The Synchronised Development of Academic and Employability Skills and Attributes at University

In a competitive, culturally diverse and increasingly internationalised workplace students can no longer assume that possession of a tertiary degree will naturally lead to employment. There has been a shift in the mindset of employers, who now seek to employ graduates with “employability” skills and attributes in addition to traditional expertise within their discipline (DEST, 2002). At first glance this appears to have placed an additional burden on universities in preparing students to be active citizens and engaged leaders, both within their chosen field and broader society. This paper discusses the project we embarked upon to compare the skills and attributes that employers consider most desirable with those traditionally required for academic success. We sought to determine to what degree these two skill sets can co-exist in units of study and found that many employability skills are similar to, and have the same underlying principles as, traditional academic skills. By considering these principles we believe it is possible to design learning experiences that support the development of both sets of skills and to embed such learning experiences in the content and teaching of discipline-specific courses, thus developing employability skills while maintaining academic rigour. This will help students meet the twin goals of obtaining a tertiary degree and maximising their employability potential

Redbridge College inspection report

Inspection Week: 23 to 27 April 200

Learning flexibility: the environment and a case study

This paper outlines the flexible student learning environment in the Faculty of Engineering and Surveying, before concentrating on evaluating one online learning option. This Faculty provides a variety of high quality on-campus, distance education and on-line academic programmes and various learning strategies for the heterogeneous student cohort (national and international). By accessing appropriate flexible learning and different learning experiences, students are empowered to determine learning opportunities and methodologies to suit their personal needs. The off-campus mode study may disadvantage students since they don’t have the benefit of face-to-face instructions or to participate in formative assessments delivered informally in lectures. This may lead to feelings of remoteness and isolation leading to poorer learning, lower results in assessments, and may also contribute to drop-out rates, particularly in first year courses. To overcome this inequity, the usual training materials presented for a first year course in 2005 were supplemented with PowerPoint lectures, enhanced with synchronous audio, and a series of quizzes to be used as formative assessments. The lectures and quizzes were presented online via a course web site and were designed to become an integral part of the learning experience. An evaluation of the effectiveness of these strategy demonstrated improved students' learning, a positive contribution to the learning experience, increased enjoyment of the course, and a strong learning motivator. Students reported feeling less disenfranchised with the university and having a greater affinity with the lecturer

Warrington Collegiate Institute: report from the Inspectorate (FEFC inspection report; 114/95 and 21/99)

Comprises two Further Education Funding Council (FEFC) inspection reports for the periods 1994-95 and 1998-99

Influence of COVID-19 pandemic on dental education in Cyprus: preclinical and clinical implications with e-learning strategies

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the necessity of social isolation led education to be distance- and online instead of face-to-face (F2F). Education strategies became more challenging for the educationalists at dentistry faculties, since dental education is based on mostly practical tutorials. All over the world, the faculties tried to develop policies to protect the health of students and academic staff, as well as to ensure the continuity and quality of education. In our faculty (Near East University Faculty of Dentistry), online education was held for the spring semester with the aid of distance learning and the information technology centre of the university. In this study, it was aimed to examine the background of the virus, the proactive measures in the dental setting to combat COVID-19 outburst, and information technology-based educational measures adopted in Cyprus to ensure the continuation of dental education. The strategies used for online education in our faculty, the difficulties that were encountered, and future recommendations for e-learning were declared. Moreover, students’ perception and satisfaction regarding online education model both for theoretical (120 students, response rate 78%) and practical lectures (220 students, response rate 82%) were investigated. With this regard, students were asked to answer reflective questions. Descriptive data were presented. A considerable number of the students stated that practical implementations should have been conducted F2F. Most of the students emphasised that online theoretical courses are more advantageous than F2F ones

CRACKING THE CODE: FACTORS THAT INFLUENCE ACADEMIC SUCCESS ON THE SOCIAL WORK DEGREE: A NEWLY QUALIFIED BLACK SOCIAL WORKER‟S PERSPECTIVE

This is a qualitative study of eleven newly qualified black social workers (NQBSW) and five social work educators. The study was carried out in a post-1992 millennium university in England between 2015 and 2018. The study findings have been skilfully interpreted through the lens of a number of Bourdieu‟s thinking tools, namely „Capital‟, „Habitus‟, „Field‟ and „Knowing the Game‟. Together, they suggest that black students know how to „crack the code‟ and „Play the Game‟. The landscape may be changing for black students who historically have not performed as well as their white counterparts. However, when identities are not in threat, this group appears to perform as well as, if not better, than their white peers. This ethically approved study aimed to identify factors that influence success on a university social work degree course. The objectives were to examine behavioural factors, differences in understandings and identify types of support embraced by NQBSW participants whilst undertaking the degree. The voices of black students and their educator‟s have been documented through semi-structured person-to-person and synchronised interviews. Using interpretive phenomenology and a constructivist approach, reading, self-directed learning groups, determination, the diversity of the student population and participation were found to be influential factors for success on the degree course. Moreover, the study found that ethnicity, social forces, cultural values and the university conditions all had a role to play in the navigation of student success on the degree course

Psychometric analyses of the Canvas Quizzes and STEM Staff’s Anxiety

© 2022 University of Hertfordshire.Quizzes are the most frequent tools used by academic tutors in the module assessments of the programme of studies. This article focuses on the use of statistical parameters of the Canvas quizzes that possess very intriguing features for academics and learning teaching technologists. Some useful psychometric analyses of the quiz items are scrutinised based on auto-generated statistical parameters. For example, standard deviation; distractors; difficulty, and discriminatory indices, respectively, are effectively used to ensure the quality of questions and overall quizzes for graded assessments. The main thrust of this article is to value the staff’s good practices and dedication in developing quizzes fit-for-the purpose despite their increasing workload and encourage young learning technologists and quiz-enthusiasts to invest more efforts in making use of the statistical parameters in evaluating the quality of the quizzes, items in the quizzes, the sustained learning of the students, and fulfilling academic quality assurances’ requirements to cover overall learning objectives of courses and programme of studies.Peer reviewe

An integrated blended learning approach for physical education teacher education programmes: teacher educators’ and pre-service teachers’ experiences

peer-reviewedBackground: A plethora of new terms and digital pedagogies have been making recent headlines in higher education with the promise, or threat, that digital technology will revolutionise the way in which universities operate. Blended learning is part of this digital revolution and institutions of higher education worldwide are increasingly adopting it as a new mode of delivery. The exposure of blended learning as central to mainstream higher education has been heightened exponentially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Purpose: Challenged by the argument around the concept of ‘blended’ being ill defined, and also given the lack of practical ‘blended’ experiences in physical education teacher education (PETE), this paper aims to explore physical education teacher educators’ and pre-service teachers’ (PSTs’) enactment and experiences of an integrated approach to blended learning. Method: Three physical education teacher educators and two classes of physical education PSTs participated. The integrated blended approach was designed through a block structure which allowed intended outcomes, teaching and learning activities and assessment tasks to be aligned and interconnected. Data collection occurred over two academic years for the same three physical education teacher educators and two different cohorts of PSTs. Focus groups interviews were conducted with the three teacher educators and a voluntary sample of PSTs. PSTs’ learning blogs were also analysed. Results: Findings were presented in three categories: Development of strong building blocks; Blended learning ‘releases the teaching and learning from the grips of the lecturer’; and Assessment in a blended (and non-blended) environment. We attempted to go beyond the binary humanist assumption about blended learning by designing an integrated approach with a clear but flexible structure. That is, with an organic alignment and purposeful integration of all its instructional components. Conclusions: When introducing blended learning in a (physical education) teacher education programme, we suggest designing an aligned and integrated approach structured in blocks, where all instructional components are interconnected and informing each other, enhancing prior knowledge. Given the growing role of digital technology for teaching and learning in educational policies and new PETE curricula, we advocate for the publication of more research-based experiences on blended learning in PETE programmes that might be replicated in other PETE programmes. This would encourage colleagues to explore the implications of digital technology and learn from other PETE contexts and also the sustainability of digital technology as an established mode of delivery