Putting research first? Perspectives from academics and students on first-year undergraduates learning research

Exploring the place and potential of ‘research’ in undergraduate degrees has stimulated higher-educational debate for decades, strongly influencing policies, practices and structures. This article’s consideration of some problems associated with teaching and learning about research during the first year of undergraduate degrees, helps throw that debate into a sharper light. Should first-year undergraduates be asked to learn from their own or others’ research, and what difficulties might they experience? What relevant previous learning about research, or lack of it, might they bring with them into their degree? Working with empirical data from across one English university, and literature from universities across the world, these questions are discussed by exploring first-year undergraduate teaching and learning, through the lenses of critical inquiry and constructivist grounded theory.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio

Scoping a vision for formative e-assessment: a project report for JISC

Assessment is an integral part of teaching and learning. If the relationship between teaching and learning were causal, i. e. if students always mastered the intended learning outcomes of a particular sequence of instruction, assessment would be superfluous. Experience and research suggest this is not the case: what is learnt can often be quite different from what is taught. Formative assessment is motivated by a concern with the elicitation of relevant information about student understanding and / or achievement, its interpretation and an exploration of how it can lead to actions that result in better learning. In the context of a policy drive towards technology-enhanced approaches to teaching and learning, the question of the role of digital technologies is key and it is the latter on which this project particularly focuses. The project and its deliverables have been informed by recent and relevant literature, in particular recent work by Black andIn this work, they put forward a framework which suggests that assessment for learning their term for formative assessment can be conceptualised as consisting of a number of aspects and five keystrategies. The key aspects revolve around the where the learner is going, where the learner is right now and how she can get there and examines the role played by the teacher, peers and the learner. Language: English Keywords: assessments, case studies, design patterns, e-assessmen

Research and Education in Computational Science and Engineering

Over the past two decades the field of computational science and engineering (CSE) has penetrated both basic and applied research in academia, industry, and laboratories to advance discovery, optimize systems, support decision-makers, and educate the scientific and engineering workforce. Informed by centuries of theory and experiment, CSE performs computational experiments to answer questions that neither theory nor experiment alone is equipped to answer. CSE provides scientists and engineers of all persuasions with algorithmic inventions and software systems that transcend disciplines and scales. Carried on a wave of digital technology, CSE brings the power of parallelism to bear on troves of data. Mathematics-based advanced computing has become a prevalent means of discovery and innovation in essentially all areas of science, engineering, technology, and society; and the CSE community is at the core of this transformation. However, a combination of disruptive developments---including the architectural complexity of extreme-scale computing, the data revolution that engulfs the planet, and the specialization required to follow the applications to new frontiers---is redefining the scope and reach of the CSE endeavor. This report describes the rapid expansion of CSE and the challenges to sustaining its bold advances. The report also presents strategies and directions for CSE research and education for the next decade.Comment: Major revision, to appear in SIAM Revie

Company-university collaboration in applying gamification to learning about insurance

Incorporating gamification into training–learning at universities is hampered by a shortage of quality, adapted educational video games. Large companies are leading in the creation of educational video games for their internal training or to enhance their public image and universities can benefit from collaborating. The aim of this research is to evaluate, both objectively and subjectively, the potential of the simulation game BugaMAP (developed by the MAPFRE Foundation) for university teaching about insurance. To this end, we have assessed both the game itself and the experience of using the game as perceived by 142 economics students from various degree plans and courses at the University of Seville during the 2017–2018 academic year. As a methodology, a checklist of gamification components is used for the objective evaluation, and an opinion questionnaire on the game experience is used for the subjective evaluation. Among the results several findings stand out. One is the high satisfaction of the students with the knowledge acquired using fun and social interaction. Another is that the role of the university professors and the company monitors turns out to be very active and necessary during the game-learning sessions. Finally, in addition to the benefits to the university of occasionally available quality games to accelerate student skills training, the company–university collaboration serves as a trial and refinement of innovative tools for game-based learning

Why is there no queer international theory?

Over the last decade, Queer Studies have become Global Queer Studies, generating significant insights into key international political processes. Yet, the transformation from Queer to Global Queer has left the discipline of International Relations largely unaffected, which begs the question: if Queer Studies has gone global, why has the discipline of International Relations not gone somewhat queer? Or, to put it in Martin Wight’s provocative terms, why is there no Queer International Theory? This article claims that the presumed non-existence of Queer International Theory is an effect of how the discipline of International Relations combines homologization, figuration, and gentrification to code various types of theory as failures in order to manage the conduct of international theorizing in all its forms. This means there are generalizable lessons to be drawn from how the discipline categorizes Queer International Theory out of existence to bring a specific understanding of International Relations into existence