GAUGING THE ICT-BASED TEACHING READINESS OF PRESERVICE TEACHERS IN THE LIGHT OF 21ST CENTURY EDUCATION

This triangulation study assessed pre-service teachers of their readiness to functionally utilize Information and Communication Technology (ICT) – based teaching strategies and techniques as corroborated with new graduates’ related experiences.Their knowledge in ICT-based teaching acquired from the educational technology courses in teacher education was correlated with their attitudes and perceptions toward the use of these strategies in causing functional learning, their perceived readiness, and technological practices. Subsequently, issues concerning the use of ICT-based strategies learned in college were sought from graduates of teacher education through exposition of experiences in their respective workplaces.This study ultimately revealed that the educational technology course experiences were not responsive enough to capacitate pre-service teachers to enact ICT-based strategies toward functional learning of their future students. They generally believe that their knowledge, potentials, and skills were not adequate to maximize ICT in designing and implementing curricular programs when they become full-fledged teachers despite their positive views on the benefits of ICT in teaching. New teacher-graduates, meanwhile, experienced limitations on the opportunities to use ICT in teaching due to lack of facilities and available resources to carry out their learned competencies. They also expressed restraint to innovate teaching as they were aghast of the demands of 21st century education. The need to revitalize the teacher education curriculum is, therefore, proposed that should be highly responsive in gearing up the potentials of pre-service teachers on ICT-based teaching in the light of 21st century education

Teaching and learning in virtual worlds: is it worth the effort?

Educators have been quick to spot the enormous potential afforded by virtual worlds for situated and authentic learning, practising tasks with potentially serious consequences in the real world and for bringing geographically dispersed faculty and students together in the same space (Gee, 2007; Johnson and Levine, 2008). Though this potential has largely been realised, it generally isn’t without cost in terms of lack of institutional buy-in, steep learning curves for all participants, and lack of a sound theoretical framework to support learning activities (Campbell, 2009; Cheal, 2007; Kluge & Riley, 2008). This symposium will explore the affordances and issues associated with teaching and learning in virtual worlds, all the time considering the question: is it worth the effort

Analysis of Vocational Lecturer’s Pedagogical Competence Needs for TVET: A Case Study on Vocational Lecturers in West Java, Indonesia

This study aims to analyze the pedagogical competence needs of vocational lecturers. Learning development problems and needs related to the preparation of vocational lecturers can produce skilled vocational lecturers. The research method used is a quantitative method through surveys by distributing questionnaires given to vocational lecturers at Polytechnics in West Java, Indonesia. The findings obtained are the level of understanding of lecturers about students’ background is 76%. 82% of lecturers have compiled a complete Lesson Plan, both for activities in the classroom and outside the classroom. Mastery of the application of learning materials, media, methods, and laboratory equipment for vocational lecturers is very high, above 83%. This is in line with the characteristics of vocational education which must prepare students or graduates to quickly adapt to the workplace environment. However, in the activity of quiz making through online media, it is classified as a moderate at 68%, whereas the online learning and evaluation methods are beneficial since these methods are quite effective. The ability of vocational lecturers in conducting pretests before learning activities has a low score at 76%. This finding indicates that there are many difficulties, one of the factors is not knowing the urgency of the assessment. The pedagogical competence of vocational lecturers has an important role in the success of learning, both in the classroom and during practice. The benefit of this research is that the data obtained can be used as the basis for determining curriculum policies and vocational lecturer training programs to increase human resources following vocational lecturer programs in the industry 4.0 era

The development of a sustainable framework for an industry driven career-focused ICT curriculum in producing sought after ICT graduates

The employability of ICT graduates is a critical issue that needs to be addressed by Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). It can be argued that there are different challenges for higher education institutions, employers, and regulatory bodies around graduates’ readiness to join the modern workplace. The media and academic research is often critical on the matter of employability and continue to question the issues of (i) mismatches in the skills needed for and supply of ICT graduates; (ii) how faculty can keep themselves abreast with the changes in technology skills needed; (iii) how industry practitioners can be an integral part in the design and delivery of the curriculum that produces graduates with the global skills required by the workplace as demanded by Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs), Multi-National Companies (GNCs) and by the growing number of startups; and (iv) industry-academia collaboration for curriculum design and delivery. Typically, ICT remains the key driver and enabler of growth in all business sectors and is a recession-proof career; hence, all stakeholders should collaboratively design and deliver its curriculum. This study seeks to investigate the challenges Higher Education Institutions face in designing and delivering an industry-driven curriculum that would satisfy the expectations and requirements of students, academics, regulatory bodies, and employers. It aims to address the gaps and identify the mismatches in the expectations of these stakeholders. The goal is to develop a sustainable framework for curriculum design that contains strategic and measurable provisions in curriculum delivery, ensuring that experiential learning is genuinely embedded in the ICT curriculum. The research has achieved its research goal to develop a proposed framework from an extensive literature review and in-depth analysis of the findings obtained from online surveys and focus groups involving the different stakeholders – students, alumni, academia, and employers. This study contributes to the literature where minimal research is available on collaborative design and delivery of an ICT curriculum involving the different relevant stakeholders

How to design for persistence and retention in MOOCs?

Design of educational interventions is typically carried out following a design cycle involving phases of investigation, conceptualization, prototyping, implementation, execution and evaluation. This cycle can be applied at different levels of granularity e.g. learning activity, module, course or programme. In this paper we consider an aspect of learner behavior that can be critical to the success of many MOOCs i.e. their persistence to study, and the related theme of learner retention. We reflect on the impact that consideration of these can have on design decisions at different stages in the design cycle with the aim of en-hancing MOOC design in relation to learner persistence and retention, with particular attention to the European context

Developing an engaging IT Degree

Curriculum renewal is a constant activity in Information Technology (IT), Information Systems (IS), Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and Computer Science (CS). Guiding documents from curriculum authorities such as AIS, IEEE and ACM assist in this process, as do those from professional societies, but these are often out of date when the institution seeks to refresh its approaches to learning, and position its graduates for emerging roles and technologies. This paper describes and discusses a curriculum renewal project undertaken in response to changing government requirements,student interests and the adoption of a learner-centric, active learning paradigm utilizing new physical collaborative learning facilities. This paper presents the stimulus for change, describes the use of reference resources and discusses the resulting degree structure, its majors and learning approaches