Understanding innovative teaching practice in higher education: a framework for reflection

ABSTRACT

In recent years there has been a resurgence of interest in innovation in teaching and learning in higher education. Now more than ever, academics are advised that engaging in educational innovation for the purposes of improved student learning is supported, valued, and rewarded. However, embracing innovative teaching practice requires academics to develop new skills and understandings, take on extra work, risk failure and invite disapproval from staff and students. Ultimately, focusing upon educational innovation rather than discipline research can be a risky career move if it is not undertaken strategically. This paper provides insight into the characteristics of two innovative academics from the discipline of science and explores the dimensions of innovation as it pertains to teaching and learning. A framework emerged from an analysis of their experience which identifies different types of educational innovators in higher education, discriminating between three individuals with regards to the level at which they seek to influence practice.     

Transdisciplinary teaching for sustainable development in a whole school project

The study investigates the transdisciplinary teaching of education for sustainable development (ESD) with a global dimension at an upper secondary school in Sweden. The purpose was to analyse and describe variations in how nine teachers in different subject matters experienced collaborative teaching in the context of a whole school educational development project. A total of 27 semi-structured interviews were conducted and analysed using phenomenographic method and contextual analysis. Two main approaches to transdisciplinary teaching were identified among the teachers: one where teachers contributed but struggled with transdisciplinarity, and the other where they displayed ownership and were able to reconceptualise the project as a whole. Overall, teachers worked in the project with deep-level processing for learning ESD in an integrated manner in the transdisciplinary framework. However, they also experienced tensions between their resources and capabilities, and the challenges they faced in the project.     

高等职业教育实践教学环节存在的问题与对策

实践教学是高等职业教育区别与普通高等教育的重要特征之一,它主要培养学生的应用能力和操作技能,是衡量高等职业教育办学质量的重要指标。目前,我国高等职业教育实践教学环节在教学观念、教学方法、教学内容、教师队伍建设等方面还存在一些问题,为此,在知识观层面,应合理分配实践课程比例,加强实践教学教材建设,教学要以操作能力为核心;在学习观层面,应树立正确的实践教学理念,形成系统多维的实践教学方法;在学生观层面,进一步深化“双师型”教师队伍建设,建立和完善对学生的发展性和生成性多维评价机制。     

Teaching with technology in higher education: understanding conceptual change and development in practice

Research indicates that teachers’ conceptions of and approaches to teaching with technology are central for the successful imple-mentation of educational technologies in higher education. This study advances this premise. We present a 10-year longitudinal study examining teachers’ conceptions of and approaches to teaching and learning with technology. Nine teachers on an online Bachelor of Science in Pharmacy and a Master of Pharmacy programme at a Swedish university were studied using a phenomenographic approach. Results showed clear differences between novice and experienced teachers. Although novice teachers initially held more teacher-focused conceptions, they demonstrated greater and more rapid change than experienced colleagues. Experienced teachers tended to exhibit little to no change in conceptions. Supporting conceptual change should, therefore, be a central component of professional development activities if a more effective use of educational technology is to be achieved.     

Building key competencies into an environmental education curriculum using a modified Delphi approach in South Korea

Abstract

This study adopted the modified Delphi method to build key competence indicators for the course subject ‘Environment’ in the secondary school curriculum in South Korea. 15 Delphi panelists participated, and were provided a three-stage questionnaire survey. The findings classified eight secondary school ‘environment’ curriculum key competencies into three domains: intellect-oriented, personality-oriented, and relationship-oriented. The intellect-oriented domain includes ‘critical-thinking ability,’ ‘creativity,’ and ‘problem-solving ability’; the personality-oriented domain includes ‘autonomy,’ ‘ability to reflect,’ and ‘environmental sensitivity’; and the relationship-oriented domain includes ‘communication ability’ and ‘ability to manage conflicts.’ These environmental competencies were utilized to revise the current environmental education curriculum as part of the 2015 revision of the National Curriculum and set the key competencies for environment classes. The paper concludes with the significance of developments in theorizing and implementing environmental education curriculums in Korea and abroad.     

Student perception of teaching effectiveness: development and validation of the Evaluation of Teaching Competencies Scale (ETCS)

A major criticism of student evaluations of teaching is that they do not reflect student perspectives. Using critical incidents job analysis, students identified nine teaching effectiveness competencies: communication, availability, creativity, individual consideration, social awareness, feedback, professionalism, conscientiousness and problem‐solving. The behaviourally anchored Evaluation of Teaching Competencies Scale is a highly reliable (alpha = .94), unidimensional measure that correlated strongly with an instructor‐related composite of the Students’ Evaluation of Educational Quality (SEEQ, r = .72), but not to a SEEQ composite related to instructor assigned work (r = .04, N = 195). The results are discussed in the context of other measures of teaching effectiveness and transformational leadership theory.     

The criteria of effective teaching in a changing higher education context

The criteria of effective teaching in higher education are understood to comprise particular skills and practices applied within particular contexts. Drawing on the literature and using Australia’s understanding of effective teaching, this paper examines the notion of effective teaching. The paper specifically compares dimensions derived from robust research and psychometric processes with the Australian Learning and Teaching Council’s criteria for effective teaching and observes the criteria of effective teaching in higher education to have evolved. While the paper suggests some areas in which future considerations of the notion of effective teaching might usefully focus, it also argues that context is critical and that it is subject to continuous and multiple changes imposed by forces from within and outside universities. The paper maintains that our collective understanding of competent, professional and effective teaching must continually evolve in order that it accurately reflects and continually responds to the contexts in which learning and teaching is undertaken. The paper also calls for an ongoing agenda that continuously investigates and articulates the meaning of effective teaching in a changed, and changing, context.     

Three dimensions of student-centred education: a framework for policy and practice

While the terms student-centred and learner-centred are used to describe a range of neo-liberal educational policies and practices around the world, the meaning is not clearly defined. This limits its utility as a concept in policy, research and practice. This article applies abductive reasoning to explore how student-centred education is theorised in academic literature and articulated within a sample of New Zealand school principals’ visions for their schools. The findings suggest that student-centred education can be synthesised into a conceptual framework that includes three overlapping dimensions; humanist, agentic and cognitive. The humanist dimension encompasses getting to know students as unique human beings, the agentic focuses on empowering students and the cognitive dimension considers each student’s learning progress. There was diverse understanding of what it meant to be student-centred by the principals with the humanist and agentic dimensions dominating. It is anticipated that educational outcomes for disadvantaged students would improve when the three dimensions are applied together. The proposed framework could be applied by policymakers, practitioners and researchers to enhance clarity of student-centred education policies and practices.     

Teaching in the current higher education environment: perceptions of IT academics

This paper builds on previous research into teachers' conceptions of learning and teaching with an investigation of information technology academics. Using a phenomenographic approach to build a model of IT academics experiences and practice of teaching we aimed to identify any specific issues that academics in the IT discipline face and to assess the impact of the changing higher education environment on their teaching experiences. While there were few discipline-specific issues we did find that the current higher education environment appears to be negatively affecting the quality of teaching and learning within the IT discipline and indications are that these environmental factors are affecting academics within other disciplines. We concluded that current institutional policies, including teaching and learning quality measures and lack of resources, are compromising the way subjects are delivered. In some cases academics are discouraged from improving their teaching practice.     

高职院校“对证施教”教学改革的理论与实践

推行职业资格证书制度是我国实施“科教兴国”战略的重要举措之一。作为为社会培养高级技能型人才的高等职业院校,其教学改革的核心应是以推行职业资格证书制度为重点,做到“对证施教”。为保证“对证施教”的顺利实施,必须采取多种措施,并按一定步骤实施。     

Considering teaching in higher education as a practice

At a time when learning and teaching in higher education have become the focus of increasing attention and high priority is being accorded to the attainment of excellence in teaching there is a growing concern that teaching is being reduced to the acquisition of a set of competencies. This paper will draw on the work of Alasdair MacIntyre to explore the nature of a practice and of teaching as a practice, and then draw on a case study of teachers in a higher education institute in Ireland to gain some insights into the realities of practice. While acknowledging that this knowledge is unequivocally contextual, this case study has the potential to contribute to our understanding of teaching by affording insights into how teachers respond to the challenges of practice. The paper will argue that to conceive of teaching as a practice, in the manner in which practice is explained and elaborated by MacIntyre, moves us beyond a narrow and mechanistic view of teaching built around the adoption of effective strategies to one that is broader in scope and takes into account notions of internal standards of excellence, complexity and integrity.     

高职理论教学与实践教学的两难困境及超越

当前,高职教育理论教学与实践教学陷入了两难困境,导致高职教学实践的摇摆和动荡。文章从社会经济、科技、教育以及认识论等多重视角进行归因分析,提出超越两难困境的出路在于将高职教育的理论教学和实践教学统一于素质教育和创新教育的实施中。     

课堂教学艺术须扩展高职教学全过程

高职教育更需要课堂教学艺术,高职教学需要把专业设计、课程体系建设和课堂教学（包括理论课堂教学和实践课堂教学）用系统的观点有机地融合起来,从课程体系建设入手进行教育全过程的课堂教学方法设计和改革。     

Establishing a method for analysing metaphors in higher education teaching: a case from business management teaching

ABSTRACT

It has been suggested that metaphors have a crucial influence on the way we perceive and construct the world. As a result, metaphor analysis has been used as a way to reveal, analyse and understand conceptions of teaching in higher education. This paper introduces a different way to analyse metaphors for teaching than the ones previously used in higher education. By focusing on temporarily stable, spontaneously uttered metaphors in conversation data, the unfiltered metaphors for teaching are analysed. Through a thorough analysis of eight interviews with lecturers from business management, it is established how teaching in this context is conceptualised as a vehicle on tracks and as having levels as well as depth and width. It is discussed how the identified metaphors open up a space of possibilities for the lecturers and to what extent these results can be generalised beyond this context.     

The development of teaching and learning in Polish higher education

Higher Education - Research into teaching and learning in higher education has been actively pursued in Poland, with the aim of achieving efficient expansion and improving teaching in individual...     

本科办高职计算机类数据库实验教学研究

数据库技术是计算机专业的基础课,是一门实践性很强的课程。针对本科办高职计算机类专业,学生基础薄弱,学习能力较差,学习年限短,但师资力量雄厚的特点,数据库课程实验教学给出一些新的方法,通过调整实验教学模式,如注重并简化设计过程、程序的调试,强调辅助工具的应用,帮助文件的使用,及本科教学平台的使用以充分发挥师资力量,并制定合理的评价考核体系,使学生克服厌学心理,从而使数据库实验教学在培养高职高素质的应用型人才中起到重要的作用。     

高职教育建筑装饰专业教学改革初探

建筑装饰专业的市场容量大,行业发展迅速,高职建筑装饰专业的人才培养适应了市场需求。在教学过程中,只有通过准确定位培养目标,不断开展教学模式的改革探索,才能培养出满足市场要求的高技能应用型人才。     

Juicing the game design process: towards a content centric framework for understanding and teaching game design in higher education

The aim of this article is to advance a framework for understanding and teaching game design in higher education, in order to address complexities inherent in teaching game design courses. Everyday teaching and learning game design often deviate from the standard textbook model of game design. In reality everyday teaching and learning operate with handling game design curriculum, how to think games, and how to organise the development process. The presented framework merge curriculum, thinking, and process guided by the game design concept of juiciness. The framework will be presented by dismantling the standard textbook model of game design into three; game design (curriculum), game design thinking (thinking), and game development (organisation). In this perspective game design is concerned with game mechanics, game design thinking preoccupied with paper prototyping, metaphor, and framing, while game developments addresses player experience including play and game testing. This article will coin vertical design as juiciness as opposed to horizontal design understood as expanding system layout. Juiciness will be placed as a guiding principle in the relationship between designers and designed content as an aspect of designer intentions and motivations. Lastly, the content centric framework will be presented by merging game design, game design thinking, game development, vertical design with selected aspects of accepted software development strategies as an approach to teaching and learning game design in higher education.