Instructional development for teachers in higher education: impact on teaching approach

Although instructional development for teachers has become an important topic in higher education, little is known about the impact it has on daily teaching practice. The lack of systematic programme evaluation is an ongoing concern. In this study we investigate by use of a quasi-experimental design, the impact of an instructional development program for beginning university teachers on their teaching approach. Quantitative pre-test as well as post-test data were assembled from 20 experimental teachers and 20 control teachers. At the post-test qualitative data were gathered too: 17 teachers of the experimental group and 12 teachers of the control group were interviewed. Paired t-tests and analysis of covariance with the pre-test scores as a covariate showed some effect of instructional development on teaching approach. The analysis of the qualitative data sustained this result. Our results reveal the influence of instructional development on teachers’ teaching approach being slightly different for teachers belonging to distinct disciplines. Several interpretations and perspectives for further research are discussed.     

高等教育的依附发展与学术殖民

一些国家高等教育的发展受到少数几个国家高等教育优势地位的支配,或者说,一些国家高等教育的发展依赖于少数几个国家高等教育的主导。因此,依附的实质是不平等的国际政治、经济关系在高等教育领域的反映。就高等教育而言,谋求发展的惟一出路在于:参与国际竞争,融入国际化的潮流。中国的高等教育只能在不平等的竞争中走向国际化,让世界的成为中国的,让中国的成为世界的,是中国高等教育国际化的两大战略目标。     

Participatory instructional redesign by students and teachers in secondary education: effects on perceptions of instruction

Students’ perceptions of instruction are important because they direct the learning of students. The fact that teachers have only limited knowledge of these perceptions is likely to threaten the effectiveness of learning, because congruence between interpretations of an instructional intervention is necessary for its optimal use. This study examines participatory design as a strategy for taking student perceptions into account in instructional re/design. Participatory design meetings of groups of teachers and seven co-designing students in a secondary education setting identified changes to improve the regular education process. The results on changes in student perceptions, perceived-desired discrepancy, and teacher–student disagreement showed some improvement for the co-designers but, unexpectedly, limited or even negative effects for the non-co-designing students. Possible causes are discussed. Participatory design seems to have potential for improving education, but further research is needed.     

高职数学课堂中师生博弈策略研究

针对职业院校数学课中学生很普遍的逃课行为、课堂教学效果不高、考核质量不理想等现象,教师在教学中尝试和归纳出来一系列师生博弈策略来帮助解决这些矛盾,将这些策略应用于实践当中,收到了比较好的效果。     

高等学校学术权力的反思与建构

学术权力是大学对学术活动的管理与统治权力 ,主要有欧洲模式、英国模式、美国模式和日本模式。高等教育管理权力区别于其他社会权力的特性在于它的学术性。我国高等学校内部对学术权力的认识存在着局限性 ,需加以关注 ;现实的学术管理也存在着一些问题 ,需要不断完善     

Supporting and constraining factors in the development of university teaching experienced by teachers

Higher education calls for reform, but deeper knowledge about the prerequisites for teaching development and pedagogical change is missing. In this study, 51 university teachers’ experiences of supportive or constraining factors in teaching development were investigated in the context of Finland’s multidisciplinary network. The findings reveal that the supportive factors in teaching development arise from the nature of the development itself, i.e. from the teachers’ opportunities to act as active agents in an authentic development process. Furthermore, the circumstances of the development also play essential roles (both constraining and supportive) in teaching development. Such support, at its best, will come when teachers and others view teaching development in the university context as being valuable and rewarding, and when teachers are encouraged by management and are supplemented with the necessary equipment, tools, and networks they need to do their job. Increasing interaction between the institutional levels can make educational development successful.     

The impact of higher education on adult students in Australia

This article is part of a study of the impact of higher education on aspects of the employment of a national sample of adult students (25 and over) who enrolled in higher education in Australia in 1978. The study shows that from the point of view of employment these adult students drew much benefit from their higher education. Females tended to benefit more than males. A further article in a later issue will consider for the same group the impact of higher education on the person.     

高等职业教育应在改革中谋发展

高等职业教育担负着为社会主义建设培养建设者和接班人的使命,发展高等职业教育对我国经济建设有着战略性的重要作用。高等职业教育的发展,必须树立和落实科学发展观,以人为本,创新工作思路,正确处理规模和效益的关系,坚持改革,在改革中谋发展。     

高等职业教育应在改革中谋发展

高等职业教育担负着为社会主义建设培养建设者和接班人的使命，发展高等职业教育对我国经济建设有着战略性的重要作用。高等职业教育的发展，必须树立和落实科学发展观，以人为本，创新工作思路，正确处理规模和效益的关系，坚持改革，在改革中谋发展。     

科学发展观与高等教育发展

科学发展观的提出,对于推进我国高等教育发展具有特殊重要的意义。我们要以科学的态度对待科学发展观的提出,正确认识和看待改革开放以来我国高等教育的发展;要以科学发展观为指导,确立科学的高等教育发展观,推进高等教育的科学发展和高等教育研究的深入开展。     

Epistemological development in higher education

Research has been carried out on students’ epistemological development in higher education for at least 50 years. Researchers on both sides of the Atlantic have converged on accounts that describe students’ epistemological development in terms of a sequence or hierarchy of qualitatively distinct stages or positions. The rich qualitative data obtained from longitudinal investigations do demonstrate intellectual changes, but whether the same scheme fits all students and whether the changes found are a specific result of exposure to higher education are open to debate. Well-validated quantitative instruments that could be used to measure epistemological development in large samples of students are still lacking. Unresolved issues include: whether students can adopt multiple epistemological positions; whether these are culturally and contextually specific; and whether they are mental entities, discursive practices or social constructions.     

Linking critical pedagogy practice to higher education in Malaysia: insights from English language teachers

This study explores whether critical pedagogy is viable for meeting the goals of the Malaysia Education Blueprint (MEB) 2015–2025. The MEB has a particular focus on societal improvement and the authors suggest that critical pedagogy should be considered as a way of teaching as it specifically aligns with the aims of government policy. However, there is uncertainty about how critical pedagogy might be enacted in the Malaysian higher education context because it is difficult to understand and practise. The authors interviewed English language critical pedagogues from various countries about their experiences and found four common themes across all cultures. These were: co-construction of knowledge between teacher and student; new levels of trust; the use of problem-posing techniques; and evaluation of teaching and the student experience. These findings provide a guide to practice and the authors conclude that for critical pedagogy to gain acceptance across Malaysia, consideration needs to be given to changing prevailing cultural norms, the strict social order, as well as the political landscape of the country.     

Collaborating with colleagues for the sake of academic and professional development in higher education

Abstract

This research examines how faculty members in higher education collaborate with colleagues, their collaborative professional work, the nature of these collaborations, and the benefits they get from it. Research findings show that collaborations are perceived as one of the important components of academic and professional development. The findings indicate issues about the characteristics and nature of collaborations as well as about colleagues with whom faculty members prefer to collaborate, the ways in which they collaborate, the advantages of collaborations, and the important role that academic leaders and institutions play in encouraging collaborations.     

Blended learning in higher education: professional development in a Hong Kong university

ABSTRACT

Online learning has become a ubiquitous part of the educational landscape and how teachers are supported in developing approaches to teaching online is a fundamental aspect of the students’ learning experience. Based on the implementation of a professional development course on becoming an online teacher offered in a blended learning mode at one university in Hong Kong, this article proposes that offering this type of professional development in a blended mode is very effective in facilitating enhanced usage of the university’s learning management system. In a blended mode, teachers are actively engaged with blended learning and were found to make more extensive use of features/tools in Blackboard after they attended the professional development course. Results support that offering professional development in a blended mode provides teachers with an authentic student perspective, at the same time as they take guided steps in the teacher’s role in blended learning.     

Health-inclusive higher education: listening to students with disabilities or chronic illnesses

This paper reports on a small-scale project undertaken with tertiary students who identified as having an impairment either at enrolment or by registering with the university's Disability Support Unit (DSU). The aim of the study was to explore with these students ways in which the university was currently meeting their academic support needs and the ways in which these needs might be better met. Consistent with the definition of disability within the Australian Disability Discrimination Act, it became apparent that a significant number of students who identified with that definition, or sought help from disability services, also presented with needs arising from chronic illness. The majority of participants cited an emotional or psychological illness, rather than a physical, intellectual or sensory one, as a possible precursor to difficulties in engagement with the university. We conclude by considering whether commonly used institutional categories are apposite to an understanding of the ways in which students perceive themselves and, importantly, their engagement with the university and success within it.     

Facilitating agency: the change laboratory as an intervention for collaborative sustainable development in higher education

To cope with the rapidly changing higher education climate, teachers need agency to act proactively in initiating and steering changes in practice. This paper describes an academic development activity in the form of a Change Laboratory, an intervention method based on Cultural-Historical Activity Theory, to facilitate agency among teachers. The results of the study indicate that transformative agency emerges when teachers are given the opportunity to analyse, envision, and redesign their practice collaboratively. This has implications for academic development, suggesting that activities facilitating discussion, analysis, and criticism of current practices are needed to support the development of agency.     

Training higher education teachers for instructional design of competency-based education: Product-oriented versus process-oriented worked examples

Teachers involved in the development of competency-based higher education (CBE) are expected to fulfil a new role of instructional designer. As a consequence, they are confronted with the problem to translate abstract new curriculum principles into concrete learning tasks. Recent studies have shown that teachers can be trained to apply an instructional systems design methodology. After this training the teachers were able to design better learning tasks for CBE in comparison with their experienced-based design efforts. In order to optimize the training, this study compares an experimental condition with process-oriented worked examples with a conventional training condition with emphasis on product-oriented worked examples. After the training, the participants—25 higher education teachers—had to apply the ISD methodology to two design problems. The quality of the resulting design materials, as rated by experts, was higher in the product-oriented worked examples condition than in the process-oriented worked examples condition. The significance of this finding for training approaches to design methodology for CBE is discussed.     

高师学生教学创新能力及其培养

培养高师生创新能力，重点应放在培养其教学创新能力方面，本明确提出了高师学生教学创新能力的内涵。探讨了高师学生教学创新能力的培养策略。     

The influence of interactions with students for the development of new academics as teachers in higher education

The aim of the current investigation was to provide an insight into how new lecturers in higher education develop as teachers and to identify some of the main influences upon this development. A qualitative, longitudinal design with three semi-structured interviews over a 2-year period was employed with eleven new teachers from a range of higher education institutions and settings. The analysis used case studies, alongside a thematic analysis, to provide fine-grained and idiosyncratic insights into the teachers’ development. The principal finding from the current study was the identification that instances of interactions with students, acted as a core influence upon the new teachers’ development. These instances appeared to provide the teachers with richer and fuller feedback about their teaching. This feedback supported their reflection and influenced the way in which they thought about teaching. Based on these findings it is suggested that teacher development could be enhanced by focussing upon specific instances of interactions with students as these instances provide specific and tangible moments that allow individuals to reflect upon and discuss their conceptions of teaching.     

教育与学生能力的全面发展--从学生、教师与学校的功能转变反思应试教育

应试教育因其体制化而产生巨大影响。体制较长时间的稳定造成了体制影响力在公众个体中的思维内化,这种思维内化又反过来巩固了应试教育制度,使得新的教育体制难以植根。学生、教师和学校领导作为个体思想深处都有这样的思维内化,这影响了素质教育的制度化。反思应试教育是从作为个体的学生、教师、领导和作为体制内的学生、教师、领导两个层面来反思,探索学生全面发展的问题也必然包含了个体思维和体制两个层面。