in recent times where various secular discourses (such as the political discourse) build their emotional grounding on nationalistic or religious symbols, or even both. Furthermore, advertising is one of the major sources of symbolic signification highly used in nowadays political campaigns. This shift from the PR discourse to the advertising discourse in politics can be linked to themore powerful symbolic content provided by the advertising messages. Targeting a specific group of people that may be vulnerable to such messages, the relationship between politics and religion is attributed to the way in which the first one embodies religious dimensions in its persuasive mechanisms. (Shefield, 2006, Grad, 2014) This paper tries to present a theoretical framework on the political use of religious symbols in electoral advertising and, starting from a hermeneutical analysis on Romanian electoral posters from 2014 and 2016, it advances to a critical thinking perspective in which Critical thinking is seen as the argumentation practice in everyday life. To establish a framework for our analysis, we will consider Advertising as a discourse where critical thinking can occur both as practical reasoning in the everyday life but also as an institutional assessment of skills needed to build and deconstruct such a discourse (affiliation versus recognition). Political campaign posters will be approached as “advertising discourses” and advertising discourses as public discourses. Starting from hermeneutically identifying the religious symbols used in political campaign posters found from the 2014 and 2016 Romanian political campaign, Critical analysis of advertising will be used in decoding political posters with critical thinking questions found in LSAT (Law School Admission Test approach). Comprehensive analysis questions (structuring/de-structuring sens and context in a discourse) will be used to highlight: a). In what consists the critical analysis of the use of religious symbols in electoral posters? b). present / propose a model in which we will try to show what constitutes the distortion of religious symbols in electoral posters. c). The analysis of the initial religious messages, what are the changes implied by distorsion, what are the possible questions to identify cognitive filters mixed with affectivity in their construction (as is actually the case with rhetorical messages) that can conter the blocked initial message of a religious symbol. Keywords: critical thinking, symbols, religious symbols, advertising. How do Romanian users communicate online? An emphasis on politics Andra Androniciuc PhD candidate, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iași [email protected]

Social networks have become one of the most important tools when it comes to exchanging ideas. The power of social networks and the internet as a channel of communication has established a radical change in the way people communicate. The field of politics is no exception. Over the last decade, politics has been one of the most changeable areas since the emergence of social networks such as Facebook or Twitter. The Internet is undoubtedly - until now - the medium that most dramatically altered the meaning, scope, severity and rhythm of media crises for political actors. This article focuses on the use of social media in Romania, with an accent on the political field, in an attempt to see what, how and how much the Romanian users communicate online. Our findings indicate that although social networks have proven to be very effective, this field has yet to be exploited and even more when it comes to the political scene. Certainly, future progress will take a better look at the integration of social media in citizens’ daily lives and the way they could lead to citizen engagement. Keywords: Social media, Romania, online communication, politics.

Corporative Governance al European level Diana Moșneanu Școala de Națională de Studii Politice și Administrative, România [email protected]

The development of simple, uncooperative support mechanisms for the implementation of corporate governance in the public sector, creating a way of working, facilitating the adaptation of Public Enterprises to the new requirements in this field, also facilitating the work of the Corporate Governance Structures. The paper addresses all those who are interested in the applicability of Corporate Governance. Keywords: Governance; Transparency; Indicators; Performance.

Active citizenship on social media during February 2017 Romanian protests Simona Bader West University Timisoara [email protected]

At the beginning of 2017, the new Romanian government resulted after last election emitted an emergency act about some modification in juridical system, which was rapidly interpreted as an attempt to destroy the anti-corruption struggle. This governmental emergency decree emitted at night in complete lack of transparency activated both social media and e-mobilization in Romania because it was interpreted as encouraging corruption, one of the most sensitive items in Romanian society. Active citizenship is prominent in situations like this, because citizens feel the need to take part at major social and political decisions and to manifests their opinion when these decisions are controversial. The presence of digital communication in day by day life led to a modification in the whole paradigm of communication characterized by speed, globalism, decentralization, lack of institutional control, addressability and personal use. The traditional means of communication (mass-media, TV, street posters) lost their impact and the digital revolution which began at the end of 80’s is in full development and affects all sectors of social and personal life. Social media are non-institutional media of communication in which the traditional one-to-many messages are replaced by shares or many-to-many messages, which creates the possibility of fast spreading and viral transmission. For this reason, social media messages, even evanescent, have an enormous potential of penetration and impact for an interested public. Most of social protests from 2000 till today used extensively social media for mobilization and as a form of active citizenship. While in normal times social media messages tend to be shared among “group of friends” or “followers” limited by certain personal interests, when political disputes raised the interest of a large portion of population, social media and online press can spread fast messages and give rise to radicalization of opinions and actions. One of the theories that try to explain massive mobilization during the protests is the threshold theory (Granovetter, 1973) which states that individuals with a high threshold of sensitivity are easier mobilized by messages. At their turn, digital media are instruments of sensitization by repeated messages which influence the threshold and by multiplication. Traditional social mobilization implies dedication, effort and logistic, while in e-mobilization the means are easy to use with practical no effort and logistical simplicity. Nowadays many-to-many political communication is a specific way in social media with some particular forms i.e. clicktivism (White, 2010). E-mobilization (Bennett, 1999) refers to the way new technologies were used in political and social movements which led to powerful protests in different parts of the world. Smart Mobs is another concept extensively applied to some protests, i.e. in Philippine 2001, Ukraine 2004 and Romania 2017 in which mobilization was done by all means (messages, tweets, and posts) by smartphones. These varieties of e-mobilization were defined as organized spontaneity (Chadwick, 2006), a combination between decentralization and collective coordination in which the spontaneity of a crowd is somehow coordinated by fast spreading messages on phones. Jurgenson define the kind of new mobilization for social, political changes as augmented revolution (Jurgenson, 2012) with many examples, from Philippine protest to the Arab spring. As methodology, we used quantitative methods of Internet survey appealing to specialized institution (Zelist Monitor) by following some specific hashtags (e.g. #rezist), most frequently used on social media during protests. We followed quantitative web activity indicators as number of apparitions in social media during one month (1 – 28 February). By far, those of greatest shares and impact were made on Facebook and the result was massive e-mobilization and street protests counting more than half million people. The analysis results are presented in form of tables and graphics in the paper. Monitoring social media for one month we can say that social networks realized a focus of public awareness with social consequences. The digital environment offers a rapid and efficient way for citizens to exercise the right to free expression and represents a modality from which active citizenship can change important political decisions. Keywords: active citizenship, protests, social media.

Active reading / active readers: in print & in on-line Maria Micle Phd. Lecturer, Faculty of Political Science, Philosophy and Communication Science Department of Philosophy and Communication Science West University of Timișoara [email protected]

In every book reading society, lecture is based on an act of initiation, and the one who learns to read gets access through books on the collective memory and a common past. The electronic universe certainly leads to the democratization of culture and knowledge, but also to the formation of new lecture skills and habits. Reading cannot be removed from the education and culture equation because their daily environment, students and young people (already digitally native) are increasingly meeting electronic resources and sometimes avoid paper books while the formation of specific reading skills active among them involves the institutionalized effort of the school and the library. Our focus is mainly on cultivating functional reading through libraries – as important non-commercial locations, open to all, without discrimination, in which the traditional information resources coexist with the digital ones in harmony and efficiency. The use of printed and electronic information resources implies the formation of specific intellectual work skills among young readers, the two being complementary, but both indispensable. In order for students to become active readers, current learning methods must be in harmony with: the children's skills, the level of their lexicon, natural curiosity, imagination and appetite for learning new things. Reading itself can be viewed from many perspectives, from a communicative process or from a psycho-social phenomenon, indispensable to very diverse socio- professional categories, suitable for: the author - text (receiving a written message) - reader (active / passive). From the point of view of the reader and after his involvement and usefulness in lecture, it can be distinguished a varied typology of reading: analytical, synthetic, critical; didactic (read to learn); research (scientific documentation: reading to create new content); recreational (entertainment, pleasure). Although the current digital society seems to distance itself from the traditional reading practices, due to the communication and information tools it develops, if we carefully analyze the issues of reading from different epochs, we observe similarities with the times we are crossing now, which can help us to understand them better. Now the main objective of the information literacy is digital literacy, but for example, in the nineteenth century mass literacy and accessibility of reading to the population was equally important (then the public female lecturer, the bourgeois, the working people, rural areas). Now the lecturer public, that has to be "conquered" and digitally activated, is an intercultural one, coming from the most diverse cultural groups and spaces, in order to raise the educational level, leading to progress and tolerance. Keywords: active reading; typology of reading; reading in print; digital reading, diachronic approach to reading.

Advertising and social action: on brand activism Iulia Grad Assistant Professor, Babes-Bolyai University, Faculty of Political, Administrative and Communication Sciences, Romania [email protected]

The paper starts from the premise that nowadays advertising has a major impact on the daily life, both of individuals and of communities. In addition, beside its ubiquity, the advertising communication enters areas of social and cultural life that used to escape the logic of the commercial. The instrumentalisation, by the advertising communication, of the political and social issues and the transformation of certain attitudes towards those issues in constitutive elements of the brand are trends described by theoreticians of the consumer society, such as Jean Baudrillard or Gilles Lipovetsky. Serra Tinic, for example, underscores that the theoretical approach of advertising must go beyond the „capitalist propaganda” perspective. Tinic affirms that, in order to attain a balanced approach of this type of campaigns and of their signification within the contemporary society, it is necessary to acknowledge „the increasingly commodified nature of self and group representation in the latest stage of advanced capitalism”, when the notions of individual and collective identity are redefined within the context of the capital and of the mass culture. (Tinic, 1997, 14) Starting from the theoretical framework assured, among others, by the above-mentioned authors, the paper proposes the examination of the phenomenon of „brand activism”, with a special interest for what we could call its “educative dimension”. Despite the fact that there is a history of brand activism, the actual conditions bring into the equation new elements which contribute to the evolution this phenomenon. The statement of a certain positioning towards a social or a political issue represents a strategy adopted recently by more than a few brands. In this respect, we can mention several examples of papers and articles that analyses the trend of brand activism, such as the articles published in AdWeek and in Advertising Age by Deb Freeman, respectively, by David Armano. In these articles, the authors underline the growing importance of brand activism in advertising communication. However, the recent development of brand activism raises interesting challenges for the ethical debate. The paper aims to investigate the brand activism phenomenon going beyond the approach that remains at the „how to” level and tries focus on the impact and the significance of the phenomenon in communicational society. The advertising has a difficult relation with ethics. What is more, its recent evolution has transformed advertising into a form of cultural and social communication which extends its functions, increasingly assuming an educational task, and thus, complicating even more the dynamics of the relation between advertising and ethics. The assumption that underlines the paper states that brand activism illustrates adequately the complexity of this relation. Consequently, the investigation of brand activism offers in fact a perspective relevant for the understanding of the role played by advertising in contemporary society. The first part of the paper focuses on the theoretical framework of the debate and on the clarification of the conceptual tools of the research, taking into account, on the one hand, the relation between brand activism and emotional branding (Yi Zhang, 2015, 60), a relation which is characteristic for the hyperconsumption society which turns ethics into an instrument for the affirmation of the neoconsumers’ identity. (Lipovetsky, 2006, 115). On the other hand, another factor which acts upon the vivid evolution of brand activism is social media and the major role they play in advertising. The paper proposes also an empirical approach of the phenomenon of brand activism. More precisely, the paper intends to address brand activism within the context of the protests that took place in Romania at the beginning of 2017. This part of the paper focuses on the most important examples of “Romanian brand activism”, such as Ryanair, Jerry’s Pizza, ejobs, Patru mâni. Through the correlation of the empirical analysis with the theoretical approach of the phenomenon, the paper tries on the one hand to outline a general picture of the brand activism phenomenon and, on the other hand, to identify and describe the main characteristics of Romanian brand activism and to investigate the manner in which this trend was presented by the media and received by the public. Keywords: brand activism, advertising, social action, education, #rezist protests.

Branding the managers. From self-knowledge to personal branding Bianca Dramnescu PHD, Faculty of Political Sciences, Philosophy and Communication Sciences West University of Timisoara [email protected] The purpose of this paper is to study the importance of creating and managing a personal brand for managers.When we talk about brand strategy, manager's image plays an important role. His vision, charisma, strategic thinking or the ability to speak are key points. In recent years the concept of Personal Branding has became very popular. I think that it is necessary to create and implement a manager's personal branding strategy which is in line with the overall brand strategy . The manager is the creator of his image, but he has to pay attention of his behavior in every context situation. The strategy of personal branding has the same instruments as a strategy of products and services. The difference is the personal branding happens for people and the strategy has to be connected with the person’s self knowledge. The personal branding of a manager determines how credible he is. The aim of this paper is to identify the connection between aspects of self-knowledge with personal branding. To respond to this research idea, I have made an analysis of personal branding strategies of some manager that came from different companies, by using two research methods: interview and document analysis (speeches, media statements). I think the most important result was self-awareness and the fact that a manager can promote a company only if the values and personal principles are connected with of the company. Keywords: personal branding, self-knowledge, personal branding management, brand image.

4. Didactică aplicată

Comunicarea didactică, componentă evolutivă și atemporală a procesului de învățământ RamonaTutunaru Departamentul de Științe ale Educației Universitatea de Vest din Timisoara [email protected]

Evolutia societatii este o premisa a schimbarii tuturor componentelor sale, dar si o consecită fireasca a reorganizarii, rearanjarii acestora pe alte paliere, în concordantă cu tonalitatea vremurilor. Scoala, institutie centrala a societatii, nu face exceptie de la aceasta regula, procesul de invatamant fiind la randul sau intr-o continua metamorfozare, impreună cu toate elementele care-l compun. Scoala functionează intr-un context social larg, complex. Influentele acestuia asupra institutiilor de invatamant se materializeaza in: finalităti ale educatiei, continuturi ale disciplinelor scolare, in modul de organizare al sistemului de educatie, al procesului de invatamant, în modul de intelegere si infaptuire a comunicarii etc., ceea ce determina conditii noi de funcţionare, de analiza şi interpretare. Comunicarea didactica, componenta fundamentala a procesului de invatamant, insoteste continuu actul educational, influenta sa fiind optimizatoare, inovatoare si atemporala. Iacob L. (1998) considera comunicarea didactica: „o comunicare instrumentala direct implicata in sustinerea unui proces sistematic de invatare". Relatia comunicarii cu predarea, invatarea si evaluarea are o importanta dimensiune evolutiva, studirea sa constituind scopul lucrarii noastre. De asemenea, ne intereseaza modul in care tipologia comunicarii se restructureaza prin raportare permanenta la tehnologizarea socialului si nu numai. Analiza comunicarii didactice, presupune si discutarea rolului cadrelor didactice in complexul proces al relatiilor interumane prezente in context educational. Acestea sunt direct raspunzatoare de modul in care comunicarea este prezenta in actul didactic. Cadrele didactice, folosindu-se de comunicare, transmit informatii, centreaza predarea pe obiective clar si corect formulate, ii invata pe elevi sa invete, le ajusteaza continuu achizitiile, dar sunt atente si la mecanismele, la etapele pe care le presupune invatarea, oferind elevilor timpul necesar procesarii informatiilor, evaluarea presupunand in mod cert, prezenta comunicarii. Doar comunicarea reala dintre profesor-elev, activismul ridicat, implicarea totala a celor doi poli ai actiunii educationale asigura succesul, adica obţinerea performantelor dorite. Atemporalitatea comunicarii subliniaza prezenta comunicarii didactice si in societatea caracterizata de globalizare. Apreciem ca este exagerat a afirma ca scoala, comunicarea didactica pe care aceasta o presupune, vor disparea. Cu certitudine, actioneaza asupra lor schimbari diverse, menite sa genereze descoperirea inflexiunile comunicarii in context educational, dar redimensionarea permanenta vizeaza intregul proces de invatamant. In studiul de fata ne- am propus sa investigam daca relatia dintre cadrele didactice si comunicarea didactica este evolutiva; capacitatea cadrului didactic de a se adapta la nou, de a se manifesta diferit, creativ in functie de caracteristicile spatio-temporale. Instrumentul de cercetare utilizat este chestionarul. De fapt, se lucreaza cu doua chestionare construite si adresate cadrelor didactice dintr-o institutie de invatamant reprezentativa din Deva. Primul chestionar are in atentie cadre didactice cu vechime in invatamant de cel putin 20 de ani, iar cel de-al doilea, cadre didactice tinere, cu vechime in invatamant de cel mult 7 ani. Se doreste a se vedea daca rutina, obisnuinta de a parcurge un anumit drum in vederea atingerii obiectivelor operationale, de a comunica folosind tiparul cunoscut se instaleaza sau se reuseste a se tine pasul cu noul, comunicarea recreindu-se permanent. Concluziile principale evidentiaza capacitatea cadrelor didactice de a simti pulsul prezentului si de a potenta comunicarea cu atributele sale. Keywords: comunicare didactica, proces de invatamant, cadrul didactic.

Elemente de predare integrată a orelor de rugby tag în vederea eficientizării activității didactice Bogdan Bradu, Rusu Laura, Sora Mihaela, Scorţescu Mirela Profesor, Şcoala Gimnaziala nr. 30, Timișoara [email protected]

Având în vedere faptul că în învăţământul primar s-au produs schimbări majore de viziune în ultimii ani, promovându-se integrarea curriculară ca o modalitate inovatoare de proiectare a curriculumului, ce presupune sintetizarea şi organizarea didactică a conţinuturilor din diferitele domenii ale cunoaşterii, considerăm oportună şi inovatoare abordarea integrată a unei discipline sportive. Predarea integrată presupune crearea de conexiuni semnificative între teme sau competenţe care sunt de regulă formate separat, în interiorul disciplinelor. Aceste teme sau competenţe au o puternică legătură cu viaţa cotidiană a elevilor şi îşi propun, direct sau indirect, să contribuie la formarea unor valori şi atitudini. Predarea integrată a jocului de rugby tag va scoate în evidenţă valenţele sale educative, urmărind creşterea interesului elevilor şi cadrelor didactice pentru a dezvolta un profil de competenţe motrice, valori morale şi aptitudini fizice dar şi a fair-play-ului şi al competiţiei. Keywords: fair play, competiţie, predare integrate.

The use of caricatures in teaching history classes Nicolae Hurduzeu, Phd, lecturer, DPPD,WUT [email protected]

In history classes, teaching aids are compulsory for student-centered teaching. Teaching aids make history lessons interactive, the students being directly involved in the teaching- learning-evaluation process. One particular kind of teaching aid that can develop critical thinking in students, as well as their ability for analysis and synthesis, is represented by caricatures. The use of caricatures in history lessons increases the attractiveness of the lesson, the students being involved actively in the teaching-learning-evaluation process. Caricatures represent priceless historical resources in history classes which help the analysis of a series of social, political, economic, artistic aspects, as well as mentalities. The analysis of historical caricatures within the history class requires a large amount of knowledge in fields such as history, history of art, semiotics, all contributing to acquiring competencies specific to the field. To this category belong: portraits, drawings from various events, images depicting everyday life, landscapes, drawings of cities, settlements, posters etc. with the aid of which the studied historical events come to life, facilitating their comprehension and understanding by students. These visual resources - although they can be analyzed separately - can be used not only as means of getting the attention but as well as historical resources that raise a series of questions, and require knowledge and refection. They are often resources that complete and confirm, or give a new shade to the information given by written sources. Such resources deepen the perception on the historical events by giving a clearer, deeper perception of the depicted facts, and, in the same time, give a more accurate understanding of aspects concerning manipulation in history. The use of caricatures in history classes keeps the attention of the students focused on the class, their study contributing to the development of analysis ability of the students, they becoming thus more involved in the teaching-learning process, contributing in the same time to a better understanding of the studied historical events and of their multiple perspectives, of the sensitive and controversial issues, of the inter- and trans-disciplinary approaches. They also determine the development of the debating, negotiation and cooperation strategies in students, as well as of their skills to use multiple information and data resources. Keywords: history, caricature, multiple perspectives.

What if knowledge (re)creation overpowers knowledge transfer? Can the philosophy-based communities of enquiry save the planet? Florin Lobonț PhD, Associate Professor Department of Philosophy and Communication Sciences West University of Timisoara [email protected]

As it stands today, the dominant mindset of the modern world development seems to adjust too slowly, and too contradictorily to the challenges that threaten the safety of future generations. Arguably, the acceleration and harmonization of changes in policies and actions need deeper and much more widely shared changes in attitudes - epistemic and psychological - which only education can ensure. Taking into account the breakthrough work of Bandura, Harasim and especially Lipman in the field of social learning and the ways it was expanded to other fields and subjects, the article will attempt to demonstrate the capacity philosophically-based communities of enquiry’s (CoE) capacity of bridging the gap between learning, research and practice by actively engaging the people concerned with a given issue. Its argument will be built upon elements from theories of communities of practice (Lave, Wenger); social learning theories (Bandura); and innovative knowledge communities (Engeström, Bereiter), such as the focus on social (group inter-subjective) competences growth and knowledge creation rather than knowledge transfer. Furthermore, it will incorporate elements from the theories of online communities (Harasim); practical enquiry (Dewey); computer-mediated cognitive presence/critical communities of enquiry (Garrison, Anderson, and Archer); and social constructivist learning (Knowles), that view learning as stemming from making experience-based knowledge explicit and focuses on reflection on members’ knowledge-in-action. In full consensus with the cutting-edge theoretical and methodological achievements in the field of CoE, this article will show how, already from the stage of a group’s CoE potential exploration, the participants can be stimulated, under qualified guidance, to gradually become interactive producers of knowledge about the substance of their own knowledge and about themselves as members of their learning groups. As such, it will aim to illustrate and reinforce the most innovative tenets professed at the state-of-the-art level of CoE research, mainly: 1) The critical communities of enquiry represent the hallmark of higher education (Garrison, Archer); 2) A CoE represents the essential context for the 21st century higher-order learning (Anderson, Kanuka); 3) Due to their profound dialogic critique and internalising reconstruction of knowledge, communities of enquiry contribute essentially to the enhancement of intercultural sensitivity (Spiteri, McCall); 4) The communities of enquiry can engage most thoroughly, effectively and at the deepest inter-subjective level, the available IT communication resources (Parsell, Duke- Yonge, Wilson, Bradshaw). 5) When provided with a virtual dimension, the communities of enquiry make the most of the available information and communication technology resourcesin teaching and team research; 6) They also overcome a number of otherwise daunting challenges Internet-based tools have for instructors, students and young research teams; 7) It is possible to create ICT (information and communication technology)-sustained communities of enquiry across networks of schools, that are able to engage with research to inform school improvement. Our view is that CoEs, by the deep changes they gradually bring about in the epistemic and psychological attitudes of their members, can contribute essentially to the creation of mindsets that view the crucial matters of the contemporary world (environment, technology, equality, justice, tolerance, civility, charity, rights, duties, and many others) in an entirely new way, sustained by autonomous, critical, innovative and problem-solving oriented thinking shared at the level of entire generations.

Metode interactive utilizate în învățământul preșcolar - exemple de bună practică Magda Iustina Larisa, Orian Elena, Deaconescu Sorina Gradinita P.P. nr 32 Timisoara [email protected]

Prezentarea utilizarii metodelor interactive ca secvente ale demersului didactic. Aceste metode fiind utilizate in diferite activitati din cadrul domeniilor experientiale ale curriculum-ului prescolar. Keyword: Preschool education, interactive teaching methods.

5. Activitate didactică în contexte formale şi non-formale

Comunicarea eficientă Ionel Narița Profesor, Universitatea de Vest din Timisoara [email protected]

Scop: Lucrarea isi propune sa cerceteze conditiile in care actele de comunicare isi ating obiectivele. Bibliografie: Caputo John, Palosaari Jo, Pickering Ken, Effective Communication, Dramatic Lines, Twickenham, 2003. Cleary S., The Communication Handbook, Juta & Co Ltd., Lansdowne 2003. Fielding Michael, Effective Communication in Organisations, Juta, Lansdowne, 2006 Narula Uma, Communication Models, Atlantic, New Delhi, 2006. Pelc J., „Semiosis, Cognition, Interpretation”, Signs, Search and Communication, Jorna Rene J., Heusden Barend van., Posner Roland (eds.), Walter de Gruyter, Berlin, 1993. Shannon C.E., „A Mathematical Theory of Communication”, The Bell System Technical Journal, 27, 1948, p. 379. Sutton Roger J., Secure Communications, John Wiley & Sons, Chichester, 2002. Metode de cercetare: modelarea, operatii cu multimi, rationamente deductive Concluzii principale: Un act de comunicare este eficient atunci cand emitentul isi realizeaza scopul. Pentru a determina scopul unui act de comunicare trebuie sa apelam la un model. Cel mai cunoscut model al actelor de comunicare este modelul Shannon-Weaver. In cadrul acestuia, insa, sunt reunite doua acte independente, cel al emiterii unui mesaj si cel al receptarii mesajului. De aceea, vom considera drept acte de comunicare numai emiterea mesajelor. In acest fel, un act de comunicare este analizat prin urmatorii parametri: emitent, mesaj, canal de comunicare, cod, destinatari si exclusi. Scopul emitentului, in cadrul actului de comunicare, este ca mesajul sa ajunga la toti destinatarii dar la nici un exclus. Prin urmare, un act de comunicare este eficient daca satisface aceasta conditie. Deoarece emitentul nu poate controla cine recepteaza mesajul, el nu isi poate propune obiective in legatura cu receptorii, ci doar ca destinatarii sa recepteze si sa inteleaga mesajul transmis. Emitentul are la indemana acoperirea actului de comunicare relativ la o populatie data, iar acoperirea depinde de doi factori: canalul folosit si codul. De pilda, acoperirea este mai intinsa atunci cand canalul este mai larg si codul este mai slab. Prin urmare, eficienta actului de comunicare poate fi reglata prin operatii asupra canalului de comunicare si prin codificarea mesajului. O problema suplimentara de care trebuie sa tina seama emitentul este cea a compunerii actelor de comunicare. Orice receptor al unui mesaj poate deveni sursa in raport cu acel mesaj si sa initieze un nou act de comunicare cu alti destinatari si exclusi. Prin urmare, in timp, mesajele nu pot fi tinute departe de nici un membru al unei populatii, emitentul nu poate face altceva decat sa incerce sa intarzie cat mai mult propagarea mesajului dincolo de sfera destinatarilor. Keywords: act de comunicare, mesaj, eficienta comunicarii.

Educația nonformală și rolul ei în construirea și consolidarea capacităților colective Elena Danciu Associate professor, West University of Timisoara [email protected]

Deşi provocarile şi problemele întâmpinate în dezvoltarea unei societăţi bazate pe cunoaştere sunt exponenţial mai rezistente la abordările tradiţionale de schimbare, se continuă căutările soluţiilor tot în mediul formal, ignorând faptul ca atât informalul cât şi nonformalul oferă o paleta largă de oportunităţi, de forme, metode şi activităţi ce favorizează dezvoltarea unor capacităţi şi competenţe cu caracter transdisciplinar implicit (definite printr-un sistem de cunoştinte – deprinderi/abilităţi - atitudini) sociale, colective ce pot impune un progres ascendent şi vizibil în majoritatea problematicilor cu caracter educaţional, cultural, social etc. Demersurile iniţiate pentru realizarea unei cercetări destinate formării şi dezvoltării unor capacităţi şi competente colective prin intermediul nonformalului, obiectivele, ipotezele şi metodologia cercetării, modul în care au fost implementate activităţi, metode şi tehnici nonformale, caracteristicile fiecărei etape de experimentare, efectele intervenţiei educaţionale şi calitatea lor constituie subiectul acestei lucrări. Keywords: capacitate/ competenta, abilitate, capacitati/diferente colective, transfer

Elemente de predare integrată a orelor de rugby tag în vederea eficientizării activității didactice Mirela Scorțescu, Laura Rusu, Bogdan Bradu, Mihaela Sora Profesori, Şcoala Gimnaziala 30 timisoara [email protected]

Având în vedere faptul că în învăţământul primar s-au produs schimbări majore de viziune în ultimii ani, promovându-se integrarea curriculară ca o modalitate inovatoare de proiectare a curriculumului, ce presupune sintetizarea şi organizarea didactică a conţinuturilor din diferitele domenii ale cunoaşterii, considerăm oportună şi inovatoare abordarea integrată a unei discipline sportive. Predarea integrată presupune crearea de conexiuni semnificative între teme sau competenţe care sunt de regulă formate separat, în interiorul disciplinelor. Aceste teme sau competenţe au o puternică legătură cu viaţa cotidiană a elevilor şi îşi propun, direct sau indirect, să contribuie la formarea unor valori şi atitudini. Predarea integrată a jocului de rugby tag va scoate în evidenţă valenţele sale educative, urmărind creşterea interesului elevilor şi cadrelor didactice pentru a dezvolta un profil de competenţe motrice, valori morale şi aptitudini fizice dar şi a fair-play-ului şi al competiţiei Keywords: predare intergrată, elev, educație.

Inteligenţele multiple în activitatea educativă Luminiţa Tomuţa Prof. inv. primar Scoala Gimnaziala Nr. 7 "Sfanta Maria" Timisoara [email protected]

Prin viziunea pluralistă asupre intelectului Gardner promovează ideea că inteligenta este multidimensională şi o defineste ca o abilitte de a rezolva probleme şi/sau de a crea produse care să fie valorizate la un moment dat de o anumită cultură. Potrivit acestei idei, un individ reprezintă de fapt, o „colecţie de inteligenţe” şi chiar dacă nu este dotat cu o inteligenţă sau alta, combinaţia inteligenţelor pe care le posedă îi permit să desfăşoare cu succes activităţi specifice dintr-un anumit domeniu. Teoria inteligentelor multiple este in masura sa eficientizeze procesul instructive educativ centrat pe elev. Conform educatiei modern, elevul este pregatit intr-un sens holistic, luandu-se in considerare combinatia unica de abilitati pe care acesta le are. Telul urmarit este de a-l ajuta pe elev sa descopere acele domenii in care este mai bun si a-l ajuta sa se dezvolte in aceasta directie. Abordarea educatiei prim prisma inteligentelor multiple presupune tratarea diferentiata a elevilor. Tratarea diferenţiată este o necesitate în procesul educaţional, susţinută de cauze cunoscute, generale şi situaţionale care se leagă de particularităţile individuale ale elevilor, dar şi de mediul socio-familial din care provin elevii. Teoria inteligenţelor multiple constituie o altenativă a muncii diferenţiate, o strategie modernă de instruire interactivă care poate contribui la îmbunătăţirea performanţelor şcolare. Diferenţierea presupune un proces de predare care ţine cont de nevoile elevilor şi de ritmul în care ei învaţă. În acest context, diferenţele dinte elevi ajung să fie studiate şi să devină fundament al construirii situaţiilor de predare-învăţare ulterioare. Cadrul didactic trebuie să faciliteze formarea abilităţilor necesare pentru a deveni din ce în ce mai independenţi în învăţare, ţinând cont de pregătirea, interesul şi stilul lor de învăţare. Tratarea diferenţiată aduce în discuţie adaptarea învăţământului la particularităţile psihofizice ale copilului, aceasta presupunând cunoaşterea elevilor sub aspectul cunoştinţelor lor, a priceperilor şi deprinderilor, a potenţialului intelectual şi a trăsăturilor de personalitate. Referitor la, “CUM ar trebui predat?” Gardner propune o predare care răspunde diversităţii celor care se instruiesc şi se construieşte pornind de la cunoaşterea în profunzime a factorilor care produc diferenţele între modalitatea de a învăţa a indivizilor. Prin urmare, TIM identifică şapte puncte de acces pentru introducerea şi construirea conceptelor: narativ, cantitativ-numeric, logic, existenţial, estetic, practic, interpersonal. Gardner (1983) descrie modul în care elevii utilizează cu succes inteligenţa dominantă pentru a asimila noile concepte la modalităţi adecvate propriului stil de gândire. Acest demers devine central în abordarea predării-învăţării evaluării din perspectiva TIM. Dacă într-o clasă tradiţională elevii stau în bănci, ascultă prelegerea profesorului, urmăreşte demonstraţia profesorului la tablă, iar acesta pune întrebări clasei, trasează sarcini de lucru elevilor şi aşteaptă ca aceştia să realizeze aceste sarcini, într-o clasă TIM se întâmplă toate acestea, la care se pot adăuga crearea de cântece legate de conţinutul predat, pot avea loc dezbateri, elevii pot nota într-un jurnal, pot colecţiona fotografii, pot realiza anumite activităţi manuale, pot aranja un puzzle sau să picteze ceea ce creează oportunităţi şi modalităţi variate de învăţare pentru fiecare elev. Demersul de organizare a activităţii de predare din perspectiva TIM presupune pentru fiecare obiectiv formulat, o serie de interogaţii pedagogice suplimentare pentru fiecare tip de inteligenţă: De exemplu, dacă vizăm inteligenţa lingvistică, ne întrebăm: „cum voi utiliza cuvintele exprimate şi cele scrise?”; dacă vizăm inteligenţa spaţială, ne întrebăm: „cum voi utiliza integratorii vizuali, culorile sau planşele ?”; dacă vizăm inteligenţa interpersonală ne vom întreba: cum voi angaja elevii în activităţi partajate, de cooperare, sau de grup ? Prin urmare, Gardner (1983) accentuează faptul că, şi evaluarea trebuie să fie adaptată cerinţelor modelului TIM, în sensul că, evaluarea tradiţională vizează doar inteligenţa lingvistică şi cea logico-matematică, iar preocupările noastre ar trebui să vizeze modalităţile alternative de evaluare, întrucât elevii pot demonstra şi exersa ceea ce au învăţat în mai multe modalităţi. Unul dintre aspectele care contribuie la eşecul şcolar al elevilor se referă la faptul că întreg demersul de predare- învăţare-evaluare este puternic saturat în sarcini verbale şi logico-matematice (Gardner, 2006). Keywords: predare, diferențiere, inteligente multiple, educație.

Evaluarea formativă imediată şi feedback-ul ca ingrediente ale învăţării eficiente şi durabile Otilia Sanda Bersan, Ion Dumitru West University of Timisoara [email protected]

Oricine ar dori sa stie sa invete mai eficient (cu un efort mai mic) pentru obtinerea unor performante scontate si (mai) durabil (sa achizitioneze abilitati, deprinderi si comportamente rezolutive, performante, adecvate solicitarilor). Cum se poate ajunge la un astfel de nivel? O cale posibila este realizarea, de catre profesori a unei evaluari formative imediate, a performantelor elevilor, concomitent cu oferirea unui feedback concludent si relevant, care sa provoace si sa motiveze elevii pentru a invata. Evaluarea formativa imediata si feedback-ul sunt ingrediente ale unei invatari eficiente si durabile. Cercetarea noastra prezinta opiniile unui numar de 110 cadre didactice din invatamantul preuniversitar, opinii sondate printr-un chestionar (adaptat dupa Hattie, J., 2014) care evidentiaza valoarea si importanta feedback-ului si a evaluarii formative imediate, in realizarea invatarii eficiente si durabile. Dintre respondenti, 82 (74,55%) sunt constienti de importanta feedback-ului si de modalitatile de oferire a acestuia; 67 cadre didactice (60,91%) considera ca laudele adresate elevilor ii motiveaza pe acestia pentru a invata; 89 profesori (80.91%) cauta confirmari pentru ca feedback-ul sa fie receptat corespunzator de catre elevi, iar 79 profesori (71,82%) folosesc diverse metode pentru oferirea unei evaluari formative imediate si pentru a adecva corespunzator activitatea didactica de predare. In sfarsit, 91 (82,73% dintre profesorii chestionati) sunt preocupati de modul in care elevii lor primesc si interpreteaza feedback-ul, 69 (62,73%) declara ca elevii lor prefera feedback-ul de progres si ca sarcinile mai dificile determina ca elevii sa aiba o receptivitate mai mare fata de feedback-ul oferit de catre profesor, 58 (52,73%) recunosc valoarea feedback-ului primit de la alti profesori, iar 75 (68,18%) declara ca sunt preocupati sa creeze oportunitati pentru evaluarea formativa imediata si ca folosesc aceste rezultate in deciziile lor privind activitatea viitoare. Rezultatele cercetarii confirma faptul ca evaluarea formativa imediata (Black & Wiliam, 1998) si feedback-ul (Wiliam, 2011) sunt ingrediente esentiale ale invatarii eficiente si durabile. Keywords: evaluare formativa imediata, feedback, optimizarea invatarii, eficienta si durabilitate.

6. Higher education teaching and research

A Comparative Analysis of the Concepts and Theories of ˜Collective Capacity Building and ˜Consciousness/Awareness Raising through Teaching and Learning Eva Thun Dr., Institute of Education University of Pannonia, Hungary [email protected]

One can find numerous interpretations and theorizations for both the concepts of capacity building and awareness raising, and it is strikingly noticeable that they tend to exhibit similar goals, namely to achieve beneficial social change. Therefore, the question can be raised what are the differences and similarities that determine the use of one or the other of the two approaches in the context of education? When investigating mostly the English language literature it becomes apparent that the two theories and practices are imbedded in similar contexts, i.e. social movements of the mid 20th century. The histories of the concepts may serve as instrumental sources to find the answers for our questions concerning the coexistence the two approaches. As well as the social and political contexts in which they are found can contribute to the understanding of the differences and similarities. While both concepts originated from approximately the same time (1950s-1970s) and both focused on the self-help of communities (rural and feminist), the term capacity building later became an international leading development concept in the 1990s, and the concept and practice of consciousness/awareness raising of the second wave feminist movement found its way into education and critical feminist pedagogy and later to community learning as well. As a consequence, the literature of capacity building is constituted almost exclusively by the (international) social policy – including educational policy – development discourses and documents, while the concept of awareness raising has become integral to the postmodern interdisciplinary social science literature. While there are many similarities in the practices of the two approaches to initiate change in societies, it is worthwhile to examine the differences, which can be clearly identified in that the process and individual contribution is more in the focus in awareness raising practices, while efficiency in reaching the objectives is emphasized in capacity building. Awareness raising gives the knowledge that one needs to create long-term changes in the community. The pedagogy involving awareness raising affirms the value of personal experience and by focusing on empowerment embodies the concept of power as energy, capacity, and potential of the individuals and communities. Thus, the individual is the agent of social change. At the same time, though, capacity building claims that change needs to be driven from within an individual or organisation to build a self-sustaining structure, yet it targets to produce knowledge needed to change organisational and institutional contexts (in education). Here the agency – though approved by the individuals – remains with the institution. It can be presumed, that a fundamental inquiry should consider the status and significance of agency within the two theories and practices. It should be noted that the topic of ‘structure-agency dualism’ has been long debated in the sociology of education discourses without reaching a definitive conclusion. The critical comparative examination of awareness raising and capacity building approaches can enrich this debate with new knowledge concerning the persistent presence of this dualism in education. As for the research method of the inquiry comparative discourse analysis can be identified as the most adequate research method, as it can systematically reveal such aspect as purpose, classification, modality, transitivity and the underlying ideology of the theories and interpretations of awareness raising and capacity building as materialized in texts. Keywords: agency, awareness raising, capacity building, educational policy development, critical social science, comparative discourse analysis.

The image of an educational institution Anamaria Filimon-Benea Lect. Dr., West University of Timisoara [email protected]

The goal of this paper is to analyse the image, a public relation perspective, of an educational institution - West University of Timisoara. The image concept is a key concept in public relations and the sociology of mass communication. The image of an organization is based on creating elements that characterize identity that gives the uniqueness factor. These are the goals, objectives, structure, the staff and organizational culture and their translation into the external environment. The external environment is the general public, clients/customers, suppliers, partners, and not least by the media (Vid I., 2013). The image is the representation:” which was formed as a sum of beliefs, attitudes, opinions, prejudices, experiences and expectations to groups of people or within the public opinion on a natural or legal person, institution or organization”. (Iorgu, M., 2011) According to Roger Mucchielli picture is” a representation or an idea which is formed by individuals of an environment or of a segment of the public – due to reception of information about a social object. In the image case, it is about an opinion or an attitude whose roots are mostly irrational” (Iorgu, M., 2011). We will analyse the current image of West University of Timisoara. The overall objective of the analysis is to identify all the instruments that UVT uses to communicate with its public. The adequate tools for studying such an approach are the following: observation and content analysis. Because the study is not ended yet, we can’t write a conclusion. But we can say that for any institution, to communicate using as many PR instruments as possible is essential. Brief literature review: Halic, Bogdan Alexandru, Analiza imaginii organizațiilor, Editura comunicare.ro, 2004. Joannes, Alain, Comunicarea prin imagini, Iasi, Editura Polirom, 2009. Marcenac, Luc, Alain Milon, Serge-Henri Saint-Michel, Strategii publicitare: de la studiul de marketing la alegerea diferitelor media, Iasi, Editura Polirom, 2006. Mihalache, Andi, Silvia Maria Barnteieff, De la fictiv la real. Imaginea. Imaginarul. Imagologia, Iasi, Editura Universităţii Alexandru Ioan Cuza, 2010. Schuler, Maria, Management of the Organizational Image: A Method for Organizational Image Configuration,” Corporate Reputation Review”, vol. 7, No. 1, 2004Sireteanu, Ana Maria, Media si imagologia, Bucureşti, Editura Tritonic, 2010. Vlasceanu, Mihaela, Organizatiile si cultura organizarii, Editura Trei, Bucuresti, 2002. Keywords: communication, image, public relation, social media, public. Reaching millennials: a brief proposal for promoting university programs to young millennials Corina Sirb West University of Timisoara [email protected]

By definition, we call millennials all those people who were born beginning with the late 80s until the first years of the 21st century, their main defining features come from the fact that they were born and raised in the middle of the digital revolution, acquiring impressive adaptive skills, flexibility and mobility. They are “digital natives”— the only generation for which these new technologies are not something they had to learn and adapt to. Not surprisingly, they are the most avid users. According to a Third Way report on millennials social behavior, it seems that nine in ten millennials are online. They are wirelessly connected when away from home or work (62%). Three-quarters of Millennials use social networking sites (e.g., Facebook or Twitter). And 55% of Millennials check those sites daily (or multiple times per day). They were born in a connected, perpetually communicating environment and thus they are accustomed to finding all the information they need by a simple web query. Moreover, they were raised in the spirit of questioning authorities, which makes their relationship with public institutions, universities included, rather conflictual. Everyone of these features, corroborated with the increasing competition between universities in their attempt to attract students, stresses the need to find an answer to the following question: how should academic representatives reach millennials, in order to promote their educational offers? What communication strategy should they follow? What tone of voice and media channels should they use? How informal and “user friendly” can a academic communications representative be in order to achieve his goals? In order to find an answer to any of the above questions, I think the first step is to thoroughly analyze the public, so that one should set apart their defining features from circumstantial attitudes; understand their decision making process and the leaders they follow. And that is what I will try to do in the first part of the present paper, following the ideas from Jeff Fromm’s and Christie Garton’s book, Marketing to Millennials: Reach the Largest and Most Influential Generation of Consumers Ever, together with the data revealed by several social studies that have been recently conducted (for example, “Millennials and Education”, conducted by Echelon Insights), I try to create a brief, but relevant portrait of young millennials, in order to correctly understand their actions and behavior. As a useful instrument in this research, I designed a buyer persona that represents the young millennial public, a fictional, but accurate character that represents the main categories of the public that is being targeted. In other words, I gathered the most representative data we have on young millennials and imagine a character that reunites their strongest and most specific features. In this way, finding the way to reach and communicate to them is easier. Then, based on the conclusions I obtained, I try to point out how a promotion strategy for an educational program should look like in order to reach and impact this target group. Step by step, I critically analyze the options available, in terms of communication strategies, techniques, messages and channels and then put together a coherent plan. Although millennials are, by definition, “digital creatures”, in the present paper, both online and offline communication tools are taken into considerations, as well as traditional and guerilla tactics. Thus, I critically approach academic web pages, social media presence, but also education fairs and direct communication, in order to see in what context and moment of the communication process they are the most efficient. Even more, as far as the content of the communication process is concerned, I stop and look at the information young millennials need from academic representatives: the informational message, on one hand, and the way it should be delivered, on the other hand - as far as both tone and format are concerned - in order to have the maximum impact. Keywords: young millennials, PR in higher education, communication.

The subjective wellbeing and the general health in college students Ioana Dârjan, Loredana Al Ghazi, Anca Luştrea, Mariana Craşovan, West University of Timisoara [email protected]

The impact of subjective wellbeing on health, in general, and on mental health in particular, is a frequent topic of scientific researches. In this paper, we present the results of descriptive research about the relations between subjective wellbeing and general health state in college students. For this purpose, we used The Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale (WEMWBS) and General Health Questionnaire to investigate the subjective wellbeing and the general health self-reported state of the first year college students. Keywords: wellbeing, mental health, college students.

Towards project-work assessment for ESP class in higher education Irina Bocianu Teaching assistant, University of Bucharest [email protected]

The great array of education systems around the world reveals the fact that education is regarded differently according to cultural, economic, and social factors which come to shape the future of a nation. While the EU member states comply with the European Qualifications Framework and function according to the Bologna Process, the means of assessment differ according to the background of each member state. This is particularly obvious for Eastern European states (such as Romania) which have a long tradition for theoretical approach to teaching and assessing. In this respect, one can affirm that the theorists’ frameworks regarding building collective capacity in terms of “frequent, continuous and increasingly […] teaching practice” (Fullan) are at this point, quite common in the Romanian higher education system regarding teaching ESP (English for Specific Purposes) - at least at the University of Bucharest and the Bucharest University of Economic Studies. Tom Many stretches the idea and believes that this could lead to more commitment from both the students and the instructors. Under these circumstances, my question is if the ESP subfield of Foreign Languages in Romania is prepared for building collective action via project-work as a means of assessment. As a result of a personal study underdone with the Erasmus students from the University of Bucharest and the Polytechnic University of Bucharest, one thing is for sure: the majority of testing done abroad consists of project-work. Thus, the present paper aims at analyzing the impact, efficiency and effectiveness of introducing project-work as a form of assessment. The starting point represents the experiment underdone during the 2016-2017 academic year conducted with both the 3rd year undergraduates from the Bucharest University of Economic Studies and the ESP instructors together with the instructors from the University of Bucharest. The project consisted of students performing experiments in groups of maximum four on different subtopics starting from class topics involving either making and filming the experiment or doing it during the English class. Under these circumstances, I have conducted a questionnaire with the students in order to find the strengths and weaknesses of this type of assessment as well as with the instructors in order to find the chances of implementing this type of activity. As expected, the students were enthused but also some issues regarding logistics were worth mentioning. The aim of my study was to identify the degree to which the Romanian higher education system – or at least part of it – is prepared to take steps towards practice-oriented Western systems. As a conclusion, this extended practice would lead to collective capacity building for assessment purposes by more involvement and appeal towards students. So far, the idea seems to appear balanced in terms of implementation. Keywords: higher education, building collective capacity, assessment, project-work, ESP.

Developing (new) language skills through student mobility - the impact of an Erasmus+ experience Cristina Cojocaru PhD. Candidate, West University of Timisoara [email protected]

Language learning “folklore” has framed study abroad as one of the most efficient means of improving (students) language competences, as it enables direct contact with native speakers, immersion in a new culture and various opportunities to interact with foreign language(s). But despite this broadly accepted idea, the research surrounding this topic, and more particularly related to the impact of an Erasmus study mobility on language acquisition is rather scarce. This year the Erasmus programme celebrates its 30th anniversary, being one of the most successful initiatives of the European Union. Thus, for three decades it has been offering to more than 3 million students the opportunity to have a mobility for studies in a higher education institution from another country and hence to develop (new) language skills, expand their personal development, gain new academic experiences, get to know a new country and culture, increase their employability prospects and, overall, broaden their horizons. But regardless of the programme`s rather long history, the impact that an Erasmus mobility has on individual participants has only recently started to be extensively measured, with the introduction of the new Erasmus+ programme and its on-line tools. In this context, the present paper proposal aims to present the case study of Erasmus+ student mobilities from one of the biggest universities in the Western part of Romania by zooming in on the influence that this international experience has on developing (new) language skills for the participants. This will be done through a quantitative approach, consisting of analysis of survey data gathered through questionnaires at the end of the mobility and on the analysis of participants` language assessment results on the Online Linguistic Support platform supported by the Erasmus+ programme. The data has been gathered from two cohorts of students who pursued a mobility for studies of one semester or one academic year, during the past 2 academic years (2015-2016 and 2016-2017). By corroborating the data provided by the two sources previously mentioned, the analysis will reveal important details about the characteristics of students who decide to pursue a study mobility, the role that language learning expectations play in their decision to apply for such an experience, emphasizing as well the differences between students` self assessment (perception) with regards to language acquisition after the mobility and the results revealed by the linguistic assessments taken (before and after the mobility) through the Online Linguistic Support platform supported by the Erasmus+ programme. Thus, the present paper proposal aims at contributing to having a clearer view on the role that an international mobility experience has on the process of language acquisition and on various language related aspects, by offering an in-depth analysis through a case study of Erasmus+ student mobilities from one of the biggest universities in the Western part of Romania. This analysis will also contribute to the larger discussion about the process of internationalization of higher education and the role that the European Erasmus mobility programme plays in this context. Keywords: Erasmus, student mobility, language acquisition.

Innovative Academic Course on Integrative Interventions for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders Loredana Al Ghazi, Anca Luştrea, Claudia Borca West University of Timisoara [email protected]

Our aim is to develop an innovative academic course on ASD, based on the integrative view of case managementand also too create a European Virtual University Clinic for ASD in order to share the curriculum model developed, tools and materials, with other universities, private education/training providers, stakeholders, practitioners, to improve the educational offer at National and European levels. Different countries in Europe have different approaches of the ASD child. There are variations in policy and practice among EU countries-there are similarities but also points of divergence, different perspectives on the relationship between therapy and education, and the professionals are trained differently from country to country-we think the best manner to address the common issue of autism is transnational, 1) in order to unify the practice and 2) because Romanian universities do not have any ASD master programs or postgraduate studies although in Romania there are NGOs functioning as Continuing Education Providers or independent psychologists offering courses on ASD based on their own practice but not always ”the established practices are the best practices”. In time, participating universities involved in the project will strengthen their contact with educators and therapists (trough the online platform but not only) integrating research with practice, to diminish the” persistent disconnect between research and practice”. Keywords: ASD, Innovative Academic Course, Integrative Interventions. Students’ Views on Feedback in Writing, Collaboration & Emotional Intelligence Milena Kampusa PhD Student and English as a Foreign Language Lecturer, University of Latvia and University of Lisbon [email protected]

The study investigated attitudes of English as a Second Language students’ on the effectiveness of various types of feedback on their writing. It also identified how students’ views and teachers’ practices and their pedagogical philosophies are similar or different. The participants were 118 ESL students and 10 teachers from two universities in the New York City, United States. Students were placed in two categories according to language level and educational background. All students were surveyed with a questionnaire that focused on different kind of feedback. In addition, 10 teachers were interviewed. The data was gathered from the completed questionnaires, students’ written comments, and interview answers. Triangulation of data helped the construction of the analysis. It indicated that students are preoccupied with the importance of grammar while writing and essay; they prefer balanced written feedback and that focuses on grammar, as well as content and organization. Teacher- student conferences were also viewed as effective. Interestingly, language level and educational background didn’t affect students’ views and perception of various feedback. Students and teachers disagreed most strongly about error identification techniques. While students did not find error identification techniques effective, but rather at time confusing, teachers felt strongly that it worked and widely implemented this technique. Students find balanced written feedback that comprises grammar correction and comment on content and organization the most preferable, effective and helpful type of feedback. It appears that if we separate this balanced feedback and only correct grammar or focus merely on the content, the students do not find this method helpful. Students prefer a mix of both. Interestingly, neither level of language acquisition nor their educational background affects what kind of feedback students prefer. In both categories the answer was balanced feedback. In addition, the results showed that grammar and grammatical accuracy is a primary focus for students when they are writing an essay. The second place for most preferable and effective type of feedback was teacher-student conferences. They give students the possibility of expressing the point of view to the teacher, adding the element of collaboration. Students appreciate individual attention, while teachers view conferences as possibility to understand student’s needs, encouraging their progress, and add a personal note to the teaching environment, as well as opportunity to explain students’ strengths and weaknesses. This brings me to the topic of my PhD research at the University of Latvia - the Effectiveness of Teacher’s Practices Through Emotional Intelligence. As many articles have already mentioned, the Emotional Intelligence contributes to the positive outcomes in collaboration and learning itself. There are a number of essential factors that affect the quality of collaboration: open communication, sharing of the goals, mutual respect and willingness to help, efforts aligned with expectation and priorities, as stated by Cox.J D. According to my research, peer review has been viewed quite positively by the intermediate students and less positively by advanced students. Students, in the majority of cases, appreciate the opportunity to collaborate on each other’s writing and hearing the comments of their peers. However, both students and teachers have doubts about the effectiveness of peer response approach. Self-correction was another approach that showed a mismatch between students’ and teachers’ point of view. Teachers were convinced of the effectiveness of the approach. Students do not believe that formative feedback is effective and have insecurities in their ability to correct their own errors, while teachers insist that thinking critically and figuring out error on their own would benefit students in the long term. Another issue that my study revealed is that students on any level and with any kind of educational background, view grammar as a primary component in the piece of writing. Students are focused on having their sentences written grammatically correctly versus developing a strong argument. In the future research, I would like to investigate the element of trust as a part of learner’s Emotional Intelligence being a crucial element in collaboration and learning. The lack of trust students’ feel toward their peers while conducting peer review creates the idea of ineffectiveness of peer review. On the other hand, trust in one’s ability to self-correct the errors creates a negative view on error correction techniques. Moreover, teacher’s ability to influence the emotional climate can strongly influence the learning outcomes. As mentioned in the journals, Emotional Intelligence can be taught to students and it will bring better learning outcomes since creating positive group dynamics requires a few techniques. Building trust, confidence, creating a positive learning environment will promote collaboration between the learners and a teacher. Keywords: Feedback, ESL writing, Emotional Intelligence, Assessment, Collaboration.

Effecting Factors of Attitudes of Student Teachers towards Measurement and Assessment Course Çiğdem Suzan, Çardak Dr., Anadolu University, Education Faculty, Turkey [email protected]

Education system has mainly four components as inputs, process, outputs and control. Control component of this system has crucial importance for conducting revisions on the systems. In order the ensure the functionality of the control component of the education, measument and assessment studies should be conducted in a planned and systematic ways. The measurement and assessment related competencies of teachers who are the backbone of education system could help to increase the quality of educational processess. The student teachers who are the teachers of future should be educated in this field in order to gain the competency of measurement and assessment in education. Therefore, this study focusses on measurements and assessment course which is a must course of teacher education curricula in Turkey. Esspecially the attitudes of student teachers towards this course might effect their future teaching profession regarding measurement and assessment activities. Thus it might be a need to identify the attitudes of student teachers or prospective teachers towards measurement and assessment related courses in each teacher education colleges in order to take precautions for their future teaching life. This study bases on this need and aims to identfiy what are the attitudes of student’s teachers towards measurement and assessment course and whether gender, study year, program, cummulative academic average, taking basic statistics course before and learning styles effect their attitudes. The research questions are the followings: 1. What are the student teacher’s attitudes towards measurement and assessment course. 2. Are there any significant difference between the attitudes of student’s teachers towards measurement and assessment course and their gender, study year, program, cummulative academic average, taking basic statistics course before and learning styles. 3. What are the significant predictors of the attitudes of student’s teachers towards measurement and assessment course? The results derived from this study might shed light on the program studies of measurement and assessment related courses and might help teaching stuff for developing teaching-learning processes of this important course in order to make it more effective. The method of this study is the correlational survey design. The study was conducted at Anadolu University Faculty of Education in Eskişehir, Turkey with the participation of student teachers who took the measurement and assessment course in the 2015 spring term. In fact, the total number of all the student teachers who were enrolled this course in the spring term of 2015 at Anadolu University was 631, thus the author did not need to follow any sampling methods and tried to reach all these student teachers. 443 student teachers participated in the study voluntarily. Therefore, data collected from the 70,21% of the finite universe of the study. A questionnaire which asks personal questions, the scale of attitudes towards measurement and assessment course and the scale of learnig styles were prepared as a whole data collection instrument and delivered to the student teachers. Data analysis process was conducted by using IMB SPSS Statistics Version 23 for Windows. ANOVA, t-test, regression analysis was conducted after checking for basic assumptions for these tests. The results derived from the findings of the study showed that students teachers in general had positive attitudes towards the course. These attitudes did not differ significantly according to gender, cummulative academic average and learning style in general but the attitudes differ significantly according to program and taking basic statistic course before. According to the results of regression analysis on three dimentions of the attitude scale, importance, cognitive competency, and negative approach and on the total score taken from the scale highlighted some variables. The predictors of the “negative approach” dimension of the attitude scale are taking basic statistic course before, tactile learners, individual learners and auditory learners respectively and all these four variables explain 15% of the variance on this dimension of the attitude scale. The predictors of the “importance” dimension of the scale are tactile learners and taking basic statistics course before and these two variables explain only 4.2% of the total variance on importance dimension. The predictors of the “cognitive competency” dimension of the attitude scale are taking satatistic course before and cummulative academic average and these two variables explain 8.5% of the total variance on cognitive competence dimension of the scale. The predictors of the attitude scale as a whole are taking statistic course before, auditory learner, tactile learners, motional learners respectively and these four variables explains 11.1% of the total variance on the attitudes towards the measuement and assessment course. Keywords: Student Teachers, Measurement and Assessment, Attitudes.

Critical aspects in the building of professional and transversal skills in the university environment for students in the field of social work Loredana Marcela Trancă West University of Timisoara [email protected]

The present paper aims to present the results of a study that identified the critical aspects in building professional and transversal skills in the university environment for students in the field of social work. The objectives of the research are: analysis of the role of the course modules, seminar, laboratory and practice stages in the formation of skills in the university environment; identifying the participants' perception of the way in which professional and transversal skills are currently built; identifying difficulties in ensuring professional and transversal skills according to the qualification offered by the curriculum, as well as identifying measures for curriculum optimization at university level. The study was based on a qualitative methodological approach, using the focus group as a research method. The sample consisted of 166 participants, social work students from three universities in the West of Romania, and the research tool used was the moderator guide. The study's conclusions brought to the forefront the need to improve the curriculum, which should be more flexible, taking into account all the actors involved (students, teachers, employers), but mainly with regard to the beneficiaries, respectively the graduates' career interest. At the same time, curricular design of transversal and professional skills requires coherent, functional and flexible integration of all types of content: cognitive, action and attitude. Keywords: professional skills, transversal skills, social work students.

7. New technologies for Communication and Education

Digital media education as lever for bridging the gaps of Romanian education system Laura Malita, Gabriela Grosseck, Simona Sava, Gheorghe Clitan West University of Timisoara [email protected]

Media education is the process through which individuals become media literate. Thus, in nowadays networked society a certain degree of media literacy is necessary to be taught through the formal education. Whereas the principles of media education are the same as they have always been, we need to navigate through an increasingly complex of media landscape, that includes not only the traditional media, but digital and social media too. Thus, it is necessary that we, as educators, should make media literacy as practical as possible in order to respond to the needs of learners. They need not only to be able to critically understand the nature, techniques and impacts of media messages and productions but also how to use media as a learning tool in an active and creative way. Consequently, the role of educators became twofold: to impart knowledge and to facilitate the process of inquiry, debate and dialogue. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to investigate the need of introducing media education in Romanian curriculum at pre-university and university level and to analyze the benefits and limits of media education in Romania both for individuals and society. We also present the framework of the national policy meant to implement and enforce the introduction of media education through curriculum. Keywords: digital media, media education, media literacy, Romanian curriculum.

Are we open educators? Carmen Holotescu, Gabriela Grosseck and Ramona Bran West University of Timisoara [email protected]

Worldwide opening up education using emerging and mobile technologies, blended/flipped classroom paradigm, Social Media, Open Educational Resources (OERs), Open Educational Practices (OEPs) and Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). The last years were bringing many progresses and innovations, but also demanding challenges. An Open Educator is a teacher/ practitioner having the knowledge and competencies needed to use and apply the open education principles in his/her classroom, amphitheater or blended course. This paper aims at answering the following questions: ● How the current policies and literature defines the Open Educator term? ● Which are the needed knowledge and competencies for Open Educators? ● Which are the reasons for the limited number of educators embracing the new technologies and pedagogies? ● How specific programs and policies at institutional and national levels can support Open Educators? ● Is it possible to gain the needed knowledge and competencies by participating in a number of quality Massive Open Online Courses? ● Which are the characteristics of quality MOOCs? The authors will present an analysis of ten selected MOOCs, with their curricula, multimedia modules, modes of facilitation, hosting platforms, etc., which could assure the formation of Open Educators. This article could also interest the teachers wanting to become real Open Educators and the managers of institutions working to develop the strategies/policies for opening up education. Keywords: Open Education, Open Educational Resources, Massive Open Online Courses, Open Practices.

Students and teachers in the digital society to debate - importance of innovation in the classroom management Nicoleta Duţă Lect. univ. dr., University of Bucharest, Romania [email protected]

The aim of this study is has shown the importance of innovation in the classroom management. This article contributes towards the current debate over the role of Higher Education in relationship to students and teachers in digital society. Internet and related technologies have already had a significant impact on ways to organize learning and studying. On the other hand, emerging trends in Higher Education include a shift from teacher-oriented lecturing towards student-centered learning. Student-centered learning (Land & Hannafin, 2001) is supported theoretically by various overlapping pedagogical concepts such as self-directed learning (Candy, 1991), student-centered instruction or learning (Felder & Brent, 2001), active learning (Ramsden, 1992) and cooperative learning (Felder & Brent, 2001). Historically education was a very different experience when comparing it to the highly sophisticated, digital learning of today. Today, as trainers and lecturers, the digital age is one which we need to embrace. Technology in education opens up a huge world of possibilities as to how we convey, share and engage with students presenting different ideas, facts and theories. The students and teacher should first discuss and then write a "group" contract adopting acceptable classroom rules and procedures. Article focuses on the preliminary phase including a written administration of a questionnaire to sample 190 students. The results obtained by analysing the responses of the subjects included in our sample have showed that both groups of students, have the same opinions regarding the importance of innovation in the classroom management. In conclusions, it is necessary to stimulate individual and collective reflection process in solving problematic situations in academic learning; to create and maintain an environment of collaboration and interaction in digital society. Keywords: Higher Education, Innovation, Digital society, classroom management.

Power Point presentations controlled by personal Smartphone used in educational processes Cornelia-Victoria Anghel Drigarin Lector PhD Eftimie Murgu University of RESITA [email protected]

The created program must installed on the personal Smartphone, which ruled the Android operating system, and the PowerPoint presentations can be controlled, by distance the. Client-Server applications can: displayed in real time on the phone's screen of the image on the video projector; screen ruled slides, up and down; move the pointer on the screen that replaces the classic laser pointer; making type marker pen marks on the slide by drawing them directly on the phone display. The program is divided into two individual applications that work together for a common purpose. One lies on the phone (client application) running on the computer and the camera peek (application server). The interaction of the two is a single client-server and is done by Wi-Fi connection wireless network between the computer and Smartphone, communication TCP/IP protocol being. Besides the part of communication which was implemented through a proper protocol there and part of execution which determinate commands from our phone and performs the appropriate actions and inform at the same time and the phone about actions taken. Finally, parallel with the two longer running applications and an FTP server that makes it possible to transfer files. Keywords: Educational processes, Power Point presentation, Android system, Smartphone.

Building Bridges for Teaching and Interacting with Emoji Generation Laura Malita, Gabriela Grosseck West University of Timisoara [email protected]

Nowadays we are the witnesses of how the societies are changing due to the technological movement that are effects both for professional and personal aspects of our lives. Day by day we are changing how we are communicating and interacting with other people. Among the people who are the most exposed with such technological developments, youth and students are spending more and more time in online environments, on different devices and for professional (educational) or personal purposes. Their mode of communication is somehow different than what we as academics are expecting, sometimes even difficult to understand. Among their “online language” emoji, emoticons, selfies, gifs and other visual elements usually provided by different applications are present with a large use. Referring only to emojis, today, they are used by 92% of online population, mainly with an aim of transferring different kinds of emotions in order to compensate for the lack of face-to-face contact. Using emoji in educational activities is both exciting and controversial. On the one hand, some conservative educators have seen them negatively affecting younger generations’ abilities to read and write properly, whilst others had said that emojis contribute to the quality of communications. However, emojis are a great add for education, if they are used appropriately, being an amazing tool for enhancing the students’ participation and creativity. As the gap in the digital communication among students and their teachers is widening day by day, we as educators should pay more attention to such new form of visual communication in order to explore effectively the meaning/importance of them for our students. Therefore, through this paper we will underline more in detail the benefits of using emojis in educational activities and consequently we will investigate if there is a need for introducing them in Romanian education. For thus, we will conduct a twofold study, questioning the opinions of both parts, the students and their teachers. Keywords: emojis, digital media, education, communication.

An Alternative or Complementary Learning Approach: Digital Game Based Learning Hasan Güler, Yunus Şahinkayasi, Hamide Şahinkayasi Kilis 7 Aralık Üniversity, Turkey [email protected]

Digital games (DGs), –artificially produced, having a specific purpose and a set of rules– is an activity with constraints on a particular context and based on competition. Researches show game sector and market grow rapidly due to increasing interest in digital game. There seems a trend towards mobile applications as game-play platforms. It appears the biggest share of apps downloaded from Apple App Store and Google Play belongs to games and children use games/apps on mobile devices. This study aims to introduce the conceptual framework, practices, potentials and trends of digital game-based learning (DGBL) to educators and developers. DGBL approach was introduced by pioneers Marc Prensky, James Paul Gee and Clark Aldrich at the beginning of 2000s. DGBL is described as a form of experiential engagement in which people learn by trial and error, by role-playing and by treating a certain topic not as ‘content’ but as a set of rules, or a system of choices and consequences. DGBL has such principles as 1-intrinsic motivation, 2-learning through intense enjoyment and “fun”, 3- authenticity, 4-self-reliance and autonomy, 5-experiential learning and such mechanisms as 1-rules, 2-clear but challenging goals, a fictional setting or “fantasy”, 4-progressive difficulty levels, 5-interaction and high degree of student control, 6-immediate and constructive feedback, 7-a social element that allows people to share experience and build bonds. New generation described as digital natives resists to conventional learning because they require multiple streams of information, prefer inductive reasoning, want frequent and instant interactions with content, and have exceptional visual literacy skills. Negative perception towards digital games with premises of leisure time activity, entertainment or comprising violence have changed since digital natives are in a media rich, accessible and constantly connected (via the internet) world and frequently playing games. Awareness of DG’s potential revived digital games as a serious learning and evaluation tool by educators, especially in new generation education. In this context, DGBL can be a cost-efficient, high- quality alternative or complementary teaching method to overcome the problems (especially not engaged in) in conventional teaching methods. It is seen subject areas for DGBL were generally mathematics, history, language teaching, science and social information in primary and secondary education. Some potentialities of DGBL are 1-Digital plays connected with cognitive, behavioral and emotional domain outputs are seen as an opportunity to reinforce skills of abstract thinking, creative thinking, high-level thinking and problem solving, 2- Since game-play offers intrinsic motivation and a pleasurable experience, it increases interest of students in the subject and enables active involvement, 3- Authenticity of game will lead to an increase in the skill of the player to transfer his knowledge or skill to real life situations. At the same time, games that provide collaborative learning opportunities also affect communication skills positively. Additionally, the games that contribute to the development of 21st century skills enable them to grow up as friends with new generation technology, 4-Learning within a meaningful and relevant context is more effective than learning out of context. So, the fact learning with games occur in a meaningful context provides multiple learning styles and personalized learning opportunities together, facilitates knowledge acquisition, enhances academic success and contributes to knowledge permanence, 5-Instant feedback in game is a measurement tool with a self-assessment mechanism to give info about players’ performance. Game, which allows for experience, identification and even failure, gives players a success-oriented productivity prowess, 6-It is reported that educational purposes for different educational levels will be realized more efficiently and faster if pedagogically designed and edited game items –motivation, narrative context, goals and rules, interaction and multi-sensory clues– are appropriate. These potentials of DGBL have affected not only individual researchers but also institutions/organizations to take DGBL seriously. Researches on DGBL are being carried out, applications are being developed as alternative or supporting teaching materials and methods, and how to apply them is asked through experimental studies. Some of them engaged in scientific studies on DGBL are: Atom (Middle East Technical University, Turkey), Agora Game Lab (Jyväskylä University, Finland), Ingamelab (Skövde University, Sweden), Games Lab (Radford University, USA), Serious Games Institute (Coventry University, Warwick University, England). DGs can be thought as a recreational tool with predefined goals by the designer or allowing the player to determine their goals and are concerned with achievement of these goals. However, DGs only are concerned with in providing a learning experience for the educational achievements and outcomes that can be transferred in real life rather than pure entertainment. To achieve game’s objectives, players actually achieve learning objectives; that is, they are to learn educational contents. The biggest shortcoming in game development models is the lack of balance between entertainment (flow) and educational components. In this context, a DGBL model can be developed by integrating educational components with the commercial game development process, and students can be educated for DGBL in faculties of education. Keywords: Digital games, Digital Game Based Learning, DGBL, Serious Games. Learning English with MOOCs Ramona Bran, Gabriela Grosseck, WUT West University of Timisoara [email protected]

The paper looks at our experience as teachers, of English and ICT respectively, in designing a MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) for English-language learners. LET and PET are the acronyms for Learning English with Technology and Practising English with Technology, the titles of the open online courses we are proposing to our students who are looking for digital and online means of learning English as a foreign language. While adding content to these MOOCs, we encountered certain challenges, such as: what are the best software for language acquisition, how can one accurately evaluate the progress made by learners, or how to facilitate interaction between peers, to mention just a few. At the same time, we were looking for innovative solutions to enhance the traditional, offline language acquisition approaches. Moreover, we had to keep in mind that students who enroll can come from different countries, backgrounds, age groups, and can have different levels of knowledge. Including multimedia, digital, and online elements in the language teaching and learning process definitely has numerous advantages, but this article focuses more on the challenges that have to be met when building MOOCs for language learners. Keywords: MOOCs, language learning, pedagogical design.

Teaching Journalism in the Age of Fake News Adina Baya Department of Philosophy and Communication Sciences, West University of Timisoara [email protected]

A series of recent reports show that traditional media in Romania faces decreasing credibility from the part of its audiences. The trend is by no means isolated, as various researchers signal this issue in connection to Western media in general, often in association with programmatic efforts put up by politicians to discredit media institutions. In the case of Romania, reasons for declining credibility pertain not just to the challenges connected to the economic and political environment – commercially vulnerable media institutions that provide poor quality reporting, frequent cases of political interference in the newsroom, high-profile cases of corruption and fiscal evasion connected to media owners etc. –, but also to the rampant invasion of “fake news” all across media platforms. The current paper aims to explore the main challenges faced by journalism educators in the “post-truth” era, when media is plagued by “alternative facts” and “fake news”. With what ethical and analytical tools should future journalists be equipped in order to gather and report information from a public space in which truth is becoming increasingly blurry? How can they keep up the standards of the profession by providing unbiased and relevant reporting? Some of the tentative answers to these questions include the necessity for journalism educators to encourage flexibility in finding and managing information across different platforms and in engaging with communities, empowering future journalists to do quality investigations and focus on facts, thus reshaping the reputation of the profession in the eyes of an increasingly distrustful public. The research benefits from insights into the phenomenon of “fake news” and news literacy education offered by a developing body of up-to-date literature in this domain. Moreover, conclusions are grounded on the author’s 15-year experience in teaching journalism, providing a consistent view upon the challenges of the shifting landscape of media education. Keywords: media literacy, journalism education, fake news, post-truth.

Opinions of pre-school teachers on using technology in self-care skills education Hasan Güler, Yunus Şahinkayasi, Hamide Şahinkayasi Kilis 7 Aralık University, Turkey [email protected]

Mobile technology usage fallen under two-year-age. Multimedia used in all areas play an important role in sharing information. TV broadcasts used for delivering subliminal messages are seriously affecting children. Although commercial digital games (DGs) are thought to negatively affect children's behavior, some thought they give positive results within controlled use. Self-care skills (SKS) have a impact on child's physical, mental, emotional and social development. Children adversely affected by acquisition of SKS will have problems in future (especially health and safety). Opinions of pre-school (PS) teachers regarding the use of digital games in supporting SKS gain is important for applicability of this method and any study could not be reached on this subject. This study aims to examine opinions of PS teachers on access to various information technologies, the usage frequency and purposes of them, and on the use of information technology in gaining self-care skills. The sample was 52 PS teachers (52 women) voluntarily participating in study from 17 different PS institutions in Kilis. Appropriate sampling method was used in the study. Participants are teachers of 3, 4 and (mostly) 5-year-old children, the majority being 22-28 years old. Model of the study was survey model for instant situation determination. As a data gathering tool, a questionnaire consisting of closed and open ended questions was developed by researchers with the opinions of field experts. Surveys were implemented in the spring semester of 2016-2017 academic year. The collected data were analyzed with descriptive statistics such as frequency, percentage, cross table. Content analysis was performed for open-ended answers. Findings: It was found almost half (46.2%) of the teachers having TV and most of the smart phone users (59.6%), some of them having desktop computers (42.3%) and most of the teachers having laptop computers (61.5%) have their own device more than four years, and half of tablet computer users (40.4%) have the device more than three years. It has been determined that these technologies are mostly used for “researching”, “fallow news” and “watching video”.36.5% of participants said they liked playing digital games, 59.6% said they didn’t, 23.1% said they could play, 48.1% said they could not play. “Waste of time” with 42.9% is at first why to like to play games. Percentage of “Playing games is harmful” answer is very low. “Not having time to play” with 94.4% is at first why they cannot play. “Puzzle game genre” and “smartphone” is the most preferred game genre and platform at participant’ responses. The most time is consumed to play puzzle games. “Compelling levels” and “game genre” are most important factors for their DG preferences. Most PS teachers (78.8%) spend time every day, some (9.6%) spend time three times a week on SKS education. This education was given by teachers with such activity as language activity, music activity, such methods as “demonstrate and allow them to do”, “narration”, “presentation” and such materials as short films, cartoons and songs. Four quarters of PS teachers reported positive and very few (3.8%) reported negative views about the use of alternative in-school and out-of-school teaching approaches and materials for SKS education. Among recommended approaches, the most answered was "family support/participation" and followed by "panel hanging inside and outside (social areas)". "Inviting or visiting field specialists” was a remarkable answer. “Short films, cartoons and TV programs" comes forefront answers as recommended materials. The majority of teachers (67.3%) thought positively about the effects of cartoons on the achievement of children's self-care skills and 7.7% thought negatively. It was found that “children take cartoon characters/heroes as role-model” is mostly answered why they were positive. We see that “addiction” and “inappropriate content” are at first among the reasons for negative thinking. Only 23.1% of the respondents were positive, 46.2% were negative and 30.8% did not respond to question about getting children to gain SKS through digital gaming or applications. “Facilitating learning” among the causes of positive thinking, “addiction” and “facilitating the learning of wrong behaviors, too” among the reasons of negative thinking come at the first. Conclusions and recommendations: Teachers adopts mobile technologies and use the technologies for “researching”, “following news”, and “watching videos”. Teachers warmly welcomed alternative methods and materials to support SKS education, especially proposes family co-operation and short films/TV programs. Teachers think more positively about TV broadcasts to support SKS than DGs. Although DGs are thought to facilitate learning, the thought DGs is making addictive and facilitating learning misbehaviors as well was why they have negative attitude to DGs. The use of DGs is not included in pre-service training and is not used as a teaching material in current practice in schools so they should be investigated whether they are the underlying reasons why teachers didn’t welcome warmly to such materials. Keywords: Self-care skills, Information technologies, Digital games, Cartoons, Preschool Teachers.

A Multi-Case Analysis of Teachers’ Cognition about and Use of Digital Technology for Literacy Instruction Saiful Izwan Bin Zainal University of Warwick, United Kingdom [email protected]

There has been few descriptive and in-depth study on teacher cognitions about how to use digital technology in English literacy instruction, and not many studies that describe their use of digital technology in detail. This is an issue that should be given attention because teachers' cognitions about and use of digital technology are often associated with each other, and the knowledge of these elements is essential for improving the quality of teaching and learning. The objectives of the study are: 1) to examine the nature of Malaysian teachers’ cognitions about (the use of) digital technology in English literacy instruction, 2) to investigate the origin of teachers’ cognitions, 3) to explore how Malaysian teachers use digital technology for literacy instruction in the classroom, and 4) to examine how Malaysian teachers’ cognitions about digital technology are related to their use of digital technology in ESL literacy instruction. This study examines teachers’ cognitions about and uses of digital technology in English literacy instruction among three teachers in Malaysia. While being descriptive and exploratory in nature, this research design focuses on employing a multiple case study approach. The teachers were surveyed, interviewed, and observed about their cognitions and uses of digital technology in English literacy instruction. Results showed that although the teachers surveyed strongly believe in the abilities and capabilities of digital technology in improving teaching, they still seem to have some concerns and confusion about the implementation of the use of technology as a whole. Keywords: Teacher cognition, use of digital technology.

8. Psychology of education and varia

A Servicity Approach on the Teaching System, using Boosel's principles Alexandru Jivan Prof. univ. dr., West University of Timisoara, Faculty of Economisc and Business Administration [email protected]

The paper aims at developing an original approach from the economic angle, in contrast with the common view based on usual performance criteria. Starting from the principles of the actual knowledge-based society, the servicity approach from the service economics is presented as opposed to the common productivity approach. The research is a purely theoretical debate that reaches certain of Boosel's principles. The research results in a frame for better understanding formation that supply principles for building indicators for the educational field, indicators which could capture a widened horizon, beneficial for a less economic, but more human teaching system. Keywords: service, education, Boosel's principles, productivity, servicity

Adapting and Validating a Subjecting Wellbeing Scale on Romanian Population

Anca Luştrea, Mihai Predescu, Loredana AlGhazi West University of Timisoara, Romania [email protected]

The subjective wellbeing seems to have important impact on education and on educational practices. It might influence learning efficacy and academic progress, improve the socio- affective environment of the educational environment, and reduce academic failure and school drop-out. Investigating the wellbeing of the university students could help in early identification of their mental health problems, and the signs of disengagement and imminent drop-out. In this paper we will present the steps of translating, adapting and validating of the Ryff Scales, 84 item version, for the Romanian population. Keywords: wellbeing, education, validation.

Dialogue and Intellectual Exchange within the Group. Formative Aspects Lavinia Nitulescu, Alina Visan Eftimie Murgu University of Resita [email protected]

In the educational activity, the dialogue stimulates the learning activity by the mutual exchange of ideas between the participants. The purpose of the paper is to highlight the benefits of interactive pedagogy, based on the dialogues and intellectual exchanges within the pupils/students group. The paper is based on the attributes of the dialogue pedagogy (Freire, cf. Vittoria, 2010, Bocoș, 2013, Pânișoară, 2015), of the intellectual exchange pedagogy (Abdallah-Pretceille, cf. Bocoș, 2013) and of the group pedagogy (Johnson, Johnson, 1997; Popa, 2010, Bocoș, 2013). The collocation “the pedagogy of the dialogue” denominates an active and interactive pedagogy based on the participation of the students in the dialogues undertaken in class. The pedagogy of the intellectual exchange promotes mutuality, common actions and negotiation. All these, in the context of the group pedagogy which favours the students’ participation in the didactic activity and guides their efforts. In the study, we included as participants the 2nd year students of the study program The Pedagogy of Primary and Pre-school education and from the psycho-pedagogical study program, level I from the “Eftimie Murgu” University of Reșița. The research methods used are methods of data gathering: observation, experiment, conversation, the pedagogical test and statistical processing methods of these ones: arithmetic mean, tables, charts. The conclusions of the study reveal some interactional behaviours, a high level of information and knowledge, due to the use in the course and seminar activity, of the methods based on dialogue and intellectual exchange within the group. Conversation, debate, constructive controversy etc. require both the collective thinking and the individual elaboration, in a constructive environment, based on trust and mutual support. Keywords: dialogue, intellectual exchange, group pedagogy.

Developing intellectual capital in the knowledge society. The RESPECT integrated educational model applied in the higher economic education Mirela Minica Assist. prof. Phd., University "Eftimie Murgu"of Resita [email protected]

The aim of the paper is to establish a correlation between the characteristics of the knowledge society and the intellectual capital attributes at the level of the universities, highlighting the necessity of changing the means of implementing strategies for the development of the organizational culture and adapting to the requirements of the European Higher Education Area. The article analyzes and describes the evolution of an educational model impregnated by a revolutionary paradigm for contemporary higher education, but also the human behaviors of community members who build this model, interacting in their natural context. The author conceived and applied in the last three years an educational model centered on three axes: cognitive, social and behaviors and aptitudes, with the acronym RESPECT, descriptive case study describing the way in which the educational model to be based was developed creating a competitive advantage for study programs in economics. The study aims at presenting as close as possible to reality the process of building the educational model, and as specific objectives describing how the model (processes and factors) developed and developed, identify and analyze the actors that influenced the process, describe the context of initiating this construction process, identify the main constituent elements of this model and how they interconnect, to analyze the degree of confidence that this model generates among the various stakeholders. Keywords: knowledge, intellectual capital, student centered education, model educational.

The dynamic relationship between perceived school safety and just- for-fun online harassment Dana Balas Timar, Edgar Demeter, Alina Roman, Sonia Ignat Aurel Vlaicu University of Arad [email protected]

Our research team has developed the project Keeping youth safe from Cyberbullying, ID 2016-3-TR01-KA205-036619 under Erasmus+, that aims to deeper understand the dynamics of cyberbullying in online environments among youth, to develop educational resources for professionals involved in youth activities in order to prevent these type behaviors, to develop youth skills to protect themselves from cyberbullying and to disseminate findings among educational professionals. A 7 section online questionnaire was designed, aiming to gather descriptive data, general perception about the frequency and typology of cyberbullying type incidents, perceptions about the safety of the educational environment and parental support and an auto evaluation scale centered on self-efficacy perceptions. Data was collected from 92 participants. Present’s study interest is in analyzing the relationship between perceived school safety and just-for-fun online harassment. In order to test our hypothesis that assumes that between perceived school safety and just-for- fun online harassment there is a dynamic relationship, we have used a confirmatory factor analysis, based on multiple regression analysis for curvilinear effects. Results confirm the dynamic relationship between perceived school safety and just-for-fun online harassment, meaning that the poorer and as well as the stronger school safety is perceived, just-for-fun online harassment is present in educational contexts; a fair school safety perception intrigues an almost non-existent just-for-fun online harassment among pupils/students. Qualitative results and cyberbullying prevention strategies are discussed. Keywords: educational environment safety perception, cyberbullying, dynamic relationship.

The didactic game – an educational method for the intellectual development of preschoolers Alina Constantin, Andrade Bichescu ”Eftimie Murgu” University of Resita

The main goal of the educational(didactic) game is to harmoniously combine the instructive element with the fun element, ensuring a complete unity between the educational task and the game act. Through the educational game, children's knowledge is enhanced, consolidated, synthesized, evaluated and enriched, being exploited in new contexts. The use of educational games in the educational process makes the preschooler become interested in the activity that is taking place, makes the shy pupils become volubill, active, courageous, gain more confidence in their intellectual capabilities, feel secure and assertive. The pedagogical experiment was carried out on a batch of 100 pre-schools. Objectives of the experiment: recording, observing and comparing the progress achieved by preschooler; determining and analyzing the preschooler learning capacity (abilities), knowing that acquiring new knowledge is a process where each new skill builds on the basis provided by the previously learned competences; establishing that there are numerous implications of the educational games in the intellectual formation of the preschooler. Keywords: didactic game, intellectual development, experiment.

Pedagogical causes of school failure Cristina Ispas PHd lecturer, Universitatea Eftimie Murgu din Resita [email protected]

School failure records different forms ranging from learning difficulties occurring in one or more disciplines to serious forms such as dropout. Most of the times there are a number of factors that cause school failure. These causes can be found either at the level of the student's personality (internal factors) or at the level of the student's environment (external factors): school, family, community. This study strengthens the doctrinal perspective in preventing and fighting school failure and therefore the focus has been directed towards identifying pedagogical causes responsible for the apparition of school failure. Keywords: school failure, pedagogical causes , curriculum, school management, teachers.

Arabic Language Education in Bangladesh Mohammad Golamur Rahman Sultan Zainal Abidin University (Unisza), Bangladesh [email protected]

Muslim Scholars in the Indian sub-continent, especially in the People's Republic of Bangladesh are so interested in the Arabic Language. For that reason, they have established thousands of religious institutes, Islamic schools for either primary, secondary and higher secondary levels, and Arabic language and literature are included in all of those educational institutions' curricula. The aim of the Research is to highlight and expose the development flows of the Arabic language and the evolution, with a statement of teaching curricula system in different educational institutions of the universities, religious schools, colleges and language teaching centers in the People's Republic of Bangladesh. In this research mainly historical and analytical methodology has flowered. It is also used modern technologies like internet website email etc. The Research found that the Arabic language has a significant progress in the Bangladeshi educational institutions in recent years, even though that was not satisfactory level but better than previous eras. Keywords: Arabic Language, Education, Bangladesh.