Learning requirements engineering within an engineering ethos

An interest in educating software developers within an engineering ethos may not align well with the characteristics of the discipline, nor address the underlying concerns of software practitioners. Education for software development needs to focus on creativity, adaptability and the ability to transfer knowledge. A change in the way learning is undertaken in a core Software Engineering unit within a university's engineering program demonstrates one attempt to provide students with a solid foundation in subject matter while at the same time exposing them to these real-world characteristics. It provides students with a process to deal with problems within a metacognitive-rich framework that makes complexity apparent and lets students deal with it adaptively. The results indicate that, while the approach is appropriate, student-learning characteristics need to be investigated further, so that the two aspects of learning may be aligned more closely

Workplace Learning: Organizations, Ethics, and Issues

The rhetoric surrounding workplace learning is overwhelmingly positive. Boud and Garrick (1999) declare, for example: “Learning at work has become one of the most exciting areas of development in the dual fields of management and education” (p. 1). Advocates promise that education on the job will promote economic prosperity, empower workers, foster collaboration, encourage lifelong learning, and reduce the need for organizational hierarchy (Fenwick, 1998). Government policy makers, human resource professionals, college administrators and faculty, employees, union officials, and executives all support corporate learning. Even the term “workplace learning” has positive connotations. This phrase makes older terms like “vocational education” and “training” appear quaint and outdated

Course developers as students: a designer perspective of the experience of learning online

Academic developers of online courses may not have experienced this mode of learning and teaching from the learner perspective. This article makes a comparison between suggestions for online course design from research literature and user perspectives from a focus group, responses to questions on the most and least effective aspects of online study and lasting impressions, and from reflective diaries kept by two of the authors while they were engaged in study from online courses. This direct evidence is used to highlight key issues in the literature from the viewpoint of the learner

Authentic learning experiences: complementary organizational strategy for academic professional development

There are numerous websites and considerable literature which describe approaches to learning and teaching using a range of technologies in higher education contexts for academic staff. Further, that as academic staff development is increasingly recognized as having an essential role to play in the recasting of ways in which teachers work with students and how students best learn, that this is an area ripe for new consideration. It is the author's contention here, that embracing the role of student, as a lived experience, can assist academic developers in reconsidering and renewing their conceptions of learning and teaching. This could go in some part in informing the practice and processes of academic staff developers in understanding, promoting and supporting flexible learning modes

Designing for e-Social Action An Application Taxonomy

In this paper, we present a taxonomy for understanding designs and designing of Information & Communication Technologies (ICT) in the field of ‘Social Action’. We use the term ‘Social Action’ to refer to activities of individuals and organisations in civil society, which are oriented towards social (rather than primarily economic) goals. We then apply the term e-Social Action to refer to the application of ICT in these activities. This definition incorporates a wide range of initiatives, varying from: trade-unions logging safety inspections on ships, Age Concern York organising volunteers to place on-line supermarket orders on behalf of housebound elderly people; the International Red Cross using logistics software to deliver emergency aid; and Martus.org providing technology to enable victims of human-rights abuse to report their experience whilst protecting their anonymity and thus avoiding reprisals. To study designing in this broad space, it is necessary to understand key dimensions of the settings where designing takes place. The aim of this paper is to examine how information and communication technologies in social action can be understood, classified and distinguished, to allow for more refined explorations of designing in this space. Keywords: e-SocialAction, Taxonomy, design and society</p

Communities of practice, social learning and networks: Exploiting the social side of coach development

Large-scale coach education programmes have been developed in many countries, and are presented as playing a key role in the development of coaches and the promotion of high standards. Unfortunately, however, coaches often perceive that the current system of formal coach education fails to meet their needs. Perhaps as a result, the majority of their development is personally perceived to take place via informal and non-formal means. Appropriately, therefore, there has been an increasing focus within the coaching literature on the social aspects of learning, with social constructivist perspectives receiving particular attention. Reflecting this appropriate focus, this paper explores some of the potential opportunities and threats that social learning methods, such as Communities of Practice (CoP), present for coach developers. In tandem, we outline how all coaches are influenced by a set of pre-existing beliefs, attitudes and dispositions which are largely tempered by their experiences and interactions both with and within their social ‘milieu’. We argue that, at the very least, we need to begin to understand these constructs and, if we do, the potential for coach developers to manipulate and exploit them is obvious. In conclusion, it is highlighted that whilst offering inherent challenges, CoPs and other social learning methods provide coach developers with a great opportunity and legitimate tool to change coach behaviour and raise coaching standards. Perhaps paradoxically, we also propose that formal coach education may still have a vital role to play in this process

Sustainability of social-emotional learning and related programs : lessons from a field study

Social-emotional learning, character education, and related programs are being implemented in schools with increasing frequency and research supports their short-term effectiveness. However, there has been no empirical work to date that identifies the factors important for the long-term sustainability of programs established as excellent models of implementation. Using a series of case studies of evidence-based socialemotional learning programs implemented successfully for at least five years, this study articulates principles that characterize programs that were found to be well-sustained over time. These principles have implications for practice and serve as starting points for future research.peer-reviewe

Computer game development education at university

This paper articulates some of the challenges for computer game development courses at university level. A typical course development of this type is described. The need to include creative methods alongside more formal software development methodologies as core elements of computer game education is proposed and placed within the context of an industry specific framework. The evolutionary nature of the computer game industry requires that computer game development programmes at university should be equally evolutionary and adaptable to change