The Use of a Mock Environment Summit to Support Learning about Global Climate Change

NOTE: This is a large file, 26.6 mb in size! This article advocates the use of a Learner-Centered Environment (LCE) to teach Earth System Science. In this instance, LCE takes the form of a mock environmental summit in which students play the roles of country representatives and participate in activities such as writings, class discussions, presentations and negotiations. Rubrics developed for each activity are used both to assess student learning and to communicate feedback to students about their work. The study suggests that the adoption of an LCE enhanced student learning of content and critical skills. The frequent student presentations were found to play a major role in student learning. The rubrics served as scaffolding for knowledge construction, helped students to self-assess and maintain their quality of work, and allowed instructors to provide quick and efficient feedback. The development of basic learner-centered tools and teaching practices will help Earth System Science instructors provide learning environments most suitable for their discipline. Educational levels: Graduate or professional

Teaching business plan negotiation: How to foster entrepreneurship with engineering students

business plan, entrepreneurship

Incorporating inter-cultural awareness in the teaching of business communication: The IIUM experience

Students of The International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM) come from many Islamic countries around the world. They are enrolled in different faculties including the Faculty of Economics and Management Sciences. One of the compulsory courses for these students is The English for Occupational Purposes (EOP). It is meant for final year students (3 credit bearing) to equip them with the necessary skills before joining the workforce. Over the years, various approaches have been introduced and applied in ensuring that the best method is applied so that this course will be more meaningful and effective to the students. However, the course content only focuses on the communication skills in Business English without taking into account the different cultures of students who may have different business cultures back home. This study hence will look into the possibility of incorporating cultural awareness across context in the teaching and learning of English for Occupational Purposes and answering research questions related to culture, communication, teaching and learning. The qualitative methodology employing the interpretive analytical framework and case study are used in the 2-semester observations and interviews of the EOP students and lecturers. Findings are discussed with regard to the developmental theories of intercultural communication and the business communication aspects

Is World Trade Organization Information Good Enough? How a Systematic Reflection by Members on Transparency Could Promote Institutional learning. Bertelsmann Stiftung GED Focus Paper

The World Trade Organization (WTO) has three primary tasks: to negotiate new rules, monitor implementation, and settle any disputes that arise. It is not fulfilling any of these tasks very well at the moment. Should Members just muddle along, hoping for the best, or seek external advice on how to change the WTO operating system? I suggest a third possibility: should Members encourage institutional learning? It helps that at least some Members know that they have a problem. In July 2017, a communication to the Gen-eral Council from a group of 47 developing and developed Members said, first, that the political will to find compromises and to forge consensus is lacking (WTO, 2017c). WTO Members have failed for years to agree that the Doha Round is dead so a new negotiation framework cannot be created. The second observation from the group informally known as the Friends of the System is that compliance with notification obligations is often unsatisfactory, thereby undermining the WTO’s monitoring function because information is late, incomplete or of low quality. These two self-criticisms, about political will to find consensus, and insufficient provision of infor-mation, are related: both are a symptom, not a cause; both signify the lack of a shared understanding of what WTO is for. Some of the explanations for the WTO’s difficulties lie outside the organization in a general malaise of multilater-alism (Wolfe, 2015b; Wolfe, 2017b), now exacerbated by an Administration in Washington that in putting America First sees a competitor, not a partner, in China, but continuing as before and hoping for a better outcome would be foolish. Muddling through is no solution, and outsiders cannot help. Could a systematic discussion of transpar-ency help Members to recover a shared sense of collective purpose

Combining Savings Groups with Agricultural Marketing in Tanzania

Preliminary findings of the Catholic Relief Services (CRS) programme in Tanzania suggest that by federating Savings Groups into collective marketing structures, the capacity of their members to engage in joint marketing is enhanced. The federated market structure leverages the trust and confidence, created amongst group members through regular financial transactions, to build a more solid platform to joint marketing structures