A postgraduate design learning experience: understanding the effects of community, cultural and contextual environment

This paper describes on going research that investigates how learning (students and tutors) takes place in a multi-disciplinary, multi-cultural postgraduate design programme in the UK. The research maps and makes explicit the effects of community, cultural and contextual environment on learning. Initial findings have identified that learning is taking place within communities of practice and further research is used to explore reasons for its emergence. The authors evaluate and discuss the effects of learning in a post disciplinary and multi-cultural environment, and its value to current design postgraduate pedagogy. A social model of learning and communities of practice is evident in the design programme studied and preliminary findings indicates that this model is particularly relevant model to adopt in the current post-disciplinary era

Building capacity in climate change policy analysis and negotiation: methods and technologies

Capacity building is often cited as the reason “we cannot just pour money into developing countries” and why so many development projects fail because their design does not address local conditions. It is therefore a key technical and political concept in international development. Some of the poorest countries in the world are also some of the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Their vulnerability is in part due to a lack of capacity to plan and anticipate the effects of climate change on crops, water resources, urban electricity demand etc. What capacities do these countries lack to deal with climate change? How will they cope? What steps can they take to reduce their vulnerability? This innovative and high-profile research project was part of a larger project (called C3D) and conducted with non-governmental organisations in Senegal, South Africa and Sri Lanka. The research involved several participatory workshops and a questionnaire to all three research centres

Synchronous communication technologies for language learning: Promise and challenges in research and pedagogy

We propose a definition of synchronous communication based on joint attention, noting that in certain mediated communication settings joint attention is a matter of perception rather than determinable fact. The most salient properties of synchronous computer-mediated communication (SCMC) are real-time pressure to communicate and a greater degree of social presence relative to asynchronous communication. These properties underlie the benefits and challenges of SCMC for language learning, which we discuss under three headings: (1) SCMC as learning tool; (2) SCMC as target competence; and (3) SCMC as setting for learner dialogue, intracultural and intercultural. We survey research themes in SCMC and preview the contributions of the Special Issue. Finally, we identify questions for future research

Lobbying and Negotiation Techniques to Enhance Business Communication Skills through Virtual Reality Training: A Preliminary Study

Lobbying and negotiation skills are some of the required skills to succeed in business and social life. Conventional universities may develop their students’ skills through real-life scenarios while this could be challenging for open and distance universities which students are scattered around the world. Virtual Reality is an alternative technology that allows students to experience real-life scenarios in a simulated environment. This research aims to develop website-based Virtual Reality training to enhance learning in the business communication subject, with a specific focus on lobbying and negotiation techniques in distance education. This research adopts the Borg & Gall Research & Development (R&D) Method for educational research. This paper focuses on the preliminary stage which gathered the data required to construct a high-quality mood board and flowchart aligned with stakeholder needs to produce high-quality virtual reality training to enhance negotiation skills. Primary data is gathered through Focus Group Discussions involving students, tutors, and business communication practitioners. Additionally, secondary data is derived from extensive literature and document reviews, including relevant studies and documents. The result shows that informants are passionate about the idea of using virtual reality to enhance negotiation skills. Options of background, gender, and situation settings as well as interchangeable roleplay are preferred in boosting the motivation and enhancing the practical knowledge of negotiation skills

Evaluating Leadership Development Through Experiential Learning In A Virtual Environment

The strategic leadership center of a senior military service college collaborated with an elite law school to provide leadership development to senior law school students. The focus was an International Strategic Crisis Negotiation Exercise set in the South China Sea. Due to an unexpected global health pandemic the course was forced online to a virtual environment. The strategic leadership center gathered data from volunteer students and their mentors to determine the impact of the virtual setting. Using four archival datasets, a program evaluation was conducted using a case study methodology to determine the effectiveness of experiential learning through simulation in a virtual environment and to gain an in-depth understanding of its impact on the development of the leadership soft skills of teamwork, communication, and negotiation techniques for senior law school students from the perspective of students and their mentors. The research study found that experiential learning through simulation in a virtual environment was highly effective and transformative. The interpretation of the ten findings is enlightening and contributes to a more complete understanding of experimental learning. The significance of the study is its contribution to leadership education, legal education, and education policies

Lessons and Opportunities for Negotiation Teachers Following the Covid-19 Pandemic

In 2020-2021, and resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic, I taught and studied university negotiation courses online. In this essay I reflect on my experiences of teaching and learning online, ground them in pedagogical research, and distil key lessons and opportunities for negotiation teachers across three topics (creating inclusive classrooms, the role of technology, and equipping our students to meet the demands of the modern world). Teaching online has led to a collective upskilling in our understanding of our students, of what matters in life, and of how technology can enhance our teaching. We have agency in our classrooms to help create a more equitable world, as we indeed need to, if we are going to be transformational teachers and serve all of our students as best as we can

Ritual performances and collective intelligence: theoretical frameworks for analyising activity patterns in Cloudworks

This paper provides an overview of emerging activity patterns on Cloudworks, a specialised site for sharing and debating ideas as well as resources on teaching, learning and scholarship in education. It provides an overview of activities such as 'flash debates', 'blended workshops' and 'open reviews' and seeks to situate dialogic interchanges and structures of involvement within the following theoretical frameworks: a) Goffman's notions of 'face-work' and 'ritual performance�; and b) and secondly, notions of collective intelligence. The paper argues that these perspectives can offer a unique contribution to the study and analysis of sociality (Bouman et al, 2007) bounded in the context of technologically mediated networked learning, with wider implications for understanding matters of participation, self-representation, reflection and expansion in education

Breaching the standardised assessment boundary: Assessment for learning as a field of exchange

The introduction of the Australian curriculum, the use of standardised testing (e.g. NAPLAN) and the My School website are couched in a context of accountability. This circumstance has stimulated and in some cases renewed a range of boundaries in Australian Education. The consequences that arise from standardised testing have accentuated the boundaries produced by social reproduction in education which has led to an increase in the numbers of students disengaging from mainstream education and applying for enrolment at the Edmund Rice Education Australia Flexible Learning Centre Network (EREAFLCN). Boundaries are created for many young people who are denied access to credentials and certification as a result of being excluded from or in some way disengaging from standardised education and testing. Young people who participate at the EREAFLCN arrive with a variety of forms of cultural capital that are not valued in current education and employment fields. This is not to say that these young people’s different forms of cultural capital have no value, but rather that such funds of knowledge, repertoires and cultural capital are not valued by the majority of powerful agents in educational and employment fields. How then can the qualitative value of traditionally unorthodox - yet often intricate, ingenious, and astute - versions of cultural capital evident in the habitus of many young people be made to count, be recognised, be valuated? Can a process of educational assessment be a field of capital exchange and a space which breaches boundaries through a valuating process? This paper reports on the development of an innovative approach to assessment in an alternative education institution designed for the re-engagement of ‘at risk’ youth who have left formal schooling. A case study approach has been used to document the engagement of six young people, with an educational approach described as assessment for learning as a field of exchange across two sites in the EREAFLCN. In order to capture the broad range of students’ cultural and social capital, an electronic portfolio system (EPS) is under trial. The model draws on categories from sociological models of capital and reconceptualises the eportfolio as a sociocultural zone of learning and development. Results from the trial show a general tendency towards engagement with the EPS and potential for the attainment of socially valued cultural capital in the form of school credentials. In this way restrictive boundaries can be breached and a more equitable outcome achieved for many young Australians

The Collective Building of Knowledge in Collaborative Learning Environments

The intention of this chapter is to investigate how collaborative learning environments (CLEs) can be used to elicit the collective building of knowledge. This work discusses CLEs as lively cognitive systems and looks at some strategies that might contribute to the improvement of significant pedagogical practices. The study is supported by rhizome principles, whose characteristics allow us to understand the process of selecting and connecting what is relevant and meaningful for the collective building of knowledge. A brief theoretical and conceptual approach is presented and major contributions and difficulties about collaborative learning environments are discussed. New questions and future trends about the collective building of knowledge are suggested

Touch Screen Avatar English Learning System For University Students Learning Simplicity

This paper discusses on touch screen avatar for an English language learning application system. The system would be a combination of avatar as Animated Pedagogical Agent (APA) and a touch screen application that adapt the up to date gesture-based computing which is found as having potential to change the way how we learn as it could reduce the amount of Information Communication Technology (ICT) devices used during teaching and learning process. The key here is interaction between university students and touch screen avatar intelligent application system as well as learning resources that could be learned anytime anywhere twenty four hours in seven days 24/7 based on their study time preference where they could learn at their own comfort out of the tradition. The students would be provided with a learning tool that could help them learn interactively with the current trend which they might be interested with based on their own personalization. Apart from that, their performance shall be monitored from a distance and evaluated to avoid disturbing their learning process from working smoothly and getting rid of feeling of being controlled. Thus, the students are expected to have lower affective filter level that may enhance the way they learn unconsciously. Keywords: Gesture-Based Computing, Avatar, Portable Learning Tool, Interactivity, Language Learnin