The concept of autonomy has received considerable attention in both –philosophy and psychology. From the perspective of philosophy, autonomy refers to self-governance of one’s actions. In psychological theory, the focus has been more on human beings striving to experience autonomy and self-determination. In this entry, we will examine the elusive concept of autonomy from different theoretical angels and focus in particular on how autonomy emerges through social interactions and how it develops over the course of the lifespan. We will pay special attention to the role autonomy plays in creativity and the exploration of the possible.
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Introduction: The notion of autonomy in Self-Determination Theory is at the core of intrinsically motivated learning, and fulfilment of the need for autonomy is essential for thriving at school. Therefore teacher-provided autonomy support has grown into a key concern in educational research. In the present study into primary school music education, the notion of creative autonomy support is introduced. Research into autonomy support is typically focused on verbal interaction. However, from an enactive perspective, teachers’ gesturing, bodily movement, facial expression, and musical action form an integral part of the socially situated interaction in music lessons, inherently involving autonomy support. In the present study, a distinction is made between creative verbal autonomy support and creative musical and non-verbal autonomy support.Methods: Applying a process-based time-serial methodology, rooted in a Complex Dynamic Systems and Enactive perspective, the effects of an intervention with Video Feedback Coaching for teachers were investigated. Video data of 105 music lessons of 18 teachers (intervention and control condition) from six primary schools was gathered, to examine teachers’ creative autonomy support at both the individual and group level.Results: The findings show that teachers in the intervention condition, compared to the control group, achieved a meaningful increase in their ability to offer creative autonomy support verbally. Teachers also showed development for the non-verbal and musical aspects of offering creative autonomy support. However, particularly for offering higher-level creative autonomy support in the non-verbal and musical mode, significant results were found for less than half of the intervention teachers.Discussion: These results underline the importance of embracing and studying the bodily dimension as an integral part of teacher autonomy support, aimed at emergence of students’ musical creativity, in primary school music education and in teacher training. We explain how these results might be relevant for autonomy enhancing musical activities in vulnerable groups.
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In primary music education a key question is what teachers can do to stimulate students’ musical creativity. For the answer, delving into teacher-student interaction during the creative processes in the naturalistic setting of primary music lessons is required. Twenty-six music lessons from thirteen teachers and their classes of seven Dutch schools were recorded to explore the relation between teachers’ autonomy support and students’ divergent and convergent thought & action. Quantitative sequential analysis and thematic analysis were combined to examine this relation, using a framework offered by Complex Dynamic Systems theory and Enaction theory. In contrast to classical correla-tional analysis, sequential analysis focuses on the dynamics, and thus on the temporal relation in classroom interaction. The results show that mostly lower-level autonomy support was offered. Es-pecially in creative lessons, higher-level autonomy support is more likely to lead to higher-level student divergent thought and action. For convergent thought and action, the results were less con-clusive. An implication of the findings is that (research into) music education could benefit from interventions aimed at enhancing autonomy support in primary school music.
De Nederlandse agrosector heeft te maken met sterke schaalvergroting, klimaatverandering, achteruitgang van bouwland door bodemverdichting van zware machines, teruglopende beschikbaarheid van arbeid en een strengere milieuwetgeving. Oplossingen worden gezocht in het gebruik van kleine, autonome machines (agrobots) die specifieke taken van boeren kunnen overnemen. Nederlandse machinebouwers als Lely spelen hierop in met melk-, voer- en mestruimrobots. De agrarische sector wil steeds efficiënter werken, haar productiviteit verbeteren en vraagt zodoende voortdurend om slimmere applicaties. Een toekomstbeeld waarbij samenwerkende agrobots situaties kunnen beoordelen en gezamenlijk complexe taken kunnen uitvoeren wordt gezien als ‘The next step’ en onvermijdelijk, maar tevens als ingewikkeld, risicovol en voorlopig onrealiseerbaar. Machinebouwers hechten grote waarde aan betrouwbaarheid en missen de technologie om onderlinge coöperativiteit tussen machines met de nodige robuustheid te kunnen ontwikkelen en te integreren in hun product. De HAN heeft inmiddels veel ervaring opgebouwd op het gebied van programmeertools voor robotica en wil samen met kennisinstellingen als WUR, TUDelft en UT, machinebouwers als Lely en MultiToolTrac en eindgebruikers uit de agrarische sector, kennis en ervaring ontwikkelen op het gebied van het programmeren van robuuste, coöperatieve systemen. Het consortium wil dit doen met behulp van een modelgebaseerde workflow op basis van een integrale, open source toolchain waarin bestaande tools c.q. ecosystemen zijn geïntegreerd. Dit moet uiteindelijk resulteren in een praktijkdemonstratie – op de Floriade 2022 - van de technologie middels twee prototypes: mestrobots in de veehouderij en oogstafvoersystemen in de akkerbouw. Ten behoeve van een goede projectfocus beschouwt DurableCASE autonomie als reeds bestaand en voegt hier coöperativiteit aan toe. Concreet levert DurableCASE het volgende op: - gedemonstreerde en gepubliceerde, toepasbare kennis over robuuste coöperativiteit in agrobotica, gebaseerd op multi-agent technologie; - een open toolchain die efficiënte, modelgebaseerde ontwikkeling van robuuste coöperativiteit mogelijk maakt; - inzicht in de business case; - lesmateriaal op basis van bovengenoemde kennis en toolchain.
Sport injuries are a major reason for reduced participation and drop-out from sports and PE. Refraining from sport participation has negative bearing effects on mental and physical wellbeing, which tracks into adulthood. It is therefore important for youth to be facilitated into lifelong active participation in physical activity and sport, as the importance of physical activity for the health of youth is undisputed. Participation in physical education (PE) classes and membership of sports clubs and are essential for health enhancing physical activity. Despite the importance of sports injury prevention in youth, no broad scale approaches that work in real-life situations with significant positive effects exist. Main reasons for this are very poor uptake and maintenance of current sports injury prevention exercises. Sportscoaches and physical educators experience these exercises as not context specific, time consuming and not contributing to their training goals. Whereas youth perceives these exercises as not attractive, no fun and without any play or game component. These aspects cause lack of maintenance and thus no significant reduction of injuries. Recent scientific and practical insights promote more emphasis on motivation through autonomy and attractive exercise routines based on principles of motor learning which can be integrated in regular training sessions or physical education classes. Purpose: Therefore, the Move Healthy project develops ICT based support video material of routines for and with physical educators and sport coaches, which supports them to prevent sports injuries in youth. This material should be easy to integrate in regular training sessions or physical education classes.
Due to the exponential growth of ecommerce, the need for automated Inventory management is crucial to have, among others, up-to-date information. There have been recent developments in using drones equipped with RGB cameras for scanning and counting inventories in warehouse. Due to their unlimited reach, agility and speed, drones can speed up the inventory process and keep it actual. To benefit from this drone technology, warehouse owners and inventory service providers are actively exploring ways for maximizing the utilization of this technology through extending its capability in long-term autonomy, collaboration and operation in night and weekends. This feasibility study is aimed at investigating the possibility of developing a robust, reliable and resilient group of aerial robots with long-term autonomy as part of effectively automating warehouse inventory system to have competitive advantage in highly dynamic and competitive market. To that end, the main research question is, “Which technologies need to be further developed to enable collaborative drones with long-term autonomy to conduct warehouse inventory at night and in the weekends?” This research focusses on user requirement analysis, complete system architecting including functional decomposition, concept development, technology selection, proof-of-concept demonstrator development and compiling a follow-up projects.
