title: Adaptive online domain incremental continual learning

authors: Gunasekara, Nuwan Amila

subjects: computer science

abstract: Continual Learning (CL) problems pose significant challenges for Neural Network (NN)s. Online Domain Incremental Continual Learning (ODI-CL) refers to situations where the data distribution may change from one task to another. These changes can severely affect the learned model, focusing too much on previous data and failing to properly learn and represent new concepts. Conversely, if a model constantly forgets previously learned knowledge, it may be deemed too unstable and unsuitable. This work proposes Online Domain Incremental Pool (ODIP), a novel method to cope with catastrophic forgetting. ODIP also employs automatic concept drift detection and does not require task ids during training. ODIP maintains a pool of learners, freezing and storing the best one after training on each task. An additional Task Predictor (TP) is trained to select the most appropriate NN from the frozen pool for prediction. We compare ODIP against regularization methods and observe that it yields competitive predictive performance.

text: Adaptive online domain incremental continual learning Continual Learning (CL) problems pose significant challenges for Neural Network (NN)s. Online Domain Incremental Continual Learning (ODI-CL) refers to situations where the data distribution may change from one task to another. These changes can severely affect the learned model, focusing too much on previous data and failing to properly learn and represent new concepts. Conversely, if a model constantly forgets previously learned knowledge, it may be deemed too unstable and unsuitable. This work proposes Online Domain Incremental Pool (ODIP), a novel method to cope with catastrophic forgetting. ODIP also employs automatic concept drift detection and does not require task ids during training. ODIP maintains a pool of learners, freezing and storing the best one after training on each task. An additional Task Predictor (TP) is trained to select the most appropriate NN from the frozen pool for prediction. We compare ODIP against regularization methods and observe that it yields competitive predictive performance.

year: 2022

title: Stories of happiness, emotional goals and identity in 21ˢᵗ century teachers

authors: Hooker, Tom

subjects: Happiness

abstract: Happiness may be the key to keeping teachers in the profession. Rarely, however, does teaching tend to be associated with moments of happiness in educational research or in the popular imagination.
In fact, quite the opposite view is presented in the significant body of literature that describes the emotional travails, stress and burnout of teachers. Consequently, there are recruitment and retention crises in schools throughout the Western World. Teacher identity is also in crisis, undermined since the late-1980s by economistic reforms which view teachers as producers and achievement as currency in an educational marketplace. Running counter to the more holistic, altruistic educational philosophies held by many in the profession, the reforms have attached a vulnerability to the identities of many teachers. Teaching culture has been described as one of unhappiness.
This study aims to shine a light on the happy moments which exist in teaching life. In doing so, it wonders if others were to do the same, whether an embattled but noble profession could find new life and allow the people within it greater agency in their identities. With little in the way of preceding research, the thesis is exploratory. Sitting in the interpretive paradigm, it utilises a narrative methodology to capture stories of happiness from teaching life. Interviews were employed to elicit the stories from eight participants, with the aim of providing thick, socially-situated description of happy episodes in the classroom. Supporting, scene-setting data comes from two focus groups while participants also completed a diary to document their daily emotion.
The study shows that teachers mainly experience eudemonic happiness, a type of positive emotion associated with self-actualisation after meeting long-held, personally important goals. It finds that a necessary precursor to these experiences is for participants to emphasise these long-held, altruistic goals in the narrative construction of their personal-professional identities, their teacherly selves. Furthermore, positive aspects of the teacherly self emerge from happy experiences in teaching because of self-actualisation occurring in the experience of eudemonia. Additionally, many of the teacher participants found particular happiness in the positive narrative arc of an underdog. Positive professional identity is important in teaching because it is associated with quality teaching practice.
Therefore, there are implications for teachers who want to improve their happiness and also their practice. There are also implications for educational leaders and teacher educators to make space for happiness and the positive identity formation of teachers. This is because students are likely to benefit from teachers’ happy episodes if such episodes improve practice, although, further research into the connection between teacher happiness and student outcomes is suggested. That teachers may be particularly enlivened by an underdog story is good for students who require the greatest support. It is recommended that researchers address the connection between eudemonia and positive identity formation. In particular, it is important to determine if similar phenomena can be located across a range of settings and cultures.

text: Stories of happiness, emotional goals and identity in 21ˢᵗ century teachers Happiness may be the key to keeping teachers in the profession. Rarely, however, does teaching tend to be associated with moments of happiness in educational research or in the popular imagination.
In fact, quite the opposite view is presented in the significant body of literature that describes the emotional travails, stress and burnout of teachers. Consequently, there are recruitment and retention crises in schools throughout the Western World. Teacher identity is also in crisis, undermined since the late-1980s by economistic reforms which view teachers as producers and achievement as currency in an educational marketplace. Running counter to the more holistic, altruistic educational philosophies held by many in the profession, the reforms have attached a vulnerability to the identities of many teachers. Teaching culture has been described as one of unhappiness.
This study aims to shine a light on the happy moments which exist in teaching life. In doing so, it wonders if others were to do the same, whether an embattled but noble profession could find new life and allow the people within it greater agency in their identities. With little in the way of preceding research, the thesis is exploratory. Sitting in the interpretive paradigm, it utilises a narrative methodology to capture stories of happiness from teaching life. Interviews were employed to elicit the stories from eight participants, with the aim of providing thick, socially-situated description of happy episodes in the classroom. Supporting, scene-setting data comes from two focus groups while participants also completed a diary to document their daily emotion.
The study shows that teachers mainly experience eudemonic happiness, a type of positive emotion associated with self-actualisation after meeting long-held, personally important goals. It finds that a necessary precursor to these experiences is for participants to emphasise these long-held, altruistic goals in the narrative construction of their personal-professional identities, their teacherly selves. Furthermore, positive aspects of the teacherly self emerge from happy experiences in teaching because of self-actualisation occurring in the experience of eudemonia. Additionally, many of the teacher participants found particular happiness in the positive narrative arc of an underdog. Positive professional identity is important in teaching because it is associated with quality teaching practice.
Therefore, there are implications for teachers who want to improve their happiness and also their practice. There are also implications for educational leaders and teacher educators to make space for happiness and the positive identity formation of teachers. This is because students are likely to benefit from teachers’ happy episodes if such episodes improve practice, although, further research into the connection between teacher happiness and student outcomes is suggested. That teachers may be particularly enlivened by an underdog story is good for students who require the greatest support. It is recommended that researchers address the connection between eudemonia and positive identity formation. In particular, it is important to determine if similar phenomena can be located across a range of settings and cultures.

year: 2020

title: Indigenous knowledges in health policy in Aotearoa New Zealand and Saskatchewan Canada: A comparative study

authors: Green, Jane Alison

subjects: Indigenous

abstract: For more than two decades, components of Māori knowledges in the form of Māori words and concepts have been part of health policy in Aotearoa New Zealand. Health policy that engages Māori words and concepts resonates with Māori community values and aspirations and is thought to contribute to the revitalisation of Māori knowledges. Absent from the literature is an examination of this phenomenon; specifically, the socio-political factors that facilitate and limit the engagement of Māori knowledges with health policy. Of the four settler states, only in Aotearoa New Zealand are the knowledges of the Indigenous peoples engaged with health policy. In Saskatchewan, Canada, the First Nations and Métis peoples have engaged their knowledges with federal and provincially funded health programmes and services but not health policy. This study adopts a two-country comparative policy framework to investigate and theorise the historical and contemporary socio-political factors associated with the engagement of Indigenous knowledges in health policy in Aotearoa New Zealand and Saskatchewan, Canada. An adaption is made to the Kaupapa Māori approach so that the complexities of a two-country case study approach are addressed and engagement in health policy as a strategy for knowledge revitalisation is theorised. The study also takes a path less travelled which is to investigate the impact that engagement with health policy has upon the intangible or the ontological aspects of Māori knowledges. Māori describe their knowledges as comprised of tangible and intangible elements, both of which are important. Another adaption is made to the Kaupapa Māori theoretical approach which is to add speculative inquiry. The study argues that speculative inquiry in the form of contemplative, analytical, relational and viscerally aware practices are commonplace in Māori communities. Adding speculative inquiry to an already rich theoretical body that is Kaupapa Māori research provides an opening for other Kaupapa Māori researchers to expand non-empirical inquiry. The study concludes that government policies have had a decimating effect upon Māori, First Nations and Métis knowledges. Moreover, recent reports from commissions and inquiries indicate these knowledges and associated languages continue to decline for a number of reasons, including the impact of contemporary government policies. Health policy, this study asserts, is an uncertain site from which to revitalise Māori, First Nations and Métis knowledges.

text: Indigenous knowledges in health policy in Aotearoa New Zealand and Saskatchewan Canada: A comparative study For more than two decades, components of Māori knowledges in the form of Māori words and concepts have been part of health policy in Aotearoa New Zealand. Health policy that engages Māori words and concepts resonates with Māori community values and aspirations and is thought to contribute to the revitalisation of Māori knowledges. Absent from the literature is an examination of this phenomenon; specifically, the socio-political factors that facilitate and limit the engagement of Māori knowledges with health policy. Of the four settler states, only in Aotearoa New Zealand are the knowledges of the Indigenous peoples engaged with health policy. In Saskatchewan, Canada, the First Nations and Métis peoples have engaged their knowledges with federal and provincially funded health programmes and services but not health policy. This study adopts a two-country comparative policy framework to investigate and theorise the historical and contemporary socio-political factors associated with the engagement of Indigenous knowledges in health policy in Aotearoa New Zealand and Saskatchewan, Canada. An adaption is made to the Kaupapa Māori approach so that the complexities of a two-country case study approach are addressed and engagement in health policy as a strategy for knowledge revitalisation is theorised. The study also takes a path less travelled which is to investigate the impact that engagement with health policy has upon the intangible or the ontological aspects of Māori knowledges. Māori describe their knowledges as comprised of tangible and intangible elements, both of which are important. Another adaption is made to the Kaupapa Māori theoretical approach which is to add speculative inquiry. The study argues that speculative inquiry in the form of contemplative, analytical, relational and viscerally aware practices are commonplace in Māori communities. Adding speculative inquiry to an already rich theoretical body that is Kaupapa Māori research provides an opening for other Kaupapa Māori researchers to expand non-empirical inquiry. The study concludes that government policies have had a decimating effect upon Māori, First Nations and Métis knowledges. Moreover, recent reports from commissions and inquiries indicate these knowledges and associated languages continue to decline for a number of reasons, including the impact of contemporary government policies. Health policy, this study asserts, is an uncertain site from which to revitalise Māori, First Nations and Métis knowledges.

year: 2018