Internationalising the Student Experience: Preparing Instructors to Embed Intercultural Skills in the Curriculum

The Internationalising the Student Experience Project was devised and piloted as a teaching innovation to improve the intercultural awareness of instructors and, subsequently, that of their domestic and international students. In this article we claim that instructor preparation in the use of the Alliance Building and Cultural Mapping tools of the international EXCELL (Excellence in Cultural Experiential Learning and Leadership) Program can provide a base for institutionalised support. We report and discuss this approach and the outcomes to the challenges of and opportunities for internationalising the curriculum in the broader higher education context.     

A design-based research case study documenting a constructivist ID process and instructional solution for a cross-cultural workforce

As the need for instructing a globalized workforce increases, instructional designers must embrace the constraints and the opportunities these projects provide in order to move the field of cross-cultural instructional design (ID) forward. Cross-cultural projects offer multiple avenues for growth in ID practice, overcoming cultural barriers, and a venue to apply and test contemporary models, methodologies, and theories in ID. This design-based research case study employed a rapid prototyping methodology and the constructivist ID model, Layers of Negotiation, to collect critical cultural information for the design of this cross-cultural instruction. Instructional strategies deemed effective for instructing an unskilled workforce in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, included job aids, situated learning and apprenticeship principles consisting of modeling, coaching and scaffolding. Use of the constructivist ID model and instructional solution for a cross-cultural workforce for The Dubai Mall are presented. Evaluation results indicate the success of the instructional strategies varied dependent upon worker culture, and the sequential nature of the instructional strategies.     

The integrity of educational outcome measures in international assessments

Educational Assessment, Evaluation and Accountability -     

数字技术支持的教师学习:研究与项目综述(上)

本文在系统回顾教师知识与教师学习本质的基础上,讨论了数字技术与教师学习活动之间的关系,主张将数字技术的效用描述为教师学习中有目的的一组活动,即：知识建构、分布式认知、社群与沟通以及约定,通过对五个技术支持的教师学习的典型案例。分析了数字技术对教师学习的支持作用。最后指出了数字技术支持的教师学习与专业发展之方向。     

Integrating Background Nursing Experience and Study at the Postgraduate Level: An Application of Problem Based Learning

The delivery of postgraduate courses to registered nurses is faced with the challenge of providing learning opportunities which accommodate a wide range of backgrounds and which draw upon the students' clinical experiences as well as upon conventional academic sources. Courses not providing such opportunities may be devalued by the students and perceived by them as removed from, and irrelevant to, clinical practice.

This paper describes a course which appears to have been successful both in providing for background diversity and in securing the integration of academic content and the clinical experiences of postgraduate nursing students. The course uses a problem based learning approach to cover concepts and principles relating to patient education and aspects of clinical teaching. The rationale of the approach and an outline of its features are provided.

The procedures used to evaluate the course are also described. The qualitative and quantitative data realised by these procedures indicate that the course was perceived by the students to be stimulating, interesting and consonant with their clinical needs and aspirations. The data also show that the main cognitive objective of the course was achieved by a substantial proportion of the students but that students would benefit from receiving more assistance with their learning skills.

It is concluded that the form of problem based learning used in the course can provide for the postgraduate educational needs of nurses from diverse professional and academic backgrounds.     

A Classroom Study on the Relationship Between Student Achievement and Retrieval-Enhanced Learning

Retrieval practice has been shown to produce powerful learning gains in laboratory experiments but has seldom been explored in classrooms as a means of enhancing students’ learning of their course-relevant material. Furthermore, research is lacking concerning the role of individual differences in learning from retrieval. The current study explored the effects of retrieval in a large undergraduate introductory biology course as a function of individual differences in student achievement. Students completed in-class exercises that required them to retrieve course information (e.g., recalling definitions for terms and labeling diagrams) followed by feedback or to simply copy the information without retrieving it. A later quiz over the information showed that high-performing students benefited more from retrieving than copying, whereas middle- and low-performing students benefited more from copying than retrieving. When asked to predict their quiz scores following the in-class exercises, high-performers demonstrated better overall metacognitive calibration compared to middle- or low-performers. These results highlight the importance of individual differences in learning from retrieval and encourage future research using course-relevant material to consider the role of student achievement in classroom-based interventions.     

The effects of room design on computer-supported collaborative learning in a multi-touch classroom

While research indicates that technology can be useful for supporting learning and collaboration, there is still relatively little uptake or widespread implementation of these technologies in classrooms. In this paper, we explore one aspect of the development of a multi-touch classroom, looking at two different designs of the classroom environment to explore how classroom layout may influence group interaction and learning. Three classes of students working in groups of four were taught in the traditional forward-facing room condition, while three classes worked in a centered room condition. Our results indicate that while the outcomes on tasks were similar across conditions, groups engaged in more talk (but not more off-task talk) in a centered room layout, than in a traditional forward-facing room. These results suggest that the use of technology in the classroom may be influenced by the location of the technology, both in terms of the learning outcomes and the interaction behaviors of students. The findings highlight the importance of considering the learning environment when designing technology to support learning, and ensuring that integration of technology into formal learning environments is done with attention to how the technology may disrupt, or contribute to, the classroom interaction practices.     

Parental Perspectives on Storybook Reading in Indian Home Contexts

Early Childhood Education Journal - The benefits of parent–child storybook reading experiences in the home are well documented. However, there is a dearth of information regarding...