Driving educational change at school federation level: A case study of team-based learning

This case study is the response to an institutional need. It explores the suitability of promoting a university teaching method called Team-Based Learning as the key driver for educational change in the sixth-form of a Spanish school federation seeking to move towards active learning. Yet, the transformation of classroom teaching practices has been widely ignored by the field of educational change or, at best, considered to be the result, rather than the driver, of a dramatic shift in pedagogic culture. One that has proven elusive in large-scale, and mostly unsuccessful public policies of school reform, which underestimate the capacity of local settings to initiate and deliver change. This study reverses this top-down strategy, aligning with, and complementing, recent bottom-up approaches which, while devising conceptual frameworks to promote small-scale initiatives for educational change, fail to provide educators with operational teaching methods; it contends that Team-Based Learning might be one of them. Drawing on the field of educational change, the Team-Based Learning framework, and organisational development theory, the study involves 18 teachers of 9 subjects, from 12 state-sponsored schools under the umbrella of the federation, in a one-year inter-school intervention that impacts on more than 500 sixth formers across Spain. The empirical research, focused on the sixth-form teachers’ perspective, develops a triangulation method to analyse data gathered from a mixed-method approach that encompasses a bespoke questionnaire, an online forum, 6 interviews, and collaborative visual charts. The research argues that promoting Team-Based Learning across the federation is a suitable, worthwhile strategy to drive educational change. In highlighting the centrality of teachers’ attitudes towards innovative pedagogies and the crucial role played by the 16% of staff members proactive about change, it focuses on exploring the extent to which sixth-form innovators’ stance on TBL is favourable. The findings are encouraging: those expected to lead the change find TBL dramatically transformative, would like to adopt it, and are willing to collaborate in its dissemination, considering it to be feasible with the appropriate institutional support. The study further develops the Team-Based Learning framework by addressing several gaps in research and might be helpful for other multi-site institutions seeking educational change. It has enhanced the organisational development of the school federation by encouraging the adoption of autonomous, research-based policies and has greatly reinforced my leadership role by creating a thriving, transformative community of practice

A framework to facilitate effective e-learning in engineering development environments: executive summary

The demands of the continually changing and developing workplace require individuals to be adaptable, multi-disciplined and with the ability to work collaboratively, often in virtual environments. Professional engineers of today must meet these demands and have appropriate business and communication skills to operate in today's competitive, fast-moving, global environment. Yet these engineers still need to remain productive and routinely keep abreast of technological advances for their day-to-day working requirements. Thus, a range of continually renewable competencies is essential, which in turn puts pressure on both industry and academia to consider alternative ways to inform and educate their engineers and students. To help address these requirements, electronic learning (e-leaming) has been researched as a possible solution to facilitate a more flexible, distributed, collaborative, self-directed, virtual learning environment for both work-based professional engineers and engineering students. This research revealed gaps in both the existing literature and working practices regarding the elearning needs of engineers and in current approaches to meet these needs. Consequently, the main objective of the research was to develop a mechanism to assist providers of e-leaming to construct effective e-leaming activities in engineering development environments. In this context, 'development' environments refer to the engineer's product-development environment and the engineering student's study environment, with the increasing responsibility for selfdevelopment in an engineering career. The research identified and investigated factors that affect learning in these engineering environments, and examined current Web-based technologies to support and enhance learning experiences. A framework was developed as the mechanism to group the different and non-comparable learning factors together into philosophy, delivery, management and technology categories. These learning factors can be connected and sequenced differently in the categories, depending on the learning requirements. Hence, the main research innovation has been the creation of this framework to structure, link and order key learning factors, which offers guidance to e-leaming providers developing e-leaming environments. A predominant action research methodology was adopted for the research, as the author was involved with engineering environments and their e-leaming practices, decisions, developments and implementations in varying degrees. The main areas investigated for the research were: 1) Exploring learning methods & preferred learning styles in the engineering environment. Important findings here identified that engineers have a strong visual learning style preference and practise experiential learning in their engineering environments. 2) Examining technologies to support and enhance learning. This provided an understanding of 'hard' computer and Web capabilities, and 'soft' non-tangible technologies. Web technologies were of particular interest to this research due to their wide reach and interactive impact on the modem working and learning environments. 3) Investigating marketing considerations from the Web-based learning (WBL) providers' viewpoint. Marketing issues, products and services of WBL providers were investigated. This compared what and how the market offered and identified the business aspects of WBL. 4) Developing an e-learning framework. The research was consolidated to create a novel framework that grouped disparate learning factors for effective e-leaming development. 5) Studying practical engineering e-learning applications. Areas of the proposed framework were validated and refined from the case study data and experiences. Critical success factors (CSF) were derived to provide a business perspective for e-leaming developments, and these complemented the framework's learning factors. The above areas have been addressed in detail and documented in separate Engineering Doctorate submissions. This Executive Summary outlines and consolidates these areas, and describes, exemplifies and verifies the various factors within the e-leaming framework and the CSFs. The rationale, applications and guidelines for the e-leaming framework are also discussed. The framework provides a toolkit for building effective e-leaming activities in engineering development environments. Thus, the research shows that e-leaming can provide the solution to facilitate a flexible, continuous learning environment for engineers

Overcoming the barriers to teaching teamwork to undergraduates in STEM.

There is widespread recognition that undergraduate students in the life sciences must learn how to work in teams. However, instructors who wish to incorporate teamwork into their classrooms rarely have formal training in how to teach teamwork. This is further complicated by the application of synonymous and often ambiguous terminology regarding teamwork that is found in literature spread among many different disciplines. There are significant barriers for instructors wishing to identify and implement best practices. We synthesize key concepts in teamwork by considering the knowledge, skills, and attitudes (KSAs) necessary for success, the pedagogies and curricula for teaching those KSAs, and the instruments available for evaluating and assessing success. There are only a limited number of studies on teamwork in higher education that present an intervention with a control group and a formal evaluation or assessment. Moreover, these studies are almost exclusively outside STEM disciplines, raising questions about their extensibility. We conclude by considering how to build an evidence base for instruction that will empower students with the KSAs necessary for participating in a lifetime of equitable and inclusive teamwork

Proceedings of the 1st Annual Higher Education Flipped Learning Conference

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Exploring Current Topics and Trends in Anatomy Education: A Scoping Review

Within the field of health professional education, one finds that anatomy often presents students with a great deal of difficulty. The literature in this area is piecemeal and there is limited work available examining the whole of this topic. A scoping review was conducted to determine how students are taught anatomy across multiple disciplines (medicine, dentistry, rehabilitation sciences, and undergraduate education) and to assess for any notable differences between these populations. The results found that scholarship on anatomy instruction varies based on educational context, and medical students are the most frequently targeted student population. It also found that the use of medical imaging and computer aided instruction is increasing while the use of cadaveric dissection has remained constant. Furthermore, the lack of cadaveric dissection in an anatomy curriculum does not necessarily hinder student learning when alternative teaching modalities are implemented

A framework to facilitate effective e-learning in engineering development environments : executive summary

The demands of the continually changing and developing workplace require individuals to be adaptable, multi-disciplined and with the ability to work collaboratively, often in virtual environments. Professional engineers of today must meet these demands and have appropriate business and communication skills to operate in today's competitive, fast-moving, global environment. Yet these engineers still need to remain productive and routinely keep abreast of technological advances for their day-to-day working requirements. Thus, a range of continually renewable competencies is essential, which in turn puts pressure on both industry and academia to consider alternative ways to inform and educate their engineers and students. To help address these requirements, electronic learning (e-leaming) has been researched as a possible solution to facilitate a more flexible, distributed, collaborative, self-directed, virtual learning environment for both work-based professional engineers and engineering students. This research revealed gaps in both the existing literature and working practices regarding the elearning needs of engineers and in current approaches to meet these needs. Consequently, the main objective of the research was to develop a mechanism to assist providers of e-leaming to construct effective e-leaming activities in engineering development environments. In this context, 'development' environments refer to the engineer's product-development environment and the engineering student's study environment, with the increasing responsibility for selfdevelopment in an engineering career. The research identified and investigated factors that affect learning in these engineering environments, and examined current Web-based technologies to support and enhance learning experiences. A framework was developed as the mechanism to group the different and non-comparable learning factors together into philosophy, delivery, management and technology categories. These learning factors can be connected and sequenced differently in the categories, depending on the learning requirements. Hence, the main research innovation has been the creation of this framework to structure, link and order key learning factors, which offers guidance to e-leaming providers developing e-leaming environments. A predominant action research methodology was adopted for the research, as the author was involved with engineering environments and their e-leaming practices, decisions, developments and implementations in varying degrees. The main areas investigated for the research were: 1) Exploring learning methods ;preferred learning styles in the engineering environment. Important findings here identified that engineers have a strong visual learning style preference and practise experiential learning in their engineering environments. 2) Examining technologies to support and enhance learning. This provided an understanding of 'hard' computer and Web capabilities, and 'soft' non-tangible technologies. Web technologies were of particular interest to this research due to their wide reach and interactive impact on the modem working and learning environments. 3) Investigating marketing considerations from the Web-based learning (WBL) providers' viewpoint. Marketing issues, products and services of WBL providers were investigated. This compared what and how the market offered and identified the business aspects of WBL. 4) Developing an e-learning framework. The research was consolidated to create a novel framework that grouped disparate learning factors for effective e-leaming development. 5) Studying practical engineering e-learning applications. Areas of the proposed framework were validated and refined from the case study data and experiences. Critical success factors (CSF) were derived to provide a business perspective for e-leaming developments, and these complemented the framework's learning factors. The above areas have been addressed in detail and documented in separate Engineering Doctorate submissions. This Executive Summary outlines and consolidates these areas, and describes, exemplifies and verifies the various factors within the e-leaming framework and the CSFs. The rationale, applications and guidelines for the e-leaming framework are also discussed. The framework provides a toolkit for building effective e-leaming activities in engineering development environments. Thus, the research shows that e-leaming can provide the solution to facilitate a flexible, continuous learning environment for engineers.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceEngineering and Physical Science Research Council (Great Britain) (EPSRC)GBUnited Kingdo

An Analysis of Sustainable Operations in Universities

Sustainable university operations must match a university’s sustainability reputation. This analysis of a university’s operations assesses the drivers for operations to determine the value that operations units can bring to support long-term sustainability goals of the university. The paper first defines economic sustainability as the dimension where operations can have the most impact. University operations units are internal infrastructure customised value creation systems. For these operations units to support sustainability strategic goals, they must shift their focus from pure economic (cost) efficiency to include social efficiency. In lean departments with low policy and fiscal autonomy, operational units must also align sustainability initiatives with institutional-wide goals. New skillsets and human capital will be required to support an external focused strategic orientation. The paper examines the intangible resources within a facilities operations unit, and recommends the best fit of technical skills and resources with institutional sustainability goals. Of several strategic options evaluated, the paper recommends forming a Sustainability Operations Alliance. This Alliance can provide a strategic framework for collaboration across departments, while allowing the operations unit the flexibility to apply its core strengths and skills to implement the best sustainable technologies. The paper concludes by proposing collaborative initiatives that benefits sustainability university-wide