The UK’s Teaching Excellence Framework does not foster the inclusion of international students as equals

Of the criticisms that have been levelled at the government’s proposed teaching excellence framework (TEF), very few have focused on what the exercise means for international students’ status in British education. Aneta Hayes argues that the absence of TEF metrics that would measure respectful engagement with international students in the classroom means nothing will be done to help their inclusion as “equals”. Instead, the recently proposed splitting into student “domicile” categories threatens to further contribute to fossilisation of outdated views of international students as economic objects and as deficient. However, it is possible to design metrics that account for the ways in which universities work towards greater equivalence of international students in the classroom

Students’ and Teachers’ Views of Transition from Secondary Education to Western-Medical University in Bahrain

This research focuses on the transition of Bahraini students to a Western medical university which has been ‘transplanted’, with its values and context of practice, to the culture of Bahrain. A socio-cultural model of Communities of Practice was adopted as a theoretical framework in this research for it linked in well with the personal context of this study which suggested that students’ transition could be related to the practices in Bahraini schools associated with science and English education, as well as general school pedagogy. Therefore, the aim of this study was to explore how different participants perceive the role of school practices, as well as science and English education in transition. In order to explore these different understandings, a case study methodology was adopted and insights into the practices of students’ school and university community were gained through the use of focus group and individual interviews, as well as a descriptive questionnaire. The data from the qualitative investigation was analysed deductively under the three themes of science background knowledge, the English language and school pedagogy, while the questionnaire data was subject to univariate analysis based on mean responses. The key findings indicated high levels of confidence in students’ science base and approaches to study, which enabled the students to take a number of strategic actions in order to move through the educational outcomes of the university programme. In terms of the English language, a compromised foreign language (L2) proficiency caused by inadequate school practices was perceived not to play an important role in the transition process, which suggested a diminished role of L2 in transitions in the context of language change. As far as school pedagogy is concerned, whilst all participants at the secondary level agreed that general memorisation-based pedagogy in secondary schools could play a negative role in the transition, the participants at the university revealed that rote-based approaches to study formed in school could also be strategically used at university. Hence, the findings from this research have specific implications for the model of Communities of Practice and suggest future work within this theory regarding the role of students’ individual agency. These findings also suggest a new understanding of transitions in the context of language and culture change

Bridging the Gap - On Easing the Transition from Arab Secondary to Western Third Level Learning.

Learning and achievement issues among Foundation Year (FY) students at the Royal College of Surgeons (RCSI) Bahrain have been responded to by the Language and Culture Unit to address the educational problems that have arisen as a direct consequence of the differences in skills students have on leaving secondary school and the skills that are required at third level institutions. The findings of the study assess the extent to which an integration of sustainable development into course objectives and learning outcomes takes place and how the content of the course responds to specific students’ needs. The research consists of an in-depth quantitative and qualitative case study that evaluates the extent to which the course enables the transition from a secondary to a third level institution and teaches the students the skills required to ‘survive’ at a westerntype university. In support of our claim, the results from this case study will be presented and implications of a more general relevance will be suggested. Our model of an academic skills intervention programme can be applied to other higher education institutions where issues of transition from secondary to third level learning may be problematic

Bridging the Gap: A Program to Enhance Medical Students\u27 Learning Experience in the Foundation Year

Objective: To evaluate students’ perceptions of the intervention program based on small group teaching, regular continuous assessment, science-based tailored study skills program and recorded attendance on students’ enhanced learning experience in the first year of study in an outcome-based medical course. Design: Descriptive study. Setting: RCSI Bahrain. Method: A Twenty-seven-item questionnaire was administered to foundation year students at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland – Medical University of Bahrain (RCSI Bahrain) after the completion of the first semester to explore whether these interventions enriched the students’ learning experience or not. Comparisons of pass rates in all modules over the four years were also included. Students’ perceptions of the academic study skills course were collected through a questionnaire activity (version 2007120102) via the Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). Result: The results suggest that local adaptations of undergraduate programs may lead to pedagogical expertise that contribute to enhanced learning experience of students and better integration of pre-university and third-level courses. The majority of questionnaire items were rated positively and the comparison of pass rates showed the highest results in the year the intervention was implemented. Conclusion: Making local adaptations to medical programs without changing the core curriculum can mark good academic practice. Considering specific socio-cultural frameworks of students may lead to improvements in the delivery of programs in universities

Epistemological process towards decolonial praxis and epistemic inequality of an international student

This paper focuses on the epistemic inequality of international students as a “new” inequality that is under-represented in the current debates about decolonisation (albeit shaped by colonial discourses depicting international students as in deficit and incapable of meeting the standards of (colonial) universities). In this theoretical context, the paper reflects on a multi-modal digital methodology used in a research project that aimed to understand how international students deploy their epistemological resources to learn the curriculum. The paper describes selected artefacts submitted by the students around which their epistemic frames were expressed, suggesting where these may be concealed by epistemological situatedness of the lecturers. Based on the analysis of these artefacts, the paper develops and interrogates an epistemology for support towards interrogating the role of our own epistemological binaries in adversely affecting students’ epistemic frames in the curriculum. As such, it contributes to a gap in the literature around decolonial pedagogy, and its role in tackling educational inequalities

Tumor-derived fibulin-3 activates pro-invasive NF-kappa B signaling in glioblastoma cells and their microenvironment

Molecular profiling of glioblastomas has revealed the presence of key signaling hubs that contribute to tumor progression and acquisition of resistance. One of these main signaling mechanisms is the NF-κB pathway, which integrates multiple extracellular signals into transcriptional programs for tumor growth, invasion, and maintenance of the tumor-initiating population. We show here that an extracellular protein released by glioblastoma cells, fibulin-3, drives oncogenic NF-κB in the tumor and increases NF-κB activation in peritumoral astrocytes. Fibulin-3 expression correlates with a NF-κB-regulated “invasive signature” linked to poorer survival, being a possible tissue marker for regions of active tumor progression. Accordingly, fibulin-3 promotes glioblastoma invasion in a manner that requires NF-κB activation both in the tumor cells and their microenvironment. Mechanistically, we found that fibulin-3 activates the metalloprotease ADAM17 by competing with its endogenous inhibitor, TIMP3. This results in sustained release of soluble TNFα by ADAM17, which in turn activates TNF receptors and canonical NF-κB signaling. Taken together, our results underscore fibulin-3 as a novel extracellular signal with strong activating effect on NF-κB in malignant gliomas. Because fibulin-3 is produced de novo in these tumors and is absent from normal brain we propose that targeting the fibulin-3/NF-κB axis may provide a novel avenue to disrupt oncogenic NF-κB signaling in combination therapies for malignant brain tumors