Knowledge of origin and symptoms of common human diseases as well as aplication of finding how prevent and cure them is one of expected performances of biology lessons at 8th grade of czech elementary school. The aim of this thesis is to create a visual teaching tool in the form of an educational board game, which would assist teachers with handing the topic of diseases over to students in effective and relaxed way. Theoretical part of the thesis includes biological data physiology of human disease and description of youth enlightenment. There are also didactic data describing proactiv teaching methods and an analysis of some biology textbooks. In practical part of the thesis is a description of the educational board game and test inquiry which demonstrates, that the board game leeds to acquire important facts about human diseases.

Today the Swedish education system faces major challenges. This research deals with school segregation and the differences in and among Swedish municipalities, more specifically between Kalmar and Karlskrona. There are well-established national goals with the aim to reduce and counteract school segregation, however we tend to find huge differences in the system and performance of schools. All schools have different grounds, conditions and needs and it forces the local government, principals and teachers to act according to factors as resources, priorities, goals and expected behavior within institutions. Deficiencies create the prerequisites for conducting, completing and maintaining the business to the extent that it can be based on the design of the requirements on national level. That brings a great decentralized responsibility and gives room for maneuver and freedom of action for street-level bureaucrats, that may not maintain national standards. The purpose of this research is to analyse how enforcement of national goals in each municipality, at local schools,  that either are segregated or may become and then compare them to see the difference. In conclusion the analysis show that national goals are used as guidelines in municipalities, but all municipalities establish their own goals according to the conditions and needs of the school. The difference that exist between schools depends on local circumstances.

In this thesis a multifunctional DC/DC converter board will be developed for utilization as an educational experiment set in the switched-mode power conversion laboratory of power electronic courses. The board has a generic power-pole structure allowing for easy configuration of various power converter topologies and includes buck, boost, buck-boost, flyback, and forward converter topologies. All the converters can be operated in the open-loop control mode with a switching frequency range of 30-100 kHz and a maximum output power of 20 W. Also the buck converter can be operated in voltage mode control and the buck-boost converter can be operated in peak-current-mode control for the purpose of demonstrating the closed loop control performance of DC/DC converters. The designed board allows for experimentation on the DC/DC converters to observe the macroscopic (steadystate/ dynamic, PWM cycle and low frequency) and microscopic (switching dynamic) behavior of the converters. In the experiments both such characteristics can be clearly observed such that students at basic learning level (involving only the macroscopic behavior), and students at advanced learning level (additionally involving the parasitic effects) can benefit from the experiments. The thesis reviews the switch mode conversion principles, gives the board design and proceeds with the experiments illustrating the capabilities of the experimental system.

Universities world wide do efforts to integrate education on climate change in the educational programs, but teaching about climate change is challenging: the climate system is complex, future prognoses include difficult terms of likeliness and the topic as such awakes emotions. Simulations and games are sometimes used to address climate change matters, and along with an increasing number of available interactive online simulations there is an on-going revolution in how online-material is used to provide students with information in higher education. Some practitioners move parts of the informative course material online in order to get more time for active learning – learning processes in which the student is participating more actively than just listening. This master thesis investigates if active learning can support students when learning about climate change in higher technical education. Data for the research was collected through three case studies of interactive seminars, in climate related courses at the Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden, and at the University of Graz, Austria. The active learning was facilitated through gaming sessions with a climate board game, with exercises in vocabulary and discussions as well as explanations of the physical science basis. One student group was provided with a series of lectures prior to the board gaming session, whereas the other two groups were participating in a single seminar with the flipped classroom approach: students followed a study instruction with online material as well as reading of scientific papers on Earth’s climate system and climate change before the interactive gaming seminar took place. Analysis of survey responds (n=102), mind-map reflections (n=14) and interviews (n=5) led to the development of three key findings: (1) students’ attitudes toward learning about climate change involves emotions, (2) the active gaming seminar increased the students’ understanding of climate change and (3) students’ confidence - in their own understanding as well as in their ability to explain climate change – increased through the participation in the active learning seminar. Moreover, a reflection drawn from the results in this study indicates that universities could play an important role in climate communication; if a university provides an introduction to climate change, the students can be “pushed over a threshold”, so that future participation in discussions on the topic may become less distant. Using games as an active learning tool in the introduction can increase student understanding and confidence in the topic of climate change - and doing so in a supportive and enjoyable manner. / Universitet världen över gör ansträngningar för att integrera undervisning av klimatförändringarna i sina utbildningsprogram, men klimatförändringarna är ett utmanande ämne: klimatsystemet är komplext, framtidsprognoser innefattar svårtolkade sannolikhetstermer och ämnet som sådant väcker många känslor. Simulationer och spel att en lärandemetod för att beröra ämnet, och samtidigt som det finns ett allt större utbud av undervisningsmaterial om klimatförändringarna på internet, sker en snabb förändring i hur online-material används för att förse studenter med information i den högre utbildningen. I vissa kurser flyttas en del av det informativa kursmaterialet till online-plattformar för att frigöra mer tid för aktivt lärande – lärande, i vilket studenten är mer aktiv än att enbart lyssna. I den här masteruppsatsen utreds huruvida aktivt lärande kan stödja studenter i lärandet om klimatförändringarna i högre teknisk utbildning. Data till studien samlades från tre studentgrupper som deltog i interaktiva klimatseminarier på Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan, KTH, och på Universitetet i Graz. För att uppnå aktivt lärande användes ett klimatbrädspel, med övningar i begrepp, vokabulär och diskussioner samt bearbetning av vetenskapliga förklaringar kring klimatförändringarna. En studentgrupp lyssnade till en föreläsningsserie före deltagandet i spelseminariet, de andra två grupperna deltog däremot enbart i ett seminarium med flipped classroom metoden: studenterna följde en instuderingsinstruktion med online-material och vetenskapliga skrifter innan de kom till spelseminariet. Analys av enkätsvar (n=102), mind-map-reflektioner (n=14) och intervjuer (n=5) ledde till tre huvudsakliga slutsatser: (1) studenternas attityder kring lärandet av klimatförändringarna påverkas av känslor, (2) studiens spelseminarier ökade studenternas förståelse av klimatförändringarna och (3) efter den aktiva lärandemetoden var studenterna mer bekväma med att förklara klimatförändringarna samt fick större förtroende till sin kunskap i ämnet. Vidare kan resultaten i den här studien tolkas som att klimatundervisning i högre utbildning kan utgöra en viktig roll för mottagandet av klimatkommunikation; om ett universitet förser studenter med en introduktion till vetenskap om klimatförändringarna kan studenterna ”tvingas över en tröskel”, så att framtida deltagande i diskussioner i ämnet kan bli mindre avlägsna. Studenterna i studien upplevde nämligen en brist på trovärdig information om klimatförändringarna i det dagliga nyhetsflödet, därför uppskattade de att ta del av vetenskaplig information och komplexa diskussioner under spelseminariet. Att använda utbildande brädspel som en aktivt-lärande-metod kan öka studenters självsäkerhet och förståelse av klimatförändringarna – på ett stödjande och glädjefyllt sätt.

The purpose of this study was to discover which southern universities have graduate preparatory programs in community college leadership and how, if at all, ethics is addressed in their curricula and in instruction. Surveys were mailed to 38 southern universities located in the Southern Regional Education Board member states. Of the 21 responses received, there were 16 usable responses from universities in these states. Through an examination of databases of Council for the Study of Community Colleges Graduate Studies and the American Association of Community Colleges Leadership Programs for Community College Professionals databases, 38 senior universities were found to have community college leadership programs. State programs were further confirmed through the survey to personnel listed on program websites for the universities. 15 of 16 southern universities responding to the survey item were found to have community college leadership preparatory programs that provide ethics instruction. Although the results of this survey indicate that the majority of the respondents include ethics in their curricula and in instruction, the manner in which they integrate it is varied and shows a lack of consensus among southern universities. Of the institutions that responded, the majority of respondents indicated that ethics instruction is integrated into specific discipline- or department-based courses. Offering ethics in an elective or general core course requirement was noted as a less common approach, but a viable alternative to the specific discipline- or department-based course method. Additionally, several respondents revealed that ethics instruction is institution-wide. This finding, in particular, is hopeful because it suggests that colleges are going beyond the confines of courses and degree programs and making ethics instruction a university priority. A review of the graduate preparatory programs in community college leadership courses, syllabi, and course descriptions revealed that a number of universities often incorporated instruction in ethics-based courses such as Ethical Decision Making or Ethics in the Workplace and Education. Conversely, the majority of the universities in this study addressed ethics through community college leadership core courses to include, but not limited to, The Community College, The History and Philosophy of the Community College, and Legal Aspects of Higher Education.