An Investigation of the Effectiveness of an Evaluation Instrument Designed for Use with Modular Masters Courses in a Range of International Contexts

In a previous paper the construction of an instrument designed to be of use in the evaluation of modular Masters courses for teachers and administrators in international schools was described. Initial impressions of the efficacy of the instrument were encouraging, and its use was extended in a number of ways within the scheme of continuing professional development organised through the Centre for the study of Education in an International Context at the University of Bath. In particular, the evaluation model was extended to three different modules taught in an increased number of Study Centre locations, by different tutors, to groups of different sizes and composition. Under such a range of conditions the question arises of parity of quality in the delivery of the modules, and the usefulness of the evaluation instrument in contributing to an assessment of the quality of teaching and learning was explored. This paper describes the results of an investigation undertaken to test the robustness of the instrument with respect to both the increased range of dimensions involved and the level of detail possible. The outcomes confirm initial impressions of the overall value of the instrument in assessing general levels of satisfaction expressed by participants with respect to a variety of course features, but also indicate the ways in which it could be employed as a tool to evaluate the relative contributions to overall success made by a set of components concerned with the content of the modules, the teaching arrangements, support for participants and the relevance of the modules to the educational work of those taking part.     

A Critical Study of Comics

The paper describes a project for Liverpool John Moores University PGCE Art and Design students in which they carried out practical research into comics and graphic novels as part of their preparation for teaching. The students were encouraged to investigate the history of the genre, its formal properties as well as its potential as a vehicle for social realism. The practical task was to prepare a single comic book page design, in the course of which they explored a range of possibilities from imaginative children's stories to serious issues such as illness and abuse. They took the opportunity to investigate the potential of this sequential medium to construct narratives using devices such as sequence, repetition and multiple perspectives as well as the juxtapositions of image and text. The paper contains examples of students' work where the investigations yielded interesting and innovative results.     

Education, Social Interaction, and Material Co-presence: Against Virtual Pedagogical Reality

A crucial role of the educator, we contend, is to motivate students to want to feel the pain that all cognitive growth requires. This challenge, we will suggest, makes a certain form of conflict essential to the pedagogical relationship, a conflict which requires copresence in shared physical space. If we are correct, then on-line contexts are not conducive to education. Virtual environments permit the exchange of useful (and useless) information, but the absence of genuine, felt human contact limits their educational value, even when they provide highly mediated social interactions.     

Differentiating the neural response to intervention in children with developmental dyslexia

Developmental dyslexia is associated with functional abnormalities within reading areas of the brain. For some children diagnosed with dyslexia, phonologically based remediation programs appear to rehabilitate brain function in key reading areas (Shaywitz et al., Biological Psychiatry 55: 101–110, 2004; Simos et al., Neuroscience 58: 1203–1213, 2002). However, a non-trivial number of children diagnosed with dyslexia fail to respond to these interventions (Torgesen, Learning Disabilities Research & Practice 15: 55–64, 2000). A cross-sectional fMRI study investigating post-treatment effects was conducted in an effort to better understand differences in brain function between treatment responders and non-responders. Educational testing and brain activation measured after treatment suggested that the reading intervention used in the present study rehabilitated several basic level reading processes in all participants diagnosed with dyslexia. However, activation in the left inferior parietal lobe differentiated treatment responders and non-responders in comparison to non-impaired readers. Children with persistent deficits in single word decoding (treatment non-responders) demonstrated significantly less activation in the left inferior parietal lobe when compared to non-impaired readers.     

High School Students’ Understanding of the Human Body System

In this study, 120 tenth-grade students from 8 schools were examined to determine the extent of their ability to perceive the human body as a system after completing the first stage in their biology curriculum - “The human body, emphasizing homeostasis”. The students’ systems thinking was analyzed according to the STH thinking model, which roughly divides it into three main levels that are arranged “pyramid” style, in an ascending order of difficulty: 1. Analysis of system components—the ability to identify the components and processes existing in the human body system; 2. Synthesis of system components—ability to identify dynamic relations within the system; 3. Implementation—ability to generalize and identify patterns in the system, and to identify its hidden dimensions. The students in this study proved largely incapable of achieving systems thinking beyond the primary STH level of identifying components. An overwhelming majority if their responses corresponded to this level of the STH model, further indicating a pronounced favoring of structure over process, and of larger, macro elements over microscopic ones.     

Gifted Students From Low-Education Backgrounds

Gifted children from low-education backgrounds often experience barriers to educational and career success. This article reviews the growing body of literature regarding gifted students from low-education backgrounds and the related literature on the challenges and characteristics of first-generation college students. A mother and daughter interview provides a contextual example of the issues identified in the literature review. Implications for educators and practitioners are suggested, including ways in which elementary and middle schools can proactively address the issues facing low-education background students in gifted programs.     

ARTEMIS: Reinvigorating History and Theory in Art and Design Education

ARTEMIS (Art Educational Multiplayer Interactive Space) is an online multi‐user virtual environment that is designed around the objects, artefacts, philosophies, personalities and critical discourses of the histories and theories of art and design. Conceived as a means of reinvigorating art history and theory education in the digital age, ARTEMIS addresses the specific teaching and learning needs of a new generation of art and design students in higher education. This article is a case study that addresses the second phase of the testing and design development of ARTEMIS. It builds on the findings of the initial phase, which involved the development of the ‘proof of concept’ for an online virtual world and game designed for undergraduate students in the Faculty of Art and Design at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. Drawing on a test trial and student response survey, this article assesses whether virtual environments like ARTEMIS can generate new life in art and design history, augment the teaching and learning mix in art and design higher education, and foster new modes of active engagement amongst students.     

Developing Student Collaborations across Disciplines,Distances, and Institutions

Because quantitative biology requires skills and concepts from a disparate collection of different disciplines, the scientists of the near future will increasingly need to rely on collaborations to produce results. Correspondingly, students in disciplines impacted by quantitative biology will need to be taught how to create and engage in such collaborations. In response to this important curricular need, East Tennessee State University and Georgia Technological University/Emory University cooperated in an unprecedented curricular experiment in which theoretically oriented students at East Tennessee State designed biophysical models that were implemented and tested experimentally by biomedical engineers at the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Technological University and Emory University. Implementing the collaborations between two institutions allowed an assessment of the student collaborations from before the groups of students had met for the first time until after they had finished their projects, thus providing insight about the formation and conduct of such collaborations that could not have been obtained otherwise.