The Development of Nuclear Physics Between the Wars

Science & Education -     

Indigenization and University Governance: Reflections from the Transition to Yukon University

Tertiary Education and Management - While literature on university governance in Canada has identified key challenges that need to be addressed, it largely overlooks calls for change towards...     

How Science Teachers DiALoG Classrooms: Towards a Practical and Responsive Formative Assessment of Oral Argumentation

Journal of Science Education and Technology - We present lessons learned from an ongoing attempt to conceptualize, develop, and refine a way for teachers to gather formative assessment evidence...     

Faculty Liaisons: an embedded approach for enriching teaching and learning in higher education

This paper explores the experiences of a group of academic developers who support educational development work as Faculty Liaisons at a large, research-intensive university. These academic developers inhabit complex ‘third spaces’, providing support through an embedded partnership relationship that requires lateral movement across functional and organizational boundaries to create new professional spaces, knowledge, and relationships. The authors utilize narrative inquiry and auto-ethnographic approaches to present an interpretive qualitative analysis of their experiences supporting Faculty and University projects across complex and evolving organizational boundaries. From this analysis, they highlight key roles and responsibilities associated with their blended context and identify challenges that academic developers who occupy third spaces within academic organizations face as they negotiate competing interests, identities, and requirements associated with the diverse range of their projects and the blended experience of working in scholarly and administrative, central- and Faculty-based roles. The lessons they have learned from these experiences will be of particular interest to academic developers who are experiencing the flux of change within higher education settings that are impacting teaching and learning practices both for faculty in the classroom and for those across the institution who support them.     

Measuring the quality of e‐learning

This paper shows how concept mapping can be used to measure the quality of e‐learning. Six volunteers (all of them 3rd‐year medical students) took part in a programme of e‐learning designed to teach the principles of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Their understanding of MRI was measured before and after the course by the use of concept mapping. The quality of change in individuals' maps was assessed using criteria developed to distinguish between meaningful and rote‐learning outcomes. Student maps were also scored for evidence of conceptual richness and understanding. Finally, each map was compared directly with the content of the electronic teaching material. The results show that many of the student misconceptions were put right in the course of their learning but that many of the key concepts introduced in the teaching were ignored (or sometimes learnt by rote) by the students. This was because the teaching material locked these new ideas in structures and terminology that precluded meaning‐making among non‐experts. Our data suggest that students' prior knowledge is a key determinant of meaningful learning. We suggest that this must be acknowledged if the design and use of electronic teaching material is also to be meaningful. Ultimately, measures of student learning are the only authentic indicators of the quality of teaching through technology.