A democratic and student-centred approach to facilitating teamwork learning among first-year engineering students: A learning and teaching case study

This work examines an innovative and evolving approach to facilitating teamwork learning in a generic first-year mechanical engineering course. Principles of inclusive, student-active and democratic pedagogy were utilised to engage students on both the social and personal planes. Learner opportunities to facilitate, direct and lead the learning direction were emphasised. This emphasis encouraged a rich learning process and motivated students dismissive of the need to examine their communication skills and those who initially perceived the topic as a personal intrusion. Through a sharing of curriculum decisions, a climate of trust, ownership and shared value arose. Students chose from a range of tools across personality-type indicators, learning style indicators and hierarchies of human needs, to assist their capacity to express and discuss engineering designs and concepts. Peer teaching and collaborative exercises were incorporated to provide an authentic learning context and to further the student’s sense of ownership.Dorothy Missingham and Robert Matthew

Bridging the Gap: Exploring Expectations and Perception-Based Performance Assessments

F1 - Refereed Conference Pape

Reports from Information Online and On Disc 97

The editor requested a round dozen delegates to offer their impressionsof this popular conference, now in its eighth edition, and it may be one of the best ideas he has ever had. Their unfiltered comments follow below. The Editor records his appreciation for the cheerful and prompt responses forthcoming despite the short lead-time offered to and the already heavy workloads of those responding

Political Economy of Southeast Asian Borderlands: Migration, Environment, and Developing Country Firms

Borderland zones in Southeast Asia have become sites of increased economic investment for developing country firms, intra-regional and transnational corporations. As a result of deregulation, these investment opportunities have led to the exploitation of natural and human resources in an unsustainable and unjust way. This article argues that the flows of people and natural resources across borders are connected intimately and that this has been facilitated politically by the acceptance of the porosity of territorial boundaries by all governments in the region and the imperative to export environmentally degrading development projects into neighbouring countries where political mobilisation on environmental issues is much less effective. Conveyed through a series of cases studies (on resource extraction, dam and reservoir construction, and working conditions in apparel companies), this article explores how developing country companies comply with the codes of conduct on corporate responsibility on human rights, labour standards and environmental sustainability) within the context of the governance of the global supply chain

Grassrooting network imaginaries: relationality, power, and mutual solidarity in global justice networks

In this paper we draw critically upon actor network theory (ANT) in order to analyse the contours of relationality, communication, and operational logic within a global justice networkö People's Global Action Asia. Drawing upon the concept of translation, we consider how connections are fostered and sustained within the network, focusing upon the work of key organisers (those we term the `imagineers') and key events in producing the network. In so doing, we ground ANT in direct political engagement and introduce the concept of `grassrooting vectors' to highlight the power relations at work within global justice networks, a consideration which is crucial to the formation of mutual solidarity between social movements