A cultural embrace

Conclusion As culture is at the heart of meaning making, it warrants exacting attention in the systemic design process. As Gustafson & Powell (1991) point out, too often models are not tested for validity and reliability. It is for this reason that we emphasize that research must critically evaluate this expanded ADDIE model. As technology enables us to increase our interaction with the peoples of the world, we are enriched by the incessant shifts in our own cultural paradigms. Attention to this cultural dynamism and incessant interplay leads to both improved designs and improved designers. As instructional designers, we must be able to critically analyze our learner’s cultures and allow it to strengthen the instructional design process. In this way we address our ethical commitment to creating culturally sensitive products. His research interests include culture, identity development, and meaning making in technology rich environments. His research interests are in the areas of Educational Gerontology, Instructional Design, and the Digital Divide. His research interests include Systemic Change and the Digital Divide.     

Academic analytics: Anatomy of an exploratory essay

Investment in technological subsystems to support the activity of teaching and learning and the various areas of the life of Higher Education Institutions (HEI) is of increasing importance in the implementation of the policy and strategy of these organizations. Each of these subsystems collects a huge amount of data that, if properly organized, can provide useful information for decision making and informed action, which results in the need to articulate the strategic vision with Information Systems. This study aims to identify the technological requirements and understand the technical difficulties in accessing data sources of different technological subsystems in order to facilitate dialogue between the departments which hold the data to build a future Academic Analytics in a HEI. To achieve these goals a prototype was conceived which involved the aggregation, cleansing and standardization of data sources and resulted in a database that integrates records from three data sources—the LCMS (Learning Content Management System), academic management services and quality management services. This prototype allows reports and analysis to be made. Future studies for the development and implementation of Academic Analytics that can produce information to support decision making and control of the HEI’s activity are also possible.     

Faculties of Education in Traditional Universities and Universities of the Third Age: A Partnership Model in Gerontagogy

This article discusses “Universities of the Third Age”, whose function is quite distinct from established universities' traditional role in teaching, research, and community services. Consequently, there is an urgent need to develop a model of partnership between traditional universities and Universities of the Third Age, ensuring better training for educators working with senior citizens. Determining the roles of teachers, supervisors, and students will facilitate greater cooperation, and allow for a linkage of Universities of the Third Age (U3A) with traditional faculties of education, as well as further refinement of the theoretical and practical professional training of future educators of older people.     

Self-assessment of diversity competence as part of regular teaching evaluations in higher education: raising awareness for diversity issues

Tertiary Education and Management - Higher education institutions face the challenge to promote diversity competence. We suggest a procedure which can help raise awareness for diversity issues...     

Experiments of two-level training in Hungarian higher education

An experiment designed to train engineering students to two levels of terminal achievement within single institutions is reported. The operative engineers (formerly high level technicians) qualify after three years whilst research and development engineers (fully qualified engineers) take five years. Organisational and curricular problems necessarily created by such integrated schemes are described and discussed. Social attitudes in society in general and in the student body in particular make the task of directing students towards the shorter form of training complex and difficult. From the experience gained so far it can confidently be asserted that the experiments in two-level training have been successful.Note by the Editor: This article is an abbreviated version prepared by the Editor of a 90-page UNESCO (copyright) report with the same title, Document ED. 75/WS/64, dated October 1975. We are grateful to the authors and to UNESCO for permission to print this summary of the report.     

Referential perspective and instruction: A study on teacher-student interaction and text remembering

The aim of this paper is to study the role ofteacher-student interaction, in the acquisitionof text comprehension and memory skills from asocio-cultural approach. In our view, one ofthe most important areas of neglect in cognitive research in this field is the interactional nature of that development. We intend to establish the way in which teacher-student interaction and, specially, the use of some specific semiotic means mayfacilitate the acquisition and internalizationof general strategies for understanding andremembering expository texts. The role ofreferential perspective (Wertsch, 1989) in theinternalization of complex text study actionsis analysed.The task was to study three expository textsthat were similar in their structure. Thecontent of the texts was analysed in terms ofidea-units (Meyer, 1984). Each text was formedby idea-units from three different levels: mainideas, secondary ideas and details. A categorysystem for the analysis of study and recall ofthe text is developed. In the study phase theanalysis proceeded in two steps: study actionsand text ideas. In the recall phase, two types ofindexes (number of ideas and degree ofclustering) were considered. For the analysisof instructional actions, both the nature ofinstruction and referential perspective wasrecorded.     

Does the Affiliation of Universities to External Organizations Foster Diversity in Private Higher Education? Chile in Comparative Perspective

The expansion of private sectors of higher education has usually been regarded as a factor of diversification in higher education systems. Some of this differentiation has been found to arise from the affiliation of private institutions with organizations outside the field of higher education. This article reports the results of a study of this form of interorganizational relationship in private universities in Chile. Cases include universities founded or sponsored by religious, business and military organizations. A typology of private universities is proposed, on the basis of the forms affiliation (or its absence), was observed to take in the cases examined. Weak and strong forms of affiliation are described, and affiliated universities are compared to “proprietary” universities, i.e., those owned by individuals who govern them from their positions in the board of directors, and “independent” universities, in which governance lies with internal – academic or administrative – constituents. Albeit derived from the case of Chile, the typology could be applied to the analysis of private higher education in other national systems. The second part of the article seeks to ascertain whether affiliation operates as a source of differentiation in Chilean private higher education. Results show that, compared to the other types of private universities, the affiliated ones possess distinctive mission statements and declarations of principles, consistent with the orientations of their sponsor institutions, they tend to be smaller, and to have more full-time and better qualified faculty. Some receive financial support from their sponsor organization or its members. Distinctiveness was not found in indicators of prestige and student selectivity, nor in tuition levels, program offerings, curriculum design, the weight of research and graduate programs in their functions, student socioeconomic profile, and faculty involvement in governance. This is not to say that there are no differences in these dimensions among private universities: much diversity exists, but most of it cuts across all categories of interest for our study. Overall, affiliation does not appear to be a strong factor behind the diversification that exists in the Chilean private university sector.     

Performance equivalency between computer‐based and traditional pen‐and‐paper assessment: A case study in clinical anatomy

The time, material, and staff‐consuming nature of anatomy's traditional pen‐and‐paper assessment system, the increase in the number of students enrolling in medical schools and the ever‐escalating workload of academic staff have made the use of computer‐based assessment (CBA) an attractive proposition. To understand the impact of such shift in the assessment method, an experimental study evaluating its effect on students’ performance was designed. Additionally, students’ opinions toward CBA were gathered. Second‐year medical students attending a Clinical Anatomy course were randomized by clusters in two groups. The pen‐and‐paper group attended two sessions, each consisting of a traditional sectional anatomy steeplechase followed by a theoretical examination, while the computer group was involved in two similar sessions conducted in a computerized environment. At the end of each of the computer sessions, students in this group filled an anonymous questionnaire. In the first session, pen‐and‐paper group students scored significantly better than computer‐group students in both the steeplechase (mean ± standard deviation: 66.00 ± 14.15% vs. 43.50 ± 19.10%; P < 0.001) and the theoretical examination (52.50 ± 12.70% vs. 39.00 ± 21.10%; P < 0.001). In the second session, no statistically significant differences were found for both the steeplechase (59.50 ± 17.30% vs. 54.50 ± 17.00%; P = 0.085) and the theoretical examination (57.50 ± 13.70% vs. 54.00 ± 14.30%; P = 0.161). Besides, an intersession improvement in students’ perceptions toward CBA was registered. These results suggest that, after a familiarization period, CBA might be a performance equivalent and student accepted alternative to clinical anatomy pen‐and‐paper theoretical and practical examinations. Anat Sci Educ 11: 124–136. © 2017 American Association of Anatomists.