Teaching the future marketers through experiential client-based projects : marketing knowledge and skills in the context of early phases of service and product development

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The Rhetoric and Philosophy of Education: Finding Whole Learning in an Age of Mechanistic Pedagogy

This project examines the communicative structure of the contemporary rhetoric of crisis and reform narrative dominating public conversation about education, as a post-industrial body of discourse deeply embedded in historical ideals for a mass system of public education. In challenging the crisis-centered narrative, this work seeks to identify historical discourse strands that have shaped thinking and action in the construction of educational policy, legislation, administration and pedagogy. This work evaluates the misalignment in the assumptions which guide the perception that an academic relationship exists between higher education and secondary school which is in contrast to the original purpose for a mass system of public education. In part, this research is a response to discourse that applies responsibility to colleges and universities in the ongoing rhetoric of crisis and reform calls for greater accountability and assessments as a means by which the problems of education may be reversed. It is the position of this research that these systems are not aligned yet increasingly, public discussions about educational failures assume that secondary school is the preparatory ground for the transition to higher learning

ASSESSING STUDENT PERFORMANCE IN A MODIFIED TEAM-BASED LEARNING BIOCHEMISTRY COURSE: IMPLICATIONS FOR EXPERIENCES IN GROUPS

Team-Based Learning (TBL) is a high-intensity active learning practice organized around pre-class preparation, in-class team activities, and mini-lectures. The body of literature accumulated studying TBL indicates it often leads to improved student outcomes on measures like performance, engagement, and motivation compared to traditional lecture. However, some studies of TBL still indicate similar outcomes to traditional lecture or that students’ performance degrades after taking a TBL course. This work seeks to understand modifications to the TBL format, as prescribed by its designers, that may contribute to the varied outcomes observed in the literature and in an example of a TBL course. This thesis characterizes many of the critical components of the TBL format that leads to its effective structure. Then, two articles detailing student performance outcomes from an upper-division biochemistry course using TBL are shared. In the first article, the adaptations that contributed to the success of the TBL course transitioning to online delivery are shared, as well as findings that indicate student performance was similar in the virtual environment and the face-to-face environment. In the second, student performance from the course is analyzed again, in a disaggregated fashion, and the findings show that students’ performance in the course was similar across demographic backgrounds. The work uses the Fidelity of Implementation and Identities in Context theoretical frameworks to understand the adaptations that contributed to these student performance outcomes. Components of TBL contributing to students’ work in groups, which were adapted by the instructors of the course to encourage positive group environments, may have enhanced students’ experiences in the course. If more students, especially those from historically marginalized backgrounds, experienced belonging in the course, that may explain the encouraging student performance outcomes that were observed

The erosion of good education? The impact of liquid modernity on trainee teachers’ experiences in further education

This thesis explores the question of what constitutes ‘good education’ in the 21st Century, particularly in the context of the further education (FE) sector, and argues that an intensified regime of performativity in FE colleges has resulted in the dominance of an increasingly impoverished model of education. This ethnographic study, undertaken from 2009 to 2012, analyses the experiences of two cohorts of trainee FE teachers as they progressed through their Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) and Newly Qualified Teacher (NQT) years. The methodology explicitly foregrounds the role of serendipity in the research, and its role in revealing critical moments in the students’ encounters with the FE workplace. The data include field notes of PGCE class discussions, students’ reflective diaries and my own reflections. An initial literature review explores the notion of ‘good education’ and the sociopolitical policies which have reshaped it, with a particular focus on their impact on FE teachers. My readings of other relevant literature are then integrated with the research findings, providing a context against which to interpret the data. The thesis also draws on an eclectic range of theory including critical pedagogy, social theories of time and analyses of consumerism in contemporary culture in order to offer a multi-layered explanation of the findings and to identify three key themes: the scripting of teachers and their practices; time pressures on teachers and students’ sense of consumer-driven entitlement. These themes are then synthesised using the overarching framework of Bauman’s (2000) concept of liquid modernity. I argue that this concept offers a holistic explanation of the forces impacting negatively on teachers and their practices. The study concludes by exploring opportunities for teacher resistance to such negative impacts and recommending strategies which might be adopted in a bid to reinstate a model of good education in colleges of further education. The thesis makes an original contribution to knowledge in a number of ways. It is innovative in its explicit use of serendipity in the field of FE research. It contributes new knowledge about the recent intensification of instrumentalism in FE, showing that this is not simply a static phenomenon. It provides evidence of new intensifications of managerial control over the teacher and his/her practice, shifting from broad prescriptions to direct scripting. This is linked to an innovative application of social theories of time to FE teachers' initial education and workplace experience, revealing the intensification of time pressures and their impact. I also link these to the emergence of a consumerist sense of entitlement among students, and its impact on student-teacher relations and the nature of education, which have not previously been discussed in depth in the literature on FE. Finally, the thesis offers an original and holistic interpretation of all three themes using Bauman's (2000) concept of liquid modernity, and utilises this synthesis to offer strategies for transforming the nature of education in FE

A tool to measure engineering students' design strategies and abilities

Malaysia is moving from service-based industries to knowledge-based industries to achieve Vision 2020. This is also in line with innovation-led economy and globalization. Hence, there is a pressing need to transform the current engineering education system to meet the ever-growing roles and responsibilities of contemporary engineers. Design is central to engineering activity because students can apply the theoretical knowledge into practice. Students' engineering design knowledge and abilities are unknown when they enroll into the engineering programs. These engineering programs are either too low or too advanced for the students' design abilities. Hence, dropout rates in the engineering programs escalate each year. The invention is an online questionnaire which will assist in determining students' engineering design knowledge and abilities. It will guide engineering faculties in identifying suitable candidates for their engineering program through the scores obtained by the students. The scores will determine the students' level of engineering design knowledge. This will function as a mechanism for the faculties to filter the candidates' knowledge of engineering design and reduce the number of dropouts from the engineering program

Доповнена реальність в освіті

This volume represents the proceedings of the 1st International Workshop on Augmented Reality in Education (AREdu 2018), held in Kryvyi Rih, Ukraine, in October 2, 2018. It comprises 24 contributed papers that were carefully peer-reviewed and selected from 41 submissions. The accepted papers present the state-of-the-art overview of successful cases and provides guidelines for future research.Цей том репрезентує матеріали 1-го Міжнародного семінару "Доповнена реальність в освіті" (AREdu 2018), що відбувя 2 жовтня 2018 року в м. Кривий Ріг, Україна. До нього входять 24 статті, які були ретельно переглянуті та обрані з 41 подання. У прийнятих роботах представлений найсучасніший огляд успішних випадків та окреслено напрями майбутніх досліджень

Challenges for engineering students working with authentic complex problems

Engineers are important participants in solving societal, environmental and technical problems. However, due to an increasing complexity in relation to these problems new interdisciplinary competences are needed in engineering. Instead of students working with monodisciplinary problems, a situation where students work with authentic complex problems in interdisciplinary teams together with a company may scaffold development of new competences. The question is: What are the challenges for students structuring the work on authentic interdisciplinary problems? This study explores a three-day event where 7 students from Aalborg University (AAU) from four different faculties and one student from University College North Denmark (UCN), (6th-10th semester), worked in two groups at a large Danish company, solving authentic complex problems. The event was structured as a Hackathon where the students for three days worked with problem identification, problem analysis and finalizing with a pitch competition presenting their findings. During the event the students had workshops to support the work and they had the opportunity to use employees from the company as facilitators. It was an extracurricular activity during the summer holiday season. The methodology used for data collection was qualitative both in terms of observations and participants’ reflection reports. The students were observed during the whole event. Findings from this part of a larger study indicated, that students experience inability to transfer and transform project competences from their previous disciplinary experiences to an interdisciplinary setting