Learning about action research

The book gives detailed and theoretically-grounded practical advice on how to proceed collaboratively through the various stages of the action research cycle, including building a repertoire of literacy practices and activities for teachers and learners to draw upon in the research process.USWE funders, including International Cooperation of the German Adult Education Association, the DG Murray Trust, Anglo American and De Beers Chairman's Fund Educational Trust and NEDCOR Community Development Fund

The ethics of curriculum development:Engineers and technicians in a context of development: Engineers and technicians in a context of development

South African higher education has, for the last twenty years, attempted to confront the legacy its past, particularly the lack of access to science, technology, engineering and mathematics-based (STEM) education by the vast majority of potential students. The current policy environment is dominated by a drive towards high skills jobs and innovation that links research to new forms of production and new services. With the promulgation of a new "Higher Education Qualifications Sub-framework" (HEQSF, 2013) in South Africa there has been considerable curriculum development work across a number of fields and disciplines to enable the "high skills" agenda. Many programs that served as entry qualifications to employment as computer engineering technicians have been subject to upward re-curriculation towards engineering programs. A concern is the lack of clarity around appropriate qualifications and skills levels for a developing country and what might differentiate engineering technician programs from professional engineering programs. There are deep concerns in South Africa about the need to transform society, in particular to ensure that the legitimate aspirations of black South Africans are met and that talented young citizens are able to access higher education and obtain qualifications that enable them to enter the workplace and contribute meaningfully to development. In this paper we discuss the ethics of curriculum development, and argue for an ethical framework to assist institutions to guide curricular decision-making in engineering. A methodology for curricular comparison was developed from the work of Karl Maton on "semantic waves" that was used to construct a systematic comparison between a technician and engineering programme in the field of computer engineering. We show distinct knowledge differences between two programs, one a technician's diploma and the other an professional engineering degree program. We use the findings to illustrate wider concerns about the ethics of/in engineering curriculum development in South Africa as a developing country with a transformation agenda

A reflection on critical reflection in professional education research

The roots of universities of technology can be traced back to technical colleges, which required compliance with industry standards, and the rule of labour markets. Universities of technology thus entered the university space, largely without an established critical tradition in teaching, learning, and research. This is the issue that we address in this paper, which is intended to inform potential authors in technical, vocational, and professional higher education who would like to publish their educational research studies in Critical Studies in Teaching and Learning (CriSTaL). The issue is important as universities of technology in South Africa are increasingly taking on the mantle of professional education, particularly in the fields of health, engineering, and applied sciences. In this paper, we discuss examples of published educational research that critique some of the ‘taken-for-granted’ ideas that have shaped the practices and aspirations of universities of technologies. The examples show that by judiciously drawing on traditions of critical reflective practice, and by bringing new ideas, concepts, and theories into educational research studies, further critical concepts can evolve. These new critical concepts will be of interest to the readers (and reviewers) of CRiSTaL, but more importantly could inspire universities of technology to reaffirm their connection to practice and begin to create a critical space for their own scholarly – and critical – identities

Developing employability in engineering education: a systematic review of the literature

In this systematic review of the research literature on engineering employability, curricular and pedagogical arrangements that prepare graduates for work in the twenty-first century were identified. The research question guiding the review was: Which curricular and pedagogical arrangements promote engineering students’ employability? The particular focus of the study was on how authors prioritised engineering knowledge and professional skills. The review drew on a theoretical framework that differentiated between engineering knowledge and professional skills to explain how employability could be included in engineering programmes. Data was obtained from research studies over the period 2007–2017. We found an interdependent relationship between engineering knowledge and professional skills that enabled engineering graduates to attain employability. The com of engineering problems require students to master engineering knowledge, while the ability to work with others across contexts requires professional skills. Both are necessary for deep understanding of engineering principles and a focus on real world problem

An investigation into the influences of institutional context on the professional learning of academics in their roles as teachers

publisher versionPreface by Prof Narend Baijnath: “Teaching and learning are never neutral. Every aspect is ideological in nature: from the admission of students, to the selection of curriculum content, to the adoption of learning materials, to the pedagogical approach, to the mode of assessment and the quality of the feedback. The form of disciplinary knowledge may vary from the more subjective and contentious to the more objective and broadly accepted, but teaching and learning remain highly political acts across all institutions, faculties and disciplines. So it is unsurprising that when a country undergoes major social change, ideological demands are placed on teaching and learning.” (HE Reviewed, CHE 2016 p.143). There are many and diverse influences on teaching and learning as a political act, from broad social movements that challenge what is taught, to the ways in which resources have historically been allocated, to the values and goals of different disciplines, and the more immediate institutional and faculty contexts in which they take place. Learning to teach in higher education in South Africa is a timely and well-researched contribution to understanding the influences of that more immediate layer, that is, of institutional contexts, on the professional learning of academics in their roles as teachers. It explores questions of whether it matters to the professional learning process whether one is teaching in a context in which resources are scarce, or whether the departmental leadership style is authoritarian, or whether an institution has a strong drive to increase research output. And if it matters, what are the implications for facilitating opportunities for academics to ‘learn to teach’ in higher education? Undertaken by a team of academic staff developers across eight institutional contexts, this research report offers a comprehensive, nuanced and theorised set of insights into the role that context plays in the ways in which academics learn to teach. Such insights can inform the development of professional learning initiatives at both the institutional and national policy levels. The report is one of the outcomes of a large-scale study carried out between 2011 and 2016, made possible by funding from the National Research Foundation. It has spawned many research articles, books and PhD studies (see Appendix One) and has thus in itself provided a vehicle for the development of further research and researchers on the subject. The team chose to work collaboratively, with all the possibilities and difficulties that that entails, as reflected on in Chapter 7. Thereby, it also offers an illuminating reflection and insights into such research methodology. While the report does not specifically set out to offer anything new or surprising about the cultural and contextual differences between institutions, it does offer a coherent interpretation of such complex and intersecting conditions examined through a single theoretical lens. Indeed, the concepts of ‘structure, culture and agency’ as developed in the work of the social realist, Margaret Archer, formed the theoretical canvas for the study. The theory allows for the analytical separation of different domains for the purposes of understanding the interplay of relations, but it also offers a hope of bringing about social transformation through exercising particular modes of reflexivity. As the report argues, quoting Archer, transforming our positions in society is possible, but “their transformation depends partly on the subjective reflexivity of primary agents in seeking to play an active part in reshaping society’s resource distribution”. The researchers may not always have found it easy to apply a single theoretical lens, but the theory based study provides a coherent representation of the differences and similarities between the institutional contexts of the eight universities, throwing into relief their different influences on professional learning, and points to pathways towards the improvement of teaching and learning in South African higher education. A major contribution of this report that is likely to influence the discourse on teaching and learning significantly, is the conceptual shift from ‘professional development’ to ‘professional learning’. As an external reviewer noted, “in the context of the decolonization debate, [this shift] has the potential to offer a more flexible continuum in which to position different learning opportunities”. It also recognises the importance of group and individual agency and the importance of informal contexts in learning to teach. 12 | Monitor 14 | Learning to Teach in Higher Education in South Africa The publication of this research report takes forward the CHE’s ongoing endeavours to improve and enhance the quality of teaching and learning in higher education. It serves to complement the more practical implementation of quality assurance in higher education, which for the CHE has largely entailed a focus on teaching and learning, whether in accreditation, audits or the Quality Enhancement Project (QEP) that began in 2014 in which one of the four focus areas that universities were asked to engage with was “enhancing academics as teachers”. Participation in the QEP over the past three years has contributed to a heightened awareness across the sector of the importance of academics developing competence in university teaching, particularly given the increased emphasis being placed on student success by both the government and higher education institutions themselves. As a result, universities are becoming more intentional in their efforts to help academics develop this competence. The release of the study is therefore timely, as not only will it add to our collective understanding of the complexities and nuances in the interrelationships between structure, culture and agency that inform and influence academics in their roles as teachers, but it will serve as a useful resource for institutions in their efforts to enhance university teachers and teaching. The Higher Education Monitor series, as was elaborated in the first issue in 2003, “aims to stimulate research and the production of knowledge and interpretive frameworks that could contribute to better theorisation of higher education, more rigorous analysis of higher education complexities and more effective strategies for change and progress”. It is our hope that this report will do exactly that.We thank the National Research Foundation for funding the project that made the study and the ensuing report possible, Professor Brenda Leibowitz for leading the team of researchers, our external reviewers, and the individual authors who took the time to present drafts of their chapters to Dr Webbstock of the CHE at a workshop in May 2016

Behavioural indicators of welfare in farmed fish

Behaviour represents a reaction to the environment as fish perceive it and is therefore a key element of fish welfare. This review summarises the main findings on how behavioural changes have been used to assess welfare in farmed fish, using both functional and feeling-based approaches. Changes in foraging behaviour, ventilatory activity, aggression, individual and group swimming behaviour, stereotypic and abnormal behaviour have been linked with acute and chronic stressors in aquaculture and can therefore be regarded as likely indicators of poor welfare. On the contrary, measurements of exploratory behaviour, feed anticipatory activity and reward-related operant behaviour are beginning to be considered as indicators of positive emotions and welfare in fish. Despite the lack of scientific agreement about the existence of sentience in fish, the possibility that they are capable of both positive and negative emotions may contribute to the development of new strategies (e. g. environmental enrichment) to promote good welfare. Numerous studies that use behavioural indicators of welfare show that behavioural changes can be interpreted as either good or poor welfare depending on the fish species. It is therefore essential to understand the species-specific biology before drawing any conclusions in relation to welfare. In addition, different individuals within the same species may exhibit divergent coping strategies towards stressors, and what is tolerated by some individuals may be detrimental to others. Therefore, the assessment of welfare in a few individuals may not represent the average welfare of a group and vice versa. This underlines the need to develop on-farm, operational behavioural welfare indicators that can be easily used to assess not only the individual welfare but also the welfare of the whole group (e. g. spatial distribution). With the ongoing development of video technology and image processing, the on-farm surveillance of behaviour may in the near future represent a low-cost, noninvasive tool to assess the welfare of farmed fish.Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia, Portugal [SFRH/BPD/42015/2007]info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Editorial

Editorial for Volume 4, Issue 1, June 2016

Book review: Socially just pedagogies, capabilities and quality in higher education: Global Perspectives. Walker, M. & Wilson-Strydom, M. (eds.) 2017.

Review of: Socially just pedagogies, capabilities and quality in higher education: Global Perspectives. Walker, M. & Wilson-Strydom, M. (eds.) 2017