Academic practice as explanatory framework: reconceptualising international student academic engagement and university teaching

This paper joins growing interest in the concept of practice, and uses it to reconceptualise international student engagement with the demands of study at an Australian university. Practice foregrounds institutional structures and student agency and brings together psychologically- and socially-oriented perspectives on international student learning approaches. Utilising discourse theory, practice is defined as habitual and individual instances of socially-contextualised configurations of elements such as actions and interactions, roles and relations, identities, objects, values, and language. In the university context, academic practice highlights the institutionally-sanctioned ways of knowing, doing and being that constitute academic tasks. The concept is applied here to six international students’ ‘readings’ of and strategic responses to academic work in a Master of Education course. It is argued that academic practice provides a comprehensive framework for explaining the interface between university academic requirements and international student learning, and the crucial role that teaching has in facilitating the experience

Pocket-hydro turbine into capsule hydro turbine

The capsule hydro turbine (CaHT) is a continuous power machine in which a wheel or rotor typically filted whereas produce electricity. It is designed like a capsule shape which has two twin turbines on both output to generate energy as an alternative power supply. The devide is capable of producing output of 12v to power up electrical applicances. The device consist of dynamos, turbines, charging circuit, battery, inverter, and wire cables. The result of the capsule hydro turbine (CaHT) field is presented in three types of graphs as in this paper. The optimum voltage of battery was 6.97v. By using these terms, the research project has successfully improvised the pocket hydro turbine (PHT) into capsule hydro turbine (CaHT

Do differences exist between how Engineering and non-Engineering lecturers perceive the importance of teaching competences?

A survey we conducted a few years ago concluded that higher education teachers should have the following competences: interpersonal, methodological, communicative, planning and management, teamwork and innovation. The authors of this work belong to the Institute in charge of the lecturer-training program at our university, which is basically a technical one. In order to improve our training program, we pose the following research questions: What are the competences that lecturers perceive as less important. Do our university teachers (engineering teachers) have a different perception of the importance of the different lecturer competences compared to that of other teachers? The results we present in this paper come from a survey that was sent to a total of 15,209 teachers belonging to public universities in our community, and we received a total of 2,347 valid answers. As a result of this study, we found which competences are those with a significantly bad rating by lecturers in general, and our lecturers in particular. We analyze what measures should be introduce into our teacher training program.Postprint (author's final draft

Providing guidance on Backstage, a novel digital backchannel for large class teaching

Many articles in the last couple of years argued that it is necessary to promote the active participation of students in lectures with large audiences. One approach to make students actively participate in a lecture is to use a digital backchannel, i.e. a computer-mediated communication platform that allows students to exchange ideas and opinions, without disrupting the lecturer’s discourse. Though, a digital backchannel, in order to be most helpful for learning, have to address the need for guidance of the users interacting. The article presents Backstage, a digital backchannel for large class lectures, and shows how it provides guidance for its users, i.e. the students but also the lecturer. Structural guidance is provided by aligning the usually incoherent backchannel discourse with the presentation slides that are integrated in the backchannel’s user interface. The alignment is thereby asserted by carefully designed backchannel workflows. The article also discusses the guidance of a student’s substantial involvement in both the frontchannel and the backchannel by means of scripts. Through the interactions of guided individuals a social guidance may emerge, leading to a collectively regulated backchannel

The evaluation of interdisciplinary learning initiative in managing depression

This paper reports the findings from a descriptive study exploring community-nursing students’ experiences of interdisciplinary learning on managing depression. The study was completed as part of a specialist module workshop included in a post-registration community specialist practitioner programme. Questionnaire data included attitude ratings and qualitative evaluations of problem-based learning (PBL). A cohort of 34 community nurses responded. The findings identified issues relating to the learning process and its influence on the knowledge gained and attitudes to team work. Community nurses reported the workshop was thought provoking and the challenging issue is the different opinions of the district nurses role in managing depression from the perspective of the students. This study suggests that problem based learning had a positive impact on students’ learning which makes it a well-received contribution to learning. It also reinforced the importance of healthy attitudes towards collaboration in promoting mental health practice. All of these do ultimately have implications for clinical practice

The Violation of Cooperative Principles on Students\u27 Responses Toward Teacher Questions in Tefl Class

Questioning is mostly conducted in learning process. As the reasons, by giving questions, teacher engages communicative interaction with students in classroom. But sometimes the communication can run effectively. The participants ordinary, broke the communication roles. This research investigates violation of maxims on students\u27 responses toward teacher question and determines the dominant type of maxim which is violated on students\u27 responses. This research was conducted qualitative research. And the research found that there were three types of maxim that were violated on students maxim of quantity, maxim of quality and maxim of manner. Then, maxim of quantity was mostly violated on students\u27 responses

Peer mediation for conflict management: a Singaporean case study

The burgeoning interest in conflict and its management has recently begun to impact on schools and school systems worldwide. Motivated by a concern for increasing levels of violence in schools and student�student conflict, many school administrators are looking at conflict management programs as a means of dealing with the problem. Most of the more widely used programs have their origins in the United States; their appropriateness and effectiveness in other countries and cultures is, at best, unknown, and in some respects open to conjecture. In this paper the cultural appropriateness of a peer mediation program in a primary school in Singapore is the subject of investigation. The study also addresses, in an exploratory manner, the effectiveness of peer mediation as a mechanism for student�student conflict management

The conception and role of interdisciplinarity in the Spanish education system

This article provides an overview of the role that interdisciplinarity plays in the Spanish education system. With this aim, we first describe the main conception of the term interdisciplinarity in texts written in Spanish, including other terms that have similar meaning. Then we review the role of interdisciplinarity in the Spanish curriculum at different levels of education, focusing fundamentally on compulsory education. This serves as the basis from which later to analyze Spanish research on interdisciplinarity. Finally, through results of this research and some examples of interdisciplinary school practices, we extract conclusions about the role of interdisciplinarity in teaching practices in the classroom