Working with diverse students: Can lessons learnt in South Africa be applicable in Pan-Pacific region?

Diversity is often seen as a negative aspect in teaching and learning. It can, however, offer opportunities for growth on the part of all students as they learn to develop the social, cognitive and communication skills necessary to work in a multicultural environment. The issue of diversity has become prevalent in South Africa in the last few years. It has been shown that diversity needs to be addressed by helping the lecturers understand the issues and modify their curricula as well as by helping the students. This paper shows one lecturers research and journey in working diverse students in group work and asks the question if these lessons can be applicable in the Pan-Pacific region

Implementing first-year assessment principles: an analysis of selected scholarly literature

Assessment plays an important role in students’ learning as students often frame their learning around their assessment tasks. Well-designed assessment can be used to facilitate first-year students making their social and academic transition to university. In 2009, Professor David Nicol prepared a framework for first-year assessment practices that included 12 principles. In this study, these principles were revisited and used to analyse papers from 2013 to 2016 in the journals: ‘Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education’, ‘The International Journal of First Year in Higher Education’ and ‘Student Success’. The purpose of the study was to determine how current literature addresses Nicol’s first-year assessment principles, whether there were any issues in implementing them and whether anything new is emerging in the field. Based on this analysis, proposals are made for modifying the principles and recommendations are made for future research

Combining the Techniques of Joint Application Design and Cooperative Learning in the Information Systems Classroom

It is imperative for Information Systems professionals to be able to work well with other people. Information Systems development is a social process that requires this. It is difficult for tertiary institutions to teach these skills to students while also teaching them the technical skills that they need. This paper proposes a method whereby the techniques of Joint Application Design (JAD) used in industry can be combined with the techniques of cooperative learning in the classroom. It is proposed that this method, will not only promote the learning of the modeling techniques that are used, but will also promote the learning of some of the interpersonal and group skills that are needed by Information System\u27s graduates. A discussion of some of the data from a case study done is presented to support these claims

Teaching first year students to communicate their reasoning

It is important for university students to be able to think critically and reason. It is equally important that they be able to express their reasoning verbally or through the written word. This is particularly difficult for many of the international students, for whom English is a second language. This paper gives an overview of methods used in an Information Systems course at ACU National, whereby these skills were taught to the students. Some of the experiences of the students are then discussed and conclusions as to the effectiveness of the methods are drawn

A Celluloid Story - New Jersey\u27s Film History

Catalog for the exhibition A Celluloid Story - New Jersey\u27s Film History held at Seton Hall University\u27s Walsh Gallery, November 3 - December 12, 2014. Curated by Sara Hart and Romana Schaeffer. Includes an essay by Sara Hart and Romana Schaeffer

Engaging first year lecturers with threshold learning outcomes and concepts in their disciplines

In this paper, we report on an investigation of what students need to learn in the first year in various discipline-based subjects to launch then on their way to meet specified discipline threshold learning outcomes (TLOs) by the time they graduate. We frame our investigation using both the threshold concepts that the students must master in first year in order to succeed in learning in the discipline and also the threshold learning outcomes that they need to achieve by third year. We describe and analyse workshops used to engage lecturers with the challenges of designing first year curriculum in their r discipline, suggest why threshold concepts are useful in focusing both lecturers and students on what is essential, and outline briefly some of the creative solutions the lecturers offered

Renewing first year curricula for social sciences and humanities in the context of discipline threshold standards

[Extract] This project evolved out of the work of the Deans of Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (DASSH) network for Associate Deans Learning and Teaching (ADLT). As ADLTs, we wanted to better support and advise our colleagues on how to design first year curriculum in their own discipline. Our contexts were determined by Threshold Learning Outcomes (TLOs) that were developed for the Humanities and Social Science disciplines initially through an Australian Learning and Teaching Council (ALTC) project (Hay, 2012). We wanted to identify, understand, refine and be able to advocate for teaching and assessment strategies that would set first year students on their way to achieving TLOs in their chosen discipline by the time they graduate. The original aims of the project were to: i. determine the discipline-specific skills and standards that are required to be developed at the first year in order for students to achieve the TLOs and AQF standards prescribed for graduates in the selected disciplines in the Social Sciences and Humanities; ii. engage first year staff with first year pedagogy and curriculum renewal in the light of threshold standards; and iii. provide a toolkit with examples of discipline-specific assessments and activities that develop those skills in first year students

Designing first-year sociology curricula and practice

Many countries are now specifying standards for graduates in different disciplines, including sociology. In Australia, the Australian Sociological Association (TASA) has developed Threshold Learning Outcomes (TLOs) for sociology to provide the learning outcomes that students graduating with a bachelor’s degree in sociology should achieve. These TLOs have encouraged universities to think explicitly about their sociology curriculum in a holistic way. This paper reports on a project that investigated the skills and concepts sociology students need to learn in first year to meet the TLOs by the time they graduate. The project identified the needs of students as they transition from school or work into the study of sociology in first year through a study of literature of first-year pedagogy and a student survey. A workshop was held for sociology that involved 37 academics from 14 universities. The workshop was used to promote a rethink of teaching of sociology in the light of the new TLOs as well as to collect ideas from the participants. The student surveys, workshop ideas and relevant literature were analyzed and synthesized for each TLO to determine what skills and concepts first-year students needed to learn, identify what they might find difficult and propose strategies for teaching. The paper also provides practical ideas for engaging academics with thinking holistically about the sociology curriculum and for teaching and learning sociology in the first year of an undergraduate degree

Engaging first year lecturers with threshold learning outcomes and concepts in their disciplines

Abstract In this paper, we report on an investigation of what students need to learn in the first year in various discipline-based subjects to launch then on their way to meet specified discipline threshold learning outcomes (TLOs) by the time they graduate. We frame our investigation using both the threshold concepts that the students must master in first year in order to succeed in learning in the discipline and also the threshold learning outcomes that they need to achieve by third year. We describe and analyse workshops used to engage lecturers with the challenges of designing first year curriculum in their r discipline, suggest why threshold concepts are useful in focusing both lecturers and students on what is essential, and outline briefly some of the creative solutions the lecturers offered