Educating for an Inclusive World: Lessons Learned From A Globally Networked Human Rights and Disability Course for Social Work and Law Students

This article examines an innovative model of online international education regarding disability through a human rights perspective piloted through a collaboration between Universidad LaSalle, Mexico, and University at Buffalo, United States. The course is organized around a pressing global human rights and development issue. Its objective is to promote effective practice with persons with disabilities through cross-national, cross-disciplinary, human-rights based education; strengthen students’ sense of global engagement; and foster cross-cultural expertise and competence with diversity. The implications for effective professional education in law and social work are discussed. The article also examines pedagogical strategies and presents case study materials, identifies key disability rights themes common to both nations and cultures, and explores how distance learning technology is implemented in the course. A preliminary assessment of this newly piloted approach is also presented, based on data from students, as well as the implications for teaching and practice.     

Concepts of Art and Interpretation in Interviews with Educators from Tate Britain

Educational practices in art museums are determined, to a great degree, by ideas of art and interpretation put into play, consciously or not, by both museums and educators. This article presents the results of research conducted at Tate Britain in which we have analysed the concepts of art and interpretation that underlie the discourses of the educators interviewed in this gallery. To this end we have designed a methodological device, a model that proposes four ways of understanding and interpreting art commonly found in educational contexts. This model has arranged the various conceptions from more visual or perceptual approaches to the most experientially complex as those summarised below: works of art as a visual representation and interpretation as identification; works of art as a message to be revealed, and interpretation as decodification; works of art as an intellectual, historical and cultural fact, and interpretation as an opportunity for critical reflection; works of art as the materialisation of an experience, and interpretation as an opportunity for self‐development. We conclude that in interviews with educators working in the Tate Britain different narratives about the idea of art and the idea of interpretation coexist, which in many cases are complementary and in some others are contradictory. Examples of the interviews are presented throughout the article.     

Old Wine in old Bottles: the Neglected Role of Vocational Training Centres in Innovation

Vocational training centres are conceptually regarded as key players in the knowledge generation and dissemination processes that take place within innovation systems. However, the literature does not provide conclusive evidence of their influence on the generation, development and dissemination of innovations. The goal of this paper is to analyse whether vocational training centres are indeed relevant agents in the articulation, knowledge exchange and dissemination of a local innovation system. The paper explores the most influential agents driving cooperation and articulating the local innovation system in Durango, one of the twenty counties of the Basque Country, Spain. Social network analysis is applied to regional collaboration networks in order to address this purpose. Our results show evidence of the pivotal role played by vocational training centres within local innovation processes implemented by firms. For many local firms vocational training centres represent the main sources of knowledge in their innovation processes. In the Basque context, vocational training centres have a longer history than other knowledge infrastructures, such as universities and research centres. These long-standing centres thus constitute ‘old bottles’ that despite their history are still able to produce a ‘good old wine’ in terms of innovation, which is translated into competitive advantage for the territory. Science, technology and innovation policies should therefore not only aim to create more knowledge infrastructures, but also to reinforce the role that traditional and territorially established organizations like vocational training centres can play as intermediary agents.     

Impact of Adding Internet Technology on Student Performance and Perception of Autonomy in Fundamentals of Electronics Course

The coupling of the traditional classroom instruction and a virtual learning environment (VLE) in an engineering course is critical to stimulating the learning process and to encouraging students to develop competencies outside of the classroom. This can be achieved through planned activities and the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs), resources designed to complement students’ autonomous learning needs. A quantitative analysis of students’ academic performance using final course grades was performed for a fundamentals of electronics course and we examine students’ perception of their autonomy using surveys. The students’ progress and attitudes were monitored over four consecutive semesters. The first began with the design of the intervention and the following three consisted in the implementation. The strategy was focused on the development of course competencies through autonomous learning with ICT tools presented in the VLE. Findings indicate that the students who did the activities in the VLE showed an increase in performance scores in comparison with students who did not do them. The strategy used in this study, which enhanced perceived autonomy, was associated with a positive effect on their learning process. This research shows that a technology-enhanced course supported by ICT activities can both improve academic performance and foster autonomy in students.     

Introduction

Personal narratives are powerful tools that can be used to introduce competing mindsets into the academic discourse. They are especially powerful if they challenge a master narrative that seeks to portray the weak or powerless, such as Chicanos, in negative images or social contexts. This paper uses personal narrative to examine how Chicanos perceived the 1970s as a period of change in academe, one that would increase their presence and voice. The personal narrative also examines how academe is structured and organized to constrain the Chicano’s search for presence and voice.     

Using video analysis to support prospective K-8 teachers’ noticing of students’ multiple mathematical knowledge bases

As part of a larger research project aimed at transforming preK-8 mathematics teacher preparation, the purpose of this study was to examine the extent to which prospective teachers notice children’s competencies related to children’s mathematical thinking, and children’s community, cultural, and linguistic funds of knowledge or what we refer to as children’s multiple mathematical knowledge bases. Teachers’ noticing supports students’ learning in deep and meaningful ways. Researchers designed and enacted a video analysis activity with prospective teachers in their mathematics methods course. The activity served as a decomposition of practice in order to support prospective teachers in engaging in an approximation of the practice of noticing. Our findings showed that prospective teachers evidenced noticing of mathematics teaching and learning as early as the mathematics methods course. We also found that the prompts and structure of the activity supported prospective teachers by increasing their depth of noticing and their foci in noticing, moving from attending primarily to teacher moves (and merely describing what they saw) to becoming aware of significant interactions (and interpreting effects of these interactions on learning). Implications for teacher educators interested in designing and enacting activities to support noticing are discussed.     

Majority and minority faculty perceptions in academe

This paper examines majority (white) and minority faculty perceptions in academe. It focuses on two general areas of institutional activity: employment and workplace issues, and minority affairs. The data examined in this paper are from a study of faculty at the University of Colorado (CU) system. The faculty sample in this study consisted of 73 minority faculty and 122 majority faculty. The findings reported in this paper show that minority faculty are dissatisfied with certain contexts within the post-secondary education institution, and minority faculty feel excluded from others. Discussion in this paper examines the interaction of status (majority vs. minority) and gender with perceptions of the postsecondary education institution.     

The role of external experts’ intervention in higher education institutions for radical change

This paper focuses on the way lecturers observe, feel restrained by and cope with quality management systems that have been implemented in the higher education systems of the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. As two sides of the same coin, quality enhancement and quality control are of increased significance in European Higher Educaction Institutions (HEIs), particularly through the Bologna Process. We are interested in the way that both enhancement and control blend into the current systems, and we are concerned for too much dominance of control, as has been suggested in recent managerial literature. Analysis of 40 interviews in both countries among researchers and lecturers in traditional and universities of applied sciences showed many similarities. It is not so much the general idea of quality management that is being turned down by the respondents. They see the benefits quite clearly. Still, the general belief is that quality management in its current shape and character does not fit with the work of the individual academic, neither their teaching nor their research. The respondents worry for and resent the consequences of increased emphasis on quality assurance and control. The developments concerning the quality management of their HEIs are perceived in terms of quality assurance by the UK respondents. Instead, the Dutch are more occupied with finding ways to “how to deal with” such developments.     

Beyond the Understanding of Visual Culture: A Pragmatist Approach to Aesthetic Education

In the recent decades art education has tried to move away from the trends based on practical skills and techniques towards a greater stress on interpreting and understanding visual culture, created by the mass media. This approach implies a revision of the field of study and a redefinition of goals, replacing the study of art with a study of ‘visual culture’, a concept that better describes the daily environment of students and which reorientates art education towards social and cultural awareness. In this article, starting from Dewey's conception of art as experience, a theoretical framework is offered based on three ideas. Firstly, the subject of art education involves aesthetic experience, which includes both ‘high’ art and popular culture. Secondly, it is necessary to reconstruct the balance between understanding and production in art education, in order to consider art products as narratives, stories or comments about life experiences. Thirdly, to review the educational function of art education in order to determinate its value for social reconstruction and for which Rorty calls ‘self‐creation’.