Modelling factors for predicting student learning outcomes in higher education

This paper presents a heuristic model of student leaning as a means to understanding the scope of factors to be considered in making predictions about student learning. It is underpinned by a review of a wide body of literature. The model is drawn from Price and Richardson’s 4P model (2004) that considered factors in improving student learning and argues that the same issues apply to predicting student learning outcomes. It builds upon existing research into learning and teaching. It is an articulation and an extension of Dunkin and Biddle’s (1974) model, the Biggs (1985) original Presage-Process-Product model and research by Prosser and Trigwell (1999). The model has four main groups of factors: presage, perceptions, process and product. The presage group contains personological and situational factors such as context. Perceptions include how students conceive learning, how teachers conceive teaching, and the context. The process group of factors incorporates approaches to learning in students and teachers approaches to teaching. The model is presented as a basis for engaging in future research in a holistic manner that may bear further fruit in predicting student learning

Contemporary developments in teaching and learning introductory programming: Towards a research proposal

The teaching and learning of introductory programming in tertiary institutions is problematic. Failure rates are high and the inability of students to complete small programming tasks at the completion of introductory units is not unusual. The literature on teaching programming contains many examples of changes in teaching strategies and curricula that have been implemented in an effort to reduce failure rates. This paper analyses contemporary research into the area, and summarises developments in the teaching of introductory programming. It also focuses on areas for future research which will potentially lead to improvements in both the teaching and learning of introductory programming. A graphical representation of the issues from the literature that are covered in the document is provided in the introduction

Excellence in teaching and learning: A review of the literature for the Higher Education Academy

The Higher Education Academy commissioned a review of the literature on excellence in learning and teaching in higher education to enhance the higher education sector’s understanding of the varied conceptualisations and usages of the term ‘excellence’ and consider the implications for future policy and practice in relation to promoting and developing excellence. The literature searched included published research in the form of journal articles; books; reports from UK policy bodies and other agencies; as well as ‘grey’ literature. It covered conceptual studies, academic critiques and research studies on learning and teaching, as well as policy documents. Within a diverse and expanding system of higher education, such as in the UK, discourse on teaching and student learning highlights the tensions between different notions of excellence – for example, excellence as a positional good for students, as an aspirational target for continuous quality enhancement, as a form of reputational advantage for higher education institutions or as a means for achieving governmental economic and social goals. The review addressed questions of conceptualisations and usage at different (but interlinked) levels: system-wide; institutional; departmental; individual, and from two different perspectives, teaching and student learning

Variation in teachers' and students' understanding of teaching and learning in Fine Art and the broader community

This paper focuses on discerning the critical differences, or variation, in the way teachers and students experience and understand the subject of Fine Art and its relation to its broader community. In previous research (Reid, 1999; Davies & Reid, 2001), relations have been found within the music and design disciplines where teachers and students experience of one of three defined dimensions was strongly related to the ways in which they understood teaching and learning their subject. The musicians and designers (and their students) described their experience of the professional world in three hierarchically related ways. This constitution has become known as the subject 'Entity'. Taking a phenomenographical approach, the paper asks whether the experience of learning and teaching in Fine Art education, both for students and teachers, is consistent with conceptions shared, within the educational community, about the professional world of fine artists. In so doing this research project is intended to reveal the 'Fine Art Entity'. Discerning and describing the 'Fine Art Entity' is intended, not only to provide a basis for enhancement of learning, teaching and curriculum development in Fine Art practice, bit also to make a significant contribution to the subject discourse within the communit

Towards humanising creativity?

Within the context of developing creativity discourse and policy, this paper begins by exploring a number of the tensions that emerged from research using an interdisciplinary framework to investigate creativity with English expert specialist dance teachers. The paper then interrogates and articulates the productive dynamics of one of these tensions that occur between individual, collaborative and communal creativity. This tension is discussed within the wider debate of individualised versus collaborative/communal creativity and the encouragement of the former by individualised, marketised creativity policies. It is argued that one constructive product of articulating how dance professionals negotiate this tension within education is a pertinent and helpful example of a more humane framework for creativity than that espoused by the individualised marketisation agenda. In turn the paper draws out the idea of humanising creativity as a productive process that has the potential to challenge aspects of the dominant policy discourse in an emergent way

O que eu ganho com isso? - Aprendendo com o e-Learning [What's in it for me? - Getting Learning from e-Learning]

Learners will only make effective use of e-learning opportunities if they know why it will be of benefit and how it will help them achieve the assessed learning outcomes. Most adopt a form of cost-benefit analysis to decide whether or not a learning activity will aid their progress. Educators must ensure that those decisions are well-grounded by an understanding of the course outcomes. E-Learning is not simply a matter of delivery mechanisms: teachers need to reconsider the nature and circumstances of their learners, their subject and their pedagogic approach in order to transform their teaching and assessment activities to take advantage of the potential offered by e-learning

Designing the interface between research, learning and teaching.

Abstract: This paper’s central argument is that teaching and research need to be reshaped so that they connect in a productive way. This will require actions at a whole range of levels, from the individual teacher to the national system and include the international communities of design scholars. To do this, we need to start at the level of the individual teacher and course team. This paper cites some examples of strategies that focus on what students do as learners and how teachers teach and design courses to enhance research-led teaching. The paper commences with an examination of the departmental context of (art and) design education. This is followed by an exploration of what is understood by research-led teaching and a further discussion of the dimensions of research-led teaching. It questions whether these dimensions are evident, and if so to what degree in design departments, programmes and courses. The discussion examines the features of research-led departments and asks if a department is not research-led in its approach to teaching, why it should consider changing strategies

Conceptions and expectations of mentoring relationships in a teacher education reform context

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