Engaging the 'Xbox generation of learners' in Higher Education

The research project identifies examples of technology used to empower learning of Secondary school pupils that could be used to inform students’ engagement in learning with technology in the Higher Education sector. Research was carried out in five partnership Secondary schools and one associate Secondary school to investigate how pupils learn with technology in lessons and to identify the pedagogy underpinning such learning. Data was collected through individual interviews with pupils, group interviews with members of the schools’ councils, lesson observations, interviews with teachers, pupil surveys, teacher surveys, and a case study of a learning event. In addition, data was collected on students’ learning with technology at the university through group interviews with students and student surveys in the School of Education and Professional Development, and through surveys completed by students across various university departments. University tutors, researchers, academic staff, learning technology advisers, and cross sector partners from the local authority participated in focus group interviews on the challenges facing Higher Education in engaging new generations of students, who have grown up in the digital age, in successful scholarly learning

Computational Thinking Integration into Middle Grades Science Classrooms: Strategies for Meeting the Challenges

This paper reports findings from the efforts of a university-based research team as they worked with middle school educators within formal school structures to infuse computer science principles and computational thinking practices. Despite the need to integrate these skills within regular classroom practices to allow all students the opportunity to learn these essential 21st Century skills, prior practice has been to offer these learning experiences outside of mainstream curricula where only a subset of students have access. We have sought to leverage elements of the research-practice partnership framework to achieve our project objectives of integrating computer science and computational thinking within middle science classrooms. Utilizing a qualitative approach to inquiry, we present narratives from three case schools, report on themes across work sites, and share recommendations to guide other practitioners and researchers who are looking to engage in technology-related initiatives to impact the lives of middle grades students

The Faculty Notebook, September 2015

The Faculty Notebook is published periodically by the Office of the Provost at Gettysburg College to bring to the attention of the campus community accomplishments and activities of academic interest. Faculty are encouraged to submit materials for consideration for publication to the Associate Provost for Faculty Development. Copies of this publication are available at the Office of the Provost

FDTL voices : drawing from learning and teaching projects

This publication draws on insights and experiences from individuals and teams within learning and teaching development projects in higher education. It considers lessons learnt from the processes, outcomes and tangible outputs of the projects across the spectrum of the FDTL initiative, with the intention that colleagues can draw on and benefit from this experience. The overriding theme at the heart of every FDTL project has been the desire to achieve some form of positive and meaningful change at the level of the individual, institution or discipline. The continuing legacy of the programme has been to create wider community involvement as projects have engaged with the higher education sector on multiple levels - personal, institutional, practice, and policy. This publication has remained throughout a collaborative endeavour, supported by Academy colleagues. It is based around the four themes emerging from the initiative as a whole: • Sectoral/Organisational Change • Conceptual Change • Professional and Personal Development Partnership and • Project Managemen

Developing criticality in the context of mass higher education: investigating literacy practices on undergraduate courses in Ghanaian universities

The study observed five introductory classes at the University of Cape Coast, Ghana, to find out what academic literacy practices are being engendered and how criticality is being fostered through those practices. The results are intended to help both myself, as a teacher researcher, and the university to identify how students make the difficult transition from expectations of literacy at secondary school to those at university. I observed lecturers and students in their classroom environment for a semester (16 weeks); interviewed lecturers who taught the courses observed and conducted five focus groups, made up of eight students each, with volunteers from each of the classes observed. These interviews were replicated in two other public universities: the Universities of Ghana and Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology where two and five lecturers respectively participated in individual interviews, and eight students each participated in focus groups. Finally, I triangulated the data in order to identify emergent patterns of lecturers’ and students’ experiences with teaching and learning. The data indicates that students need more explicit teaching of the basic literacy skills they are assumed to have. Most students in the study had difficulty comprehending academic texts. Additionally, students rarely attempted to read their assigned texts beforehand since they had little experience in anticipating what to look for or connect with in the text. Student writing is poor, as they have no opportunity to practice continuous writing. In order to address the literacy difficulties of these students, there is the need to pay attention to institutional and faculty engagement practices which promote student learning. A major area for improvement is in encouraging lecturers to teach using more explicit methods so that students can move from where they are in their literacy competence to where lecturers expect them to be. The place to explain to students what is expected in a discipline is within that discipline (Skillen et al., 2001), rather than assume that students will automatically see the shift in expectations for each field of study. Although there was substantial consensus about the importance of criticality in lecturers’ aims for student learning, this was not adequately translated into literacy practices. Massification has led to a preference for multiple-choice testing which has removed the need to read and write for assessment, inviting students out of the intellectual dialogue that characterizes the various disciplines as they engage critically and thoughtfully with course readings (Svinicki, 2005; Carroll, 2002). The findings of this study indicate that lecturers have only adapted to the changed circumstances of massification in ways that mean that the critical acquisition of academic literacies is diminished. The impact of massification on teaching and learning has resulted in lecturers feeling under pressure to teach in ways that conflict with their personal ideologies. To foster criticality in students lecturers will have to learn new skills as what may happen with a group of 20 cannot be translated into a group of hundred or more. There are policies in place to enhance teaching and learning but few mechanisms to implement them. In the most important sense that the university in its policy statements and course outlines values critical thinking and deep engagement with ideas and concepts, the practices described by students and lecturers are completely in tension. In order to address the literacy difficulties of students, universities will need to actively support lecturers in teaching reform efforts so as to respond to pressures on them to increase their output while maintaining quality. Significant progress is likely to come about only if universities are willing to invest in resources that are needed to experiment with institution-wide changes

Seeing ethnographically: teaching ethnography as part of CSCW

While ethnography is an established part of CSCW research, teaching and learning ethnography presents unique and distinct challenges. This paper discusses a study of fieldwork and analysis amongst a group of students learning ethnography as part of a CSCW & design course. Studying the students’ practices we explore fieldwork as a learning experience, both learning about fieldsites as well as learning the practices of ethnography. During their fieldwork and analysis the students used a wiki to collaborate, sharing their field and analytic notes. From this we draw lessons for how ethnography can be taught as a collaborative analytic process and discuss extensions to the wiki to better support its use for collaborating around fieldnotes. In closing we reflect upon the role of learning ethnography as a practical hands on – rather than theoretical – pursuit

7th Annual Research Week- Event Proceedings

7th Annual Research Wee

Expanding Democracy in Classrooms: History Teacher Candidates\u27 Perceptions of Student Feedback as a Democratic Teaching Practice

This study examines the perceptions of middle and high school history teacher candidates about the use of student feedback as a democratic teaching practice. It explores preservice teachers\u27 responses when asking students to comment about the use of interactive, student-centered teaching. In a collaborative action research approach, qualitative research methodologies were used to document experiences of candidates as they designed and implemented student surveys in classes and responded to what students said. Participants included 14 history teacher license candidates at a public university in the Northeast United States who were completing their pre-practicum and student teaching field experiences in history and social studies classrooms in public middle and high schools during the 2013-2014 school year. Data was drawn from field notes, focus group discussions, papers, and online responses written by history teacher candidates as part of required teacher license courses. Based on themes generated from participant data, student feedback holds promise as a democratic teaching method in history classrooms. As candidates integrated democratic feedback in classes, their attitudes and behaviors changed from being reluctant inquirers to active solicitors. They became eager to learn what students had to say and prepared to make changes to curriculum content and instructional practices based on feedback. Some candidates acknowledged that asking students for feedback had transformed the culture of their classrooms and broadened their daily practice as a teacher. This study has implications for improving the preparation of new history teachers at every grade level, redefining the traditional supervision model in which student teachers receive feedback from university program supervisors but not from students. This study demonstrates ways to engage K-12 students as learning partners in history education. Student feedback reinforces and encourages future teachers\u27 engagement with continual reflective practice in their teaching. The implementation of the feedback as a part of reflective practice offers an alternative to the use of student surveys for teacher evaluation purposes

What do faculties specializing in brain and neural sciences think about, and how do they approach, brain-friendly teaching-learning in Iran?

Objective: to investigate the perspectives and experiences of the faculties specializing in brain and neural sciences regarding brain-friendly teaching-learning in Iran. Methods: 17 faculties from 5 universities were selected by purposive sampling (2018). In-depth semi-structured interviews with directed content analysis were used. Results: 31 sub-subcategories, 10 subcategories, and 4 categories were formed according to the “General teaching model”. “Mentorship” was a newly added category. Conclusions: A neuro-educational approach that consider the roles of the learner’s brain uniqueness, executive function facilitation, and the valence system are important to learning. Such learning can be facilitated through cognitive load considerations, repetition, deep questioning, visualization, feedback, and reflection. The contextualized, problem-oriented, social, multi-sensory, experiential, spaced learning, and brain-friendly evaluation must be considered. Mentorship is important for coaching and emotional facilitation