Centaur Labs @ RSNA 2022 - Ensuring clinical AI safety at scale

Alex McFerran, Director of Partnerships
November 22, 2022

As the global radiology community looks to come together at the RSNA annual meeting next week, AI is top of mind for many.  Every day I see exciting examples of AI being applied in radiology. Most recently, I’m inspired by Gleamer’s announcement that the combination of its BoneView AI and health professionals’ interpretations lowered the number of missed fractures by 29% and has received FDA and CE Mark clearance.

Yet, on the other hand, I recently met with a radiologist at one of the world’s top hospitals who told me his team is not using any AI in their radiology workflows. While we have much to be excited about, discussions like these remind me there is a lot of work still to be done to realize AI’s potential.

Partnering with deepc and Segmed to enable safe and inclusive AI at scale

As AI becomes a more important and consistent part of radiology workflows, the data used to develop AI becomes more important as well. We know AI can perform differently as models move from development environments into diverse real world environments. Some sites - whether they’re collecting data from a similar machine or patient population - produce data similar to what was used to train the AI, and the AI performs well as a result. Other sites where this is not the case may see AI performance drop off. As a result, it’s critical to monitor model performance across sites, and to then use that insight to retrain underperforming models.

To make this model management and retraining easier, Centaur Labs is partnering with deepc, a leading radiology AI platform, and Segmed, a leading healthcare data provider. Through this partnership, deepc will identify when an AI model on its platform is performing sub-optimally, and will surface this information to the AI vendor. With this alert, they'll also offer on demand access to annotated data, provided by Centaur Labs and Segmed, that can be used to quickly retrain the model. As obtaining diverse, relevant data and labeling this data are two of the biggest bottlenecks in AI pipelines, providing the ability to identify model weaknesses and correct them quickly is a big step forward. This solution is under development.

Join us for a panel discussion about ensuring clinical AI safety at scale

To kick off this partnership, Centaur Labs will participate in a panel discussion with clinical, AI and medical data leaders from Nuance Communications, deepc, Segmed and Gleamer about how to safely deploy, use and manage AI in radiology workflows. Join us on Wednesday November 30th at 3PM CT at deepc’s booth (#4565) for what promises to be an interesting discussion.

Connect with us at RSNA 2022

If you're developing AI or want to enrich your biomedical datasets, we want to meet you in Chicago!

Learn more about how Centaur Labs annotates radiology images

Centaur Labs, the leading scalable data annotation platform for the medical and life sciences industries, has extensive background annotating radiology imaging, for companies like Medtronic and leading academic provider institutions like Brigham and Women's Hospital and Memorial Sloan Kettering.

AI Resources at RSNA 2022

RSNA is doing a lot of great work to support radiologists interested in leveraging AI in their practices, and developers using radiology data to build AI for radiologists. Below are a few resources we suggest checking out during and after the conference.

About Centaur Labs

Centaur Labs is the leading scalable data annotation platform for the medical and life sciences industries. The Centaur Labs platform has turned biomedical data annotation into a competitive sport - generating 2 million high quality annotations weekly from a proprietary network of tens of thousands of doctors, medical students, and other professionals, all of whom compete on the gamified platform to annotate data most accurately. Centaur Labs annotates a wide variety of data, including unstructured clinical notes, scientific papers, radiographic images, pathology slides, auscultation audio files, and more. We’re working with AI leaders at top-10 pharmaceutical companies, medical device companies like Medtronic, AI startups like Eko Health and leading academic provider institutions like Brigham and Women's Hospital and Memorial Sloan Kettering.

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• coreveinternationa

How To Lose Male Body Fat

Updated: Apr 15

Basically, weight loss for either a man or woman is virtually the same. One key factor for losing fat is consuming less calories than our body requires. It’s a “two-pronged” strategy whereupon the first aspect is determining how many calories we take in a certain period of time. The second aspect of this equation is how many calories we expend during that amount of time. Knowing this information will allow us to determine what would be the proper amount of calories consumed while determining the amount of calories we burn to enable us to be at a daily deficit.

The Following Are Some Men's Weight Loss Tips:

Increase Protein Intake.

Eating adequate protein is the simplest improvement we can make to our diet to decrease abdominal fat. This is due to a number of factors. Satiety is increased by increasing protein intake. If we are not hungry, we are unlikely to eat. As a result, boosting satiety can lead to weight loss that is effortless.

According to Harvard Health Publishing the recommended Dietary Allowance for the average sedentary individual is 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight. For my American peeps that would be 2.2 lbs. However, since we are going to be active we should consider 1.2 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight.

Furthermore, eating adequate protein throughout the day ensures that we keep our metabolically active mass even when we are on a calorie deficit. By eating adequate protein and pushing our muscles to failure through resistance exercise, we can even grow muscle while losing belly fat. Legumes, certain dairy products, grass fed meat, eggs, and lean seafood are all good sources of bio-available protein.

Vinegar Should Be Added to Your Diet.

Vinegar is a fantastic addition to our diet if we are attempting to reduce body fat. Vinegar, particularly apple cider vinegar, is one of the most diverse condiments when it comes to health benefits. Over the course of three months, one study revealed that drinking one to two teaspoons of apple cider vinegar on a daily basis lowered body weight, abdominal fat, and waist circumference. Personal tip when drinking apple cider vinegar – first thing in the morning pour one a cup of water, then add apple cider vinegar, a squirt of lemon juice and Crystal~Light. I love this concoction, as I not only start my day off by drinking a cup of this potion, I also have it during my daily workouts.

Another known fact is adding apple cider vinegar to your diet can help you lose approximately 275 calories every day. With 3,500 calories in a pound of fat, this one simple adjustment can help you lose over half a pound of fat per week. Other healthy alternatives would be adding white vinegar to refreshing hydrating salads and soups to boost your metabolism and satiety.

Consume Healthy Fats.

Dietary fat is not the enemy when it comes to losing belly fat. While it may seem contradictory, consuming healthy fats can promote satiety, reducing the risk of weight gain. It also facilitates fat loss by reducing the temptation to overeat. Foods, such as tuna, salmon, almonds, olive oil, and coconut milk, should be included in our diet.

Simultaneously, we should make a concerted effort to reduce our intake of harmful fats. Trans fats are found in processed foods and should be avoided. Consume saturated fat-containing meals in extreme moderation. Meals that are natural, monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats are the best fats to consume.

Drink More Nutritious Drinks.

Making better beverage choices is another simple modification we can make to burn abdominal fat. If you drink soda, look at gradually decreasing to a point you no longer drink these sugar infused excuses for drinks. This may be a challenging shift to make at first, but it will help you lose hundreds of calories each day without requiring you to spend additional time in the gym. Also, reduce or avoid drinking fruit juices that have been processed and are not as “natural” as advertised.

Make homemade orange juice if you can't start your day without a glass of orange juice. Consume alcohol in moderation. Even though certain hard liquor has low calories, they do cause dehydration, which in turn will have us craving salty things like pretzels and fries. This can result in lowering our inhibitions, and may cause us to seek fat-inducing meals like half a pizza or our favorite cheese burger and fries.

Increase Water Consumption.

There's nothing wrong with drinking whole coconut milk or homemade fruit juice in moderation. However, calorie-free beverages should account for the majority of your liquid intake. Green tea and black coffee are abundant in polyphenols, antioxidants, and other health-promoting micronutrients. These are good options if you're not sensitive to caffeine.

However, drinking water is the most effective way to lose weight. We frequently confuse thirst with hunger. As a result, we eat high-sodium foods automatically to assist our bodies retain what little water they have left. However, because our bodies do not require the calories for fuel, we gain weight. Water improves our metabolism, is calorie-free, and does not mislead our hunger signals.

Increase Fibre Consumption.

Some studies have revealed that on average, participants lost between 3 to 4% of their belly fat when consuming soluble fibre. It has been proven that soluble fibre absorbs water as it passes slowly through the digestive tract. This allows us to feel fuller for longer periods of time. Good choices for some soluble fibre would include various nuts, seeds, whole grains, high-fiber fruits, legumes, and high-fiber veggies.

Reduce Intake of Refined Carbohydrates.

We should limit our intake of refined carbohydrates since during their manufacturing the bran and germ are removed. The end result is food that is deficient in fibre and nutrients while also having a high glycemic index. Our blood sugar levels fluctuate when we eat meals with a high glycemic index.

Hunger and calorie consumption increase when blood sugar levels rise and fall. Excess abdominal fat is the effect of this. On the other hand, incorporating more whole grains into our diet will help us lose belly fat, lower our BMI, and burn overall body fat. Replace processed cereals, white bread, and pasta with whole wheat pasta, and whole wheat bread. Personally, I prefer gluten-free products since I believe they are easier on our system. The preference is your choice.

Try Intermittent Fasting.

For those who have been following me on my videos and blogs, know I am a proponent of Intermittent Fasting for numerous reasons. However, for this particular topic I will focus research indicating that intermittent fasting is a particularly useful technique for losing body fat. Intermittent fasting is no more complex than cycling through periods of eating and not eating. By “not eating,” requires that we don’t consume more than 10 calories during the fasting period, since higher calories would take us out of our fasted state. This means drinking coffee black or tea without certain creamy condiments. Caveat: it will take a certain period of time to get use to not putting cream in our coffee but you will get use to it and probably never go back since you taste buds have got use to drinking coffee black.

The idea behind limiting caloric intake during our fasting window is that we don’t want to raise our glycemic index. The most popular intermittent fasting diet is the 16 - 8 method. However, I would you encourage you to expand that to 18 hours of fasting, followed by 6 hours of eating. I have spoken about this particular intermittent fasting schedule in my other videos and blogs. I have been doing this for over three-years and it’s pretty simple. Since a majority of our fast is while we are sleeping, we simply miss breakfast and then have our first meal around noon. Then we will consume all our meals in the afternoon and finish eating around 6pm.

Increase your iron consumption.

One of the most crucial nutrients for thyroid health is iron. Thyroid disorders, such as hypothyroidism, can develop if you don't get enough iron. Fatigue, weakness, shortness of breath, and weight gain are some of the results of iron deficiency.

Calories In ~ Calories Out. We should begin strength resistance training if we want to lose belly fat and lose weight. Strength resistance training has been shown to lower visceral fat in studies. Visceral fat is the kind of fat that surrounds the organs in your stomach and makes your stomach appear larger than it is. From my own personal experiences with being involved with bodybuilding and power lifting for over 40 years, I can attest to something that I would recommend, which is Resistance Bands. During my power lifting sessions we would incorporate resistance bands for our bench press and squat routines. Due to all the heavy lifting over the years I developed some nagging injuries. Since this is a lifestyle I have maintained for a majority of my life, I did some research to see how I could alleviate some of the injuries while continuing my workouts. I came across a video by James Grage who is a competitive bodybuilder, Personal Trainer and fitness model. James is one of the reasons I am such a proponent of resistance band training. I no longer use weights in my daily workout routine and virtually I am injury free.

Boost Your Cardiovascular Fitness.

Cardiovascular activity, often known as aerobic exercise, is one of the most effective ways for men to lose body fat. This sort of exercise focuses on improving heart and lung strength and endurance. Many studies and personal experience have proven there is a clear link between cardiovascular activity and belly fat removal.

In addition, cardiovascular exercise increases muscle mass while lowering waist circumference, belly fat, and overall body fat. Aim for around 150 minutes of moderate to intense activity per week if you are attempting to lose weight. This is roughly 30 minutes of exercise per day based on a five days per week of cardio training. For most people, indoor rowing is the best cardiovascular and overall body workout to lose fat. However, if you want to save money and not have to purchase cardio equipment, there are some incredible body-weight exercises like burpees or mountain climbers you can do. These type of cardio exercises will be shorter time periods and what are referred as High Intensity Interval Training, which I will discuss in the next section.

Participate in High-Intensity Interval Training.

This is one of the “must” things to do when we are looking at losing body fat while increasing our overall health. A fast burst of high-intensity activity is followed by a brief recuperation phase in this type of training. This is often repeated six to ten times in a single session. Only 20 minutes of High-Intensity Interval Training three times a week resulted in 4.4 pounds of fat loss over three months, according to some studies. This is where you can incorporate the burpees or mountain climbers I mentioned in the previous section.

In closing, I will be creating other videos and blogs on health and wellness for both men and women.

I invite you to contact me with any questions and updates on your progress. I wish you all the best in your health related future endeavors.

Take care and God Bless.

About The Author: Steve is a Christian Blogger, Videographer, and Personal Trainer who has a passion of bringing positive content while enhancing the lives of others through his blogs and videos.

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What is the Weingarten rule?

What is the Weingarten rule?

Employees’ right to request their representatives are frequently referred to as “Weingarten rights.” Employers violate the NLRA if they proceed with an investigatory interview while refusing an employee’s request or retaliate against them for making the request.

What is the purpose of Weingarten Rights?

The purpose, as stated in the original Supreme Court ruling, of allowing an employee in an investigatory situation to seek union representation is to ensure that the agency can accomplish the purpose of the investigation; to obtain all of the relevant facts and explore all issues regarding the matter under …

Which of the following conditions must be met for an employee to exercise Weingarten Rights to have union representative present at a meeting with management?

An employee is entitled to union representation when all of the following conditions are met: The employee must be questioned in connection with an investigation; The employee must reasonably believe he or she may be disciplined as a result of the answers; and. The employee must request representation.

What circumstances trigger an employee’s Weingarten Rights?

Four conditions must be met before an employee’s Weingarten rights are triggered: A management representative must seek to question the employee. The questioning must be in connection with an investigation. The employee must reasonably believe that the interview may result in disciplinary action against the employee.

Why is it called Weingarten?

In the 1975 Weingarten decision, the Supreme Court upheld a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) decision that employees have a right to union representation at investigatory interviews. These rights have become known as the Weingarten Rights.

What is the difference between Weingarten and Garrity rights?

A private sector employee – for example, a manufacturing worker – possesses only Weingarten Rights, and only if s/he is in a unionized workplace. A public sector employee possesses Garrity Rights and Loudermill Rights because their employer is the government, regardless of whether he/she works in a unionized workplace.

What happens if Weingarten rights are violated?

Disciplining an employee for exercising his Weingarten rights will result in a make-whole remedy. Merely violating an employee’s Weingarten rights by denying him a union representative during an investigatory interview will result only in a cease-and-desist order and a posting requirement.

How many conditions must be met for a meeting to be considered a Weingarten meeting?

Who wrote the Weingarten Rights?

Leura Collins
Leura Collins was a sales clerk at Weingarten Supermarket. Originally founded in 1948, Weingarten expanded its operations to 100 stores by 1972, some of which included “lunch counters,”others included “lobby food operations.” These counters/lobbies provided eat-in or carry-out dining options for customers.

Do Weingarten Rights apply to public employees?

These rights have become known as the “Weingarten Rights,” after the leading Supreme Court decision on the subject See NLRB v. J. Weingarten, Inc., 420 U.S. 251 (1975). The NLRA, however, does not apply to public sector employees employed by state governments.

What is Garrity immunity?

Garrity Basics This protection stems from the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which declares that the government cannot compel a person to be a witness against him/herself. For a public employee, the employer is the government itself.

Does Weingarten apply to public employees?

Weingarten, Inc. The state Labor Relations Commission has adopted the Weingarten rules for public employees covered by M. G. L. c. 150E.

What are Weingarten rights?

Weingarten rights allows employees to have union representation at investigatory interviews. The right of employees to have union representation at investigatory interviews was announced by the U.S. Supreme Court in a 1975 case (NLRB vs. Weingarten, Inc. 420 U.S. 251, 88 LRRM 2689 ). These rights have become known as the Weingarten rights.

Do I need a Weingarten representative at a meeting?

When making a request for a representative, the Board does not require that the employee specify that they need a “Weingarten” representative. Once an employee requests their representative, they are not required to repeat that request. At times, it is not clear whether a meeting is investigatory or could lead to discipline.

Does management have to inform employees of their Weingarten rights?

Management is not required to inform the employee of his/her Weingarten rights; it is the employees responsibility to know and request. When the employee makes the request for a union representative to be present management has three options:


Happy Nurses Week 2019

May 6, 2019 – Happy National Nurses Week, 2019! Every year, nurses are recognized and celebrated for their hard work and dedication to their career and patients. In 1954, Ronald Reagan honored Florence Nightingale for her bravery during the Crimean War, which is where she led a team of nurses to tend to the wounded and ill soldiers.  Known as the “Lady with the Lamp,” Nightingale would make rounds every night to ensure her patients were stable. By doing so, she assisted in reducing the hospital’s death rate by two-thirds. Now, nurses are celebrated from May 6 until Nightingale’s birthday on May 12 for all that they do in their career.

Dedicated Nursing Associates would like to send a heartfelt thank you to all our dedicated nurses, nursing assistants, and all other caregivers for everything they do for their patients. Nurses truly are the heart of healthcare and we appreciate all your hard work and dedication every day. You go above and beyond what is expected to ensure positive experiences to each life that you touch. Thank you for all that you do!


Scrum Ho-Hum?

Are you a small business owner attempting to learn about the existing methodologies and project development strategies that go into project management and the on-time delivery of your product?

Well then, have we got the blog for YOU!

Another amazing (at least we think so) blog brought to you by eCodelogic a custom software company with an ecological commitment. Our headquarters is located in Orlando, Florida, but we provide renowned services nationwide.

If any of this does not make sense or if you would like to learn more, please get in touch with us at (407)502-5354. We would be happy to assist you with your business needs.

Now onto the blog!

Calling All Small Business Owners!

Are you bogged down with Scrum ho-hum? Loading one unimaginative, lackluster video after another, hoping for a more straightforward solution of truly understanding terms like Agile, Scrum, Kanban, and Waterfall?

Prepare yourselves! We are excited to bring you something savory and scrum-tious (yes, we did, and you’re welcome)!

Buckle up, because here we go!!!!!!

The Epic Downfall of Waterfall

Before jumping into the gloriousness of Agile, let us take a brief detour down memory lane to learn about the epic downfall of a once widely used and accepted project management methodology called Waterfall.

Thought to represent a tiered model approach, invented by Winston W. Royce, Waterfall involves five steps of linear progression: (from top to bottom…like a waterfall) planning, system build, testing, review, and delivery.

Each of these fives steps required a long, drawn-out process that often had missing elements, which either caused a delay of progression to the next tiered step or even caused a jump back to the previous project phase once progression has already occurred, causing something similar to this:

You see, with Waterfall, project delivery may not happen until many months or even years from initiation. So while you may initially feel like this upon project initiation:

You may feel a little something like this upon project “completion.”

An Unhappy Ending at the Foot of the Falls…But Why?

Many people often wonder what went wrong in their approach. Here are some reasons:

Waterfall Project Management

While considered a more straightforward approach, this method is not ideal for projects that do not have clearly defined planning requirements.

Project Scope: All Your Ducks in a Row

Often, at the beginning of a project requirements stage, there may be many unknowns. This could cause further delays in planning, as the scope and expectations are not clearly defined.

So while the Waterfall approach may work well ideally when the scope is well known, oftentimes, this is not the case. Following the straight and narrow, there is absolutely no wiggle room for change with the Waterfall project management approach.

Large Teams Equal Decrease in Team Member Coordination

With straightforward requirements that are clearly defined upon project initiation, Waterfall is streamlined to work with smaller-sized projects and is documented well to eliminate misinterpretations.

Customer Feedback and Participation

Waterfall essentially gives their customers “the boot” with less customer involvement once the project has been initiated. This approach may risk great disappointment, as the product delivery may not meet client expectations.

Prioritization of Features

With Waterfall, project changes can pose a problem, as making changes in previous stages of the development process can further delays.

Waterfall is not dependent on its feasibility or ability to be carried out in a reasonable manner. This may involve long, drawn-out stages due to highly complex projects.

Project Funding

Development with the Waterfall approach involves up-front contracts.

So, while this seemingly refreshing and perfect methodology, as perceived in comparison to waterfalls, was implemented into real-life practice, it was later realized that this methodology, again like waterfalls, had an unhappy ending at the foot of the falls….or the end of a long, drawn-out project process. The fate would be real and ugly, costing terrible loss!

Sad but true story, but thankfully, there are easier known methodologies that work better for project management and delivery!

…All this talk about waterfalls and thunderslides can bring up quite the appetite! So let us just sidestep, hop, and shimmy on over to our next methodology: the awe-inspiring and delectably appetizing agile approach!

Agile is implemented through two frameworks: Scrum and Kanban methodologies!

So, without further ado, let us get this project started!

The Agility of Agile: The Go-To Approach for Complex Projects and Cross-Functional Teams

While the terms Agile, Scrum, and Kanban are often used interchangeably by cross-functional team members, there are some distinct key differences.

Agile is an iterative development mindset for the project management and software development process.

And It All Began Like This…

Once upon a time (2001) in a far-off land (The Lodge at Snowbird ski resort in the Wasatch mountains of Utah), seventeen tech dudes journeyed from afar to seek common ground on how to deliver value to their customers in a more efficient manner.

Seeking warmth on one bitter night, they sat cross-legged around the fire at The Lodge. During their late-night hand holding, Kumbaya song-singing experience (we are totally stretching the story), they created something quite extraordinary: The Agile “Software Development” Manifesto.

The seventeen tech dudes decidedly made themselves proudly known as the Agile Alliance (they had jackets, fellowship rings, and everything swag to commemorate that moment). Yet, unbeknownst to the sensational seventeen, our super awesome story points not only to the epic name they created – the Agile Manifesto – but mainly to what this entails.

Four Key Values of Agile Methodology

Developed with ideas centered on principle, the Agile Manifesto was founded on four key values:

  1. Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
  2. Working software over comprehensive documentation
  3. Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
  4. Responding to change over following a plan

Twelve Agile Principles

The Agile Manifesto also lists 12 principles for software development teams. They are as follows:

  1. Customer satisfaction
  2. Early and continuous delivery
  3. Embrace change
  4. Frequent delivery
  5. Collaboration of businesses and developers
  6. Motivated individuals
  7. Face-to-face conversation
  8. Functional products
  9. Technical excellence
  10. Simplicity
  11. Self-organized teams
  12. Regulation, reflection, and adjustment

This agile philosophy is the cornerstone of the agile community, and this shared vision has proven time and time again that products can be delivered with the mindset that people are continually placed at the heart of the process.

Additionally, the Agile methodology of software development projects can set measurable standards for quality, usability, and completeness. These principles represent the underlying foundation for project management framework methodologies such as Scum and Kanban, both of which will be explained in detail below.

But first! Who is hungry? All this talk of riding waterslides and late-night song singing can bring up quite an appetite!

Join us as we attempt to provide an easy solution for learning about Scrum and Kanban methodologies…through the use of food….where the…end product…will always be delivered smelling like roses…(It’s too late to change the metaphor, people, just work with us).

So, we made it to the nearest buffet, Pam’s Southern Buns All-You-Can-Eat Buffet, with empty stomachs and raging hangry appetites! Our eyes gleam with excitement as we view all the delectable food items within reach. Naturally, and what any reasonably sane individual would do would be to pile everything onto their plate and scarf it down in one second flat, right? WRONG! (Even Karen knows this is a horrible idea).

Just as the concept of how stuffing our faces and bombarding our GI tracts with various food items results in disastrous porcelain throne “outcomes,” project development team members can also be easily overwhelmed by a process with poorly defined goals and expectations, leading to burnout and poor product delivery.

Savor every bite to get your product value worth. If you try to “consume” everything all at once, you will end up wasting money and, quite literally, throwing all your “value” down the John…that’s right, tell me, who hasn’t been in this situation before?

Agile Scrum and Kanban

Two common frameworks, Scrum and Kanban, take the entire project, metaphorically filled with items from Pam’s Southern Buns All-You-Can-Eat Buffet, and break everything down into manageable, bite-sized pieces.

The Scrum framework, a form of incremental development, will be the highlight of discussion, as it is the commonly preferred method of the cross-functional team.

Additionally, we will briefly touch on the Kanban framework, another widely used approach for project management processes.

Ultimately, the goal of Scrum and Kanban is to facilitate the delivery of a product that meets or exceeds customer expectations.

Savory and Scrum-ptious Scrum (Say This 3x Fast)

The agile scrum methodology is a management process framework used by business owners to allow for team collaboration and project work efficiency.

The agile and scrum team focus relies on incremental development. So, instead of building a product from start to finish, as expressed by other process methods, the scrum process delivers several iterations of a completed product in less time and with great value. Each completed cycle of iteration usually occurs in a timeframe of 1 to 3 weeks and is called a sprint. These incremental sprint cycles may be repeated, reducing the amount of timeframe from development to testing.

Upon a sprint cycle completion, there is a potentially shippable product.

Scrum Process Logistics

There are three key roles involved in scrum project management.

Scrum Teams: Pork vs. Chicken!

The scrum team consists of team members that fittingly play into our food narrative. Tasty!

The two sets of roles in agile scrum methodology: are “Pigs,” or core role members, and “Chickens,” or ancillary team members.

“Three Pigs” in Agile and Scrum Methodology

Three core roles are needed to make agile projects run well. Committed to implementing scrum values and scrum processes, these core team members are the Product Owner, Scrum Master, and Scrum Team.

Product owner

The product owner is often represented as a stakeholder vested in the product and is typically the customer. As a way to ensure that the scrum team is delivering value to their business, the product owner is responsible for defining the features for the product and coming up with the vision and bright ideas that turn into products for the end user. They are the key players in self-organizing and prioritizing goals for each sprint cycle.

Scrum Master

Scrum principles are deeply instilled in the Scrum Master, a servant leader with the responsibility of safeguarding the entire team, running meetings, and keeping everyone pumped!

Scrum Project Team

The “Third Piggy” core role classification of Scrum project management is the Scrum team. These scrum teams often are made up of developers, writers, testers, and anyone that is involved in the creation of the product. The team members collaborate to get the work completed within the allotted timeframe. There is a sense of ownership and team responsibility when frequent communications are made between the team leader and others working on the project during daily scrum meetings.

The “Chickens” – Ancillary Roles

Ancillary roles that take part in the scrum project include other customers and executive team members who are involved for the purpose of consulting, summarizing progress measures and collecting feedback to deliver products with the highest value.

Three Scrum Artifacts

There are three scrum artifacts, or documents, used in the scrum framework: The Product Backlog, User Stories, and Burndown Chart.

Product Backlog

The product owner, the visionary with bright ideas, creates a list of features (called user stories) that could go into the development of the product and prioritizes the list to share with the scrum team.

User Stories

User stories are a way for the product owner to provide just enough detail for the team to assess the size of a given task. Describing the feature set may include a phrase format to allow for an easier and more effective way to communicate.

All user stories that are marked high priority are then added to the sprint backlog, which are listed items for the next sprint.

Burndown Chart

As the software development team demonstrates positive progress, the burndown chart is used as a visual depiction of every task completion of sprint backlog items. Upon sprint completion, the burndown chart would approach zero points.

Three Scrum Events/Ceremonies

Scrum ceremonies can be thought of as special meetings or discussions by Agile teams.

Sprint Planning Meeting

The product owner, scrum master, and development team members meet to deliberate on user stories from the sprint backlog and assess task sizes.

Daily Scrum Meeting

This meeting is performed daily where the project manager and team members discuss the task items from the sprint backlog that have been completed since the previously held meeting, the status of current task items, and any outstanding work that may be blocked from completion and in need of assistance.

Sprint Review and Retrospective

The sprint review and sprint retrospective meeting is held at the end of each iterative sprint cycle. During these meetings, the team would demo the completed tasks to the product owner and brainstorm ways to improve the process for future sprints.

Here is a Rundown of the Entire Scrum Process

Product Backlog

The product owner is the brains behind the outfit, listing all the bright ideas and pulling all the user stories into the product backlog. All user story points are prioritized and brought to the project manager and team members for review.

Sprint Planning

The complex project is reviewed by the product owner, scrum team, and scrum master, and all tasks and user stories are assessed and prioritized into the sprint backlog.

Sprint backlog

Output from the sprint planning meeting is placed into the sprint backlog. These items will be committed for the next sprint.

During the sprint, which occurs from one to three weeks, daily scrum standup meetings are performed where the team reviews and discusses all the tasks they have completed and any blocked items that impede on project progress.

The outcome of every sprint is a potentially shippable product, which is determined by the product owner on whether product delivery is warranted.

Sprint retrospective review

Upon iterative sprint cycle completion, the scrum team demonstrates the product to the product owner and other stakeholders. During this meeting, a retrospective discussion occurs where the team leader and members brainstorm what they can do to improve their process for future sprints.

This process is repeated for each sprint.

Kanban is also an implementation of agile methodology with a similar framework as Scrum. While there are similarities with Scrum, such as the inclusion of a product backlog, daily standups with the product owner, agile coach (similar to the scrum master), and development team (like the scrum team), the Kanban framework has a few key differences.

Kanban is a continuous process, where items from the product backlog are pulled and placed onto a Kanban board (or sometimes referred to as a Scrum Board) containing Build, Test, and Done columns. Each column has a strict Work in Progress (WIP) limit, ensuring items move from one column to the next, in the shortest possible time.

Nearly empty columns signal to “pull” an item from the previous column. This is called a pull system. Once the product successfully moves completely across the board, the item is released the moment it is ready.

At the close of the Kanban process, and similar to the Agile Scrum approach, there is a product demonstration to the stakeholders and a retrospective with the development team on what went well and how the process could be improved.

So There You Have It!

You have successfully arrived at the conclusion of our wild yet highly entertaining blog on the discussion of Waterfall and how that methodology has transitioned into the Agile approach, a methodology implemented through Scrum and Kanban-style frameworks. The goal of the Agile Scrum methodology involves the delivery of products with frequent continuous customer collaboration, utilization of high-efficiency practices, and product delivery in a decreased time frame. A customer and team collaborative process with a reflectance on core values that is a brag-worthy mention of the agile philosophy leaves no wonder that previous traditional project manager practices are increasingly being replaced with agile methods.

More and more teams and project managers in the software industry (and any type of business, really) are adopting agile scrum methodology practices and standards for a customer-driven process that leaves everyone with an end product smelling like roses.

We hope you enjoyed reading our blog! Please reach our office line at (407) 502-5354 to speak with a member of our eCodelogic team, or visit our website at www.ecodelogic.com.


30 September , 2022

Finding the best logistics coordinator for your business is like searching for a dream job. The best candidate will be one who understands how to take their skills and apply them to your company’s unique needs. Unfortunately, finding this person isn’t always easy. Here are some tips that can help when recruiting a logistics coordinator NJ:

Know Your Needs

Before you begin looking for a logistics coordinator, you must know what your needs are. The best way to do this is by writing down the key requirements for this position. What skills do you need from them? What experience do they need? What budget do you have available?

The answers to these questions will help guide your search for potential logistics coordinators and make it easier for them to understand precisely how much work they’re going to be doing and how much pay they’ll be getting paid (or not). If there’s one thing that can really kill morale on a team, it’s when people feel like their efforts aren’t valued enough by their superiors—this is especially true in high-stress environments like warehouses where logisticians have more than just themselves on their plate!

Create A List Of Skills And Experience You Need Them To Bring To The Job

When creating your list of skills and experience, you should consider two different factors: the requisite skills and the competencies.

Skills are learned through practice, training, and experience. They can be taught in a classroom or by example on the job. Skills tend to be objective, tangible aspects of work that an applicant can easily demonstrate during an interview (e.g., “Can you use Microsoft Word?”).

Competencies are developed over time through interactions with others in both personal and professional settings. Competencies relate directly to how well one communicates or works with others; they may also require knowledge of specific systems, procedures, or processes within their organization or industry (e.g., “Are you able to provide excellent customer service?”).

Write A Solid Job Ad That Conveys Your Needs And Values

The most important thing to do when you’re writing a job ad for your logistics coordinator is to ensure that it conveys your needs and values. This means using keywords that are relevant to the job, writing a headline that conveys the core values of the job, providing a clear description of the various responsibilities involved in this role (and any other relevant information), and providing links to any information related to company culture or resources on your website. You can also consider providing links to videos or documents that provide further details about who you are as an employer and what it’s like working with you.

Set Up An Interview Process That Matches Your Company’s Culture

Make sure you have the right people involved. You can’t interview logistics coordinators by yourself, so get in touch with your team and figure out who is best suited to be part of this process. This could be a recruiting specialist or someone on your team with experience with logistics coordinators.

Ask questions that match your company culture and values. The logistics coordinator will become an integral part of your team, so it’s vital to ensure they’re a good fit for your business culture before hiring them full-time! Ask questions that highlight their experiences and how they would fit into the company culture, as well as highlight any strengths they might have (like being able to manage multiple tasks at once). You don’t want them getting hired only because their resume looked good but then finding out too late that they aren’t really what you’re looking for!

As we’ve discussed, recruiting is a crucial part of growing your business. But it’s not just about finding the right candidate; it’s also about ensuring that person fits your company culture and values. As you can see from the tips above, this cannot be easy to do on your own. By enlisting a recruiter who knows logistics and has experience working with logistics coordinators, however, you can ensure that every stage of your recruitment process is smooth sailing—and save yourself sometime in the process!

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One of the most important factors related to learners’ willingness to communicate (WTC) is teachers’ use of socioaffective and pedagogic strategies, which are tightly related to cultural context of education. The present qualitative study, using focus group interview, investigated 19 EFL (English as a foreign language) teachers’ perspectives about their socioaffective and pedagogic strategy use in intermediate classes, with a focus on Iranian culture, as an effort to understand to what extent these strategies are facilitating or debilitating of students’ WTC. Using Creswell’s six steps of inductive analysis, two main themes of facilitating and hindering factors emerged. The findings are suggestive in terms of contribution of several cultural and social factors related to the interaction between EFL teachers and students and its relation to WTC. It also discusses the implications of the study for EFL teachers.

1. Introduction

With the advent of communicative approaches to language learning, classroom participation has assumed paramount importance, because it is believed that learners’ competence in English as a second language (L2) is developed through performance [1]. This importance has diverted researchers’ attention to the construct of willingness to communicate (WTC).

WTC is “a readiness to enter into discourse at a particular time with a specific person or persons, using a L2” ([2], p. 547). It depends on both personal traits and situational factors [3], which can be changed under varying circumstantial conditions. Therefore, these conditions should be given due attention in second language pedagogy. In fact, from a context-sensitive view, a student’s low or high WTC may be the result of several external and situational factors residing in the immediate context [4]. Out of the external variables, teachers play a determining role in engendering WTC. Mercer and Howe [5] found that teachers’ use of certain interactional strategies affects students’ participation in class and consequently their educational outcomes. Therefore, besides their content knowledge, teachers’ specific strategies, such as socioaffective and pedagogic strategies may push the learners forward by manipulating other variables in the classroom environment or stop them short of learning.

Social strategies have been defined as communicative strategies that assist in conveying messages to others and as a result expedite the teaching process [6], and affective strategies involve lowering affective filter [7]. Pedagogic strategies are procedures that serve as the basis for a teacher’s classroom behavior and activities (Feinman-Nemser and Flodden, 1986, Shulman, 1986, 1987, as cited in [8]).

There is a growing body of literature recognizing the important role of teachers in fostering interaction and participation in L2 classrooms. Some of these studies focused on teachers’ attitude and teaching style [911], involvement [4, 10], and teacher immediacy [912]. They have employed various methodologies; for example, Zarrinabadi [11] examined the effect of teachers on Iranian university students’ WTC utilizing a focused essay technique. He asked students to write about their feelings and situations in which they were most willing or unwilling to communicate in L2. The results revealed that teachers’ wait time, support, error correction, and decision on the topic had a main impact on students’ willingness to communicate. Using a questionnaire survey and taking a structural equation modeling approach, Fallah [12] tested a model of L2 communication that examined the potential connections among WTC in English, three individual differences (shyness, motivation, and communication self-confidence) and one situational variable (teacher immediacy) in Iranian EFL context. The findings of his study indicated significant positive paths from motivation and communication self-confidence and negative paths from shyness to self-confidence and motivation and from teacher immediacy to shyness.

Most of the studies (e.g., [11, 12]) have been informative regarding teacher’s role in classroom interaction and learners’ WTC; however, to the best knowledge of the authors, the decisive role of teachers regarding their use of socioaffective and pedagogic strategies and learners’ WTC, within cultural context of Iran, has not been focused. Hence, the purpose of this study, employing a qualitative research, is to explore Iranian EFL teachers’ perspectives toward socioaffective and pedagogic strategy use in engendering WTC in the classroom within cultural context of Iran.

1.1. Willingness to Communicate (WTC)

WTC was originally developed in the field of first language (L1) communication by McCroskey and Baer [13], who regarded it as “a personality-based, trait-like predisposition which is relatively consistent across a variety of communication contexts and types of receivers” (p. 6). However, MacIntyre [3] adapted it for L2 studies as a situated construct which is influenced by both immediate situational factors and more enduring ones. MacIntyre et al. [2] devised a pyramid shape structure called heuristic model, composed of several layers, to show the range of potential influences on WTC in the L2. Differentiating between stable enduring influences (such as personality traits) and situation specific influences informing communication behavior (e.g., desire to communicate with a specific person), the model assumed importance [14].

The construct has assumed an important role in second language acquisition due to the interactive opportunity it can create first in the classroom and then in authentic situations. Willingness to communicate functions as a path to language learning inasmuch as higher levels of WTC contribute to more frequent L2 use [15], and this increased interaction is thought to promote successful L2 development [16, 17]. Empirical studies have not only found that L2 WTC is related to some inherently stable individual factors such as personality, age, and gender [1820] but they have also discovered that it is related to some situational and contextual factors, such as topic, interlocutors, group size, cultural background, teacher, and classroom social environment [21] [4, 9, 11, 12, 15, 16, 22, 23]. From among these situational factors teachers’ socioaffective and pedagogic strategies, as one of the learner external variables [24], are the main focus of the present study.

1.2. Socioaffective and Pedagogic Strategies

Since learning is both affective and cognitive in nature [6, 25, 26], teachers need to deploy both socioaffective and pedagogic strategies to enrich classroom interaction and to aid learning. Pedagogic strategies are the knowledge of both handling specific language items and knowledge about techniques and procedures which facilitate learning [8]. Some of these strategies which may affect teacher-student interactional patterns and relationships are teachers’ error correction, wait time, [11], and their ability of adaptation (congruence) [27], to name a few. Socioaffective strategies are about student-teacher relationships (building rapport). Brown [6] defined socioaffective strategies as a set of emotional and instructional strategies used to facilitate and accelerate the process of teaching and learning through tackling students’ emotions. These strategies, according to Brown, pertain to social meditating activity and emotional interaction with others. O’Malley and Chamot [28] also defined them as strategies that are related to social mediating activity and transacting with others. Examples of these characteristics include being kind, supportive, caring, approachable, entertaining, and friendly [29] and teachers’ verbal and nonverbal immediacy [11, 12], politeness, and fairness. As Daly and Kreiser [30] noted, teachers enhance their interpersonal relationship with their students hoping that if they are liked by their students, they will pay more attention to their instructions, will participate more actively, and as a consequence, learn more.

The way the socioaffective and some pedagogic strategies are expressed in the classroom varies from one situation to another depending on the sociocultural contexts of each educational setting. To affirm this view, Scollon [31] pointed to Goffman’s [32] notion of “participation frameworks” suggesting cultural and philosophical beliefs determine listening and speaking roles assumed by people, which in the L2 classroom correspond to communication, teaching, and learning. This culture on the part of teachers, according to Ainscough [33], is not only the result of formal training, experience, and peer interaction but also teachers’ personal theories, which are “deep-seated beliefs.”

To avoid confusion and overlap, in this paper, we have used the term socioaffective strategies to refer to those instructional strategies that improve teacher-student rapport and pedagogic strategies to refer to the instructional strategies that assist the teacher in transmitting the teaching material.

1.3. Cultural Practices in Iran

Teachers are the main role players in EFL classes, and their strategies may affect learners’ WTC in the classroom within each cultural context. What governs this pattern in Iran may pertain to some cultural values in the country affecting the social context at the macro level and the classroom context at the microlevel.

Iran has been categorized as a collectivist culture in several studies [3437]. However, some other scholars believe that Iran is very high on the in-group collectivism (the extent to which individuals are attached to their families and circles of friends) and rather low on the institutional collectivism (the extent to which members of the societies respect broader societal interests versus individual interests) [38, 39]. This orientation has led Iranians to demonstrate closeness to family and in-group members (close friends) and lack of trust to out-group [39, 40], which might affect their interaction pattern and communicative behavior in social context, including classroom context.

Authoritarianism and the support for hierarchy in the society is also a feature of the Iranian culture [34, 38, 40]. Javidan and Dastmalchian [39] depicted this very well:

The strong authority relation with the parents, especially the father, is further reinforced at school where children have to show deep respect for their teachers. They learn through their daily lives that it is best to accept the teacher’s words and not challenge them. (p. 132)

This hierarchy starts from family and continues to school and finally to the society, which might have a decisive role affecting the degree of interaction, which, in turn, highlights the important role of the teacher and socioaffective and pedagogic strategies he or she uses in the classroom to raise students’ WTC. Iran also scores high on uncertainty avoidance; in other words, people have low tolerance of ambiguity and unstructured situations, and they feel uncomfortable in novel or unknown situations [35]. Considering masculinity vs. femininity dimension, in a study conducted by Hofstede [41] and Saboori et al. [35], Iran was found to be a relatively feminine country, in which the emotional and social role differentiation between genders is not high.

So far, numerous studies have been conducted attempting to examine teachers’ role in classroom interaction and communication, generally, and WTC, particularly; however, none of them paid due attention to the role of culture in Iranian context, except for studies conducted in Chinese cultural context [4, 10, 23]. Furthermore, to the best knowledge of the researchers, most of the studies probed into the issue from learners’ point of view ignoring to address teachers in data collection. Moreover, none of these studies have used the focus group interview for data collection. In fact, the focus group is “synergistic” because it creates an environment that results in a deep and insightful discussion [42]. Accordingly, the present study was prompted to answer the following question. What are Iranian EFL teachers’ perceptions of socioaffective and pedagogic strategy use in engendering WTC in the classroom within cultural context of Iran?

2. Methods

2.1. Participants

Initial participants of this qualitative study were 25 female EFL teachers selected through purposeful sampling, in which the site and participants were selected in accordance with the criteria we had in mind [43], including high proficiency and teaching experience from four popular English institutes in Tabriz, Iran. We conducted the research in private language institutes in Iran because compared with the state schools, these institutes are more willing to adapt themselves to communicative approach to language teaching. On average, the classes included 15 female students (with the age range of 15–24, M = 18.06) taking intermediate general English courses. The researchers selected the most proficient teachers (hired with the entrance score of +100 in TOEFL, PBT, or IELTS score of 7.5 and recommended by the observers on-site) with an age range of 28 to 55 and teaching experience of 6–22 years purposefully so that they would be “information rich” ([44], p. 169). Six of these participants participated in the pilot study (see Table 1), and 19 of them took part in the main study (see Table 2). They all spoke Azeri Turkish as their native language. Twenty one of them were holding a master’s degree in TESOL; three of them had a B.A. in TESOL; and one of them had a Ph.D. in TESOL.

2.2. Instruments

The method of data collection for the teachers’ perspectives was focus group interview. A set of questions were designed by the researchers to explore teachers’ socioaffective and pedagogic strategy use with a focus on cultural context of Iran. The study consisted of two phases, the pilot and main. We consulted Cresswell [45] for the number of participants and followed Krueger’s [46] guidelines about participants, environment, moderator, analysis, and reporting to provide structure to the focus group interview. We used a semistructured interview with open-ended questions to allow for any additional questions and ideas raised during the interview [45]. The interview, in the pilot (), was face to face and was recorded on two high-tech mobile phones in case one of them malfunctioned and the other would record the information. The main study focus group was conducted through Telegram (Telegram is a widely used social network in Iran. It permits forming a group of any size, and easily provides a discussion forum both synchronic and asynchronic. It also registers the time and date of the interaction) (social media); therefore, we used an Asus laptop to gather the data from the desktop Telegram.

2.3. Procedure

The researchers divided the participants into four groups. Six of them participated in the pilot, and 19 teachers participated in the main study. The interview questions were given to teachers a week before the interview in the pilot study, while they were sent through Telegram in the main study. Having explained the goal of the research and procedures in detail in both the pilot and main study, we secured their consent before their participation and assured anonymity. The interview took three hours in the pilot study and a week in the main study.

It is worth noting that we resorted to technology (i.e., Telegram, a social network) to gather data in the main study for several reasons. First, because of the teachers’ tight schedule, it was difficult to specify a certain time to meet for the interview. Second, teachers’ writing on Telegram would facilitate the process of analysis; for data transcription, it would not be required. Indeed, such interviews save researchers the time and cost of transcription, because the textual data are self-transcribing [47]. Another advantage is that approaches mediated through text supply data otherwise unavailable in face-to-face approaches. In addition, as the participants were going to write their ideas in the group on Telegram, it would eliminate the need for member check after the transcription. Last, some participants are not as talkative as the others in the focus group interview, but they may have a better chance to participate on-line, which is another potential advantage of mediated approaches that they can even out power differences and encourage full participation from all members [48].

Having taken into consideration all the points mentioned above, the researcher started the interview. After informing the participants, we made a group on Telegram and added them to the group. The participants received the questions on Telegram one at a time. They had one day to answer the questions. The interview was mostly synchronic (usually after 9 p.m.), with one of the researchers as the moderator, and sometimes asynchronic (usually during the day). The researcher intervened and gave a feedback to the interviewees regularly to keep them active and interactive.

2.4. Data Analysis

The recordings of focus group interviews, in the pilot, were transcribed verbatim by the researcher following the instructions provided by Friedman [43]; that is, we used a standard orthography and included features of imperfect speech, such as hesitation markers, cutoffs and restarts, pauses, and fillers. However, we excluded nonverbal speech owing to the recording system (smart phones). The transcription yielded 5,074 words.

In the main study, the data were copied and pasted on the Microsoft Word file. The interview yielded 16, 188 words. The researchers followed Cresswell’s [45] six steps of inductive analysis, in both phases, to abstract the data (see Appendix for an example of coding process). In the first cycle, having read the text several times, we coded the data. In the second cycle coding, patterns within the data were developed and categorized. Finally, two overarching themes with some minor themes evolved. To achieve reliability, we had a second coder, already skilled in coding, who double-code some random samples from different sections of the dataset as recommended by Revesz [49]. To take into account the chance agreement, the researchers applied Cohen’s Kappa coder reliability, which is calculated by dividing the number of agreements by the total number of decisions made. The level of interrater reliability by Cohen’s Kappa was found to be 0.76.

3. Results and Discussion

Two specific themes emerged from the focus group interview, depicting the perspectives of EFL teachers toward socioaffective and pedagogic strategies deployed in EFL classes to raise WTC within cultural context of Iran. These themes include (a) facilitating factors and (b) hindering factors (Table 3). Quotations used within each theme indicate verbatim remarks by the participants.

3.1. Facilitating Factors

The participants’ remarks regarding facilitating factors, as Table 1 indicates, included (a) developing positive relationship, (b) choice of the topic, and (c) teaching style, which are as follows.

3.1.1. Developing Positive Relationship

Developing positive relationship included immediacy, fairness, and teacher support, and the full explanation of which is as follows:

(1) Immediacy. Immediacy, which was originally developed by Mehrabian [50] was defined as communication behaviors that “enhance closeness to and nonverbal interaction with another” (p. 203). It can be expressed verbally or nonverbally. Scholars have related immediacy to the motivational trait of approach-avoidance meaning “people approach what they like and avoid what they don’t like” ([51], p. 22). It has been found by several researchers to affect students’ WTC [1012], to name a few. Teachers’ immediacy is important in the hierarchical setting of Iran [39, 40, 52], in which obedience from teachers is expected [39]. This hierarchical setting does not allow some communication behaviors, which may create an imbalanced relationship between teachers and learners and silence learners. For example, considering space, teachers are advised to approach the students to be perceived as caring and immediate [53]; however, one of the teachers pointed to the accepted rules of intimacy between teachers and students in Iran, mentioning that

I just try to award my students by giving positive grades. We can’t pat them on the back or touch them as a sign of admiration. They’ll get shocked if we do it. I prefer to keep distance to be on the safe side. (ID: 4, age: 43)

As a result, learners do not expect proximity from teachers. One of the participants stated when they walked into the classroom during group or pair work to monitor their students’ activities, they caused interruption or withdrawal on the part of the students, because they felt insecure when monitored closely by the teacher.

However, another participant said that she tries to be standing up most of the time in a position to reach all the students and encourage WTC. Another strategy to express immediacy by teachers in this study was to address students by the first name basis. Nonetheless, as seniority still affects communicative behavior in Iran, and addressing a student by first name is not a common practice in the educational setting, the teachers stated that they considered the language learners’ age while addressing them. What the teachers found interesting was their older students’ tendency to be called by their first name because they said they felt comfortable to join the communicative activates.

Humor, as another motivational teaching strategy [54], was emphasized by the teachers. They pointed to the determining role of laughter and humor in the atmosphere of the class especially when engendered by the teacher himself/herself. They asserted that it eases the tension and opens the atmosphere to participation except in some classes with too many noisy students, in which they preferred to be somewhat more serious in order to be able to control them.

To encourage students’ participation, eye contact was also mentioned as one of the facilitating factors. One of the teachers said “some of the reticent students who don’t want to participate usually sit somewhere out of sight, so when you keep eye contact with them you make them involve” (ID: 18, age: 32).As Richmond asserted “when there is little eye contact between students and teacher, students do not know when to ask, or how to approach the teacher” (2002, p.73).

(2) Teachers’ Support. One of the determining teacher factors that encourage learners’ WTC is teachers’ support [10]. The teachers noted that they avoided being contemptuous toward their students. These teachers noted that they encouraged more participation through a variety of strategies. For instance, they gave the students the talking turn and avoided being the sole speaker; otherwise, the learners would become bored and not listen; as a result, they would withdraw and not participate. One of the teachers shared a recollection of her school years as a student stating,

One of my teachers used to turn his back to us and write on the board without explaining the lesson. He asked questions and then answered himself. We felt suffocated in the class because we were not allowed to talk or we would be called names (ID: 2, age: 32).

The teachers said they tried to listen to their students attentively while putting on a welcoming expression, respect their ideas by thanking them for sharing their ideas, and be sympathetic to their problems. Teachers’ listening to their students as a counselor, in or outside the class, attentively acts as a reinforcement and can change their students’ communication behavior [55]. Caring teachers, according to Steele [56], respect their students through encouraging words and the “often-stated belief” that students can remove learning barriers. One of the teachers noted when questions and problems are dealt with respectfully, they do not feel humiliated, and as a result, they are more willing to talk. She added she convinces the students that what they say is interesting and worthy of attention. As in Iranian culture, girls’ silence is a sign of politeness; one of the teachers felt the need to remind the reticent students of their power and to encourage them to express their opinion on the issues raised in the class. One of the teachers said, “when I feel a student is not able to answer my question, I provide a model answer or call upon another student to answer and finally I go back to her for the answer” (ID: 12, age: 34).

(3) Fairness. Another effective strategy the teachers employed in their classes was to ensure fairness to prevent the students’ unwillingness to participate. In the educational setting, needs-based fairness has been advised by Ruth and Berry [57]. Fairness, in this logic, does not mean that teachers provide equal support and instruction to all the students but more to those who need to achieve academically (Collins, 2003, Forlin and Forlin, 2002 as cited in [57]). Despite seeming reasonable, needs-based fairness may not sound fair in some situations from the students’ point of view. For instance, the teachers maintained that female students were more sensitive about teachers’ treatment and they sometimes complained about their discriminatory behavior. For example, when the teacher admired a student over her achievement, the others expected to be praised, too; otherwise, they would avoid participation.

In addition, teachers considered unfair treatment detrimental to the atmosphere of the class believing that in case of unfair treatment students start distancing, lose confidence in them, and become reticent. In general, teachers’ fair treatment might affect classroom atmosphere because it may affect students’ cohesiveness. Clement et al. [58] found that classroom interaction and learning were considerably affected by student cohesiveness because learners in a cohesive group may feel more motivated to study and do learning tasks (Peng, 2009, as cited in [59]).

(4) Teachers’ Enthusiasm. Teachers’ enthusiasm, active presentation, and dynamism cause pupils to like him or her [30], which may reduce tension in the classroom atmosphere and foster participation. The interviewed teachers agreed that their liveliness encouraged the learners’ WTC. One of the teachers stated “I disagree with the idea that a teacher needs to nod and say things like ok and then move on to another student. This kills life in the class and hinders participation” (ID: 10, age: 37). As Steele stated, teaching without passion has a “pedestrian quality.” The teacher presents the lesson but doesn’t try to make the experience memorable [56]. Recalling a school memory, another teacher said “one day I noticed the teacher was so energetic, lively and the next day she looked tired and angry, then I didn’t dare to speak. I preferred to keep quiet” (ID: 8, age: 36).

3.1.2. Choice of the Topic

Several researchers emphasized the importance of topic in raising interaction (Cao and Philip, 2006) [4, 11, 60]. In addition to learners’ familiarity with the topic and register done by Cao [4], the participants believed that in order to encourage their learners’ involvement, they brought their personal life and experience to classroom. This built confidence and encouraged them to talk about their own real-life problems, interests, and experiences. They said since students are mostly the same age, have more or less similar problems at school, society, or even families, and share homogeneous cultural background, the real-life examples are more tangible to them. They also noted that the topics raised by the students are so appealing that the whole class can become involved. One of the teachers believed that the conversation largely depends on the attitude the teacher has toward the topic. One of the teachers believed that in order to involve all students in the discussion, she usually writes a range of topics on the board and the students vote; the teacher chooses the topic, which gets majority of the approval.

3.1.3. Teaching Style

Challenging activities and teachers’ error correction strategies were mentioned as the most important facilitating factors related to teaching style. Each of these factors merits a detailed elaboration, which is as follows.

3.1.4. Challenging Activities

The teachers stated that challenging questions such as referential questions can force even the most reserved to state their ideas. The literature about referential questions confirms that these questions make for longer and more complex student utterances than display questions [61]. In addition, they believed when it comes to a warm up, asking a general question is important. For instance, one of the teachers said, “I usually ask serial questions rather than disjointed ones to encourage talk” (ID: 24, age: 39). Another one noted, “If the teacher can engender a series of questions and responses based on the responses she gets from her students, a better conversation and exchange of ideas will be witnessed” (ID: 6, age: 30). They also pointed to the significance of using different questions to challenge the learners to take part and as a result, increase the amount of time allocated to student talk. One of the teachers believed that in order not to miss the engagement of low-proficiency students in challenging activities, teachers need to give more “talking time” to them, so that they can express themselves.

3.1.5. Error Correction

As one of the commonly applied strategies in the classroom, error correction has always been a controversial issue in L2 classes. Some of the previous studies [6265] found very strong preferences for metalinguistic and recasts among Iranian EFL learners, and Japanese EFL learners and learners of Japanese, respectively. Unlike Kaivanpanah et al.’s [62] findings which did not reveal any clear preference for immediate versus delayed CF in oral communication, the results of Zhang and Rahimi [64] study indicated that the immediate corrective feedback was ranked the first by both high- and low-anxiety Iranian EFL learners. In fact, their study echoes Mackey’s [66] view that CF is the most effective when it is given in context at the time when the learner makes an error. Whatever is the approach to corrective feedback, the principle purpose, especially in oral interaction, is not to interrupt the flow of speech. When asked about the type of feedback provided in the classes in order not to impede the progress of interaction, the participant teachers said they avoided correcting them on the spot, unless the mistake was so serious that they had to stop them and have on the spot correction. The teachers also stated they tried to wait for some time to see if the students were able to finish their sentences or correct themselves. They mostly agreed with correcting their mistakes indirectly or by eliciting self-correction.

One of the controversial issues among participants was peer-correction. Some of them believed students prefer teacher-correction rather than peer-correction, which is a mentality rooted in teachers’ authority; however, some allowed peer-correction because they believed it could lead to all students’ attentiveness and participation in the class.

3.1.6. Teachers’ Cognitive Congruence

Cognitive congruence or teacher’s adaptability refers to the ability of teachers to express themselves in a comprehensible language by using concepts students use and explaining them in ways students can easily understand [67]. Teachers’ congruence or adaptability according to interviewees affects EFL learners’ WTC. As one of the teachers said when the lesson is beyond the students’ comprehension level, they withdraw and become reticent. The teachers agreed that when students do not grasp the concepts, they lose their confidence; therefore, they even avoid the teacher’s eye contact. One of the teachers believed that “by encouraging students to let us know whether they understand the lesson or not, we can help them become more involved” (ID: 25, age: 55).

3.2. Hindering Factors

Some other factors were mentioned as debilitating ones to interaction: (1) teachers’ role, (2) teaching style, and (3) institutional expectations.

3.2.1. Teachers’ Role

According to Murray and Christison [68], “Student-teacher interactions mostly reflect the dominant societal values such as those related to gender, class, ethnicity, or race. Classroom discourse, then, can either perpetuate the power imbalances of society, or challenge those power relations” (p. 49). Regarding the educational context of Iran, the teachers in this study said that teacher-centered classes are more common in Iran. Most teachers prefer to hold the floor and not leave it to the students in order not to have problems with time and class management; in addition, just few of them encourage talk in the classroom. As teachers play more the role of a transmitter of the information, role relationships between teachers and learners become unequal; as a result, teachers talk most of the time [69].

3.2.2. Teaching Style

As it was already mentioned (Section 1), the teaching style may affect students’ participation pattern [911]. All the teachers agreed that the dominant teaching style in the educational system of Iran affected the students’ expectations and participation patterns. They asserted that due to the effect of sheer teacher-centered methods at schools, students expected to be spoon-fed in these institutes as well; therefore, they adopted more passive roles in the class. They also added, owing to the dominant system of education, students did not have a sense of cooperation and did not develop the social skill of working in groups or pairs which might encourage WTC (Cao and Philip, 2006) [14, 70]. As a result, teachers were not in favor of the pair/group work. Besides, the participants said they actually did not know how to implement the group/pair work strategies appropriately in the class. As Murray and Chrisitson [68] noted, cooperative learning is a complicated practice because it is based on a set of skills and principles, and it requires that learners realize the value of group work, develop the necessary language skills for group work, be given time to practice the skills, and learn how to process their experiences as a group and think about them.

3.2.3. Institutional Expectations

As Richards [71] said “Different types of institutions create their own “culture,” that is, settings where people interact and where patterns emerge for communication, decision making, role relations, and conduct” (p. 97). The participants were complaining about the intensive syllabus they were dictated by the institutes to follow and advised to fully adhere to it, which they believed affected communication patterns in the class and teachers’ freedom to encourage more interaction. Sharing her teaching session, one of the participants said, “I told the students while speaking about cats that I don’t like them and that they give me bad vibes! The supervisor who was observing the class later told me that we are not supposed to talk about our feelings or experiences!” (ID: 5, age: 28). Another teacher highlighted the role of materials covered in the class and mentioned “discussion topics are the ones related to book material which don’t sometimes apply to students’ real life or their interests” (ID: 11, age: 37); as a result, learners are not willing to talk most often. As Alagheband [72] said in Iran, decision making considering planning, curriculum development, material development, and methodology is within the powers of central government, which despite its advantages in creating unity and order, seizes the opportunity from individuals and does not leave a room for their creativity.

4. Conclusion and Implications

This qualitative study attempted to examine Iranian EFL teachers’ perspectives toward socioaffective and pedagogic strategy use in engendering WTC in the classroom, with a focus on culture. The results of the study revealed some facilitating factors such as developing positive relationships, choice of the topic, teaching style, and teachers’ enthusiasm and some hindering factors including teachers’ role, teaching style, and institutional expectations.

The data gathered through the focus group interview indicated that immediacy behaviors such as using students’ first name, eye contact, appearance, and sense of humor strengthen the relationship with students, which is decisive in enhancing WTC. However, considering the space, they were distant due to accepted power rules in the system of education, which is a manifestation of Iranian culture. Regarding humor, the study confirmed the results from the recent research [7375] indicating that humor leads to a safe, supportive, and motivating environment. The teachers’ sense of humor also encourages the inhibited students to participate when they find the atmosphere congenial and welcoming.

The study also highlighted the impact of teachers’ supportive behavior on learners’ WTC. When teachers respect their students by using praise words, sympathize with their students, place a value on what learners say, and make them believe in themselves, they find the courage to participate. This corroborates Kang’s [16] findings, which indicated that teachers’ friendly and supportive behavior was effective in students’ involvement. Confirmed by the previous research (Cao and Philip, 2006) [11, 16], the importance of topic was also highlighted by this study. According to the participants, students volunteer to participate when the topic is related to their real life and interest. They also believed teachers’ attitudes toward the topic is important to arouse enthusiasm in learners. Teachers’ enthusiasm was found to be another facilitating factor in engendering learners’ talk. It appears when teachers are lively and enthusiastic, they affect classroom social climate; as a result, they may encourage WTC. The teachers also found discriminatory behavior detrimental believing that it is exclusive; therefore, it leads to students’ distancing and unwillingness to communicate. Teachers’ congruence was discovered to be another influential factor in the learners’ WTC. Therefore, it is suggested that EFL teachers use specific discourse moves to make the input more comprehensible and prevent learners’ reticence. For instance, using certain discourse moves such as clarification requests and comprehension checks would make input more comprehensible [76].

Another point emphasized by the teachers was challenging students by asking referential questions rather than display questions to encourage talk. This is also recommended by McNeil [61], who believed that these kinds of questions trigger longer and more complex responses. Regarding error correction, although the results revealed self-correction and peer-correction to trigger talk in the classroom, the students still preferred teachers’ correction. This may refer to Iranian predisposition to uncertainty avoidance, which also affects their learning pattern. In fact, the students trust their teachers as a source of knowledge to alleviate their anxiety in case of being exposed to complicated learning situations.

In addition to facilitating factors, the results of the study revealed some hindering factors in students’ participation, in general, WTC, and in particular, in the class. Most of these hindering factors trace back to the cultural context of Iran, which affects the system of education and teacher-student interaction. It was revealed that the teacher’s role in class determines students’ roles; therefore, in teacher-fronted classes, students are not afforded enough opportunity to express themselves. In essence, in countries with high levels of power distance, such as Iran, daily lives of children partially dictate them to obey those in positions of authority; therefore, they learn to accept the teacher’s words and not challenge those [39].

However, despite the fact that teachers are the source of knowledge and must be in control of the class, they should create a balance between their role and students’, so that students adopt a more active role and take on the responsibility for their own learning. In fact, except for some teacher-fronted tasks requiring high levels of complex teacher talk and very little learner participation, others should result in more active learner participation [69]. As Murray and Christison [68] stated, “In terms of language development, English language learners can expect to get more input, more complex language input, and more opportunities to refine communication through natural talk while participating in well-designed cooperative learning activities” (p. 191). In spite of this fact, cooperative learning, according to the results of this study, is not widely practiced in EFL classes in Iran. As Javidan and Dastmalchi [39] noted, Iran is very low in institutional collectivism but high in in-group collectivism; consequently, this in-group collectivism leads to strong family orientation and reduction in “radius of trust.” In such cultures, members learn to trust their in-group members but not outsiders. This tendency also affects the way children are educated. According to Javidan and Datmalchi [39], “In Iran all academic work is based on individual achievement and entails little if any group work; little opportunity is provided for children to learn collective action throughout the 12 years of schooling and even in university classes” (p. 132). This may deny the students the chance to share their learning and ideas with the others and hinder the interaction among students.

Therefore, the results of this study suggested that the teachers in EFL contexts, especially in educational systems similar to the context of this study, need to be cultural-wise and try to create cohesion and trust between members in the class and encourage group activities. The results also showed that institutional expectations and rules are limiting and do not allow creativity for the teachers and students. In fact, Iranian cultures’ static orientation toward the present and respect to tradition and adaptability [35] on the one hand and power rules on the other hand affect individuals’ decision-making abilities. However, according to Alagheband [72], although one of the goals of education in any society is enhancing the status-quo, it should also be the source of development. Therefore, it is suggested that institutions take into account the ongoing learning needs and make some changes to the system to fulfill the EFL learners’ present needs.

Nonetheless, an important point which merits a mention here is to avoid stereotyping cultural characteristics. Besides, although “culture is always a collective phenomenon, it can be connected to different collectives and within each collective there is a variety of individuals” ([77], p. 3). However, Murray and Christison [68] noted that cultures are not static but dynamic and prone to changes, especially in this era of vast communication; therefore, any shift in people’s belief and value may be the consequence of intercultural interactions, which may especially be true about EFL teachers and learners. In addition, the way the learners’ identity is shaped through encountering experiences in the learning environment should not be ignored. These personal experiences may either reinforce previous values and beliefs or reshape them [68]. In spite of the abovementioned debilitating factors present in the educational context of Iran, what was gleaned from the data (As the data are driven from a small-scale study in one region in Iran, a city in East Azarbaijan, with its own particular geographical and ethnic group characteristics interwoven with cultural background, the ideas expressed by teachers in this study might be suggestive rather than conclusive) bears a witness to the idea that the communication rules in educational setting of Iran have started to be relaxing, at least in language classes. For instance, the teachers face some students who resist discipline in the classroom and do not wait for the teachers’ permission to talk, or they feel intimate enough to give compliments on the teachers’ appearance, which was considered a kind of por’ru (rude) behavior in the past [40]. In addition, the teachers said that they sometimes let their students correct not only their peers but also the teacher. This was not the case that some decades ago as one of the teachers said from her personal experience as a student that the teacher would not let them express their opinion.

Since teachers’ socioaffective and pedagogic strategies may have a great influence on students’ WTC, it is imperative that teachers integrate them into their teaching. The EFL teachers should sometimes question the values and presuppositions in cultural practices and products in their own environment (Byram, 1997, as cited in [78]) and substitute them with facilitating classroom practices.

5. Limitations and Further Research

The findings of the study highlighted the importance of teacher factors in boosting learners’ WTC; however, they are subject to at least three limitations. First, as the study was part of a larger study for the Ph.D. dissertation, the sample size was small due to practicality problems in terms of time and scope. Therefore, further research with larger sample size regarding the role of teachers would be more worthwhile and generalizable to Iranian culture. Second, as Iran is a multilingual and multicultural country, a future study investigating teacher factors in the other regions or a focus group made up of teachers from different regions would yield more results that are representatives. Another limitation refers to the gender of the participants. The classes in the educational system of Iran (except for university classes) are segregated; as a result, we were able to choose merely female teachers, teaching to female students. Conducting research with male teachers may render different results because males and females have different communication styles [79].

Eliminate causes of stress (immediacy) as much as you can and you will see the result in form of a more relaxed atmosphere (immediacy) in the class. You could also try using encouraging words plus more words of praise (support) and attentive listening (support) to whatever they say, important or not, and you will have their appreciation as well as increased participation in an attempt to win your approval. Risk of humiliating oneself is a key barrier to their self-expression, so if you can clarify the fact that they are there to learn and no matter what they say, they will not be laughed at (support), you earn their trust and hence their cooperation. In addition, challenging questions (challenging activities) can force even the most reserved to defend themselves and their ideas ... last but not the least is the fact that since you are mostly dealing with girls, you have to constantly remind them of their powers (support), that they are allowed (and it is ok for them) to express their ideas.

Data Availability

We will provide the data used for this study if it is required by the journal.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

The present study is a part of larger Ph. D project conducted by the first author; therefore, she would like to thank Dr. Saeidi, the supervisor, and Dr. Ahangari, the advisor, for providing insightful comments and suggestions. The authors would also like to thank the teachers for their cooperation and providing their valuable experience without which the study would be impossible. The authors are also grateful to unknown reviewers for their invaluable comments to polish and enrich this paper.


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HSR&D Citation Abstract

The association between race and gender, treatment attitudes, and antidepressant treatment adherence.

Burnett-Zeigler I, Kim HM, Chiang C, Kavanagh J, Zivin K, Rockefeller K, Sirey JA, Kales HC. The association between race and gender, treatment attitudes, and antidepressant treatment adherence. International journal of geriatric psychiatry. 2014 Feb 1; 29(2):169-77.

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OBJECTIVES: We examined the associations between treatment attitudes and beliefs with race-gender differences in antidepressant adherence. METHODS: Subjects (n? = 186) were African-American and White subjects aged = 60?years, diagnosed with clinically significant depression, and had a new outpatient primary care recommendation for antidepressant treatment. Antidepressant adherence was assessed using the Brief Medication Questionnaire. Attitudes and beliefs were assessed using the Patients Attitudes Toward and Ratings of Care for Depression, two items rating perceived medication importance, and a modified version of the Stigma Scale for Receiving Psychological Help. RESULTS: African-American men and women had significantly greater concerns about antidepressants and significantly less understanding about treatment than White women. African-American men had significantly more negative attitudes toward healthcare providers than African-American and White women. African-American women were more likely than White men and women to endorse a medication other than their antidepressant as most important. Whereas some race-gender differences were found in personal spirituality, no group differences were found in perceived stigma. In a logistic regression model adjusted for key baseline variables, White women were significantly more adherent to antidepressants than African-American women (OR? = 3.05, 95% CI? = 1.06-8.81). Fewer concerns about antidepressants and indicating the antidepressant as the most important medication were both significantly associated with adherence. After including either of these two variables, the adherence difference between White women and African-American women was no longer significant (OR? = 2.56, 95% CI? = 0.84-7.80). CONCLUSIONS: Concerns about antidepressants and the importance of antidepressant medication are associated with adherence and are potentially modifiable through improved patient-provider communication, psycho-education, and therapeutic interventions.


The latest recent UN population report titled 'World Population Prospects 2022: Summary of Results' indicated that life expectancy has dropped to 71 years in 2021 which was 72.8 in 2019 primarily due to the impact of the Covid pandemic.

The report suggested that the Covid pandemic that originated in 2019 slightly diminished some of the gains in life expectancy humans achieved between 1990 to 2019. During this period, human life expectancy had increased by nine years, and post the pandemic, it was reduced by one year in 2021.

Representational ImagePixabay

Life expectancy is higher for females

The report stated that life expectancy was higher for females (73.8 years) than males (68.4 years) in 2021.

"This female survival advantage is observed in virtually all regions and countries of the world. The female advantage in life expectancy at birth ranged from 7 years in Latin America and the Caribbean to 2.9 years in Australia and New Zealand," read the report.

The report also shows that the birth life expectancy difference between men and women that declined across some parts over the previous three decades had raised to 5.4 years in 2021 from 5.2 years in 2019.

Life expectancy in various regions

Australia and New Zealand witnessed the highest life expectancy at birth with 84.2 and the lowest in Sub-Saharan Africa (59.7). While it was 67.7 years in Central and South Asia, 72.1 in Northern Africa and Western Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean witnessed 72.2. It was 77.2 in Europe and Northern America.

"In 2021, the disparity between the country with the highest and the country with lowest life expectancy at birth stood at 33.4. Among the countries with a population of at least half a million in 2022, life expectancy at birth reached close to 85 years or above in 2021 in Australia, the Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions of China, and Japan. In contrast, life expectancy at birth is the lowest in the Central African Republic, Chad, Lesotho and Nigeria with levels below 54 years in 2021," the report says.

The report estimates that the gap between countries having the highest and lowest life expectancy is expected to rise further.

"In the coming decades, further increases in survival are expected to narrow but not to eliminate differences in life expectancy across countries and regions... By 2050, life expectancy at birth is projected to reach 77.2 years worldwide, with a gap of 31.8 years remaining between the countries with the lowest and the highest values," the report added.

"A large portion of the gap between countries with the lowest and highest levels of life expectancy at birth is attributable to disparities in the under-five mortality rate, which represents the probability of dying between birth and age 5. Still, a child born in sub-Saharan Africa in 2021 is 20 times as likely to die before his or her fifth birthday as a child born in Australia and New Zealand," the report further noted.


Gaynor Young's plunge and rise - Overcoming adversity

Gaynor Young, an acclaimed actress and opera singer, had just performer in a play at the State Theatre in Pretoria when tragedy struck. During a change in scenery on stage, Gaynor took one false step and found herself tumbling off the stage, and ultimately down five floors to the basement level. It was an horrific fall of 18 metres onto a concrete floor. Gaynor broke almost every bone in her face and body and suffered a brain hemorrhage. What kept her going? She says it was the healing power of love. Gaynor never, ever gave up. Join ‘DrD’ and Gaynor as they talk about her journey to survival and then thrival.