A Case Study of CATS Based on Industry‐Academic Collaboration

Abstract

The authors are responsible for managing a Teaching Company project. The normal qualification that a Teaching Company Associate would follow would be an MPhil or PhD. Instead, the route followed was Postgraduate Diploma/MA by Credit Accumulation and Transfer and learning contracts. This experience is offered as a possible model for similar situations.     

Constructing Problems in a Web‐Based Learning Environment

Abstract

This article describes how the World Wide Web was implemented in a graduate course. The interactions that took place among the students and between the students and instructor illustrate how problem‐based learning strategies can be supported by the Web. Of particular note, the course content focused on technology‐based learning, thus students were immersed in an authentic learning environment. The article chronicles the various strategies ? that students implemented to facilitate the problem‐solving process and concludes by way of issues to consider when implementing such strategies within Web‐based learning environments     

Academic Adjustment and Learning Processes: a comparison of international and local students in first‐year university

This article examines the academic adjustment and learning processes of international and local first‐year students. Twenty first‐year local and international students participated in a semi‐structured interview study upon the completion of their first year in a Faculty of Commerce and Management. Students reported positive and negative critical incidents which helped or hindered their learning during the first year. In addition, students described their feelings, thoughts and behaviours in relation to these incidents. Critical incidents were coded, themes identified, and comparisons made across local and international student groups. The impact of particular teaching processes are considered, and implications for teaching and learning in the first year are discussed.     

Evaluation of a University‐Based Mentoring Program: Mentors’ Perspectives on a Service‐Learning Experience

Researchers in the educational field have investigated how a caring adult can best provide mentoring support to youth placed at risk and what functions a mentoring program should serve to promote healthy mentoring relationships. However, the perspective of mentors rarely has been sought to elicit their evaluation of a mentoring program or recommendations for programmatic change. The purpose of this article was to investigate the views of university students serving as mentors in high‐need high schools or community centers. We asked 49 students, primarily undergraduates across a range of liberal arts disciplines, who were participating in a university‐based service‐learning mentoring program for youth attending high‐poverty high schools: (a) what activities they engaged in with mentees, (b) how they benefited from the mentoring program, and (c) how they perceived the program and what recommendations they had for change. Findings revealed specific suggestions that mentoring program coordinators can adopt to address mentors’ concerns and promote sustained, durable mentoring relationships for youth.     

Automatic Vehicle License Recognition Based on Video Vehicular Detection System

Traditional methods of license character extraction cannot meet the requirements of recognition accuracy and speed rendered by the video vehicular detection system. Therefore, a license plate localization method based on multi-scale edge detection and a character segmentation algorithm based on Markov random field model is presented. Results of experiments demonstrate that the method yields more accurate license character extraction in contrast to traditional localization method based on edge detection by difference operator and character segmentation based on threshold. The accuracy increases from 90% to 94% under preferable illumination, while under poor condition, it increases more than 5%. When the two improved algorithms are used, the accuracy and speed of automatic license recognition meet the system's requirement even under the noisy circumstance or uneven illumination.     

Re-situation challenges for international students ‘becoming’ researchers

This paper presents data generated during a semester-long programme to support international students from countries in Melanesia and Asia embarking on masters research in education in a New Zealand university. All were scholarship recipients. The researcher-and facilitator-of the programme, was interested in documenting and understanding the nature of the students’ experience as they planned and wrote research proposals. The process of developing a research proposal, as one of the early stages of ‘becoming’ a researcher, highlighted a number of challenges for the six case study students. The challenges are viewed from a transition or ‘resituation’ perspective (Eraut in Stud Contin Educ 26(2): 247–74, 2004, 2008) rather than an adjustment one. A resituation perspective assumes that students brought with them “personal expertise, practical wisdom and tacit knowledge” (Eraut 2008, p. 42) which needed to be reconciled with what was demanded of them by different aspects of the research planning process. The resituation challenges experienced by the students included situating a perceived problem or issue in the research literature; reconciling personal research goals with the limitations of one’s own agency as a researcher; integrating new learning with research goals; and reconciling the new role or identity as a researcher with the previous role as colleague or community member. The paper presents a case for providing a context for postgraduate students in which explicit recognition of what they bring to the research task, and acknowledgement of the resituation challenges can take place.     

Learning in and for cross‐school working

In this study we report some of the outcomes of a study of professional learning that took place in cross school partnerships as they worked towards promoting creativity in schools. The methodology developed by Engeström and his colleagues at The Centre for Developmental Work Research in Helsinki was adopted. This form of intervention involves the preparation and facilitation of workshops in which the underlying structural contradictions that are in play in emergent activities are highlighted and articulated in such a way that participants may engage with what may otherwise remain hidden and unexamined tensions. This approach is based on the writings of the early 20th‐century Russian school of social scientists—Vygotsky, Luria and Leontiev. A principal claim is that the development of creativity requires tools and contexts for such innovatory forms of practice. This study suggests that this claim is a partial representation of the development of creative activity.     

Culturally Mixed Groups on International Campuses: an Opportunity for Inter‐cultural Learning

One of the major educational goals of the internationalisation of higher education is to prepare students to function in an international and inter‐cultural context. Cultural diversity on university campuses creates ideal social forums for inter‐cultural learning, yet, one of the most disturbing aspects of the internationalisation of higher education in Australia is the lack of interactions between local and international students from Asian backgrounds. This article examines the factors which students believe are affecting the formation of mixed groups for the completion of academic tasks. It also explores the nature of change in students’ perceptions after a successful experience of mixed group work. The focus on both local and international students’ appraisals of the situation highlights the two‐way, interactive nature of group formation and shows how both parties share some responsibility in the lack of cultural mix.     

Introducing Group‐Based Asynchronous Learning to Business Education. Reflections on Effective Course Design and Delivery

This paper explores the contribution of virtual tools to student learning within full‐time management programmes. More specifically, the paper focuses on asynchronous communication tools, considering the scope they offer for group‐based collaborative learning outside the classroom. We report on the effectiveness of this approach for an economics course on International Money and Finance, which was delivered to two classes, following international MBA and MSc programmes, respectively, at Nyenrode University. Using questionnaire and interview data, we compare the learning experiences of both classes. Our analysis focuses on student reception of the asynchronous communication tools and the learner‐centred approach. Based on these findings, we propose a framework of pedagogical actions that may help to maximize the potential of e‐learning within hybrid course designs, particularly for novice users.

Introduction d'une formation non‐synchronique de groupe à une formation de business. Réflexions sur un projet et une diffusion de cours effectifs. Cet exposé décrit la contribution d'instruments virtuels pour la formation d'étudiants dans un programme business à temps plein. Plus spécialement, cet exposé se réfère aux instruments de communication non‐synchronique considérant le domaine qu'ils offrent pour la formation collaborative en groupe en dehors de la salle de classe. Nous parlons de l'efficacité de cet approche pour un cours d'économie sur les Sciences Monétaires et de Finance Internationales qui a été distribué à deux classes suivant des programmes internationaux de MBA et MSc à l'université de Nyenrode. En utilisant des questionnaires et des dates d'interview, nous avons comparé les expériences de formation dans les deux classes. Notre analyse s'occupe de la réceptivité des étudiants concernant les instruments de communication non‐synchroniques et l'approche basé sur la formation. Basés sur ces résultats, nous proposons une structure d'actions pédagogiques qui peuvent aider à augmenter le potentiel de la formation en ligne dans le cadre de projets de cours hybrides, spécialement pour des utiliseurs novices.

Einführung von gruppenbasiertem, asynchronem Lernen in Business‐Bildung. Reflektionen über effektive Kurskonzepte und –vermittlung. Dieser Bericht untersucht den Beitrag von virtuellen Instrumenten für studentisches Lernen innerhalb von Vollzeit‐Management Programmen. Er untersucht im Speziellen die asynchronen Kommunikationsmittel unter Beachtung der Möglichkeiten, die sie für ein gemeinschaftliches Lernen in Gruppen außerhalb des Klassenzimmers bieten. Wir berichten über die Wirksamkeit dieses Ansatzes, der an zwei Klassen eines Wirtschaftskurses über Internationales Geld- und Finanzwesen, die internationale MBA und MSc Kurse an der Nyenrode Universität belegen, verteilt wurde. Unter Verwendung von Fragebögen und Interviewdaten vergleichen wir die Lernerfahrungen beider Klassen. Unsere Analyse konzentriert sich auf die Aufnahmefähigkeit der Studenten bezüglich der asynchronen Kommunikationsmittel und des lernbasierten Ansatzes. Unter Berücksichtigung dieser Ergebnisse empfehlen wir einen pädagogischen Handlungsrahmen, der vielleicht das Potential des e‐Lernens innerhalb von hybriden Kursentwürfen, insbesondere für neue Nutzer, erhöhen kann.     

The Effectiveness of Video as a Learning Tool in On‐line Multimedia Modules

The Broadnet Project produced on‐line interactive multimedia training modules in order to support local small and medium sized (SME) businesses. Two of these modules used videos which were incorporated into the modules and were designed to stream over the Broadnet network. These videos were produced by several different contributors to the project. This report examines the producers’ views and SME trainees’ perceptions of the effectiveness of the videos as training material. Findings suggests that it is the interactive nature of the videos with the clips and questions, and the use of narrative incorporating the information which these trainees found most useful for learning.     

Providing Time for School‐Based Curriculum Development

This paper reports the evaluation of teacher appraisal in schools within one local education authority. The study is based on interviews conducted with 40 teachers during the period November 1993 to March 1994. These interviews paint a positive picture of teacher appraisal. The overwhelming majority of the teachers interviewed felt they had been well trained to take part in the appraisal process, and that their experience of appraisal had been positive and valuable. In general, their comments indicated that they were well satisfied with the processes and procedures that took place regarding the conduct of appraisal. At the same time, several teachers did remark on the time‐consuming nature of appraisal, and wondered whether the benefits of appraisal justified the costs involved.     

Learning in and from the West: international students and international women’s organisations in the interwar period

This article explores the importance of higher education to international women’s organisations such as the International Federation of University Women, the International Council of Women, the International Alliance of Women and Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, and asks how studying abroad contributed to the international cooperation and understanding promoted by these organisations in the interwar period. In particular, it assesses how the movement of ‘Eastern’ women, especially East Asian, to the West for educational purposes at the beginning of the twentieth century benefited the expansion of these organisations beyond Europe, North America and white settler countries such as Australia and New Zealand between the world wars, and to what extent the experiences of international students in the ‘West’ influenced their political activities back home and their involvement in international women’s organisations.     

Computer based readers for intermediate foreign‐language students

The question that we are trying to answer in this article is how can computer technology and the WWW help us in enabling and motivating students to read in a foreign language? The article starts with some general considerations about the nature of foreign language teaching and the role of technology, as well as the research in the field of reading in general vs. computer assisted reading in particular, and is followed by the discussion of two computer based pedagogical readers. The article concludes with some suggestions for the development and design of new computer and on‐line readers for foreign language teaching. In this article, pedagogical readers are defined as authentic texts in a foreign language that are enhanced with interspersed questions, activities and glosses in multimedia format to assist low level students in learning how to read authentic texts and to understand them. This application is different from another very popular use of the WWW, namely as a source of authentic readings for students at more advanced language proficiency levels.Recueils des textes basés sur ordinateurs par les étudiants en langues vivantes. La question à laquelle nous essayons de répondre dans cet article est de savoir comment la technologie de l'ordinateur et le WWW nous aident à motiver les étudiants à la lecture des textes en langue étrangère. L'article débute par des considérations générales sur la nature de l'enseignement des langues étrangéres et le rôle de la technologie, aussi bien sur la recherche dans le champ de la lecture en général par rapport à la lecture assisté par l'ordinateur en particulier. L'article comporte ensuite une discussion sur deux recueils de textes pédagogiques fondés sur ordinateur. En conclusion on trouve des suggestions pour le développement et la conception de nouveaux recueils de textes online pour ordinateur pour l'enseignement des langues étrangères. Les recueils de textes pédagogiques sont définis comme des textes authentiques en langue étrangère renforcés par intervalles par des questions, des activités et des glosses et commentaires pour aider les étudiants de bas niveau à apprendre comment lire des textes authentiques et à les comprendre. Cette application est différente d'autre usage trés populaire du WWW, source de textes authentiques pour les étudiants à un niveau plus avancé.Computer basierte Leseprogramme für beginnende Fremdsprachenstudenten. Dieser Artikel geht der Frage nach, wie uns Computer und moderne Technologie helfen können, Schüler besser zum Lesen, in unserem Falle dem Lesen in einer Fremdsprache, zu befähigen und zu motivieren? Beginnend mit einigen allgemeinen Bemerkungen zum Fremdsprachenerwerb und zur Rolle von Technologie, zur Forschung auf dem Gebiet des Lesens mit und ohne Computerunterstützung, sowie gestützt auf die Diskussion zweier computergestützter pädagogischer Leseprogramme, soll der Artikel einige Anregungen für die Entwicklung und Gestaltung zukünftiger computergestützter Leseprogramme für den Fremdsprachenunterricht geben. Als pädagogische Leseprogramme bezeichnen wir in diesem Artikel fremdsprachige Orginaltexte, die durch eingeschobene Inhaltsfragen, Aktivitäten, Anmerkungen, Bilder und andere multimediale Hilfsmittel adaptiert wurden, um dem in der Fremdsprache noch relativ unerfahrenen Leser zu zeigen, wie man liesst, und um ihm zu helfen, das Gelesene zu verstehen. Diese Anwendung ist zu unterscheiden von einem anderen, sehr verbreitetem Gebrauch des Internets, nämlich als einer blossen Quelle für Originaltexte für fortgeschrittene Fremdsprachenlerner.     

Study on life education for college students —a survey on students in Guangzhou

Due to the social environment of China’s reform and opening up, as well as China’s education system with knowledge impartation as its focus, some college students lack the humanistic care and education of value and significance of life. Universities should plan effective activities to make students realize the importance of life. They should provide students with such education as life conscience, failures in life, the ability to make a living and the values of life in order to have a clearer knowledge of life education, so that the students can set up a positive, healthy and correct life view, realize the value and meaning of life, and finally learn to respect life.     

Intercultural advising for Chinese international students: a reflective inquiry

In the past decade, there has been a rapid increase in the number of Chinese international students studying overseas. There has also been a corresponding increase in the media stories about their cross-cultural difficulties. Reported in this study is a reflective inquiry into my work as an international student advisor with a large number of Chinese students in a top Canadian university. Through five composite stories, I hope to present a few areas of challenges Chinese students experience and reflect on how advisors can better support them from the intercultural perspective. I also hope to engage other advisors through this study in exploring ways to contribute to the field of international education as frontline practitioners.     

Partners in Learning—educators,practitioners and students collaborate on work‐based learning—a case study

Work‐based learning is incorporated into a wide range of undergraduate courses that emphasise education for the professions. Yet, there is a lack of literature examining successful models that are structured around the principles of experiential learning. Partners in Learning (PAL) is a 12‐month, part‐time internship developed for Library and Information Studies students at the University of Canberra. Now in its fourth year, PAL is judged successful by students, mentors and academics alike. In this article, PAL is examined in relation to a model of experiential learning. Elements of successful work‐based experience are identified in published literature and related to “best practices” underlying the PAL model. Implications for educators introducing such a model are highlighted.     

Towards a Methodology for Teacher‐Based Classroom Research

Educational research and evaluation for the purpose of improving practice is becoming increasingly common. The teacher‐researcher movement, LEA sponsored self‐evaluation schemes, for example, both involve teachers in reviewing their own practice or the practices of the school as an organization, with the express purpose of utilizing the review data for professional or school improvement. Unfortunately, the methodology for research and evaluation in schools is problematic; one reason for this is the difficulty in deriving valid inferences from data that are often qualitative in kind and subjective in manner. Although there is a body of literature that describes ways of collecting data on the functioning of schools and classrooms, there is little guidance as to how to analyse it. This presents particular difficulties for the teacher or school staff who, for example, are trying to make sense out of a mass of data accumulated from a self‐evaluation exercise. The following paper is an attempt to provide support for teachers and schools in such a predicament: it suggests a method for analysing qualitative data emerging from school‐based research efforts that draws on the traditions of sociological and anthropological field work.     

A Learning‐centred Faculty Certificate Programme on University Teaching

Learning‐centred education (LCE) has the potential to meet the diverse needs and circumstances of a multidisciplinary faculty cohort enrolled in a certificate programme on teaching and learning by engaging participants in a learning community, and by drawing upon a wide range of appropriate teaching strategies to facilitate learning and development of student abilities. Action research design was employed to examine the theory‐practice relationship of LCE within the UBC Faculty Certificate Programme on Teaching and Learning in Higher Education. Research data, both quantitative and qualitative, collected over a 12‐month period, suggest that a multidisciplinary faculty cohort exhibits diverse learning styles, and that individual faculty members are at different stages in developing a scholarly approach to teaching and learning. Furthermore, data suggest that LCE can be used to organise a faculty certificate programme around teaching and learning issues relevant to university faculty and that some structuring of the LCE environment can assist in the attainment of course learning outcomes while engaging faculty as active participants in their personal developmental process.